One more project from the Pittsburgh trip. This tag book is made from legal envelopes! There's LOTS of cutting and pasting which is why I only got a card made (a single panel) in class and brought the rest of the parts home to finish.

This is the extended view:

Here is a closeup of one spread:

I haven't decorated the tags yet as I'm not sure how I am going to finish it. It has a masculine feel so I may go with that or a 'homespun' theme. The tags will get punched and fibers added as pulls.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

As promised, here are some of the projects we completed while in Pittsburgh at our papercrafts retreat.

 Beaded Spirelli:

Floral Punch:

 Folded Butterflies and Envelopes:

 Origami Top:

Torn Spotlight Stamping (this was one class I taught):

Challenge Card (everyone started with the same 8 items - a quilled ducky, a square paper doily, a sheet of round silver stickers, a decorated button on a square card, a feather, a silk rose, a piece of floral ribbon, and two decorative paper clips. We had to use at least 5 on our card, plus anything else we had in our stash of supplies.):

I don't have photos of all the other stuff we made last week, but we were busy from 9:30 am to 10 pm as a group and then went to our rooms and kept playing! We took an hour for early dinner but the rest of the two days was class after class. We took one day for shopping (craft and stamp stores).

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

One of the classes I taught to my friends in Pittsburgh was the microscope slide necklace/pin from my website page at http://mystudio3d.com/SlidePin.htm  

Here are the results from the 8 ladies (myself included):

Now who wouldn't be proud to wear any one of these beautiful jewelry pieces?

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

I really like these plastic corner templates by Paper Deckle. They are laid upon the card or othe page and traced around. Cutting along the lines creates extremely elegant corners. There are 6 templates and they are available at: http://www.franticstamper.com/tools.htm

Here is one of the 6 templates:

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Today I'll be going to the First City Arts Faire in Oregon City (where I live).I thought I'd inspire you with some art from the web. I have always been fascinated by the sand painting artists featured on YouTube. Here's a link where you can go to view a bunch of them. Totally mesmerizing!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search=related&v=j94WnAUh0XM 

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

How do you carry your business cards? Don't you think an artist ought to carry them in an artistic way?

This fellow designed a card holder to be made out of a large paint chip from the paint or hardware store. http://www.designverb.com/2006/11/12/paint-chip-card-holder

This original posting is for a non-regulation business card but a later note in his blog says "for the regular business cards, expand 'A' on the template to 2.5 inches and lower the red line some."

Now you can have a whole wardwobe of card holders!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Are you going to be entertaining this summer - or have you been asked to bring a dish for a get-together? My son gave me this recipe for a spicy relish to be eaten as a dip with tortilla chips. Oh Yeah! This is good!

So, what do you listen to while you're crafting? I have a little stereo in my studio where I cycle through a variety of things.

There's always the radio - set to a local Christian music, oldies, or jazz station.

Books on tape, CD or MP3 are favorite listening, too. I love reading, and being able to read a book while I craft is a bonus. (I listen while I clean house and drive, as well)

I have some music on CD in the studio and can load up to 5 disks to play straight through or randomly select from the stack. I have a variety of musical styles in my collection including all of the above as well as Celtic, men's quartets (Statlers, Oak Ridge Boys), and (don't laugh) Yanni. I also like to listen to Julie Cruise, Nickel Creek, Charlotte Church, and Sarah McLachlan.

However if I had to pick just one thing to listen to forever it would be Alan Jackson's CD Precious Memories. This man has the perfect voice for singing my favorite old hymns and he presents 15 of them in this 2005 release. Disappointingly, the title song is not included!

Someday, I hope to have a mini TV and media player in the studio so I can play instructional DVDs and craft along with the instructions. I guess I could do that now with my laptop..... say..... I better go check out some DVDs!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net

While I am traveling, watching TV, riding in the car... I love to do paper embroidery. I started designing my own patterns soon after I started stitching, but there are SO many designers with books and selling on the internet. But, I only own ONE book of paper embroidery because I have found so many sources for FREE patterns on the internet that I will have enough to keep me busy for a very long time.

Lisa Burns is one such source - and very prolific. You will enjoy the variety of embroidery patterns she provides at http://www.freewebs.com/lisaspapecraftsdesigns/  

There are a variety of embroidery designs in the book Classic Cards: 60 projects for the discriminating crafter as well.

This book published in 2006 combines embroidery with other cardmaking techniques, something the 'paper embroidery books' rarely do.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Well as you read today's entry I will be winging my way to Pittsburgh. This is the 4th year I will meet with several ladies there.

We stay together at a local motel, eat the free breakfast, rent the breakfast room for the rest of the day (till 10 at nite!), and teach each other paper crafts.

This year I will teach a card and a piece of jewelry. In past years I have taught papermaking, making a stitched signature book, paste paper, making a flag book, carving rubber stamps, and other books and projects that now escape me.

We all take along a handmade item for each person (this year there will be 8 of us) and have a swap the first nite. I have made parchment liners for plastic mugs, paper bead necklaces (you can see these on my website), and parchment cards (the angels on the website). This year it will be the ceramic boxes marbled with alcohol inks shown previously on the blog.

We eat out for a late lunch/early dinner and reserve one day for shopping. My favorite place to shop is Pat Catan as they are a discount craft store and EVERYTHING IS ON SALE! I save up my craft money for this trip. In fact I have a list of things I want to get there. LOL!

One other activity is that everyone arrives with one craft supply for each person, identical. These are distributed to paper sacks so everyone has a set of supplies exactly the same as everyone else. The challenge is to make a card using at least 5 things out of the bag - secretly. We take these on another of our shopping trips to Stamp Fanci and the owner graciously acts as judge. The first year I won 1st place and last year came in 2nd.

I will be flying home on Saturday and give updates on the projects and activities starting Monday, July 16. In the meantime, I will pre-date my entries for this week so you can continue to see new materials every day while I'm gone.

Have a great week - I know I will!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

For the Feburary ladies event at church the theme was 'Falling in Love With Jesus'. Again, I did the decorations.

This time I took the wreaths from Christmas and wrapped the greenery tight around the wire frame, then shaped them into hearts. I made crosses out of garden stakes and set them in pots using floral foam and white garden rocks. Then I wired the hearts to the crosses and used silk roses to decorate the left side of the heart on each face.

These topiaries were very popular.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

I did decorations for the church women's event in December. We had a theme of 'Home for Christmas' so I set up a real tree in the corner, decorated with handmade ornaments. I added a little wooden rocker with a light blanket tossed over it, a side table with a tablecloth, oil lamp, Bible, glasses, and a mug of hot chocolate. Behind, on the wall, was hung my farm painting.

The tables were alternating red and green tablecloths with a centerpiece of an oil lamp sitting inside a wreath. Handmade ornaments were scattered around both and each place setting had a handmade Christmas card with a Victorian illustration. These had the program glued inside.

Here is a photo of the centerpiece.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net

Did I 'sell you' on 3D cutting yesterday? Well perhaps a sample of a finished project will do the trick!

Here are a couple more favorite sites from which to print images:

http://community.webshots.com/user/d0npen

http://www.thelilacgarden.co.uk/

Now print, clip, glue, repeat. Come on - you know you want to!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

3D pictures... decoupage... paper tole... whatever you call it, done well is is a classy, elegant card form. You can print up multiples of semi-simple images and cut away smaller and smaller sections. Then they are mounted one on top of the other with some spacer like silicon glue, pop dots, or foam tape to make an image that appears three dimensional. Some artists curl the paper slightly so it lays more naturally.

If you want to get started without figuring out for yourself what parts to cut away, try these two sites which offer free printable pages. (some offer coordinated backgrounds and inserts for the cards as well.)

http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d130/Craftypixiedust/  

http://www.3dsheets.com//index.html  

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Group leader on one of my lists issued a challenge to make a card using: an A4 card, two 2 inch circles, patterned paper measuring 3 x 4.5 inches, a piece of paper 1 x 3 inches, a button, a peel-off sentiment, and either sewing, pop-dots, or sandpaper.

Here are my two cards.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Another new book that is a useful resource for card-makers is Shirley Toogood's "100 Great Ways to Make Cards" (ISBN 0-7153-2308-3) May 2007.

Many cardmaking styles are covered in this 25 chapter book, with 4 designs using each technique. From Parchment to Punches, Stenciling to Stickers, Tags to Teabag folding, Collage to Confetti. 100 card-making tips are scattered throughout the book as well.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

WOWZER! If you like to play with color... if you want inspiration for what color to combine with something in hand... if you want to see what others are doing with color... then this site is going to knock your socks off: http://kuler.adobe.com/

First you will want to poke around to see what color schemes have been posted by others, but don't wait too long before you click on "Create" and go to town! Play, Play, Play, Experiment, and Play some more.

If you want to save your color schemes, you'll need to register. Who wouldn't want to?

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I collect two things. The first was foreign coins and the second in boxes. It started out when my dear hubby and I were dating and he bought me this box with a gift of perfume in it.

Like the coin hobby by husband buys be boxes as gifts and I buy them wherever we travel. Family buy them for me and many have been hand made as well. In fact, I have made a number of the boxes in my collection.

I have no idea how many boxes I have, though this display holds most of them. Too understand the scale of this, the length is 6 feet and the height 2 feet (plus that bit on the next shelf down ;-)

The largest box I have? I guess that would be my cedar chest built by my brother-in-law. The smallest is this

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

A while back I participated in a couple of swaps. One was to create a card combining paper embroidery with teabag folding.

The other swap was to combine paper embroidery with rubber stamping. For this I used one of my hand-carved stamps and embossed it with gold powder.

I really like paper embroidery as it can be combined with so many other techniques. 

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Last summer when I went to Pittsburgh to meet with some Internet friends we had one whole day of parchment lessons. I had been self-taught up to this, then Em started from the very basics and worked us up to more advanced techniques. Along the way we learned tracing, embossing, piercing, and coloring with a variety of mediums. These are the four cards that I completed in the class.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net