Art Journal Swap

     I love belonging to internet groups as I get to see lots of wonderful work created by artists from around the world.  I joined a new (to me) group about six months ago and have had fun joining in on the swaps.  By the end of the month a small group of us will be completing art journal pages.  Each person chose both a theme and an orientation (horizontal or vertical) with the goal of binding the pages into a book and adding our own journaling to the pages sent to us by our partners. 

     For the first half of December I created a 5"X7" double sided page with the theme of quotes about words.  Words!!!!!  I love words and quotes, so this was great fun.  I had trouble selecting only two quotes about words ---- there are so many really good ones.  But I settled on the two below.  Of course, one is by Emily Dickenson -- she always could say so much in so few words.  And I had never come across the other quote, but it is something I truly believe in.  

     The page is created on watercolor paper with color added using Distress Inks by Tim Holtz.  I stamped a few images, added some purchased embellishments, and computer generated the quotes.  

     I really like how the pages turned out and was so happy to receive a very nice e-mail from the recipient.

    A while back I was in a year long swap dealing with art quotes, a different quote each month.  I received some lovely pages and am planning on combining them with the six I will have from this swap.  It will be a wonderful handmade book!

March Cards for Troops

A few months ago I found out from my stamping buddy Jan Hoeffler - Red Rubber Stamping -about an ongoing project to create cards which would be sent to bases where troops are stationed so that they would have a choice of handmade cards to send home to their friends and family. Besides general cards such as birthday, thank you, etc., each month there are two special themes. Here are scans of the cards I made (I made 4-6 of each):

Father's Day

More Father's Day

Graduation

Birthday

Haiku Bunny Swap

Spring Haiku Bunny Swap

The Haiku Bunny stamp by Hero Arts is very popular and impossible to purchase as it was discontinued a number of years ago and never reissued. Those of us who own one guard it with our lives!!! Oriental Stamp Art (OSA), a Yahoo group which focuses exclusively on Oriental art, hosts a Haiku Bunny swap every year. Since 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, this is a special year for the special bunny. Here's my Spring bunny. I stamped some floral scrapbook paper with the grass stamp from a set by Stampin' Up, stamped the bunny separately, cut him out, and layered on the base. A silver butterfly floating by is the perfect accent. I sure hope spring comes soon to the upper Midwest!!!!

Collaborative Calendar for 2011

A few years ago my friend Bonnie and I decided to enlist a few other stampers to create calendars. This is what the six of us made for 2011.

January - Jane

February - Ashley

March - Maggi

April - Karen

May - Jane

June - Billie

July - Maggi

August - Bonnie

September - Billie

October - Bonnie

November - Ashley

December - Maggi

Everyone agreed that this was a fun project, even the two newbies who had never done this before and were a little taken aback that they would make 12 (!) of the same pages for each month!!! The calendars were bound using a Bind-It-All and mailed out to the participants. I hope we can continue this project for 2012.

ACE 11 - September

This year I joined a sub-group of Oriental Stamp Art, a Yahoo group dedicated to learning about and creating Oriental style items, especially cards. A theme and colors were chosen for each month by the list mom, and we sent out three cards in "Round Robin" style. September is the last month for the group. Here's my creation: the theme was leaves/fall and the color burgundy. This is a gate-fold card (I've been playing with that layout for the last few weeks) - the left and right panels open in the middle. The leaf brad holds the central image/sentiment in place until the card is opened. It was fun to make, especially as fall is my favorite season.

More OSA Challenges

I am still keeping up with the OSA (Oriental Stamp Art) theme and design challenges. These are the ones for the the month of March:

Year of the Rat

Dolls

Kanji or Text

Pagoda



For lots of eye candy, go to www.orientalstampart.com and look through the albums.

More Challenges

I am still trying to do the weekly OSA challenges, incorporating the theme into the layout. The Lantern theme really had me puzzled - I just couldn't figure out what to put in the smaller circle until I came across the large Oriental coin - perfect!


The blue card uses a quote from Confucius which I thought works well with the image as the lady is not particularly beautiful. It is, however, one of my favorites and I have two versions of it.

As soon as I saw that the theme for this week was "Harmony," I knew exactly which stamp to use. The lady with her cat is from Cherry Pie - one of my absolutely favorite stamps.

OSA Challenge #5 - Winter

I again combined the theme challenge "Winter" with the design challenge. This time the design was, indeed, a big challenge - 12 squares layered over a narrow piece of CS surrounding the image. The three layers include silver paper, but it looks gray in the scan. The snowflake is also metallic. Enjoy - winter is almost half over!!!

OSA Challenges #2 and #3

Continuing with the OSA challenges, I completed #2 and #3. Even though I had these finished, it has taken me all week to load them here.

Challenge #3

The layout was simple layering with the corners off set. The theme was to use blue, so I made the entire card in shades of blue. One of my favorite stamps is the illusive (this stamp is not manufactured anymore) Haiku Bunny which I stamped on printed paper. The corners are silver peel offs, and I used blue "jewels" in the corners. I like the simplicity of this.

Challenge #2

The theme for Week 2 was Cherry Blossoms. I guess Ruth Cooper who is running the theme challenges is tired of winter like many of us in the Northern hemisphere! It was fun to create something "Springy!" The design challenge was just that. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the "math" of the rectangles. My solution was to cut a larger rectangle, then "eyeball" and trim to fit. It is a nice layout and I will use it again.

Swapping Samples

I belong to a few swap groups and enjoy the challenge of coming up with something based on a specific theme, product, color, or???? Here are a few of the recent swap items.



The challenge of the Christmas card was to use my Cuttle Bug machine, a home version die cut machine. The background paper was dry embossed using the Swirl embosssing folder. The oval is a combination die cut and embossing set, one of the Disney items! The embossing made a big difference in the final card.







I made this calendar for a friend in Australia. Each month one of the swappers is the "It Girl" and chooses a theme. Jessie's theme was time, a perfect choice for a calendar!







Below is a version of a Christmas gift I made for some friends. For the swap we were to make a shaped tag, so I made a version of the Flower Fairy. I used a printed image and embellished with flowers and a sticky brad. The wings were stamped with a swirl and dusted with Pearl Ex.






My group from Wisconsin has been running a Color Swap for the last year or so. This time the challenge was to use olive, rust, and brown. I had a beautiful napkin sent to my by my swapping friend Michelle who lives in Cape Town, South Africa. She often sends me small items from SA to use in my work. The napkin was a perfect choice. I glued on to the olive card stock and embellished with some black trim. The embellishment is from a pre-printed chip board set.

2009 Challenges

One of the art groups I belong to is Oriental Stamp Art (OSA.) Obviously this group concentrates on creating and learning abour Oriental art and culture. This year marks the tenth year of OSA and we are immersed in challenges and swaps. There are two special weekly challenges this year - design and theme/subject. Our first theme is "Zen," creating an interpretation of our personal vision of Zen. I chose an image which has always intrigued me, a serene yet mysterious view of a boat floating away towards the unknown. The design challenge is to use a central image and enhance it with the three circles. I was able to combine the two, and (hopefully!) will be able to do this for the next 51 weeks!!!!!