Creative Stamper

....a poem as lovely as a tree (pt 2)

Friday I mentioned I had another card to post and show how it was made. It is a tree and I used the tree stamp from Great Impressions but in a different way. Most of the items I used will probably be in your stash. The tool called Inscriblio you may not have. It engraves and for the life of me I can't remember why I originally bought it. But I just had to have it. And then it sat unused for years. Then along came Spellbinder dies and I decided to engrave the set number on the back of the dies. I decided doing that would keep the correct die with its right family. 

Not too long ago, I saw a technique that called for acrylic sheets and an engraver and I immediately thought of the Inscriblio. So I brought it out and tried the technique out and I fell in love with the look. So I thought you might like it as well. This group of pic's just shows how to get the image onto the acrylic sheet. So here is the finished card:

Here are the products/tools I used:

Stamp - Great Impressions, adirondack acrylic paint - lettuce, Adirondack paint dabber -  pitch black, acrylic sheet - 10 mil, Inscriblio - EK Success.

First position the acrylic sheet over the stamp image and engrave the acrylic using the image as your guide. When complete your image should look like the index of the stamp.(Sorry for the glare on the etched image)

 

Next, apply the pitch black onto the etched image, and then rub off with a paper towel. Don't wait to long, you want the black paint to still be wet as you are wiping it off. After you have wiped off the paint, you will be left with an etched image of the tree with black paint in it. Looks great doesn't it!! Just like the stamp.

      

Next  turn the acrylic sheet over, you will be applying the lettuce colored acrylic paint on the non etched side of the acrylic sheet. I used a swirl motion to apply the acrylic paint and the thin tipped nozzle makes it easy to achieve the swirly look. Cover the whole tree area where the leaves would normally be.

   

Now set it aside to dry completely, about 30 minutes.

After it is dry you will want to trim your acrylic sheet down to the size needed for your project.

When I finished and prepared the sheet for my card,I actually used the side that shows the etched side up.This lets the tree trunk and branches show more, but the other side is nice as well. You be the judge.

This is the completed image with the etched side down.

This is the other side. The etched side up, I preferred this side but you may like the other side up better.

This is how I made the tree using an etching tool and some paints on acrylic sheets. Easy and fun to do.
 
 Well that is it for now, thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

Barbara
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

.... a poem lovely as a tree

I love trees. I really don't know why, but I do. I like real trees, stamped trees, and of course leaves.

Recently a friend who works for American Greetings was changing out the cards in a store and she came across some cards that would have been destroyed so she saved a few card fronts. The card front that she gave me made me think of a couple of stamps I own and thought I could make a similar card. It's amazing what one image can spark in someone.

 This is the store bought card front.

 

I pulled out 3 stamps, one from Great Impressions one from Hero Arts and one from I have no idea where the stamp is from. After I stamped the card using the three stamps, here is what my card looked like.

Kind of similar, don't you think?

The tree trunk (Great Impressions) was stamped in Black India Ink and I then used the small peg-like (unknown stamp company) stamp to make the foliage. The long inked image under the tree is a stamp from Hero Arts.

I have another tree card that I made tonight and I will post it tomorrow on the blog. I think you will find how this was done quite unique. Just a little info for tomorrows card post, I used the tree trunk stamp(Great Impressions) from this post in tomorrows card.  

Well that is it for now, thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

Barbara
 

Flower Cards make me long for springtime

I just looked at the weather for the latest update in the greater Cincinnati area and we are getting more snow. I can't wait. (Just kidding:) ) This has been the snowiest winter in a long time. However as a kid in grade school and early high school I remember winters like this one. We used to go ice skating on the local ponds at night and to keep warm we built bonfires. I loved to skate and and go sledding and loved the winters.

Since I have gotten older I really don't enjoy the cold anymore. I will be so happy to see spring come along, unfortunately it just isn't getting here fast enough. So I thought I'd make a few cards with flowers to see if that might entice spring to get here sooner.

Maybe we need a spring dance, you know, like a rain dance. Now, if only I can find someone to teach me that dance.

In the meantime, here are the cards I made today. Hope these help you thru the winter blahs.

The flower on the first card is one I made using newspaper and spraying the newspaper using glimmer mist. I cut the paper into 4" circles and made flowers. These are so pretty and easy to make. I also used one of my Spellbinder Pendent dies to add more interest to the card. Next I used my Scor-Pal to score the card and wella, the card is done.

The second card is similar to the first card using the scoring technique. But the flower is another Spellbinder die. I really love their dies and use them on a lot of my card projects.

  

Well that is it for now, thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

Stay warm

Barbara  

  

Happy 50th to Robin.

Saturday Jan. 30 a birthday party for my friend Robin, was hosted by her mother and sister-in-law Nancy. It was attended by a lot of her friends, some of which, I hadn't seen in a long time. It was great to get together and remember times gone by.

I remember I met Robin 23 years ago, at a birthday party for a group of her friends, whose birthdays were either at the end of January or coming up in February.(Most of those friends were at this party too.) Since my birthday is also in February, her friends included me in their celebration and that began our friendship. A lot has happened in the 23 years since we became friends. 

Since I needed to make something special for this momentous occasion, I decided to make a pocket card. These have been around for a long time but I had a design in mind  and thought it would be really nice to open a box and see this elaborate card. So here is the design I came up with for the 50th birthday party:

The flowers in the pocket card are all handmade, and, with the exception of the one in the front (the $50.00 fan), they are made from lowly newspaper.Its amazing what a little Glimmer Mist and a few circle cut newspapers can turn into. The flowers turned out really beautiful. Robin was "over the moon" with this card. Hope you like it as much as she did.

Oh, here are a few pics of the party, make sure you check out the one of the cake:

       

 

        

These are just a few pic's that I took that night. Nancy's home was packed with friends that came to celebrate Robin's 50th. It was a blast!!!

Well that is it for now, thanks for stopping by, see you soon

Barbara  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 

The Tim Holtz Rose

Did you happen to follow or look at the 12 Tags of Christmas that Tim Holtz published to his blog??? Well I sure did, along with a gazillion others. Well, he mentioned he saved the best til last, and I agree. The rose tag was/is spectacular. So I set off to try to replicate the rose. I followed his instructions almost to the T and here is my rose.

Pretty good for the first attempt, if I do say so myself. Now I have to finish the tag and adhere this to it. I wanted to make sure the rose came out OK first.

Well that is it for now, thanks for stopping by, see you soon

Barbara 

Ornament Making

Well tonight the Altered States of Mind group is getting together for our Christmas party. We were to make a Christmas something, so I made an ornament. I used an Altoids tin and covered the front with metalic tape that I embossed and colored with alcohol inks.

 I also added a beaded border at the bottom. These beads are attached to ribbon and I just attached with double sided tape the  bottom of the tin. These beads started out green but I wanted blue so I first sprayed with Denim Color Wash to see if the color change would work on these plastic beads and it did!!! Next I covered the edges of the tin with blue ribbon and added an extra loop for hanging on the tree.

 
The back of the ornament is just covered with printed paper.

Last I added embossed paper to the inside and made 3 labels from my Dymo label maker. I cut metallic strips 3/8 " wide from the metallic tape and used  it instead of the Dymo tape. The words say "Snowmen Fall Unassembled". How appropiate. I also added a few snowflakes here & there to complete the look.

Well that is it for now, thanks for stopping by, see you soon

Barbara

Altered Dolls

  

I love doing these altered dolls. Too cute and pretty easy.  This doll is going to my friend "Lovely Linda" for her birthday, a little late, but you know the old saying, "better late that than never".(Shhhhhh don't tell her its coming.) There are so many things that you can add to the body,which is just a clunky block of wood. That makes these dolls so exciting and fun to make. This one is in the celestial theme.

Hope you like this and thanks for stopping by. See you next time.

Barbara

 

Altered States of Mind Retreat

Altered States of Mind is a club that meets at the store once a month for about 2 hours. A few months ago we all decided to have a retreat and hold it at the store and be together from 9:00 a.m. til 5:00 p.m.The date agreed upon was Saturday Oct. 17.  Carla offered to teach us a few things and we took her up on her offer. It was decided that we would make altered dolls, a water color transfer, and wire beads. So we all brought in the raft of things needed for each of our "classes" and so began our altered day of fun.

 Below are the photos of my dolls. I will post more later on the watercolor transfer and the wire beads.

ALTERED DOLLS

We all started out with wood blocks. I brought in about a dozen that were about 2.5"X3.5" and about 1.5" thick. Another size which was more square and larger was also made available to anyone. I made 2 dolls and used the size mentioned above. We then took porceline dolls purchased at the dollar store, and totally disassembled them and used the limbs and the heads.(To me this seemed so sacrilegious at first, as a child I would never do this to my dolls.) But the end result is so cool. After some paint, doll parts and ribbon and effemera, here are the end results of my creations.  

   

Its amazing how doll parts and various other items can really transform a block of wood. The altered doll on the left still needs a few more things before she is complete and the angel on the right still needs a halo, but this gives you an idea as to what I was up to on Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again soon,

Barbara
  
  
 

Cloth, no paper and stamps

Well it's been eons since I posted. Sorry about that. Last saturday I took a drive to Columbus Ohio with my friend Barb B. to take a class from one of my favorite instructors, Amy  Flowers. She teaches classes in the altered arts theme. I had received a postcard from Amy outlining some of her upcoming classes and I called and signed up for 2 classes. Heavy Metal Book and She's Come Undone. Believe me when I say I really wanted to take these classes because the 1st class started @9:00 am so I had to leave here at 6:30. I hate getting up early. I would rather take late classes and stay up half the night. Oh well, the drive was 2 hours and Barb & I caught up on things and in no time we were at Amy's studio.There were 5 or 6 of us in the class and three of us were named Barb. When Amy mentioned the name Barb we all answered.It was to funny.

Amy gave us canvas & cloth and stamps & inks and and we did a wee bit of sewing, and below is the end result. (Make sure to click on the individual pic's for a much better view.)

                   

Well this was so much fun and I had no theme in mind but used a slew of stamps in my stash. Quite a few of the stamps are from Innovative Stamp Creations. I really love their stamp line. As soon as I finish the other book I will post it for your viewing pleasure.

Hope you enjoy viewing this little book as much as I did making it, thanks for stoping by and I will see you soon.

Barbara

The Weekend at Stamplistic

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything but I have been really behind and I've been trying to get caught up. Here is the latest:

   

I had an opportunity to attend a class taught by Tim Holtz at Stamplistic, a rubber stamp store in Amherst Ohio. I received an invitation from Jennifer, the owner of Stamplistic, to come up.So I signed up for a class and went up for the weekend.

Day One

I left Ft. Mitchell, Friday morning and arrived at Stamplistic later that afternoon. Tim and his assistant, Mario, were already at the store for a meet & greet from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. What a great event that was. The ladies came in and sat down right next to him while he demo'd some distress techniques. These ladies were thrilled. After the meet & greet, we all headed to Jennifer's lake house for a grill out. It was great. We all got to get to know Tim and Mario better and we sat outside around a firepit to keep warm. It was a tad cool up on the lake.

Day Two

 

Saturday was Sweetest Day and neither Tim nor Mario was not familiar with that holiday. Tim thought Jennifer made that one up, but he researched info online, he read the story, and gave us the background on this day of celebration. So for rest of the afternoon Tim kept calling it SWEETNESS DAY and we kept correcting him, too funny. For those of you not familiar with this day of celebration, click here to read the story of the origin of the holiday.

   

Saturday was also the first day of classes. I got to work the 1st class. Let me explain how that works, all the students are given a paddle with a number on it, similar to one used by bidders at an auction. Then, as Tim explains a product, if the student wants to purchase the item, they raise their paddle and I write down their number next to the product name on a sheet of paper. We take the info to the front and start to bag up their requests and by the end of the class their bags are full of their goodies. Pretty cool. Everyone loved the ease at which this worked. In the second class I was actually a student and it was a great class. We made Raku and fragments from clay and used a host of other items that Ranger makes and Tim explained a lot of the properties of the various items. The class was 3 hours and that went by fast. We had plenty of time for the class though, it's nice not being rushed. Another nice thing,you do not need to bring anything to his classes (not even adhesive - a little private joke on this one). After class I went to the front counter and assisted Mara, Stacy, Jennifer and Bev getting everyone checked out and helped in getting the next group of class participants checked in. It was so busy.It was fun and the time flew. After the last class I went to Jennifer's house and crashed.

Day Three:

     

Day Three was a repeat of day two, with some students returning for more classes and some students taking their first class from Tim at the store. My plan was to leave at noon however that didn't happen. The store was slammed with one class leaving and another class getting set up. I also had to say my goodbye's to everyone.

   

 So after helping everyone I left at 1:30.  What a great weekend.

See you next time and thanks for stopping by,

Barbara