Experiment

Well I am back. I have been doing a lot of experimenting with different coloring tools. My comfort zone is Prismacolor pencils and OMS and I have neglected other media, some that I have had for a long time.

For this experiment I used watercolor pencils and markers and watercolor paper. I need more practice, especially with the flower centers, but the objective of the exercise was to compare the tools. They all worked pretty well using a water brush. The Distress markers and Koi watercolor brush pens are limited in the shades of yellow in the sets. Overall I prefer the Inktense watercolor pencils but the Tombow markers come in a close second. I have one more watercolor media to try which is watercolor crayons.

Post-It Note card

One of the Card Camp members, Paula,  made some lovely cards with Post-It Note holders inside the card and I wanted to try it. This is my result.

 This is the card when it is closed.

It opens up to be an easel card. The original directions can be found HERE I modified the directions to fit my card and the size of the Post-It Notes I used. You can see what  Paula did on her wonderful blog HERE.

What a great holiday gift these would make for co-workers, neighbors etc.! Now that I have got my feet wet I will be making more. They can be addictive!

More Tealights

As I bought 50 of the tealights I have been going to town! My biggest problem is that I don't have many solid stamps. I tend to buy outline stamps that I can color. I did find this solid flower stamp from Stampin Up in my stash and as I don't have many colored ink pads I used markers to color on the stamp. Very time consuming when you are using different colors!

While mulling over the fact that I don't have solid stamps I came up with another idea. Use printed tissue paper. I usually buy pretty tissue paper at Christmas time. When I went into my Christmas wrapping box I didn't have one single sheet! I know it will work so the next time I am at the Dollar Tree that is what I will be looking for!

Tea Lights

I found the directions for making this box and candles HERE and had to try it.

I did find however that the tealights, found at Walmart for $2.25 for 50, did not fit in the box so I had to make a slight adjustment to the length.
For the box cut a piece of cardstock  3-3/4" x 8 -3/8"  On all four sides score at 1/2" and 1-1/8". I found it easier to turn my cardstock and score the sides this way than adjusting for my new measurements.
For the lid cut the cardstock 5" x 6-1/8". The adjustment is only 1/8" to the length but the tea lights fit!

Exploding box

I thought I would do something a little different from a card so I made this exploding box.

This box is small, 2.75" x 2.75". I don't know what I am going to do with it that is why the inside panels are blank. It was fun to do. I used flowers from Wild Orchid, Martha Stewart punches and dies from Marianne Designs.

Label collage

Wow I  didn't realize I hadn't posted for so long! I have had my head stuck in a book but I have also been making a collage.

Jennifer McGuire and Tim Holtz taught a class, that I didn't attend, on techniques using Hero Arts and Ranger products and put it all together on a canvas. I loved the idea and so I decided to do a canvas and this is the result. You can see my inspiration HERE. It took me a lot longer than I expected but I quite like it. They used a 12"x 12" canvas but I used an 11" x 14" canvas as that is what I had. It was a lot of fun and I think I might do another one...maybe shabby chic so that I can use lots of beads, lace etc.

Row House Swap

I had never heard of a 'row house' in regards to art but when the swap was announced on the ArtHavenCreations Yahoo group I was intrigued so I signed up.

I used Basic Grey Porcelain papers and used a pencil to make the brick pattern. The flower boxes are raised with dimentional tape and the 'flowers' are ground up styrofoam. It isn't soft like Flower Soft but works just as well! The sentiment says 'The path to a friend's house is never long'

To make the flower material you will need small pieces of white styrofoam, craft acrylic paint and a blender/chopper. I have a small one I bought at Mervyns years ago for something like $5 on sale. Break the styrofoam into small pieces and put in the blender with a small amount of paint and blend away until it is a fine as you want it. That's it, my Frugal Friday tip late again!!

I will have my last two journals tomorrow.

If you would like to make a journal for a cancer patient get in touch with Shirley Nagel at srcattle@aol.com