Paper Craft Planet Sketch Challenge

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When I was first becoming a part of the online stamping community I used to participate in many swaps and challenges. As my life became busier I had to pull away from swaps in order to free up some time. My life hasn't become any less busy...if anything it has become busier...but I decided to try my hand at the weekly challenge posted this week at Paper Craft Planet. The layout couldn't be any simpler and I thought this would be a great way to showcase a focal stamp. I've chosen the same pensive mermaid stamp I used in my underwater ATC series. I really have a good time coloring in her beautiful tail and long hair.

Materials:
Mermaid Stamp: Seaside Dreamer-  Faerie Song Art Stamps FS-10SD
Seaweed Stamp: Me and Carrie Lou Stamps
Versafine Onyx Black Ink (for stamping mermaid image)
Versamark Watermark Ink (for stamping the seaweed image)
Gold PearlEx (lightly dusted over the Versamark stamping)
Krylon Gold Paint Pen (for gilding the edges)
Krylon Matte Low Odor Clear Finish (to prevent smudging and loss of PearlEx dusting)

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

Underwater Fascination

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I was so taken with the ATC's I created in my last two posts (Siren of the Sea and Snowball Koi) that I continued the underwater theme and created two more.

The Purple Betta presented a challenge to me because of it's orientation. It is a long, relatively slender stamp measuring only one and a half inches across. The fish's tail is effectively cut off giving the impression that perhaps I did a poor job of trimming the image. I didn't know quite where to place it on an ATC and finally settled on a centered orientation within a golden gothic-style arch, flanked by seaweed images dusted with two colors of PearlEx.

The beautiful Pensive Mermaid is my new favorite. I am particularly proud of my rendering of the light flltering through the water from the top of the frame and the resulting shadows. As opposed to the Siren of the Sea, I chose to make this mermaid a uniform color from head to tail so you can't necessarily see where the woman ends and the fish begins. The richly colored shading is done by careful layering and blending of Prismacolor pencils. I know I'll be making more images of this stamp and playing with different color combinations for the hair and scales.

I would really like some constructive criticism on these ATC's. I would also like to find a source for beautiful mermaid images like the two I have used in this series. If you happen to know of any, by all means drop me a line and let me know. Thanks.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

Continuing a Creative Experiment

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I enjoyed creating the Siren of the Sea ATC  in my last post so much that I decided to  create another undersea ATC, this time featuring koi fish.

I'm still playing around with the theme of light and shadow. In the Sea Siren, the light source was very obviously from directly above. Here the light source is much more subdued and subtle, coming in from the upper left in barely discernible rays of pale blue and yellow.

Starting with a slightly mottled cream colored base, the focal image is stamped in Versafine black ink which really brings out the details in any stamp. It is then masked and the background is sponged in various shades of blue ink from dark to light. The large seaweed to the lower left is also stamped in Versamark black, then the mask is removed and the fish are colored in with Prismacolor pencils and highlighted with glittery gel pens for a little sparkle. The seaweed is over-colored in dark green pencil.

The original image was ATC sized, that is to say 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, but it looked a bit dull and uninteresting. I had the idea to trim it down by clipping the corners with a decorative corner slot punch to create the curves and notches and cutting from one corner notch to the next with a craft knife. The result is the lantern-like shape you see above. I placed it on a dark blue base card and gilded all the edges with a gold paint pen.Gold stickers in the corners highlight the edges and the sparkle in the scales and fins. The contrast with the navy blue base card and the shine of the gold brought a dull card to life and made the image pop. I'm happy with the way this ATC turned out and I am already looking for the next image with which to play.

Materials:
2 Snowball Koi - About Art Accents
Seaweed Foliage - Magenta Rubber Stamps
Gold Stickers - Starform Stickers
Corner punch - EK Success Paper Shapers Card Creator Decorative Corner Slot Punch
Dye inks - Vintage Blue (Whisper Ink), Baby Blue (Memories), Denim (Adirondack), Onyx Black (Versafine)
Prismacolor Colored Pencils - various


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

Siren of the Sea ATC

I like Artist Trading Cards (ATC) because they are small (2.5 x 3.5 inches) which means that they work up more quickly than a standard card. Since there isn't a lot of room to work with, it is best not to clutter it up with a lot of busy-ness. This provides the perfect canvas for me to try out new ideas and techniques without investing a lot of materials in the process. In spite of the fact that I like ATC's so much, it has been a year since I've made one, so busy have I been with a hundred and one other things.

It was a real treat to make this one because I was working on a new idea. I wanted to continue exploring the interplay of light and shadow that I had begun several months ago when I created my Night Flight series of cards using supplies I had gotten from the CHA Crafts Supershow in Illinois last summer. I have always liked the way light filters through deep water, particularly the way it illuminates a small section of the water while everything else is shadowy and murky. I wanted to try my hand at creating the suggestion of light rays shining through water and the shadows beyond the light's reach. This ATC was my second attempt and although I'm still not satisfied with the way the mermaid looks, I like the overall effect enough that I'll keep working at this until I get something I really like.

Working on a base of pale green card stock with slight variations in color saturation, I sponged various inks to create the gradations of color in the background. The rays were achieved with masking and sponging. The masking technique was also used on the mermaid to prevent her from being contaminated with background ink. The image was colored with a variety of media: colored pencils, inks and markers. Cutting the left edge of the image into a curve was a last minute decision as was placing the image to the right. The original design was all straight edges and left aligned. I like this much better. The gold embellishments are carefully and strategically placed stickers.

Mermaid stamp: "Sea Siren" - Faerie Song Art Rubber Stamps
Seaweed stamp: Me and Carrie Lou Stamps
Background paper: Enchanted Complements Moonlight Lime - The Crafter's Workshop
Base card: "Navy" - Cardstock Warehouse
Stickers: Starforms Outline Stickers



Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

Baby Bananas

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Recently I attended a baby shower to welcome the newest member of our family, a beautiful baby boy born to my second cousin, Melissa. For her baby registry she had chosen all the sheets, clothes and accessories in a Jungle Babies pattern featuring tiny jungle animals. In keeping with this theme I created this banana tree scene in which to wrap the baby gifts my sister and I had purchased.

The bananas contain the baby clothes. Each individual piece of clothing was folded and rolled up jellyroll style with a floral wire in the middle. Then it was rolled up in tissue paper, the ends secured and several of them tied together to resemble a bunch of bananas. The three dimensional tree is built on a brown paper-wrapped box that contains another gift. The ends and sides of the fruit crate were covered with personalized labels I designed in a drawing program. The little monkey was inspired by the monkeys on the clothing, What you can't see is what's inside the crate hiding under the paper grass...baby hangers to hold all the clothes! The monkey, the bananas in the bunch hanging from the tree, and the leaves on the tree were all created in a drawing program, saved as .svg graphic files and cut with the eCraft electronic cutter.

If you are interested in how I created the "baby bananas", just drop me an email and I'll send you instructions. (Note: Instructions are for the tissue wrapped bananas only. The tree, monkey, etc. are not included.)

Thanks for stopping by.




Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

...and Jill came tumbling after.

(Warning! Graphic image.)

Something happened to me on Sunday night, 1/23/11, that although it occurred frequently during my younger years, it hasn't happened to me in a long, long time. I fell down a flight of stairs. The basement stairs, to be precise. It all  happened so quickly it was like a blur. One moment I was at the top of the stairs speaking to my husband then the other I was at the bottom of the stairs, having slid down its entire length on my left leg. I remember turning away from my husband as we finished our conversation. He closed the door at the top of the stairs and was heading for the living room. I turned to descend to my basement work room, and that's all I can clearly remember other than the sound of thump-thump-thump-thump as my body collided with the edge of every step from the top to the bottom. Oh yeah, and there was also the sound of me yelling on the way down.

I was fortunate on a number of counts. 1) My husband was still close enough that he heard the whole thing and was able to help me up immediately after the fall, and 2) I didn't hit any bones on the way down else I surely would have broken something. This was one time I was grateful for the extra junk I have in my trunk because it cushioned what could have been a disaster. The pain was immediate and very short lived although the bruising...well, let's just say if bruising was an Olympic sport I would have made it to the podium. The image you see here is what it looks like 5 days after the accident. It's already beginning to heal as evidenced by the areas of angry red surrounded by dark purple. It took a full 24 hours for the  bruising to fully bloom. I'll be seeing a doctor soon and will have myself looked over thoroughly to make sure nothing else is going on inside that needs medical attention.

In spite of it all I've been smiling like a champ. Why? Because I recognize just how lucky I was not to have been seriously injured. Because I feel as if I have just dodged a bullet. Because I know that no matter how bad this bruise looks, in time it will heal and I will be fine.In the past few weeks I have had the sad task of visiting an old friend in hospice. Her days are nearing their end. Compared to her I am the picture of health. So with that in mind I'll take the bruises, I'll learn the lessons and I'll be thankful for every single day I have on this earth.

Life is short. Live it.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

Last Minute Christmas Cards

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Ok, I admit it. I didn't send Christmas cards this year. Heck, I barely bought any gifts. There was just too much going on for me to sit down long enough to create my annual masterpiece to send out to everyone. To be very honest I felt a bit empty and let down about it because I really wanted to craft cards but Time is a hard task master and refused to relent in my favor.

The wee hours of Christmas morning found me feverishly throwing together some cards for the few people for whom I actually bought gifts. After all, if the card IS the gift, it should be a bit more personal than your standard store bought fare. Thank goodness for my RTU stash. It really comes through for me in a pinch. RTU stands for Ready To Use. It is the repository of all the unused bits and pieces of other projects as well as where I put the result of
any of my crafting experiments. Whenever I'm in a mad rush to throw together a card and I don't have time for my usual creative dawdling, my RTU's save my day.

The cards on this page represent all the cards I made early (like between 2AM and 6 AM early) on Christmas morning. With the exception of the curly purple tree on the top card and the hand drawn holly border on the white card to the left all of the elements used here were found in my RTU stash. A gilded border here, a rhinestone there and VOILA!, a card is born. Granted, the creativity quotient may have been somewhat lower than what I would have liked but it was preferable to a store bought card or (horrors) no card at all. Next year I'll have to start my cards earlier. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

An eCraft Project

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Craftwell recently released its updated software designed to correct many of the problems inherent in the original version. I'm happy to report that many of the problems I had with my machine have been addressed and corrected with version 2. It's still not not my dream machine but it is far from the nightmare it was when I first received it. As a result, I've been playing around with it quite a bit, putting it through its paces and seeing what it can do. My big interest in this machine is the ability to import and cut images that I design on my computer. Now that it is behaving in a more consistent manner I can begin to dream up projects for the senior citizens center that I can cut solely on the eCraft. Here is my first paper project cut solely on the eCraft. It is a layered flower mounted on a pin back badge.

The flower on the right was cut from standard cardstock using the eCraft Fundamentals 1 set of SD images that were included in the initial shipment of the machine. The poinsettia flower on the left was cut from discontinued fabric paper the center had on hand with .svg files that I adapted from royalty free clipart. The layers are stacked with a washer between the leaves and petals to create height. The individual leaves and petals are curled and manipulated to give them more dimension and depth. Each layer, including the base badge, has a small hole punched in the middle through which passes a small office variety paper fastener. The legs of the fastener are opened and pressed tightly to the pin-back, effectively holding the whole thing together. I'm particularly pleased that I was able to salvage and repurpose the badges from being tossed into the trash by the senior center director. I believe wholeheartedly in recycling.These versatile flowers can also be made without the pin back for use as decor or dressing up a gift package. Ooh, I see a flowery spring bulletin board in my future.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents

The eCraft arrives...with a slew of problems.

The eCraft electronic cutter that I won at the CHA Summer 2010 Super Show finally arrived at the very end of October just as I was leaving for my 24th anniversary weekend so I wasn't able to put it through its paces until after I returned.

The machine comes with a power cord, a USB cord for connecting to a computer, a proprietary SD card with a set of images, a paper tray and a roller assembly to accommodate rolls of paper for creating banners. For more information on the eCraft's features and capabilites, visit the Craftwell USA website.


To be honest, I think this machine has been putting me through my paces and trying my patience in the bargain. The downloadable software that allows the machine to communicate with my computer and cut my own .svg images is buggy...VERY buggy. To say that there are a few glitches is to be kind. Craftwell, the makers of the eCraft, are well aware of the issues and is scheduled to release an update to the software on November 19th. (The original release date was Nov. 12, pushed back at the 11th hour.) I was so annoyed and frustrated by the problems I was encountering that, after three days and untold sheets of cardstock, I disassembled it and put it back in the box, fully prepared to relegate it to the status of expensive paperweight. By way of the eCraft Facebook page as well as a user-created Yahoo group that I have joined, I have discovered that not only am I not alone in my frustration but I am not experiencing the worst of it. Many other users are experiencing worse problems with the machine and its software.Non-communication between computer and cutter, windows asking for drivers that have already been installed, ripping, tearing and shredding paper...all sorts of problems are being reported. Yet others are reporting perfect cuts and wonderful results. Apparently there are those who have been unduly blessed by the electronic crafting angels. I, however, am not among them.

After a couple of days, I took it back out of the box and began again from scratch, uninstalling and reinstalling the software and rebooting my computer a number of times before it and the eCraft were able to communicate. My euphoria at this progress was short-lived because of the glitches inherent in the software. It performs well enough when cutting directly from the images provided on the SD card but PC-to-eCraft communications remain somewhat sketchy. Still, I was able to successfully create and cut some of my own images, albeit extremely simple ones. Anything complex and eCraft has a hissy fit, cutting random circles, stuttering in one place and likewise exhibiting ill-tempered behavior.

In spite of it all, I was able to cut one perfect project and created my son's name for his wall. All the layers of this image were created in a drawing program, saved in .svg format, imported into the eCraft software and sent to cut. I stamped the topmost layer with Versamark watermark ink and dusted it with PearlEx pigments.

In the course of my travails with the machine, I think I may have stumbled across the reason for the stuttering while cutting imported image files. I have posted my theory on my Facebook fan page under the discussions tab (click here if you're interested) and am waiting to hear if anyone else tests my hypothesis. In the meantime I, like dozens of other eCraft owners, am a lady-in-waiting...waiting for the promised update that is supposed to address all software issues known to date. I've got projects in the pipeline waiting to be cut so this update better be all it's cracked up to be. I'll keep you posted.


Ballo ergo sum - Gitana, the Creative Diva Design team member for About Art Accents

Trying to Catch Up

Wedding card

Origami folded invitation

Shrink Plastic Charm Bracelet

Cardmaking at the Senior Center

Jewelry making

I've been so busy lately it feels as if I've been running like a madwoman just to stay in place. Just in the past month alone I worked on the projects pictured on this page.

I designed, printed and folded over 100 custom invitations for a repeat client. The invite, which had to tie into the theme of love and money, is that of an oversized one dollar bill folded origami-style into the shape of a heart. In the photo, I placed the invitation next to an actual folded dollar bill so you can get an idea of the scale.

No sooner was that project completed than I had to scramble to make a card for a wedding I was attending and, of course, I did it just hours before I left for the wedding. No pressure. On the heels of that, I had to create, photograph and write instructions for a charm bracelet made with shrink plastic charms that I rubberstamped and colored. Once that was put to bed, I had to design a card, create the prototype and make individual assembly kits for my crafting class at the senior citizen's center where I volunteer. I had been away from the center for five months due to other commitments and have just returned to find that nearly all the crafting materials had been rearranged. I predict hours of reorganization in my immediate future. On top of all this, I signed up with my sister to attend a weekly jewelry making class at the local community college. I'm having a lot of fun creating simple little bracelets, earrings and necklaces. I have already designed a project for my senior ladies to do. It's the bracelet and matching earrings in the center top of the photo.

As if I didn't have enough to do, I just received a new "toy". The E-Craft electronic cutter that I won in a contest at the CHA SuperShow this summer finally arrived after numerous delays. I've been too busy to do much more than open the box. It is two feet long and so much more intimidating on my table that it was at the trade show booth. I'm going to have to dive in soon and put it through its paces so I can really start creating.

My summer flew by, autumn is in full swing, the holiday season is bearing down on me and I'm still hoping to find a little time to relax. Nope, doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon. Maybe in my next life...



Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva
Design team member for About Art Accents