AUTUMN is HERE...

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
- Emily Bronte

Winter is an etching,

spring a watercolor,

summer an oil painting

and autumn a mosaic of them all.

- Stanley Horowitz

yes its well and truly here ...

I thought Id start by giving you a dose of inspiration with a few of my favourite quotes/ verses about the Autumn season. These are out of my ever expanding quotes files and really handy on  layouts or Artist trading cards. Autumn is the theme this month and I love the colours the reds oranges, yellows and browns all those rich lovely earthy colours are so wonderful to create with.

For this project,

I chose to use the large SCRAPWARE Doily ...

 

I was lucky enough to have a bunch of Autumn photos of my boys on a camping trip. This was one of those forever moments.  I think I may have muttered the usual "settle down someone s going to get hurt" towards the end when someone did ...but I chose to remember this moment for the boys going crazy throwing leaves and laughing.

They were in heaven under a giant tree that had "snowed", down its beautiful yellow leaves all weekend we camped under it. Every time there was a gust of wind it was an amazing sight to behold as hundred of leaves fluttered and glided through the air. They seemed to dance as twisting and turning through beams of sunshine. When they finally made their way to the ground, they looked like they had created a patchwork blanket  just perfect for a lay down. Or so my eldest Daniel thought laying down closing his eyes not seeing his brothers whispering to bury him under a pile of leaves!!! Id never known what to do with.these photos. No one photo stood out but all of them told them together told a wild story. Then inspiration struck ..."Autumn is a mosaic"!


That's it !!! I would create a mosaic, of sorts! LOL I had just gotten some beautiful Bo Bunny " a gift of love" double sided  papers from the SCRAPTIVATE store. These papers were  patterned on one side plain on the other and they were all perfect Autumn colours.
So I set about creating a template to divide up the inner circle of the doily,
which I then traced onto the push out centre circle of the SCRAPWARE Doily .

I made the sections or what looks like a"spoke" in line with where each leaf shape occurred, around the outside circle. Then carefully cut the pieces out where the photos would be according to my homemade template. 

I returned the center circle to the outside frame and glued some brown card stock down onto the back to hold it together while I painted it .

I used Tim Holtz Crackle paint - "Spiced marmalade", to get that cracked paint/aged effect. Then rubbed some chalk ink pads over the dried cracked paint to match the papers. Then watered down some Tim Holtz - "walnut Stain" and used it as a wash.

In the photo bellow I am demonstrating how I use the stain straight out off the sponge tip on the bottle with a wet brush. Here Ive brushed it on as a wash over the painted chipboard to tone down a bright orange paint. As you can see, I use the back of my hand to take off the excess stain or water.
 My husband says normal people would use a piece of scrap paper!
So I say ...whatever works or is handy at the time!  LOL

The Distress stain soaked  nicely into the cracks highlighting some areas and toning  down some of the brighter colours giving them that antiqued look.
  
When the frame had dried fully I positioned each photograph and trimmed it down to fit each space. I found it easiest to stick the photos individually onto the back of the frame. I also cut some leaves out of a piece of the patterned Bo Bunny papers and stuck them onto the back of the chipboard doily's leaf shapes, as seen below...

I also inked up the SCRAPWARE "Impact" alphabet letters spelling Autumn to create the title.
Threw on some distress stained skeleton leaves and added some strip journaling to finish.

Hope this helps you begin to get all geared up and inspired

just perfect for nothing else but...
 SCRAPBOOKING ...YaY!!!

I have my SCRAPWARE stash
I am ready for scrappy
hibernation  !

:)ready for the long beautiful glorious rainy cold days of winter to come....

SCRAPWARE TEXTURED ARTIST TRADING CARDS

These are some of the Artist Trading cards I have made recently

I have been enjoying exploring textures using SCRAPWARES ATC, bases and frames.

For anyone unsure of what an Artist Trading Card (ATCs)
here is a quick overview...

They are little artworks 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches in size or 64mm x 89 mm for we folk who live in metric land. ATCs have a wonderful, rich history and have been being created and exchanged as far back as the 16th century. In more recent history scrapbookers and papercrafters have taken an interest in making these cards.

They are usually made in sets of three or five and given away or swapped with other artists for their cards.Technically they cannot be sold but similar works of the same specifications can be made to be sold they are called ACEOs  ( Art Cards, Editions and Originals)

Some people take part in organised swaps over the internet, making their cards and posting them to a designated organiser who then in turn posts them to participants'.  Cards can also be exchanged in person at swap meetings often hosted by ATC hobby groups. I have know of people who created, swapped and or collected thousands of Artist trading cards  from all over the world. They can be displayed and there specialised display trays or collected in albums.

CLICK HERE or HERE
If you are interested in seeing or finding out a little bit more. about ATCs.

SCRAPWARE Artist Trading Card products come in a number of forms. All are to specifications, everything from the the plain rectangular bases to fine elaborate filigree frames. Alot of the gorgeous  Arty/Miniatures SCRAPWARE products are perfect for ATC as are many of the other smaller chipboard pieces. That said there is no reason to restrict yourself to only creating ATCs with the ATC range They can also be used for mountings, as card topper's, for journalling or "Blocking" on scrapbook pages and as the base for creating the lovely clay tile mosaics that have
 been popping up on all sorts of creative blogs of late. see one of my favourite artists Laurie Mika
If you think having a go at an ATC would be something you'd like to try I will help as much as I can and you can contact me through my blog but I suggest get yourself some SCRAPWARE  bases and create a few pretty collaged card toppers that's a good way to get a feel for the challenge of workking is such a small space. Or illustrate a quote or poem that is my favourite method to make ATC.

For this set of ATCs I wanted to create some depth, layers and textures and see if I could do that using my gorgeous much loved CUTTLEBUG, gifted to me by a dear friend Natalie Woofe who you all know from the DT ***waving*** The CUTTLEBUG for those of you who don't know is a very easy to use cutting/embossing machine. Its one of many on the market and has a number of different patterned embossing folders you can purchase to use with it. Brilliant for using with the less finer larger SCRAPWARE pieces, especially with birds, flowers, crowns and most especially the stylish Audrey and Lucie SCRAPWARE dress makers Torso's.

The ATC SCRAPWARE base card we rolled through the cuttlebug and then layered and decorated with metal shim, LUMIERE PAINTs (my fav in all the world) different glues glass seed beads and Golden glass bead gel medium some places were heated and paint or medium heated til it boiled and blistered with a heat gun to create texture. Three words if your going to try this at home  people ...ventilation ventilation,VENTILATION! LOL Although its a bit of a "pongee" techniqueue it gives some wonderful interesting results, I think. Hence this set of cards have been titled "THE ART IS LIFE" experimental set. The face is created out of paper clay which is light and especially easy to use on ATCs.

A CUTTLEBUGed SCRAPWARE ATC BASE AND FLOWERS

The flowers are raw and the same SWIRL embossing folder I used for the "hypnotic" ATC the SCRAPWARE base is cog pattern simply rubbed with an ink pad!

Despite there not being alot of SCRAPWARE to see on these I really wanted show just how awesome the ATC products are The bases benefits are many as i said before they are versatile, they are a heavy chipboard to minimise bowing and curling that comes with using mix media on thinner ATC card, precision in size beautiful frames I could cut anddddd..... the conveniece of not having to cut tiny bases to size. If you find yourself in a number of swaps, that can be anything up to ten cards each that's a large amount of time saved!!! (Hence  ANGE can NEVER stop manufacturing them now I am addicted to them! LOL). 

I also liked how using the plain SCRAPWARE frame drew you eye in and added a little protection to the texture areas. ( I was not so lucky on the Hypnotic card. I pushed air into the glaze on the card to make air bubbles and then like a clumsy oaf lent on it as I got up popping them! sheshhh!)

If you're still reading this ridiculously long blog post.... thank you

and I hope you've been inspired to go and create something,

 anything but hopefully... an Artist Trading Card! LOL

I have more beautiful SCRAPWARE to go play with now and some more creations

in the works I hope to "post" to you really soon!

:)

SCRAPWARE ...a wise choice indeed!

I hope you enjoy my latest project for the salubrious SCRAPWARE and well quite honestly it was mostly an accident! I love this piece of canvas cardart but it actually started life as a card for my 87 year old grandfathers birthday which we celebrated on the weekend. I have to admit I grew increasingly concerned as I felt possessed to use diamante embosing powder and Tattered Angels Glimmer Glams*. It looked great and I was happy with it and whatever muse had me in its grips guided me to a box of googly eyes and....

well I knew...had NO doubts then ...it had to be for my gorgeous nephew Zak who's birthday

is a day after his great grandfather's. LOL

PRODUCTS USED: two 15 x 20cm Canvas's, Lumiere paints,Yellow and Junikins Diamond sparkle embossing powder,  Tattered Angels glimmer glam*, Carolees creation adorn it mini alpha stickers, silver paper, googly eyes and ...

These SCRAPWARE products ...

It took me a couple of hours, 4 inks, a couple paints and an artline permanent marker's worth of playing till I was happy with the owl. Finally paydirt a stipple, fan or corse hair paint brush to almost dry brush Dimensional magic clear glaze over him to make him to create that feathery look.

Diamond sparkle embossing powder look AMAZING as stars sadly for some reason the camera didn't pick up the dazzling effect very well. It was strange every time the cameras focused the lovely holographic sparkle all but didisappeared so I took one out of  focus just for you guys! LOL

I also used a tiny wash of *Tattered Angels Glimmer Glams which gave just as gorgeous effect, except finer. The glimmer Glams are a fluid liquid wash you can put over a canvas or art work for some sparkle. The glitter in them is quite fine and the bottle needs to be thoroughly shook before you use it to get the best effect. The wash can be almost clear as the one I used called "chandelier" or tinted with a translucent colour. There are dozens of different tints and I have to say this has been one of the BRILLIANT "finds" of last year.

 I dismissed them for ages "oh just another glitter for girly girl's scrapbooking pages ...boring"! But boring they are NOT they can just add that final arty zing to a collage or magical sparkle to a background paper.

Oh and have I mentioned they are AWESOME for chipboard!

I have used SCRAPWARE pieces raw on cards or layout just with a tinted wash of glimmer glams or I have painted SCRAPWARE then gone over the top with glimmer glams for a subtle sparkle...if you haven't tried a bottle I highly recommend you get one my favourite and I think the most versatile to start with is "chandelier" but once you're page pops you just cant stop at one!!! LOL

:)