Hometown Ghost Stories

This is a project done last year or the year before on byhandartists. I rebound it with my zutter binder. People did atcs about the ghosts in their hometown. Mine is about Waverly Hills Sanitarium. http://www.underworldtales.com/waverly.htm

Music Deco Round Robin

This is the spread I did in my Zutter-bound music deco (posted previously). The background is patterned paper with gesso painted over it, walnut ink sprayed and rolled over a crocheted doily. Vintage photo framed with copper peel offs, "wish" stamp, swirl stamped with vintage photo distress ink. Fabric leaves were run through my little xyron and I stamped music with distress ink on them. The quote is printed on my laser printer. We have 8 players in the round robin. Can't wait to see what others are doing.

Free Texture backgrounds link

Enjoy these free texture backgrounds for your art. You can upload 20 per day.
This paint is an example of many catagories: windows, doors, fabric, food, etc.
http://www.mayang.com/textures/
click on link is listed under lovely links to the right.

September Mingle

I decided to do this month's mingle for the byhandartists group on the Hong Kong Moon Festival. I always enjoy doing research for these fun projects and this one was no different.
The moon was printed on cardstock, 8 1/2 x 4 and folded at 4". I stamped the evergreens with black dye ink and cut a hill from black carstock. The chinese characters in the lower right were embossed with pirate gold ep. I cut black cardstock to line the interior and decided to leave the right side unattached so I could have an extra page inside. I stamped the lanterns and embossed with clear ep. Cut them out, added a sticker letter and hung them to gold paint pen lines.
The story of the festival is printed on vellum with red ink and chinese takeout font. Attached the vellum with vellum adhesive, no matter what I use, it shows through.
The back is another copy of the moon and a printed picture of the Hong Kong celebration with lanterns. My scanner scans crooked sometimes- this was one of them. The picture is really centered on the moon on the back. Sheesh!

Asian Blue

I've been wanting to play around with fun foam for a while. Some artist friends have done some great things with foam on atcs. So here is my attempt. I'm fairly happy with the results. This is for the blue swap. I'd like to experiment with multiple colors next time.

I didn't stay on blue long, huh?

I continue to be drawn to a stash of Asian papers I have so I had to do another atc. There is a black border all the way around, though I can't convince my scanner of it.

Blue is not my favorite color

Our other theme this month for the atc swap is the color blue. Not my favorite color, even though I love the sea and all things associated with it. When I think of blue, it isn't the aquas and teals of the water I visit. I decided to use some of my paste paper to inspire me and thought that the blue of the night sky might be one to explore. I like this quote from Shakespeare and this dancing figure stamp found vaguely in the background.

End of the geishas

This is the end of the line for the pretty stamps from Japan. I have created all the atcs I can with them, these are the final 3.

Another day of atcs

Here are 4 more atcs of the same theme and color scheme. The colors on the two on the right look different because I popped them off the page with pop-dots and what is closest to the scanner scans best so the background looks darker, but is the same as the other two. I am making use of every piece of this patterned paper! Two use the same linen look paper I used for the inside cover of the white on white book, I like it with the asian paper, too. Oh, and I also used the white embossed flower paper as well. I like my little chinese lantern stamp- it is from Impress.

White on White fat book

This is the completed white on white fat book, hosted by Mary-Beth on the byhandartists group. I bound it with my new zutter binder using 1 inch silver coils.
The cover is embossed paper with tiny flowers. The artists did fantastic art for this swap. I liked my page, but it paled in comparison to the ones I received.

Today's atcs

I am finally onto another color today. I was crazy about this paper when I saw it and thought it would make some pretty atcs for the byhandartists September swap. I have some stickers my daughter brought me from Japan that I thought would go well with it. Here are the results.

More atcs!

More fun with Asian art. I love this iris stamp- it looks Asian to me and I like it every time I pull it out to use. I also like the coin stamp on the dragonfly atc. I embossed it with black ep. It is stamped on a scrap of my yellow paste paper. I used about every inch of that paper. The little girls are cut out of some paper Amy brought me from Japan. The shoes are stamped with black and embossed. I filled in the top of the sandal with glaze pen.
Oh and ignore the purple spots, they were on the glass of the scanner. I was too lazy to go downstairs for the windex and rescan. If I get to it, I'll switch the photos.

Asian atc

The themes for the byhandartists group atc swap for September are the color blue and anything Asian. This is my first atc for the swap. Hum, I see I am in a green, yellow and red phase currently.

Zutter bookbinding

Today I made my first little book using my new Zutter binding machine. I am still perfecting the hole positioning, but like my results.
I used 3 recipe dividers made of chipboard made by We R Memory Keepers " Raw Goods". I liked these from the moment I spotted them and wanted to make a mini book. They are 4x6.
I painted the chipboard with a pumpkin colored paint by Making Memories. I cut some of my paste paper for the front, the back paper didn't line up after being punched, so I used paper from www.quietfiredesign.com which is a heavy textured mulberry paper in a dark pumpkin color. I had stamped the quote, also from Quietfire Design, on some of my paste paper. I cut it out with my Coluzzle and backed it with the textured mulberry paper. The little bird is from Impress Rubber Stamps and is stamped with Chalk ink.
The 15 pages are 3 7/8 x 6 and are Acquarello 140 lb cold-pressed watercolor paper. Black coils are what I had on hand. I like the contrast to the yellow paste paper.
Maybe this will end up being a Music Deco!

RED

I like this background done with Krylon resist so I added a quote and a golden fairy. She will go off to Frankfort KY tomorrow with my other atcs for the swap at Memories Ala Mode. I am sending the Travelin' Man below, a Deep Sea Cowboy, the little girl and her dog with the number 6, one of the magpie "wings", and the asian one seen here. I guess Green and Red have been my theme this month!

The man has a seat

One of my friends wanted to draw a line under the man to give him something to sit on, so I added some tape when I couldn't find a suitcase! Here he is-all settled in.

alcohol ink

Today I wanted to make more alcohol ink backgrounds for the nautilus stamp. I have had several comment on the byhandartists group that they hope one is coming to them, so I did 4 more. Since I liked my amoeba yesterday, after doing the more traditional marble-look background, I did two more with my additional paper-this time glossy and not plastic. Here are the results. I used lettuce, butterscotch, and oregano along with Krylon gold leaf and blending solution.

I'm finding it easy to be green

Another day of play-my friend, Yogi, says you make time for what you want to do. I am still having fun with green.
After a miserable start of alcohol inks on photo paper instead of glossy cardstock, I used the ink still on the felt to dab two sheets of plastic in my precut atc stack. On one I added an artchix image and stamping with stazon jet black. To the other I added three big drops of blue alcohol ink which spread and then three drops of eggplant in the middle. Love the cellular look so I stamped the question marks and the word "life".
The mermaid is the same acrylic background as the deep sea cowboy with an artchix tranparancy, artchix woman and a hand-drawn tail done with glaze pens. I added a flower to her bodice and some swirls. I like her a lot!

Deep Sea Cowboy

I'm on a roll this month. A scrapbook store about an hour away is having an atc contest and swap this month. So, some of my atcs will be mailed there and some to my byhandartists swap. This is an image I got off Flicker that I have been wanting to use. I did one of my favorite background techniques that I learned from Nettonya, on the byhandartists group. Apply gesso, then light wash with a light acrylic paint, I used a pale yellow,dry, apply another darker color over the yellow but leave some of the yellow showing, dry, apply a third darkest color but don't allow to dry and spritz with water. In a few minutes I dab or swipe the darkest color off, some will stay. It leaves an intersting pattern and layers of color. This time I wiped it with a somewhat dry baby wipe. I stamped the swirl with gesso. I stamped various stamps with shades of green ink. My "cowboy" image was printed on transparancy, but I wanted him to show up more so I mounted him on white cardstock and cut him out. I typed the words and printed them on white cardstock, too, cut out and pasted. Isn't he a cute little guy?

Green ATCs

I was on a green kick today. I should have been on a laundry kick! Posting this and then off to do some necessary chores. Sorry my scans are terrible! My scanner is misbehaving badly.
The theme for the atc swap this month on the byhandartists yahoogroup is green and sealife. Yogi is our organizer and swapper.
The five bird atcs are done on cardstock. Applied Dark Moss chalk ink DTP. Stamped the nautilus stamp with Yellow Ochre chalk ink. I'm on a magpie kick since I did my research for the Chinese Valentine's Day 4x4. The birds are a copyright free image I printed on tranparancy. Some have a background word stamp also stamped in Dark Moss. Some have ribbon- I really like the clean look of this black and white ribbon, some have decorative corners that I cut out with my cuttlebug.
The man and little girl and dog with a quote are on scrapbook patterned paper. The man is from an old photo I had in my stash. The stamp was in my postage stash and the "how much farther?" is a cardstock sticker. The girl and quote are from a free image sheet I got from www.Pennywisearts.com. Don't recall how I came across it, but there are several people/animal pics and some quotes. The corner is cut from scrapbook paper, too.
The little girl and dog (also Pennywisearts)with the black and white ribbon are on a background of twinkling H2O. The flower stamp and number are stamped in black dye ink. The asian woman is on the same background with an asian background stamped with black dye ink and a pink petal.