December Tags and Christmas Cards

I finally have a little bit of a breather from every day life and thought I would post the December tag exchange tags I made with the theme of "Red" and also the Christmas Cards I made to send to friends and family this year. I made a total of 52 cards which kept me busy! I am looking forward to creating the tags for January very soon!

For the Stocking tag, I used four different red textiles to make up the background, and then used one of the background textiles for the stocking. It is filled with miniature ornaments and more of those mini ornaments are also added to the bottom to give the tag a little bit of movement and interest. The back of the tag is made with a silk fabric with a swatch of cream linen fabric that I stamped the sentiment on, as well as my name and date and added a border with a gold ink blended in the fabric. The trim around the edges is gold ribbon glued to the fabrics. I added bits of different yarns that I had for the tie on top, as well as a few adornments, which you can't see in the picture, tied on the yarn pieces. 

This "Ice Princess" tag starts with textured white gesso with sprinkles of the tiniest specks of glitter, also not visible in the picture. Her hair is made of leaves from a holiday pick to be used in making flower arrangements. I added small dots around the bodice of her dress and also around the  neckline with perfect pearl pen with a tint of blue. The back is covered with a small piece of wallpaper remnant, to which I added the snowflakes and "Red" label made from card stock and glued on. 

Pictured below is the front and back of the card I made and sent along with the tags. The base is made from a piece of holiday card stock, which I left original for the back of the card. The front is a collage which is made from a napkin (the santa) and different ribbons and tissue paper. I added a few stamps and the Ho Ho Ho sentiment is stamped with gold on a red piece of card stock. The top and bottom border is gold ribbon and a piece of red yarn. I liked how it turned out in person, the photo is not so flattering!

I have snapped just a few of the Christmas cards I sent out to friends and family. The tree is made from a coffee filter sprayed with 3 different Dylusion sprays and topped off with a gold tinted Tattered Angels spray. I folded the coffee filter in the shape of the tree and added ornaments that I cut from my different gelli prints. The garland is made from glitter glue and the tree trunks are made from a National Geographic page treated with citra solve. The gifts under the tree are scraps of Christmas wrapping paper cut to different sizes with a hand drawn bow and ribbon on top and down the front. 

Snowflake stamps and a Winter Wishes stamp adorned the back and front of the envelopes.

I am happy to be starting my January tag exchange tags and will share them when I finish up :) 

November Tags and Altered Book Pages

These are my Saturday "creative art day" by products :) I am always inspired by my sister, Sherie, who comes over to my little work space to create with me!

This is a spread in my altered book journal...I am not happy with it, but I am gaining experience through trial and error!

Below, is another spread from the same altered book. Lots of different layers and techniques are used on these pages. It was so much fun experimenting with the different mediums.

Pictured below is another spread from the same book. Here, I used stamps that I made from my very ancient hoard of fun foam, also pictured below! I used the stamps for the ripples in the water, the sea plants on the bottom of the pages, the face and the tail. I am not pleased with this spread either, but I keep telling myself it's all about practicing :)

The first, third and fourth page are experiments with my first batch of home made stamps. I will be painting the faces and not sure where or when I will be using these book pages! Maybe on my journal pages or on a bigger canvas piece.

Finally, I have three tags that I made for a tag swap over on Google + :)

I hope you enjoyed my last two weeks creativity!

Trial and Error with Faces

I am still working on figuring out a style of my own of illustrating faces. I have a feeling that it will take me quite a while to hone my skills in both the illustration and filling in part of it all.

While I have not been quite ready to let Halloween and the inspiration that comes with it go, it led me to make these...

Then Halloween left me long enough to start on this girl...

I am looking forward to practicing some more and learning as I go :)

Journal Pages and More

This is a collection of my recent journal pages, magazine collages, 

halloween ATC's and gelli print tapes.

This is my most recent art journal spread. I had incorporated gelli prints, scrap paper and used dryer sheets which I sprayed with spray inks. You can see the result of that in the wings. I was experimenting with oil pastels and wax pastels. Trying to find the white pen/marker that I preferred using in mixed media was also included in this page. I haven't found my go to white pen yet! The background, first picture below, is made of many different layers of paint, stencils, and papers placed on a gessoed page with graffiti scribbles scratched into it.

The figures are made of geli prints and faces I painted on paper and glued on. Lots of doodles and a few stamps made it complete!

The Halloween ATC cards were a result of a meet up group. The ones you see here are my creations that have since been traded. What a fun event and one that I will for sure attend again.

My sister, Sherie, is a wonderful artist who is trying to show me the ropes with magazine collage...or as I call it, magazine mashup :) The following are my first 3 attempts and this technique is one I hope to get better and better at with experience.

My gelli plate was drying very quickly as a result of working outside on a nice sunny, warm and windy day. I pulled the paint with packing tape and this was the outcome. I can't wait to use them in my journaling and collage work.