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Here is the second house converted from the 'string art' pamphlet I have. It is not my favorite so I only pricked out one to stitch. My least favorite I haven't even pricked out one!
I made this card in a workshop. It is stamped and embossed with black powder on dark brown cardstock. Then the image was lightened using bleach. Final step was to paint with Pearl-Ex powder mixed with water and some gum arabic.
When these techniques are combined, the results are quite stunning.
Off on another road trip yesterday, I stitched up a Christmas card. This is worked with metallic Sulky threads ondark red background. The corners were punched and embossed with a Fiskars 2-in-1 punch. I layered on green and gold metallics to reflect the stitching.
The center is a Christmas sticker with a peel-off greeting.
I don't know why, but of the 30 sunflower seeds I planted, not a single one sprouted. Maybe the birds stole the seeds - or perhaps it was the squirrels.
Anyway, I'll have to settle for these stitched ones designed by a member of one of my online groups. She designed it to be stitched like my card on the left. I then made it again but stitched differently.
Here are two more stiched cards. These were designed by the same lady as the last geometrics that I showed.
The one on the left is stitched on irridescent cardstock and layered over a metallicized paper and some paste paper I made.
The one on the right is layered on a watercolored background and burgundy cardstock.
Here's a couple of different takes on the same theme (sort of). At this site http://www.wga.hu/tours/sistina/index1.html you can click and view different scenes of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, zoom in, view background information, etc.
Here http://www.pacorosic.com/sistine_chapel_pictures.asp you can view the work of Paco Rosic who recreated the Sistine Chapel ceiling in half-scale on the ceiling of his parents' restaurant - using Krylon spray paint!
Way Cool!
This is a collage card I started from the parts-n-starts drawer. The background is printed tissue paper, the mummy case is from a catalog ad, the caravanners are from a sheet of collage art images. I added some 'scraps' from gold peel-off stickers, and finished with blue rhinestones eyes and a fabric text sticker.
Here are a couple more cards made with the torn spotlight technique shared some time back. This hydrangea stamp was one I picked up for a dollar in a clearance.
Last year a friend taught some of us to make these refrigerator magnets. We used Staz-On and small stamps to print on small tiles. I colored mine with Sharpie markers by making small dots with the fine tip. This was to keep the Staz-On from smearing and to allow me to blend colors. The finished tiles are sprayed with two light coats of acrylic sealer and a magnet is glued on back.
This is a card I made for a challenge. Our partner stitched up a card and sent it along with another of the same pattern pricked out.
I chose to use bright fall colors and added stickers and a tag to complete the harvest theme.
Here are a couple of cards I made a while back from my parts and starts drawer. The illustrations are from cruise brochures and I enhanced them with scrapbook papers and other bits I found in the drawer.
Some time ago, I bought some very cheap frames without glass and kept them around for quite awhile without any ideas for using them. Then I redecorated a guest bedroom with an 'at the seashore' theme and decided to make collages using those frames.
For backgrounds I used wavy corrugated cardstock, paua shell scrapbook paper and sandpaper. I added seashells, coral, and agates I had collected on various beaches. Each collage got one gold whale button as an accent.
The set looks nice hanging in grid formation above the head of the bed.
As promised, here's a list of animals that hang out or pass through our back yard:
Bats
Raccoons
Moles
Shrews
Garter Snakes
Mice
Opossoms
Black-tail deer
Red Fox
Coyotes
Chipmunks
Cottontail Rabbits
Squirrels
Ground Squirrels
Nutria
Skunks
Bullfrogs
Green Tree Frogs
Oregon Newts
Yep, It's WILD outside!
There is a certain fascination with birds, and I watch for different ones wherever I go. Around my own area I log in my copy of Familiar Birds of the Northwest (Harry B Nehls) with the date, location, and something about their activities. I log each bird only once - the first sighting.
We have just over 2 1/3 acres of countryside with a creek, scrub, conifers, fruit trees, pasture, some hardwoods, and 200 feet of the Oregon Trail. On this property, since moving here in 1989, I have observed (*most common marked by stars):
*Great Blue Heron
Mallard
Turkey Vulture
Sharp-shinned Hawk
*Red-tailed Hawk
Blue Grouse
*California Quail
Ring-necked Pheasant
Killdeer
*Mourning Dove
Short-eared Owl
*Rufous Hummingbird
*Red-shafted Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
*Downy Woodpecker
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Williamson's Sapsucker
Ash-throated Flycatcher
*Stellar's Jay
*Scrub Jay
*Common Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Bushtit
*Varied Thrush
*American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
*House Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Brewer's Blackbird
Western Tanager
American Goldfinch
*House Finch
Rufous-sided Towhee
*Oregon Junco
Golden-crowned Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Barn Swallows
More wildlife tomorrow!
An on-line group member translated an old string-art pattern to make this one for stitching. I stitched it three times, once with verigated thread, once with metallic, and one only stitching a portion of the pattern.
One one of my trips to Pittsburgh for shared papercrafts classes one of the ladies taught us to 'float' acrylics on pen and ink drawings. We transfered the provided drawings onto watercolor paper using graphite paper and then used permanent black ink to trace over. After erasing the graphite we used thinned acrylics to apply color washes wet-in-wet.
This is the card I made:
In this case, we made a second image of part of the flower and mounted it 3D.
This stitching card is a re-design of a string-art pattern from the 70's. I picked up one of those old pamphlets, with three patterns in it, from a used book store. The pamphlet has odd paintings of historic houses over which one was supposed to stitch. They are all big enough to mount as 8 1/2 x 11 inch wall art.
Unfortunately, they are all designed with strings of bright blue, red, yellow, and green. YUK! So I reduced the pattern down to fit on cards and changed the colors to soft versions of the originals. I like to do them up on watercolor paper.
The pamphlet is still under copyright (more pity to the original artist) so I cannot share the patterns.
I finished this card last night. The threads are gold and green metallic Sulky. Cardstock is cream embossed mounted over blue over more cream embossed over metallic green. The bird is cut from a calendar page and given a branch made of the twisted paper handle of a shopping bag. A little dot of glitter glue gives him the sparkle in his eye.
While traveling recently I stitched up a couple of Christmas cards. These are from my own design. Both are stitched with a single strand of rayon embroidery thread. One uses red 'tinsel' and star sequins and green beads. The other uses gold metallic Sulky for the tinsel and finishes off with red beads.
Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net
My husband fancies me a gardener. However, I grow nothing successfully as far as houseplants (including cactus), or landscaping. I'm also the only person alive who cannot grow zucchini!
A few years ago, said hubby brought in several half-barrels and filled them up with good garden mix. I have a modicum of success growing a few garden vegetables each summer - except any kind of squash or melon. This year I added some little pots with herbs.
Here's the lineup this year: carrots, yellow onions, green onions, sweet peas, parsley, sage, beets, green beans, rosemary, radishes, thyme, beefsteak tomatos, cherry tomatos, marjoram, cucumbers, basil, spinach, and lettuce. The radishes and spinach are starting in on their second crop.
Yum Yum!
Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net
