Travel Card

Do you like traveling?

I guess there's not too many people that don't like traveling.  Some people think of vacation as going to the beach and do nothing... I guess because I live in the tropics that is just cool for a one day or weekend getaway... but when I think travel... I think of discovering, seeing different countries, learning, being a tourist and wander.

This is a simple card simulating a suitcase...  a big one with passport stamps meaning traveling a lot.

I stamped the sentiments around the image and framed the paper pieced suitcase with ink and washi tape, for a very simple layout design.

A traveler will sure like this card... do you like it?

CAS card

Hello... How's your week going?

I am good... just sharing a Clean-and-Simple style card and stopping by to say hello.

CAS style means you make a project that is easy to replicate...  it sometimes also refer to minimal elements, but not necessary means you don't use less simple techniques. 

Inthis case I went with all very simple and clean in terms of minimum elements.  I used cut out shapes with dies, washi tape, sequins and a sentiment stamp...

Just that over a white cardstock card base...  And some sprayed dots of inks at the end for a final touch...  Very easy to replicate or scraplift...  CAS.

Hope you like it.

Amor Propio

Happy Monday.

It's Holy Week.  For most, this week is very special in terms of religion or the relationship with God.  Others seem to be on vacation mode this week over any other meaning, which I understand because for some this week represents no work, no school, and thus family time.  I guess God is happy if you are with your family after a whole year working and with busy routine.

I don't always go to church, and I am very used of working the whole week as usual, except Friday.  I work in a industry that doesn't believe in most holidays, because we provide service to those who can be off on special days.  But I don't think of this week as vacation either.  I guess I am in the middle.  Not going to be at church once a year because it's Holy Week, but won't be on vacation precisely this week...  Just me... very personal thought.

But it's free time if we count on a long weekend coming up with Good Friday, and this means some rest, maybe creating a little to relieve stress, and just be with family, friends, and myself.

I also think this week is special because people feel that they are looking for meaning, understanding, resolution, new beginnings (Easter), etc.

So I made this layout and it wasn't thinking of Holy Week whatsoever but it kind of relates a bit.  I like this saying or quote that I really don't know who said it, but it goes like this:

"Y empecé a liberarme de todo lo que no era saludable:  situaciones, personas, gustos y cosas.  Lo llamaron egoísmo, yo lo llamé amor propio..."

An English adaptation would be like something like:  "And I started to get free from everything that wasn't healthy (or good):  situations, people, preferences and things.  They called it selfishness, I called it self love..."

I had these pictures taken with new "portrait" feature from iPhone and I loved how they captured different angles and feelings, plus the fact they are black and white (symbol of being transparent... what you see is what you get).  I had this layout on my mind using that phrase.

I wanted this page to be very simple and believe me it was difficult not to stamp something somewhere in the page... LOL...  I used a black cardstock for the background, with pink cardstock and patterned paper.   

I love this collection from Simple Stores, called "I am".  I actually don't have the real size version, just the 6"x6" notebook, but I used two small pages with the little hearts to frame the photos, and fussy cut flowers from other paper to be carefully placed in the page to provide movement and flow.  The gold heart is also from one of the small papers.  Also cut some black and blue circles, used sequins, and the title was made using Thickers.

If you look close, you can see I hand wrote the phrase just above the photos.

This represents new beginnings...  it's me in black and white... This is just who I am.  

Hope you have a great week... at church or not... just be the best person you can be... and have some self love...  God is watching.

Coffee Girl ATC

Hey friends...

I made another ATC for my stamping group.  We do two designs each month and send out to other great 9 people to share our art and get inspired by each other.  This was part of my first set.  Refer to previous post for the other ATC.

For this one I decided to feature a girl drinking coffee (or who knows what she's drinking...LOL!  whatever you decide).  I stamped her in a tag shape cut and colored mainly with watercolor pencils.

You could notice some girls are lighter than others.  I started with a copy for the skin tone and ran out of it so finished all with watercolor pencils.  After all, each ATC is unique, isn't it?

I also used some glossy accents and glitter for the heart in the cup.  Place the image in a design paper as well and really love my coffee girl.  Hope you like it too.

I will share this with my friends at Craft Stamper Magazine.  They always have an Anything Goes challenge in their blog, called Take It Make It Challenge.  Refer to it clicking HERE.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mixed Media ATC

I recently joined an ATC swap group with nine talented ladies.  I love ATC's but I have to admit I don't make them as often as I wish.  An Artist Trading Card made to share and collect talent and art from others is a great idea.  I also think ATC's are versatile because if you don't want to collect them, just reuse them.  Yes, reuse them in a card, as a journaling card, as embellishment in a home decor piece or a scrapbooking page... as part of a tag... you name it.  You can use it as part of another project or just collect them and get inspired.

I made this one for the group and I'm very pleased.

My friends from the ATC group should have received them already so that's why I'm already sharing.

I started spraying some paint and creating sort of a sunrise with reds and yellows...  and then applied modeling paste with a stencil to which I applied purple mica powder that I spread with water.  Love Mica Powder!

The butterfly was stamped over an sprayed watercolor sheet and some of its parts were embossed to add some interest.  Then fussy cut and placed with dimensional adhesives.   Sentiment was stamped in vellum.

I ended up making 11 instead of 10 because I made what I call an Artist Proof first and then made some changes... so it counts.  I also ended up having two with the sentiment on the upper side of card instead of lower.

I will share this with Mixed Media Place friends.  The colors in the current March challenge inspired me somehow to this creation.  

MIXED MEDIA PLACE LINK

I will also share with Take It Make It challenge from Craft Stamper Magazine.  Love this team and all their creations.  Hope they like this too.

CRAFT STAMPER MAG LINK

Thank you for stopping by and thank you for you comments.  Hope you liked my ATC.  I will show you another one in my next post.  :)

Vellum Angel

Today I am sharing a beautiful card I enjoyed making a couple of weeks ago.

I used watercolor paper and painted blue clouds.  I know the sky is blue and the clouds are generally white or beige or even gray...  but love the opposite contrast of colors.  

I stamped the sentiment and parts of a hearts stamp tactically placed.... but the angel and main image is stamped in vellum and then placed on the watercolor painting...so the clouds can be seen through it.  I then used blue cardstock and put over white card base so the scenery can be well framed.

I really enjoyed creating this card and hope you like it.  I will share with my friends at Craft Stamper Magazine and it’s monthly challenge Take It Make It.  Link:  http://craftstamper.blogspot.com/2018/03/take-it-make-it-challenge-march.html?m=1

Funny Personalized Birthday Card

Two days ago I shared a card for a special lady.   Did you see it?  I promised then to show another card I also made for her.  This one's more on the funny side.

This lovely lady likes to get liquor shots... and believe me she does it with grace and can handle more than you think.  When she gets the shots she enjoys saying out loud...  "Up, Down, To the Center, Inside"...  Well this is a very bad translation of the Spanish phrases ... but what I did was to print these as instructions for a happy birthday...  The fifth step is to repeat from 1 to 4 ...

On the design side I still kept the flowery, colorful and delicate side of this woman so I used several layers of papers, over a painted piece of cardstock, a piece of doily, a mini clothespin, chipboard, sequins and more.

Card for a Special Lady

A friend asked me for a card for her mother's birthday.  This fabulous lady is turning 80, and she's stronger than lots of younger women I know.  Her daughter asked for a simple, happy card with flowers and pink...

So, I used these dies from Latina Crafter for the phrase "Feliz cumpleaños" and cut them twice in two different papers so I can layer them and have dimension.

I used pink...  pink cardstock, pink vellum, pink flowers, pink pearls and pink ink...  I think I pleased my friend using pink... right?  And then I added some purple, green, white and beige.

The layers start with the pink card base, then a pink swirl vellum, purple spellbinders cut, then vellum slightly smaller, and then a doily.

I think the card will be liked by my friend's mother... I really hope so.   

This woman is happy, active, and she likes to have her liquor shots you know...  so I confess I made her another card on the funny side just in case she wants to use it too.   Come back in a couple of days and I will show it to you. 

Pretty Girls...

Well I love to make crazy things too.  I've made this before and it's not completely my idea.  I saw something similar to this in a souvenir shop a while ago and I've made some.  This is a photo stand using a clothespin.

For the front I stamped this beautiful image in cardstock and colored with watercolors.  Also stamped a sentiment in vellum and attached.

I glued this to chipboard to make stronger, and then also glued to a piece of wood.  If you don't have wood, you can use any other piece of material just to add weight.

In the back I glued the clothespin slightly above the edge so the piece can have certain inclination and can stand by itself.  

You use it to display pictures...  This was made for someone and not intended to this picture, even though the sentiment goes perfect... LOL...  but here's an example displaying a photo.  I don't know if it should better say "crazy girls are the prettiest"... but ok.  LOL!

Hope you like it and get inspired.

Happy Birthday Card

Today's is one of my best friend's birthday.  It's also International Day of Working Women and she is a hard worker...

Made this very simple card using patterned paper as background and stamping image directly on it.  It is perfectly imperfect since the image gets all the design from paper in places you don't necessarily

want them but that's the whole idea of this fun technique.

I colored just special areas I wanted to "liberate" from the patterned paper, such as her hair, bow, skin and shoes...  Also colored some of the balloons.  The rest is the same paper doing its job.

 

The sentiment is a wood veneer... I needed some dimension.  And that's why I also added some rubber circles to add some more happy colors to the birthday card.

Hope she likes it... and hope you like it too.

Another Jar...

Do you remember a jar for rainy days I recently made?  Well... click HERE if you didn't see it.

A friend asked me for a similar one for her little daughter.   She wanted to give it to her just because.  So in this case, I embellished the mason jar with young girly colors and used a general sentiment about enjoying simple things in life.

Messages are combining stamped sentiments in English and Spanish. Also left some pieces in blank so their parents can write something to her.

Her mom says the intention is that when she is frustrated or mad about not achieving something or any situation, she can grab this and open the jar to read some messages to calm her down.

So my jars are getting famous and are bringing good to others.   Love it.

Mixed Media Challenge: Magic is in your heart

Hello all...

I've made this little piece of art and I love it.  I know I'm bias... I know.  I made it.  But sometimes one don't like a final result on a project and that's fine.

The inspiration comes from current Mixed Media Place challenge.  You can access it HERE.  

Funny that the main color of the challenge is green, but I really got inspired by the phrase more than colors.  "Magic is in your heart".

I had the blessing to travel to Paris two years ago and I felt magic in my heart.  I am from Puerto Rico.... that beautiful little group of little islands in the Caribbean... always tropical weather...  there.   And you see Eiffel Tower in history books and photos and internet, etc... but being there was magic.  That's why the phrase reminded me of that moment and those memories in Paris.

So I grabbed a little piece of chipboard and started creating. I applied gesso as base and then used metals, buttons, jewels, modeling paste, spray paints in blue and orange and more gesso... and more...   I also used mica powder in purple and yes I love this powder.  It is by itself magical when you add water to it.  :) 

Notice the red heart brad on a button... because magic is in my heart...  and also note I intentionally left out some elements and placed after I had colored the piece or just tried to leave them as "original" as possible, because I didn't want them to be painted and wanted them to stand out.  These are the magnet in the center which is the main element of attention (the tower), two jewels -one on center up and another one down to right- because I wanted them to shine (these are my husband and I... symbolically), and the word "memories".   I also tried to be true to the green in the paper clip... After all, the challenge presented lots of green and I want to comply with that... LOL.

I haven't made anything to the photos of this piece -except adding the watermark - because I want you to see the real colors and textures. They are amazing!   Actually, I usually don't modify photos but sometimes add some light to some.  Nothing in this case.

I hope you like it... and I hope my friends at MMP like it enough so I can win this.  LOL...

Will be sharing at their blog HERE.   Stop by and see other fabulous creations.

Spring Tag... well... sort of...

Happy Sunday...

I quickly made a Spring tag to collaborate with current Unity Show & Tell challenge.

However,  I wanted to use this sentiment about strong women coming out and shine amongst all...  So I did use a springy patterned paper but stamped the image with light ink.  I then colored it in a way that it seems she is coming through.  Well... I tried.  And you know I like to add meaning to the elements and the combination of techniques...  So for me, this is the meaning.

The sentiment is also in vellum so you can slightly see through it the rest of the image...

I used some bakers twine, sequins and ribbon to add some interesting elements to the whole composition.  I also framed it all with cardstock to make it stronger and so the back is solid color.

Hope you like it. :)

Have a great week.