Garden Themed Prayer Flags and Carving a Bracket Frame

   Thankfully we had an entire day and evening of rain the other day which kept me inside to catch up on housework and then reward myself with another stamp carving lesson and finishing 9 prayer flags for a swap I'm in.

   First up: My garden themed prayer flags-

    This swap was hosted by Barb Burkard thru FaceBook after being inspired by the prayer flags picured recently on that site. You can see the first prayer flag I ever made here. Most of the flags on FB had been uploaded by Jane LaFazio who heads up The Prayer Flag Project.  Barb chose a garden theme. There are nine participants. Along with Barb and I are Megan Hull, Martha Brown, Tanya Peacock, G Ian Gioseffi, Sandee Hyde, Nancy Maxwell James and Dawn Gold. I am so thrilled to be amongst such accomplished artists!

   I chose to use a variety of bright floral fabrics, white flowery laces, printed silk flowers (I don't remember where these came from but I had exactly 9 of them and it was perfect that the word "love" along with other affirmations was printed on them!), heart buttons and vintage buttons. The sentiment is an unmounted stamp from Impression Obsession. I stamped it onto a piece of white muslin with a fabric ink (Crafter's-by Clearsnap) which I'm not even sure is manufactured today. I sewed it only on the sides and bottom so it left a "pocket" in which one could slip some names into it if they so choose. My flags are not precision cut or sewn as I chose to give them an "organic" look-meaning really that I didn't want to take the time to mark and measure :). Also, my machine is a bit old and sometimes stitches inconsistently (perfect for mixed media art). I also left edges frayed and left end threads hanging. I'm so looking forward to receiving my flags from everyone and will post a pic of them hanging as soon as I get them.

   And now- my next online Stamp Carving 101 lesson-Lesson Five-the Bracket Stamp. You can click the icon on the side bar at right for a link to the class description and you can see my progress thru the lessons beginning with lesson 1 here. I am thoroughly enjoying the challenges of each lesson and then creating a tag for myself and for Lenna Andrews who's participating with me.

  Getting there:

  

   As you can see, this stamp required ALOT of carving and I did it in several sittings at different times. The bracket is a design Julie gave us to use and I chose to stick with it although some others chose other designs they found. I didn't find one online I wanted to use and didn't want to take more time looking. Print finally looks good and I'm ready to make the tags.

   I placed the tags side by side and stamped my frame repeatedly using Bright Yellow acrylic paint by Americana. Then, of course, I sprayed away with Dylusions spray inks in Pure Sunshine, Squeezed Orange, Fresh Lime, Vibrant Turquoise and Black Marble.

   I LOVE the way this turned out! See how the acrylic paint stamped frame acted somewhat as a resist to the inks?

   And here are the finished tags:

 

   The bracket frame was stamped with Staz -On Jet Black ink then trimmed.The sentiment is an old Close To My Heart rubber stamp and that was stamped in Peacock Feathers Distress ink by Ranger. A few paper flowers, a felt butterfly and a pretty ribbon finished them.

  The next lesson (I'm currently working on) is a damask stamp carving-much more intricate-but I say-bring it on!

  Thanks so much for stopping by. Your comments are so appreciated too. Feel free to contact me anytime if you have any questions about anything on my blog. I will have something very special to share very soon-it has something to do with the wonderful world of blogging and giving. Stay tuned. Until next time,

   "Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.    
    Your bright eyes, your easy smile is your museum."  Ansel Adams

Spiritual Growth Journal Play

  A quick post for today-as the weather becomes increasingly warm and beautiful it's getting harder and harder to spend alot of time inside whether it's at the computer or in the art room. I hope wherever you are you are enjoying the season.

  I'm half way thru my online stamp carving class (click on icon at right in the side bar for class info) and have another post on lesson 5 coming soon. But for now I'll share a journal spread I'm working on (it doesn't look finished to me). This is for Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Everyday Project. Anyone can play along at any time and there are no commitments so if you've done some art journaling Julie has a post each week you can link your pages to. It's also a great way to meet others who post their pages and there's always lots of inspiration and ideas.

  Growing spiritually is something I'm always working on. However, it seems that especially in Spring (which in itself is a time of renewal and growth) I begin to meditate and read more about our connections to the universe and the power we have within ourselves-pretty amazing. Ok, I won't go any further than this, just wanted to explain where this spread came from.

  Obviously, I'm still spraying away with Dylusions ink sprays! I was playing around with my carved chevron stamps from Lesson 4  which you can read about by clicking on the link. I kept thinking about a path so I found this quote that I felt went with this page and the words "spiritual growth".
I'll leave you with the quote I used. Have a beautiful weekend. Thank you for stopping by.

  "The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one."
                                                                                                                       M. Scott Peck

Another Lesson in Chevron Stamp Carving

  Hopefully I can get thru this post before yet another thunderstorm comes. It's gotten much cooler since yesterday and it certainly was almost a record breaking cool, no, cold! 46 degrees during the night. Thank goodness it's on its way out . I don't want to have to bring out a sweatshirt and slipper socks again for a long time :)

 Yesterday was special to me. I called my friend Lenna Andrews who's taking Stamp Carving 101 online with me and collaborating on a tag project with me. Actually, I called because I was working on Lesson 5 and needed a break, as all the carving involved was starting to make me a little nutty, not to mention my eyes were starting to blur.  I left her a mssg. and when she called back we talked  quite awhile, like friends do. I love when I actually have the opportunity to speak with an online friend because it's so fun being able to put a voice to a name and photo. Lenna's voice is as sweet as her photos just as I expected!

  Now, for the carving. I've completed Lesson 4 which is a chevron set and am quite pleased with the results. Julie also showed another sample set which is a set of banners. I plan on making them at some point too-especially after seeing Lenna's which you can see here. I just love them!

   These are my carvings along with the stamped images:

  


  This is a sampler tag I made for Lenna and I:

  And here are my finished tags for us:

   I am so hooked on the Dylusions ink sprays and just couldn't resist using them again. The tags were sprayed with Bubblegum Pink and Pure Sunshine-YUM!! The quote is a Stamper's Anonymous rubber stamp. That's my first carved stamp, a heart from Lesson 1 at the bottom. Lesson 5 is just about completed so I 'll be posting that soon. Until next time...and many thanks for stopping by!

      "What seems to be a dead end may be an arrow pointing you in an unexpected direction."

                                                                                                                           Bashar

It's a Man-tastic Tuesday Trigger!

  Just have time for  a quick post-after my last post only hours ago we were hit with numerous fairly quick but also intense thunderstorms-one of which produced pea sized hail!! Thank goodness the bits of ice were small enough not to cause any damage. So before the next one arrives....

  Fortunately I had more than a week to make a card for this trigger at Moxie Fab World. I love being challenged like this and Cath finds the most enticing photos that just seem to reel me in!

   Here's the trigger:

 



   and here is my take:

   OK, I know, it's not  "man" tastic , but I am a girly-girl and knew immediately where I wanted to go with this :) I tried to stay with the basic design and color theme. I sewed a line between the leaves with brown thread.

   Products used: Inks; VersaFine Vintage Sepia (Tsukineko), Marvy Matchables #12 Grey, (Uchida), Colorbox Antique Pewter and Skye Blue (Clearsnap), Distress Ink in Festive Berries and Peacock Feathers (Ranger); fabric rose border (Hobby Lobby); clear stamps -Think Big Favorites #4 set,  Sending You set (PaperTrey Ink).

  I can't wait to go and see what some of the others have done with this trigger...the creativity is amazing!

       "Opportunities show up in direct proportion to your willingness to recognize them."
                                                                                                            Alan Cohen

A New Calendar Spread and Art Journaling

   Happy Sunday! I'll probably post several times between today and tomorrow to catch up with the projects I'm currently involved in. The weather has been so beautiful that it's difficult to spend time in my art room when I'd rather be outside watching my hummingbirds and relishing in the beauty of Spring.

   For this week's Art Journal Everyday project I'm going to submit the pages I also did for Kate Crane's 366 Calendar project.  Click on the links for more information. Anyone can join at any time and there's always lots of sharing and inspiration from other member's blogs too!

   For this spread I used acrylic paints in a pink, orange, turquoise and chartreuse. Sorry, I don't recall exactly which brands I used or the specific names as I just randomly grabbed them from a huge drawer filled with a variety of acrylics . I must remember to make a note of it next time. The designs are from one stencil I used- this time a Dylusions 9" x 12" Dotted Flower stencil which I purchased at Collage Stuff. There are lots of really great stencils out there but I am totally hooked on Dylusions and Balzer Designs stencils because you can get versatile and unique designs in two different sizes. Lisa has a fantastic selection of both these brands.

   And here is my calendar spread for June:

   I just love having bright ,happy, colorful pages! It makes it such a pleasure to open it up each day to record a mssg. You can see my other calendar spreads beginning with January thru March on my Flickr photostream, then beginning with April here on my blog.

  I'll be back later to post a card challenge and more stamp carving fun so, stay tuned. It's a joy to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by.

                        "Sometimes your JOY is the source of your smile,

                          but sometimes your SMILE can be the source of your joy."

                                                                                                   Thich Nhat Hanh