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Saturday, August 30, 2008

Cyclonic



110lb cardstock; Stamp by Joey, painted in watercolor by Tee. We made these for The Game of Clue swap, but we can't trade them until the game ends. What fun! Can't wait for this game to start!

Update:  He did it!  Cyclonic was the killer! (in the game of course)

**Disclaimer: No innocent cards were injured in the making of the coffee rings! **

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Sunshine Seeds - Cherries



The image was not one that I sketched. I found it online when searching for antique seed packets. This was my first attempt at lettering; now that I've done it, I'll continue to practice them.

These three stamps were carved on the seriously soft gray stuff. It's not a good material for big open areas or long lines that need to stand alone and look straight when stamped.

Originally I was going to do a series of cards with different fruits, veggies and flowers. If I do more of these, I'll recarve the packet on PZ white.

Thanks for looking!

Wanna Play?


One of my first carves. How could I say no to this face? These cards are part of the Dragons Swap.

Mosaic Madness



My contribution to the Paper Hoarders Anonymous Swap.

LTC Puzzle - piece no. 8


jacks started the Extreme Letterboxing group and this project is the first from that group that I've participated in.

This is a very unique, unlisted swap. Two people are doing each piece, so chances are that your finished puzzle won't look like mine! However, none of us know who else is involved... so I can't help you in your search.

This is a digital painting on the background. Morgan did it in ArtRage. I then took it to Photoshop and separated the parts to give them dimension and texture. The sea kelp in the background was created with a custom brush. MnM and I worked together on the starfish. The starfish's eyes and the fish's bubbles are embossed.

Dark Ball


A very limited edition! MnM (8 yrs old) drew this pokeball onto the carving material and then carved it all by herself. She finished it and wanted to make a card to trade with people. She picked out all the materials and I helped her with the text only.

Way to go MnM!

Native American Sea Turtle


Cannonball hosted the Turtle Swap and we jumped right in. This turtle is as close as I can remember to a tat that my uncle had.

We used the stamp for the RAK postcards for the Erasercuts group too!


At bed time, Mother used to tell me the stories her mother told her... this was one of them and one of my favorites. I love turtles, u-la-na-wa, almost as much as draygonflies. This story is longer than most clues, but well worth it.

___________________________________

"How Turtle's Back was Cracked"

as told by Gayle Ross

Gayle is a direct descendant of Principal Chief John Ross of the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears, she can often be found at powwows and gatherings around Texas and Oklahoma.

This is what the old people told me when I was a child, about the days when the people and the animals still spoke the same language. Now, in those days Possum and Turtle were best friends. Many people thought it odd that two such very different creatures would be so close, but Possum and Turtle knew they had a lot in common. Neither of them liked to go anywhere in a hurry, and they both loved persimmons.

Here is how they shared persimmons together. Possum would climb a persimmon tree, wrap his strong tail around a limb, and hang. Turtle would come and stand as the foot of the tree, and Possum would swing up and pick a persimmon for himself and eat it. Then he would swing up and pick another one, and Turtle would open his mouth as wide as it would go. Possum would take careful aim and drop the persimmon into Turtles mouth. They could do this for hours.

They were sharing persimmons in this way one day when a wolf came along. The wolf watched the two friends for a while and he saw a way to play what he thought was a pretty funny joke and get a free lunch at the same time.

He went and stood behind Turtle, and when Possum dropped a persimmon, the wolf leaped into the air and snatched it before it could land in Turtle's mouth. When Turtle opened his mouth, he closed his eyes, so he did not see the wolf, all he knew was that he saw Possum drop the persimmon, but it didn't land in his mouth. And after he saw many, many persimmons dropped that he did not eat, Turtle began to get angry.

Possum, up in the tree saw the wolf and realized what was happening. Now if you have a best friend, and you're trying to make a present to him, and someone comes along and steals it, it can make you angry. And that's how it was with Possum. He decided to fix that wolf. He looked all around the tree and found the biggest, ripest persimmon he could find.

Then instead of just dropping the persimmon down to Turtle, he threw it with all the strength he had, and the greedy wolf leaped into the air with his mouth wide open. The persimmon flew down his throat and stuck there, and he choked to death. Possum thought no more about it. He went back to eating persimmons.

When Turtle opened hie eyes and saw the dead wolf, he realized where his persimmons had gone. And the more he thought about how the wolf had stolen his food, the angrier he became. He began to scold the wolf saying, "You were a very greedy wolf! You got what you deserved!" Then he said "Possum and I sure showed you! You wont be stealing any more persimmons." And then, "That was a very brave thing for me to do!" And finally he convinced himself that he alone, Turtle the Mighty Hunter, had slain the greedy wolf.

Now it is a custom for a hunter to take what is call a tribute from an animal he has killed. In this way he captures a piece from the animals spirit, which then belongs to him. Turtle decided he had the right to take a tribute from the dead wolf, so he cut off the wolfs ears. He took them home and fixed them onto two long wooden sticks and made wolf-ear spoons.

In the old days it was another custom to offer a visitor food to eat the very first thing. And there was a special dish that was usually kept cooking at all times just to offer a guest. This was a kind of thick corn soup. Turtle took his wolf-ear spoons and went visiting.

First Turtle visited all his friends. Then he began visiting people he had met once or twice. And then he began to visit people he had not even been introduced to, just so they would offer him a bowl of corn soup, and he could pull out his wolf-ear spoons and eat with them. Pretty soon everyone was talking about what a mighty hunter Turtle must be if he ate corn soup with wolf-ear spoons.

It wasn't long before word got back to the rest of the wolves, and they were angry. This was a terrible insult, for such an insignificant creature as Turtle to be eating corn soup with wolf-ear spoons. The wolves are faster than turtles, and they had no trouble catching Turtle. But then, in the manner of wolves everywhere, they began to argue over what to do with him. Turtle listened, and decided that the only thing he could do would be to keep his wits about him and be ready for any chance that he saw.

Finally one wolf said, "I know what we'll do with you Turtle. We'll build a roaring fire, throw you in it, and burn you alive." Turtle thought very quickly and said, "Oh please do. I'd love it. You see these big strong feet? I could stamp out every spark of your fire before I even got warm."

Well the wolves didn't like that and so they argued some more. Finally one of the wolves said, "I have a idea. Turtle, we'll build that roaring fire. We'll put a clay pot of water on the fire, throw you in, boil you, and make turtle soup!"

Turtle thought very quickly and said, "Oh, please do. I'd love it. You see these big strong feet? I could stamp your pot to pieces before the water could get warm!"

The wolves didn't like that either. They argued and argued and finally one wolf said, "Well then, Turtle, I know what we'll do with you. We'll carry you down to the deepest part of the river and throw you in. We'll stand on the bank and watch you drown!" And Turtle thought very quickly and said, "Oh, no, not the river! Anything but the river!"

Well, as soon as the wolves heard that, of course they carried Turtle down to the riverbank.

They threw him into the water as hard as they could, which should have been fine. Turtles live in the river. But Turtle didn't land in the water the way he thought he would. The wolves threw him so hard, he went spinning end over end as he fell. And landed on his back on a rock in the middle of the river, and then he bounced into the water.

As Turtle swam to the other side of the river, he could feel his back shifting and moving. When he crawled out of the water and looked over his shoulder, he saw that his beautiful shiny shell had been cracked into a dozen pieces.

Now, Turtle wasn't a mighty hunter, but he was a very good doctor. He knew many conjuring secrets. He knew the healing plants and how to prepare them. When he had gathered all the plants he need, he went about the business of doctoring himself, singing, "Gu`daye`wu, Gu`daye`wu (GUNH-dah-YAY-wunh), I have sewn myself together, I have sewn myself together."

And over the time that has passed from that day to this, Turtle's shell has grown strong again. But if you look closely, you can still see the lines where Turtle's back was cracked, and you will never see another turtle eating corn soup from wolf-ear spoons.

Retro Kitty


Who doesn't love Hello Kitty? Nobody brave enough to say so at our house! Miss Kitty was created for the Hello Kitty Swap and man did we get some wonderful cards in this one!

Our Kitty was copied from a Target shoe box. I just love her pointy skirt. Masking was used to stamp the skirt onto various pink papers. These were cut out and attached with foam dots to make the skirt stand out.

When in Rome


This is carved by MnM (8 yrs old) with only a little help by Mom. It was made for her Brownie troop's Thinking Day - but we were late and so the stamp was never used.

The background was created by the two of us as well using Photoshop... printed directly to the card stock and then cut out.


We made it for the Embossing Ring Swap

The Face of a Child

Saturday Night Live used to run a skit called Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy.

This swap was in honor of that skit and bore it's name. I had something else planned for the card, but didn't like the stamp or the cards when it came time to mail 'em. So, MnM sat for a quick five minute sketch and this stamp was the result.

Personal note: I have to learn those shading techniques others use when they carve.

Spiders creep me out!


This one went out in the Fear Factor swap. I have a full explanation for this irrational fear listed in the card's clue.

What's worse than spiders? Their webs. I kid you not. You are walking along on a trail and end up with a face full of web. Yuck right...well... Where's The Spider??? Definitely worse.

After Fay blew through here, we were out cleaning stuff up in the yard. My son, bless his heart, says, "Mom, what's that hanging off your pants?" I looked down and Jiminy Crickets it's a spider. One of these ugly horned suckers. I just about stripped in the front yard. That was the end of the storm clean up for me... for the day!

Peace Returns


This design came to me in a dream; I woke up and sketched it and knew it had to be done.

I kept two copies of this card because the backgrounds are so different, even though they were all created on one piece of 110 lb. watercolor paper. The washes were done wet on wet with salt texture. No two of these are going to be the same.


These are for the Art Therapy Swap on Atlas Quest.






Monday, August 25, 2008

Pocket Gardens Pop-up













Pop-ups just fascinate me and this last card in the set needed to be something special. Well what could be better than illustrating the proverb with a pop-up? So the idea for this card was born. After some trial and error, we figured out how to make it work too. So what does it do? Open it up and see! Scroll down.










A little more









Pages from an old book were treated to watercolor washes, sprinkled with ultra fine glitter and left to dry. Then they were cut and folded to magically become this....


























May your days always be filled with wonder!

Pocket Garden - Shabby Posies

Second in the Pocket Gardens trio and my third LTC. This one is another that I made just because it was fun to do. It includes tea stained pages from an old book, a bunch of flowers stamped in different colors and a punch out of a dragonfly came later. (Thanks go out to Bandaid for my lovely punch!) A few went out with text stamped onto them as well.

The flowers are embossed with liquid embossing. Which is pretty neat stuff.

Pocket Gardens

This is the first card in the Pocket Garden Trio.

It is based on the bookmark I did for that swap. Very fun to to do. One version had the proverb in gold on the front of the card, with a handwritten back page. This second version had the Photoshop back page you see here.

Let's All Skate

The roller skate stamp came out just as I wanted it to. But the beauty of LTCs or ATCs is that you can do more than just let someone get an impression of your stamp. I was asked how I did the shading and rather than send that person a text email, I scanned some pics and decided to put the steps here.


The stamped image looked fine to Morgan, but I had a vision and wanted more. So I grabbed my marvey markers, a black glaze gel pen and my pink glitter pen.




First you need to block in the shading with the lightest gray.





Next you can define the shadow with a darker gray. There's quite a jump in color here, and it looks a bit odd now, but once it's all finished this jump makes sense.




Then you can add color to the wheels and laces. They seem shaded because I used the pink over the lines from the stamp. The last thing to do is to use black on the base of the boot and the glitter on the pom poms.
(what girl skated in the 80's without 'em?)


This card was created for the Child of the 80's Swap on Atlas Quest. I had seen a great disco background paper at the local scrapbooking store, but when I got back over there it was gone. This paper was made with custom brushes in Photoshop.

All the shading comes together to add depth to the stamp.

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