Art inspired by shopping??

I am a tall person so, shopping for pants is always a challenge.  They are often too short or, if I shop in the tall girls shop, they are way to long.  That experience gave me the idea for this piece but, I think that anyone who has a challenge getting a proper fit for pants knows the feeling.  The saying on the piece is "Shopping for pants suck".  It is 3 x 5 inches.

 On my base, I painted it using 3 different colors of blue/green combinations.  After that dried, I stamped it with the tiny little circles stamp.  I just randomly applied them.  The next layer was a stencil with squares in it.  I mixed modeling paste with acrylic paint and applied it to the bottom and top of the card at an angel.  The final base layer is some dabs of Inka gold watercolor paint dabbed here and there for fun.  The other pieces are the saying which I printed out, colored with markers, glued and outlined in black.  The gears are wood pieces colored with distress inks.  Cheese cloth was glued down, with the gears on top and then the final layer was the stamp which is made by Stampotique and colored with markers.

Christmas ATC's

I've almost always have some ATC's going in my art room.  Here are some I made for Christmas

Watercolor

Stamps from a couple of different sets.  The moon and background are watercolor.  The trees are embellished with gel pens

Collage with layered papers, sprays and ink.  The background was made with the sheet music issue paper that was glued down then, I applied gelatos over that rubbing in a green and brown color with my finger.

Another fun Stampotique stamp.  This piece has multiple layers of paper including corragated paper.  I used a little bit of white acrylic paints.  The elf is colored with markers and then and embellishment was added.

Index cards continued...

Two postings ago, I showed you a 3 x 5 Christmas piece that I made.  I enjoyed working with that size so much, I made some more.  I also did a little research on this to see how many other people use this size and I saw a number of videos on Youtube where folks make these into art journals.  What a great idea!

Here I am using one of my stamps from Stampotique again.  This is the Angel Kate stamp.   I am enjoying them so much that I may order some more.  This is a 3 x 5 card.  I did lots of layered of papers, embellishments and a little spattering of paints in the background.  The circles are made with punches I have.  I have a round punch 1 3/8 inch and one that is 1 1/4 inch so, I just double punch the same are and get this little leftover ring.  You just never know what you can do with some of your little scraps!

Mixed Media Angel Image

I found an image of a little angel girl on The Graphics Fairy site.  I fell in love with it right away and knew I wanted to make something with it.  Here is what I came up with:

If you are interested in trying this.  She is in their Christmas angel collection along with several other cute ones.  For this piece,  I started with a paper that looks like sheet music.  I glued that onto the base then sprayed it with Dylusion sprays of 2 shades of blue and some linen white.  Once dry, I glued on some cheese cloth to the bottom third.  The image was fussy cut and glued on over the cheese cloth.

For the next steps, I applied glass beads mixed with gel medium where her arms rest, I outlined her in a brown watercolor pen and went over that again with a clear water brush.  I think the image pops out more doing this.

The top half is a star stencil applied with modeling paste, silver and white ribbon in the corners, blue flowers glued onto the ribbon and the word banner in the middle.

For the word banner, I hand drew it on watercolor paper, and using light blue, dark blue and some black, I painted the image.  I hand wrote the lettering, applied pop ups to the back and put it in place.  To apply the lace, I used a glue gun with a long thin tip that got under the banner.  I placed the lace flowers by pushing them under the banner with the tip of my scissors.  The final touch is light ink around the edge.

3 x 5 trading card

I made this Christmas mixed media.  This size is sometimes used for trading but I may use this piece as a base for a card.

The stamp is a digital stamp I bought off Etsy.  I went to my file so I could tell you the Etsy company but all it says is the name of the stamp which is Gift wrapping.   I colored it with Prisma colored pencils and fussy cut it out.  I added some gel pen accents to the presents and the wings.

The base starts with cardboard and is covered on the front and back with Christmas themed scrapbook paper.  There is a second paper on top of that cut 1/2 inch smaller.  I had some tissue paper sheet music so, I cut a small piece of that and glued it to the front.

The large snowflakes are stencils filled in with modeling paste but, prior to adding those, I put a piece of dark red lace ribbon along the back.

The finishing touches are the words, printed on the computer, cut out and outlined in black, a snowflake metal charm with fibers tied in the hanging hole, gesso painted randomly to make it feel somewhat snowy, the stamp glued on and glossy gel with glass beads dabbed along the bottom for snow.

Greeting cards

I use to be fairly good about sending greeting cards out for birthdays etc but, I have not been doing it very much the last few years.  I miss doing that so, I started making cards again today.  I got 6 of these done.  I design the first one and once I like it, I make it in multiples.  This is for Christmas cards.  When I do Birthday cards etc, they are usually just one of a kind cards.

 The basic steps I took are

Using beige card stock, I folded it and partially stamped the front with a word stamp in Stazon Brown Ink.  The stamp is cursive lettering in french and is made by Stampendous.  I inked the edges with brown ink also.

I used 3 different types of Christmas cardstock cutting each one about 1/4 smaller than the prior one and stacked them.  Prior to gluing, I used Tim Holtz brown distress ink around the edges.  The base was a green and red print, the inner layer a red print and the outer layer a beige word print.  The papers were from a coordinating pad of Christmas papers.

I then placed the stamp on the card.  Its a stamp by Stampotique and I stamped it on white card stock, colored it in colored pencil with some gel pen accents and cut it out.

For the finishing touches, I wanted to add some texture so, using the same circle stencil from the last project, I placed some circles at the bottom left and the top right using modeling paste.  Once it was dry, I used chalk pastel on top of it in a matching green shade  I dabbed it with a wet water brush to spread the color around the circle.  A little bit of washi tape was applied to the bottom right.

The inside is empty but, I will use that to give me personal greetings.  I like to make Christmas cards in November so, I can have them completed and ready to mail in early December.  If I actually wait until December they never seem to get done!

"The Queen of Everything"

I have been admiring stamps by Stampotique for awhile.  I love their quirky style.  I decided to purchase some since I kept going back to them.  I could not wait to try them out the second they arrived.  The first thing I did was an art journal page.  This is done using their Chandelier stamp and their Queen of Everything stamp.  To start with, I pulled out my Dylusion sprays and using a combination of yellow, orange, blue and pink I came up with the base.  Some areas were a little dark so, I sprayed on some white before it dried.  I also cut out some triangle shapes from paper in my stash and strung them together with a colored pencil.  I outlined them in orange with black on top to make them pop out better.  The black is an ink pen.

For the next step, I used a stencil and modeling paste and placed the circles randomly on the page.  I did avoid the areas where I knew the stamp was eventually going to be placed.   The white paste automatically absorbs some of the color from the dylusion sprays but, I did add a little white wash paint on top to help them pop.  I added some painted circles using the top of a bottle which is twirled in paint and finally the stamps.  I think I may use her next in some ATC's.  Here are some pictures from the in between steps.

 These pictures are all taken at different times of the days which makes the colors seem either lighter or darker.  The best picture of the original color is the one with the stencil on top of it.

Altered Canvas

I heard a new term this last week which was "Altered Canvas" art.  In researching it, I see that it is interpreted many different ways but, my favorite was using the back side of the canvas instead of the front.  This is what I ended up with:

 Here are the steps that I took to get me started:

Christmas Paper by "Paper Studio", I cut out just the Santa

Coated the whole back, including the wood and staples with Gesso

Covered wood with modeling paste (to even it out and cover the staples)

Using Gel Medium, glued tissue paper music paper

Applied paint using light beige, red, and brown.  After that dried, I sprayed it with a white

Using modeling paste and a snowflake stencil, I applied some texture to the side then, glued down Santa

For the final finish, I used a brown distress pen around Santa to make him pop more from the background.  I used cheese cloth saturated with gel medium placed along the bottom.  While it was still very wet, I sprinkled glass beads onto it.   The "Happy Holidays" is a Tim Holtz embellisment.  I used a stamp for the saying and it is placed on with brads through the back.  The upper portion of the frame is some fiber with plastic "bulbs" for clear Christmas lights and I twisted a shimmering fiber around that and glued it in place along the top.  A picture hanger is nailed onto the back

I'm debating about adding some jingle bells in the upper right hand corner.  I think I may do that.  I also already have some ideas for the next piece!

 

UPDATE:  I decided to add the jingle bells and I think it does add a special touch to the piece and helps to balance out the bright red color of the word "Believe"  Here is an updated picture