Vintage Birds - Altered Envie

My altered envelope for this month's exchange started with an "a ha" moment.  As I was going through my paper stash looking for a piece of 12x12 cardstock, I came upon a package of Graphic 45 patterned paper that I bought a while ago at Tuesday Morning (a small discount store).  I love Graphic 45 designs and I thought I was getting a great deal on a collection of patterned papers.  Imagine my disappointment when I opened the package and discovered not the collection, but 25 sheets of the same design!  I thought, what the heck am I going to do with 25 sheets of the same design?

Yep!  I bought 25 sheets of this two-sided paper.

Well, I shared a couple sheets with a fellow crafter, and then the packet went back into my stash until this month when I stumbled upon it again and had that "a ha" moment:  this paper would make a great envelope!  It's quality, heavy cardstock and the side with the text provides a neutral background.  So I used my We R Memory Keepers envelope punch board (another Tuesday Morning purchase) to create my envelope, then dug through my paper stash for items to build a collage.

The front of the envelope started with a vintage bird illustration from an old natural history book.  The yellow flower was fussy-cut from the same book.  I added an envelope wrap, a scrap torn from a reproduction Sears and Roebuck catalog, and a vintage postage stamp.  The final touches involved some rubber stamping.

The reverse side of the envelope features another bird from the natural history book, scraps of vintage sheet music and book text, rubber stamping, and the other end of the envelope wrap.  See what a great background that dark Graphic 45 paper makes?  I'll have no problem using 25 sheets of that!

Here's hoping you have many happy "a ha" moments yourself.  Thanks for reading my blog, and have a fabulous day!

Handpainted Tulip - Altered Envie

My altered envie partner for July has received the envelope I sent her, so I can share it with you here.

My partner lives in The Netherlands, which is famous for its tulips.  Since my signature flower is the tulip, I decided that would be my theme.  I started by creating my own envelope using a monoprint I made with a Gelli Plate.  I used acrylics to paint my tulip, and let me tell you, that right leaf took a looooong time to get right!  Thank goodness acrylics are very forgiving.

On the back, I wrote a quote by Anaïs Nin:  "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Thanks for stopping in!  Take a risk and blossom.

Giveaway Winner

The winner of the mail art giveaway is...Gemini Norn!

Gemini Norn said:
Welcome „back to Life“ of art and blogs. I love that you used car images from an outdated wall calendar, it made me eye my own current wall calendar with greedy eyes. Thank you for being an inspiration for me today ;-)

Congratulations, my zodiac sister!  And thank you so much for your lovely comment.

If You're Lucky Enough to Be Different - Greeting Card

Do you ever sit down to make something and end up making something else?  (All the time, right?)  Well, that's what happened with this card.  I was trying to make a couple of cards using some monoprints I created (I'll talk about them in a different post), and they just weren't coming together.  So I switched gears and made this card which I plan to send to a friend.  She loves the color purple and I know she will get a kick out of the little girl on the front.  I've nicknamed her Celie, after the character in The Color Purple.

The background started with my monoprint.  To that I added a strip of vintage sheet music (my friend is a classically-trained vocalist) and a circular graph cut from a vintage engine manual (just guessing here, but my friend probably knows little about vintage engines, or modern engines, for that matter).  The sentiment and the Celie "paper doll" are Tim Holtz products.  The butterfly is a rub-on by 7 Gypsies.  To age the papers, I sponged distress inks around the edges.  A dark charcoal pencil was used to outline the sentiment and Celie; a blending stump and my fingers helped to smudge the charcoal.  Because of the charcoal, this card got a quick spritz of acrylic sealant as a final layer.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you haven't already done so, hop over to this blog post and enter to win an original piece of mail art.  You have until July 13, 2018, to enter.  (That's Friday the 13th.  Ooooooh...)

Supplies:
Purple and white cardstock by Bazzill; monoprint on Strathmore bristol vellum paper using purple acrylic paint; vintage sheet music and graphic illustration from my stash; sentiment and paper doll by Tim Holtz; butterfly rub-on by 7 Gypsies; mustard seed and walnut stain distress ink; dark charcoal pencil.

Calendar Cars Mail Art and...a Giveaway!

Hello there!   After a long (unplanned) break from blogging, I decided it was high-time for me to get back into the habit of documenting the things I've been making.  Not that I've been making a lot, mind you, but I have created a few things since I last blogged and I don't want to lose track of them.  So I'm going to jump right in and share with you these postcards I made last weekend using images of vintage cars from an outdated wall calendar.

I started by adhering a road map to pieces of 140 lb watercolor paper cut to size (5x7 inches).  To tone down the map, I scraped on white acrylic paint using an old credit card.  I added stenciling using distress inks.

After adhering the cars, I embellished each postcard with rub-ons, vintage postage stamps, and rubber stamping.  To finish the postcards, I sponged distress ink around the edges and sprayed them with a glossy acrylic sealant.

Gosh, it felt great to sit down and accomplish something at my art table!  And now to blog about it?  It's like I've come back to life.  To celebrate my return to blogging and to thank you for reading this, I'd like to send a piece of mail art to you.  Just leave a comment on this post telling me what you like about these postcards and how I can contact you if you win (an email address would be great).  If more than one person comments, I'll hold a random drawing to decide the winner.

Comment by Friday, July 13, 2018, in order to be entered.  Good luck!  And thanks again for stopping by.

Baseball-themed Sympathy Card

One of my dad's softball buddies, Bobby, passed away recently after suffering some serious illnesses.  I created this card to send to his family.

The background papers are from the Good Ol' Sport collection by Graphic 45.  The baseballs, sentiment and focal image are by Artistic Outpost.  I stamped them on vanilla cardstock and colored them with Prismacolor Premier pencils and distress inks.

My parents met Bobby and his wife through the softball team at the RV park in Arizona where they all spend the winter.  Bobby was the team's pitcher and my dad was the catcher, so they developed a pretty close relationship.  You'll never meet two guys who love playing softball as much as these two!  Here's a photograph of their team the year they took second place in their division.  Bobby is in the front row wearing the burgundy jacket; my dad is in the back row, fourth guy from the right.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Have a wonderful day!

Sending Happy Thoughts - Healing HeArts Mixed Media Postcards

At Healing HeArts this month (the art therapy program I attend for cancer patients, caregivers and family members), the project was right up my alley: mixed media cards.  Healing HeArts is held at a local arts and music academy where we have access to just about every kind of art supply you can imagine, and for this activity, the program facilitator brought hundreds of his own rubber stamps.  I took my basic supplies kit which included some of my favorite vintage ephemera.  To say I enjoyed myself is an understatement!

I made several mixed media collages on watercolor paper that I could send either as postcards or attached to a card front.  I started by cutting watercolor paper to size (4 x 5.25 inches) and doing a quick watercolor wash as a background.  I adhered random pieces of vintage book pages and postage stamps, then stamped on the butterfly, hash marks, and sometimes a sentiment.  Once I got home, I scraped a thin layer of white acrylic paint over the book pages in order to blend them in better, and added cancellation marks over the postage stamps.

I created this collage with the blue background specifically for a friend who recently learned that she has had a recurrence of breast cancer.  I attached it to a card front and sent it to let her know that I was thinking of her.  I love that Healing HeArts had a double benefit this month:  I enjoyed creating these cards, and my friend enjoyed receiving some cheerful mail during a difficult time.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a wonderful day.