Graduation Bear Hugs

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Last year my youngest daughter graduated from high school and moved to North Carolina to attend college with her older sister. This year my older daughter has completed her requirements for the Associate of Fine Arts degree and will graduate. I decided to commemorate both graduations with customized teddy bears wearing caps and tassels that match those of their respective schools. Each one holds a "diploma" emblazoned with the graduate's name, school logo, class and date of graduation. These bears are adorable, if I may say so myself, and I'm sure my daughters will think so, too.

The mortarboard caps are created of cardstock and are carefully put together to avoid unsightly seams. The tassels are made with either crochet cotton or embroidery floss and is held in place with a mini brad painted to match the cap.  The diplomas were created in a page layout program in a small size just right for these bears that sit about four inches high without the hat.

Congratulations to Ava and Angel. I'm so proud of you both.

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

Need a quickie card? RTU's to the rescue

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Okay, so my son tells me he is attending a two year old's birthday party but he didn't have time to buy a card or a gift. The two year old's father is a friend of his and was really pushing for a gift of some sort (just a little presumptuous on his part but I digress). I, who have absolutely NOTHING to do, decided I would make a quickie card. What? Me? A quickie card? Not a chance. I'm the one who spends fifteen minutes deliberating the placement of a decorative paper fastener. There was no way I was going to design a quickie card from scratch so I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances...I went straight to my RTU stash.

RTU stands for Ready To Use. It is my self-defined repository of all those odds and ends left over from other projects I had worked on, creative experiments I had tinkered with...just about anything that I couldn't bear to part with because I thought it would come in handy for a card someday. Sure enough, when I scrounged around in the depths of my creative detritus I found plenty of stuff with which to make a card sure to tickle any two year old girl's heart. In my card drawer I found the dark pink base card  with the pretty punched edge. My paper stash yielded the embossed Happy Birthday layer in pink and orange. The rosette was literally sitting on my table top for weeks, the remains of my first attempts at making rosettes. Fortunately it, too, had a punched edge. The large butterfly and the fern leaf were all leftovers from experimenting with my eCraft electronic cutter. The smaller butterflies had been punched out of scrap paper last year and had been fluttering around in my drawer ever since just waiting for me to notice them. Absolutely everything you see in the photo was ready and waiting for me to bring them all together. The inside of the card, which I neglected to photograph, had the sentiment "Make a Wish" stamped on a tag that also came from my RTU stash. This card only took me about half an hour and most of that time was spent in pulling together all the various pieces of this artistic puzzle and adding a little bling on the large butterfly. (Those rhinestones are applied by hand one by one.)

So I have learned that a severe shortage of time and limited supplies with which to work can spark the most creative ideas. I guess I'll have to dive into my craft drawers more often. Who knows what I might come up with?

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

Tea Time Birthday Card

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My husband made an unusual request of me last week. He asked me to create a birthday card for his employer. This first-of-its-kind request on his part took me off guard and presented me with a challenge. I now had to create a card that was suitable for a business relationship but personal enough to avoid appearing obligatory.

The birthday girl's favorite color is red (mine, too!) and she loves tea. I came up with this simple easel card layout featuring a stamp from About Art Accents Plate 244B - Tea Pot and Covered Tea Cup on a Tray. The bold red color accents the patterned washi paper. Gold edging gilds all curved edges and the intricate floral design on the teapot and cup are embossed with holographic embossing powder for a little extra bling. The kanji symbol in the lower right corner is the Chinese symbol for tea. The unique fold of this card allows it to stand like a painting on an easel so the recipient can display and view it.

My husband told me his boss loved the card and had made some noises about contracting me to create some cards or invitations for her. Who knows? Maybe I've got another client in the making.

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

Busy Time at the Senior Center

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As I mentioned in a previous post, the celebration of the spring season has begun at the Dorchester Senior Citizens Center have been concentrating on craft projects that incorporate a flower motif. Photos you see  here show some of the work we have done in recent weeks. During two craft sessions I had the ladies create beautiful three dimensional flowers on stems for the purpose of using them to decorate the main activity/dining room of the center. Using foam core boards and wrapping paper, I made a makeshift window box and arranged the flowers inside of it to make it appear as if they were growing out of the box. This box was then mounted on the soffit of the main room in between the floral panels I made several weeks ago.

All around the perimeter of the room, lights and paper lanterns in shades of pink, orange and white were hung, giving the room a very bright and colorful appearance, just the thing to shake off the last of winter's cold doldrums. Because I am only at the center one afternoon a week, it has taken me several weeks to get all these elements in place but it is coming together very nicely. The room feels brighter already.

Many thanks must be given to Materials for the Arts,  (MFTA) a division of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. This organization is responsible  for receiving donated materials from a variety of donors and making them available for art organizations and non-profit entities free of charge. Many of the materials used for the projects pictured on this page came from MFTA. The fabric paper used in making the flower petals, the foam core boards used to make the flower box, the tassel on the little purse card as well as the baby buttons used in the flower centers all came from materials for the arts. Even the main image and sentiment on the Victorian Rose card came from MFTA, taken from a brochure advertising different types of paper. Take a closer look at that Victorian card. Do you see the small gold buckle on the left of the satin ribbon? It's actually bra hardware - the kind used to make an adjustable strap. It also came from MFTA as do most of the envelopes used for all the cards I make with the ladies. If you are or know of a NYC-based organization that might be interested in accessing this great resource, just follow the link at the beginning of this paragraph to go directly to the MFTA website.


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

Celebrating A Life Together

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My sister Sue and brother-in-law Todd recently celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary and the event was marked with a family dinner hosted by my parents at their home. It was a simple affair to mark a grand achievement, one that I thought deserved a souvenir to commemorate the special occasion so I decided to create something that would be a lasting reminder of the day they got married. To that end I created  coordinating corsages for the two of them. (Oh, I know that men aren't "supposed" to wear corsages but what is a boutonniere if not a very small corsage?)

The corsages are created with a mix of miniature roses I made myself and manufactured elements in a gold and white color scheme. Her corsage features a small narrow ribbon bow imprinted with the words "Mr. and Mrs." and a white dove perched on the side of the golden bow. His smaller corsage features two golden rings affixed on the white plume just above the roses.

I also made corsages for my parents, the host and hostess. My mother loves all things green so her little roses are pale green with matching ribbon bows. My father's corsage is blue and white.

Wearing their anniversary flowers.

Seems I haven't stopped making paper flowers for a year now, starting with that massive floral project I did for my daughter's graduating class in 2010. Funny thing is that the more I make them, the more I like making them. I guess there are more flowers in my future for sure.


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

Bloom or Bust: The Celebration of Spring Begins

Stylized hydrangeas

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This has been a rather productive weekend for me. And well it should. After all, I sequestered myself in my basement workroom on Saturday for 15 hours, breaking only long enough to eat (such a bad habit), go to the bathroom (another time waster) and play the occasional computer game to take a break (time well spent).

 For this year I have made "light", both as a relative measurement of weight as well as an element of energy, my theme. In a previous post, I mentioned how my first senior craft project of the year was intended to start the new year off with light. If you have read any of my other blogs, you know I'm a gardener and a lover of nature. I love the advent of spring with its promise of warmer weather and its beautiful array of colorful flora and fauna. In my recent series of projects I have incorporated both light and nature through images of flowers and butterflies. Both are light in terms of weight, both are colorful, color being the chromatic expression of light energy, and both represent beautiful aspects of nature. This kind of work puts me completely in my element.

Detail of Floral Border Panels

One of the things I do at the Dorchester Senior Citizens Center where I volunteer is to seasonally decorate the main activity room.

This weekend I decided to create flowers...lots of them...for the purpose of decorating the center for spring. I was inspired by a recent purchase of craft foam flowers intended for a young child's craft project to create some colorful border panels to be placed along one of the center's walls above eye level.  As I was putting the flowers together as intended by the manufacturer, I realized there was so much more that I could do to make them more interesting so I colored, scored, folded, and glued. The more I embellished, the more invested I became in the project and the more pleased I was with what was taking shape. Here you can see some photos of the four border panels I completed this weekend as well as some stylized hydrangea blossoms that were running around in my head, begging to be created.

No post concerning the senior center would be complete without some pictures of my lovely ladies. Here you see them showing off the flowers they made during a recent crafting session. Just look at the beautiful bouquet they created. Those flowers are almost as pretty as the women who crafted them.

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

Keeping Busy and Some Great News!

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Although it has been a while since I have posted anything about my senior citizens crafting group, it hasn't been because nothing is happening. In fact quite a bit has happened. The frequent snows of January seemed to fall on the day before or on the day of a crafting class necessitating closure of the center on those days. There was a span of three weeks during which no classes took place because of the weather but we made up for it. Here are some photos of the projects we did on the days that Mother Nature wasn't having a hissy fit. We created a luminaria votive holder during the first week of January to start the new year off with light. February was met with a Valentine's Day hanging ornament. True story: this project was designed and prepared for last year's Valentine's Day but what do you suppose happened on the day the class was supposed to meet? Yep, it snowed. By the time we met the following week, Valentine's Day had passed so I had to keep the project under wraps until this year. We just narrowly missed being snowed out again but the weather held out.


Taking a short break from paper crafts, we indulged in some light beadwork and created a key ring with wooden beads and a little tassel. Another day we tried invoking the spirit of spring by creating cards with simple origami tulips.

March brings us St. Patrick's Day so the ladies and I made some hanging shamrocks to adorn the center. For this project I brought in some of my crafting toys...paper crimpers, my Cuttlebug and some embossing folders. I also brought in rub-on colors by Craf-T, gifts that I snagged during my trip to the CHA Supershow in July 2010. The group added texture to the various elements of their ornaments and then used the rub-on colors to highlight the embossed edges. Embossing and colored highlights added an extra dimension to a very simple project.

Here's a peek at the project we'll be doing this week. It's a tri-fold card with a ribbon tie on the side and an embellished envelope. It opens to reveal ample space for a personalized note or even a photograph. I didn't have any envelopes to match so I had to make my own using text weight paper. I also didn't have the right kind of envelope glue for the flap so I used a "sticky note" glue, the light tack re-positionable kind used to make sticky notes. Thanks to my paper cutter and scoring tool for making that task a little easier to manage.

Now here's the great news I alluded to in the title of this post. In September I applied for grant money to continue the work I've been doing at the senior center. I'd never applied for a grant before and figured a first time applicant probably didn't have a chance at be awarded any funding. Imagine my shock when I received a letter in January congratulating me on being an awardee! This money will allow me to purchase supplies to keep the crafts program alive and expand into other areas of interest such as jewelry making. The funds will be distributed in late March and I'm already scouring catalogs and hatching ideas. I'm off and running.

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

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