Button Apple Card

 Schools back in session so why not let your Childs teacher know early on just how much you appreciate them with this easy to make button apple card?

Day of the Dead Crafts/ Dia De Los Muertos

 The Day of the Dead — El Día de Muertos in Spanish — is celebrated on Nov. 1 and Nov 2. The Mexican holiday celebrates loved ones who have passed on by welcoming back the souls of deceased friends and relatives with their favorite drinks, food, music and more. 

Below you will find some of my favorite creations I have made using my rubber stamp designs!

Stamps used: 

Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls

Assorted Flowers, Flourishes, Mustache and line art

See my entire stamp collection here!

Day of the Dead Shrines

Sugar Skull ATC

Sugar Skull Sun Catcher

Flaming Sugar Skull ATC

Sugar Skull Art Cards!

Visit the Blank Page Muse blog hop for more Day of the Dead creations! 

Watercolored Birthday Cards

 Hi Everyone, here are some fun ways to accent your water colored or stamped birthday cards! 

 

All about Artist Trading Cards

 People ask what is so great about "Artist Trading Cards" all the time.

I just have to say that they are fun to make and create! I consider them Miniature works of Art!
Artist Trading cards are also known as ATC's.

Size:
They must be 2.5"x3.5" or 64x89mm. And are meant for trading ONLY. Usually through the mail via various yahoo groups or in person at a gathering. (The art card above was created for a annual Fiskateer event where everyone made 50+ cards with our photo on the front and our personal info on the back.)

Materials:
ATC's usually are made of a sturdy chipboard backing to ensure safe mailing. I like to recycle cereal and cracker boxes for ATC bases. In the past I used to score and cut each card on my paper trimmer. I went through quite a bit of blades this way! 

I have also made my ATC's with painted vinyl, soda cans, fabric, .....
Craft stores carry a line of Trading card sleeves, envelopes and baggies meant to keep them safe till swapped.

There are usually themes for a swap you might participate in. Here the theme was Nesting dolls. And as long as I kept my shape under 2.5"x3.5", I could use any shape. So I created a hand sewn doll that folds out to show to smaller nesting dolls. Go here to see more nesting dolls.

For the Alice in Wonderland swap, instead of making all my ATC's to be the same, I used a few brochures for the new movie and cut out images for each card. Then I accented them with glitter glue and shrink plastic key charms. I accented the edges with a gold leaf pen. See more Alice in Wonderland here!Sometimes the swap host will provide a template of the shape to use. In this case it was a house I printed out and made a template from card board. I hand cut each ATC and covered it with paper, added a vintage packaging tape transfer image, added some wings from a butterfly punch (cut in two) and finished it off with a few rub-ons.

This Bingo card was created with a rubber stamp made just for art cards. Now days you can also find scores of images or back ground stamps in the exact sizing for your art cards.
The butterfly is one of my favorites and I created it using a variety of alcohol inks. 

The theme was Mardi Gras masks. The top piece of the mask was made from the clear packaging some of your craft products come in. You can see the rest of the Mardi Gras masks here.
Here I hand cut women images from fabric and mod podged them to the paper on the card.
I colored one side of clear vinyl with alcohol inks and them stamped the reverse side with a music sheet stamp and staz- on/ The theme was Easter- hence the eggs.

For a fairy tales theme. I stamped a piece of card stock with a Snow white stamp, colored in the parts needed and covered the image with crackle glaze. The rest of the card is covered in vintage inspired wrapping paper, stamped tissue paper and the edges finished with a gold leafing pen.
For the next two Halloween cards, I just accented already great images with glitter glue and buttons. Then I used my FAVORITE pens, Sakura Soufflé pens that turn opaque on dark paper just like magic!

See more Halloween cards here!

For the Witch card, I brushed the raw side of the ATC blank with white gesso, them ran over it with lime green acrylic. Before that had started to set I added one more layer of crackle glaze. The image is just a basic run of the mill photo copy to which I adhered to the card. I rubbed a little of the gesso around the image edges, added some glitter glue and finished with the soufflé pen.

When you are ready to send out your cards, it's important to add the following:

• Your name
• Your city/sate or country
• Name of the swap
• Date 
• ATC number- 1 of 6, 2 of 6, and so on. 

You can all this to the back of each ATC hand or by using
one my of ATC rubber stamps from Blank Page Muse*.
*Save 15% off your order with discount code BPMMichelle

There are many ways to store your art cards. I displayed the Halloween ones on a vacant wall one year for the month of October. I also store them by year in a 3 ring binder using Trading card pockets. These can be found in any store that sells trading cards.

It's nice to browse the book and be re inspired every now and then. :)


If you are interested in participating in some Artist Trading Card swaps, please consider joining our group.- Mixed Media Art Charms and Faerie Garden Swaps. 

Owl Love You - Stamped Tag and Mini Book

Its my Birthday today and I wanted to share a favorite tutorial of mine from when my Owl Stamps first came out. Enjoy!

Almost Done

This is card # 3, made up then scanned for our possible family Christmas card. My holiday banner is card # 2 and if you scroll down a few post, Card #1 "Believe" is the one that made the cut.
I believe I'm almost done with Christmas shopping. I won't see some of my friends and family until after the new year, so that gives me some time.


Wed, I plan to get the oil changed then have a hopefully stress free trip to Hilo Hati at the block of Orange. It's a yearly thing for me to get Brian and Dyllan matching Hawaiian shirts. I also scour the papers looking for their annual 40% off coupon to which I scored two!

Then possible lunch at Johnny Rockets and then home for a nap(both of us) cause I have a potluck party later that night.

I've been receiving the swaps from the 12 days of Christmas swap I hosted. I'm very excited that it's going well and can't wait to show off all the wonderful mini-masterpieces soon!

Another note, remember way back when when I had my 100th post winners? There were 14 of them and I'm just now getting their goodies out! Sorry !

I also asked 12 people to send me their profile pic. I got 12 total. These surprises will be going out in Jan-2008 because of the detail involved. I really hope the girls like what they will get!

I have not added to my shop in like a month! and I'm not happy with that, but then I have to blame the holidays cause I always take on more than I can chew even when I scaled back a ton!

I have alot of "new" surprises to add to my shop that I can't wait to share with you next year! Some of it is old school talent that is starting to re-emerge and the rest is myself really applying my energies to what I've never done before! I'm very excited!

~ So now I'm off to finish "crafty" things while I watch the DVD series "House" - I'm so hooked!
Thursday is my "finish the baking or bust" day.

Card making and stuff....

*
~ Our home is safe from the fires but not from the smoke! We are fairly close to Camp Pendleton's fire and it's just awful! The sky is orange. We are staying in the with air conditioner on auto and 2 air purifiers running.
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~As you may have read earlier, I went to my Mom's in Borrego Springs for a visit with Dyllan on Sat, and came home on Monday. During the stay, the only time the tv was on was to play Dyllan's Dvd's. And plus the air was fantastic in the desert, blue skies with lots of wind. We had no clue to what was going on in California until Monday. All the normal ways out of Borrego were closed or on fire. I ended up adding 2 hrs onto my already 2 hr drive to take the "back" way out of Salton Sea and Palm Springs route. I will post pic's from this visit soon.

My Muse, My Gallery

Ever have one of those days that you just need to be reminded of all the wonderful things you've created? These are items that I've long since sold on e-bay, way before I even discovered the wonderful world of etsy. In a way I'm "showing off" to all my blogging friends, but I'm also giving myself a portal to view the little treasures that I created with all my heart. In a way I miss them, they were like little children. But then they do remind me what I'm capable of in the future.

Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoy.


"Butterfly Kisses"

"ATC holders"

"Faerie Bride"

"Gypsy Charms"

"Raven Tags"




"Make a Wish"