Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt!

Good morning! What better way to start the week than with the first ever Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt? If you've just come from Manna's blog I'm sure you have just been treated to some wonderful artwork. I absolutely love everything she does!

If this is your first stop, you need to make sure you head over to the Design Junkies blog. As you go from blog to blog, you'll be collecting 'treasures'. When you have collected one from each blog (starting at the DJ blog) you will put them all together and enter to win an AMAZING prize on Pat Huntoon's blog.

My card features a background I made using the Gesso Off technique from the upcoming August/September issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter. I morphed mine just a bit by adding a smidge of Distress ink over the top of the card. This promises to be a very addicting technique!

I've used some wonderful stamps from Innovative Stamp Creations and I Brake for Stamps. Both of these companies are TJ sponsors and both have an incredible selection of rubber stamps. Make sure you stop by and check them out!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Your treasure for this stop is the letter:

(That's the letter O in case you can't tell!)

Your next, and final, stop will be Pat Huntoon's fantastic blog - The Technique Trail. Enjoy!

Gothic Arches - Bathing Beauties

The By the Sea collection of rubber stamps from Oxford Impressions is perfect for today's Gothic Arches theme. This lady in particular is one of my favorites!

Technique Junkies - Pigment Spritz

I made this card today using the Pigment Spritz technique from the latest Technique Junkie Newsletter. It's a shame that the scan doesn't at all capture the shimmer in this technique - it is so pretty in real life! I am absolutely in love with these stamps from Starving Artistamps. They are just perfect with this technique.

Make sure you check back on Monday - the Technique Junkie Design Team is having its first Treasure Hunt! We will all be showing sneak peeks of the fantastic techniques from the August/September newsletter. The final stop will be Pat Huntoon's blog where you will have a chance to win a lifetime membership to Technique Junkies! How cool is that?

That Sounds Like a Dare!

Some friends and I are planning to play around with wax collage/encaustics soon. Someone mentioned we shouldn't use acrylic paints with wax. Why, I wondered? It seems like it might have a cool reaction. Well, because it's just not done. Hmmmm.....sounded like a challenge to me. How do I know if I haven't tried it? You know, I almost named my blog 'I Wonder What Would Happen If....?'

I hurried out to my studio to see what would happen. If it was a total bust, at least I could say I tried. I grabbed a piece of cardstock and glued down the nearest scraps of paper available. I added a beautiful image that I got here. I used my heat gun (I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon too) and melted some beeswax over the whole thing. When it was cool, I broke out my new Adirondack Dabber and started dabbing. While it was wet I hit it with the heat gun again and it did what I thought it might. It reacted with the wax and started breaking into chunks and was suspended in the wax. VERY cool!

I just found this fantastic quote:

"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun."
- Mary Lou Cook

I think I'll make that my tagline!

Wednesday Stamper - Colorful

For Wednesday Stamper's Colorful theme. I was experimenting with Trish Bee's Gold Leaf resist technique, but was doing it from memory and didn't realize I was supposed to use watercolors. Ooops! I used acrylics but still like the look of it. Elephant stamp is one of my faves from The Stampsmith's Passage to India plate. The whole piece is stitched on to a piece of black velvet. Very hard to see from the scan.

I'm thinking it would make a really cool purse. I don't know how I'd protect the paper though....maybe just scan the whole thing and then print it on fabric? Iron on transfer?

Created Byhand Challenge - Inchies

One thing I have just never gotten into is inchies - they are just so small. When I saw that they were the theme for this week's Created Byhand challenge I was like, too bad for me! Then I remembered this bracelet I made a couple years ago for Innovative Stamp Creations.

I used the inchie stamp sheet to make little fabric charms for a bracelet. I also made a little box for it to go in. To make the charms I first stamped the images onto tissue paper which I then fused to felt. I think I'd also just got my Cuttlebug and was obsessed with cutting things out with it! The flowers are felt that was cut using a Quickutz die.

I think that was about the first and last time I ever made an inchie!

***Char and Ellen asked how you fuse paper to felt. I originally saw this in an issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. In it the artist stamped and painted tissue paper and then fused it to felt using fusible webbing. This is kind of a simplified version of that.

Tag Tuesday - Emboss It!

I was so happy to see the theme for this week's Tag Tuesday was embossing! I think we need a revival when it comes to embossing. I've heard it disparaged too many times as not something 'real' artists would use. Ha! I totally disagree. There are so many cool things you can do with embossing powder.

For this tag I used it in a couple of different ways. I did a bit of faux batik and then finished by embossing the poppies (from Starving Artistamps, I love this stamp!) in white.

I thought this little girl photo stamp from Oxford Impressions was the perfect image for the tag. She was stamped on glossy paper using Ranger's Archival ink and then colored with a water pen and Distress inks.

Theme Thursday - Red & Black & and a Nice Surprise

I first saw this Tri Shutter card when fellow TJer Kathie McGuire posted it to the Technique Junkies Yahoo group. Her card was so beautiful, I knew I had to try one! I have always loved.....hmmm...what do you call it? Paper construction? Cards that do things, I guess. Three dimesional pieces. This is such a fantastic card - looks incredibly complicated, but is only four scores and two cuts. Easy peasy. Here are the instructions as well as more very cool samples.

I decided that I would teach this at our local stamp club this month, but hadn't made up my sample yet. When I saw the Theme Thursday challenge was Red and Black, everything clicked into place! This is one of my fave color combinations and what goes perfect with red and black? Paris!

I pulled out all of my various French-themed stamps from Oxford Impressions and got to work. I also used a harlequin background from Time to Stamp/I Brake for Stamps and a typewriter key alpha set from Vickie Enkoff/Alluring Impressions.

For attaching all the bits and pieces, I used the UHU Photo Stick that the wonderful people over at the Glue With UHU blog sent me. It works great!

Card When Closed

I also had a nice surprise the other day. A piece I did AGES ago showed up in the latest Handcrafted magazine. It's always such a treat to get published out of the blue. Here is the piece - main image is from The Stampsmith.
Hey, this one goes with the theme too. I really do love red and black. ;-)

Wednesday Stamper - Country Flag Colors

I am cheating a bit for this week's Wednesday Stamper theme. This is something that I made a couple years ago. It was for a postcard swap on the Tennessee Stampers Yahoo group. I think the theme was 4th of July? Something patriotic anyway. It was one of my first experiments with fabric collage and also the first time I'd ever done an image transfer.

The little boy is my dad. His mom used to dress his brother and him in the most adorable little Army and Navy outfits. He was such a little cutie!