Hi everyone, thanks for all your kind words about the new blog. I am just as excited as you (or probably more ;). So, we’re almost at the end of my asian-birthday-cards, and while it’s been really fun to use up this Far East stack I’m also running out of cardstock that combines with the paper, I foresee some shopping on monday.

Today’s card is also my entry for Beate’s Weekend Sketch Challenge #31 :)

The base is for a standard sized card, 4 1/4″ x 11 folded in half in green cardstock and the next layer measures 1/4″ less and the edges are distressed with a scissor. The dark brown mats are from scraps of a dark textured cardstock that I received as RAK and loved, I wonder what brand it is.

The main image panel is stamped with both green inks. I stamped first the darker one and the lighter around it (I know it’s done the other way, but it looked better like this). It’s the first time I try this, and I’ll probably use it again. So simple and yet such a beautiful result.

The sentiment was printed over vellum, taking the colors from the SU! Color Combo site. Yesterday I was bored long enough to make a color swatch for SU! colors based on this site (it works in PSE and most probably PS too) with a list of the colors name’s, though they’re grouped by color family. If you’d like to download it to make your life easier, please let me know and I’ll upload it :) Oh yeah, the fonts on the sentiment are Garamond and Scriptina.

Papers: Wild Wasabi and River Rock cardstock (Stampin Up!), “Far East” 8×8 stack (DCWV), brown textured cardstock.
Stamps: Asian Panes (StampMagick)
Inks: Wild Wasabi and River Rock classic ink (Stampin Up!).
Misc: Vellum, printer, Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon (Stampin Up!), scissor, hobby blade, double sided tape (Scotch).

Hi again! As I mentioned, this week I’ll be making more birthday cards to send to the OSA group. I plan to make at least 15 this year, but only this week’s cards will have “happy birthday” on the front (or so I plan :P).

It’s a standard sized card, 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″. Background is patterned textured cardstock from the Far East collection with a scalloped edge. Again, the sentiment was stamped on vellum and glued across the card, over a layer of kanji patterned paper from the same collection (edges were cut with a scalloped decorative scissor).

The cats were cut out from the back of a K&Co. patterned paper and glued with foam tape over the strip of paper/vellum (I actually cut them out three times looking for the best color).

Oh, I had forgot to mention (but you probably noticed it) that I added my Twitter to my blog sidebar :) It’s more like tidbits of what I do in a day, and an update of when a post is coming (like, I post when I’m taking pictures of the cards, editing, uploading, writing, etc). Thanks for visiting today and happy crafting! :)

Paper: “Far East” 8×8 Stack and MatStack (DCWV), vellum, cardstock (misc.)
Stamps: “Sleeping Cats” (Kodomo Inc.)
Inks: Palette Burnt Umber (Stewart Superior)
Misc: Scalloped edge scissor (misc), hobby blade, corner rounder (EK Success), printer.

Only 2 days left for my birthday, I’m so excited! :)

Today’s card goes also as birthday RAK for one of the OSA girls. Last year I didn’t send as many RAKs as I’d like to, so you could say I’m trying to make up for it (because I received so many and beautiful cards for my birthday).

It also marks the official passing of my mounting foam :( I bought it last year on a store ran by and old man… I haven’t seen the store open for months (I hope nothing happened to the owner) so, in a few hours, we’ll go to the hardware store to see if we find it there (and also if they have heat guns or something like it).

The stamps are by About Art Accents and I don’t remember if I received them as a Thursday Tip prize or with my swap returns (yes, a great thing of OSA, *you* get goodies with your swap returns!) but they are Hanafuda stamps (December) and this is the first time they’ve seen ink! They’re stamped with brown ink, and the background watercolored with blue ink, to accent the leaves (the small flowers are highlighted with white gel pen).

The edges of the hanafuda images, and the brown mat in the background, were distressed with my scissor edge and then I slightly applied pink chalk ink directly over the paper (since the patterned paper has some pink on it).

I made the sentiment on PSE and printed it on vellum (the curvy font is Natalya.). The colors of the words are Chocolate Chip and Blue Bayou (according to the SU! Color Combo generator).

Papers: Blue Bayou cardstock (Stampin Up!), “Far East” 8×8 Stack (DCWV), brown cardstock and light brown textured opaline (both misc.).
Stamps: Hanafuda December (About Art Accents).
Inks: Palette Burnt Umber (Stewart Superior), Blue Bayou classic (Stampin Up!), Pixie Dust Versamagic (Tsukineko).
Misc: White gel pen (Uni-ball signo), scissor, hobby blade, vellum, printer (HP Desjket 3535).

Hello everyone! Sorry I didn’t post in the last few day, I had a major case of “artistic block” because I was also a little bit sick. But now I’m back and ready because in 3 days more it’s my birthday! :D

Today’s card also uses one of my greatly hoarded papers. Back in early 2007 (Jan/Feb?) everyone on OSA was discussing about the “Far East” paper stack by DCWV (I think because it was on sale on some stores). People uploaded their works with them and, eventually, I wanted to have it too! So, after a few weeks of enabling, I went and ordered a 8″ x 8″ from a seller on eBay.

Two months later the fuss about the paper had left the group and the stack I ordered was not in my hands yet. I gave it up as lost, so I ordered a MatStack (4,5″ x 6,5″). Strange thing was that, a week later, I got the first stack! (apparently I had ordered it via “Surface Mail” withouth knowing :p). So I had 2 stacks of this paper and no idea what to do with it.

So yesterday, when I found myself with an urge to create something and no ideas, I reached out for this paper. Dunno why, but this image from Stamp Magick has always reminded me of rain. A muddy rain in this case, therefore the colors.

I distressed the edges on the main panel with my scissor, and the scalloped edge in the background was made with a corner rounder. The ribbon has a fiber wrapped around, except on the knot (which was very hard to work with). And on both the top and bottom of the card there are bamboo leaves stamped with Versamark.

And there it is, another card for the OSA Birthday RAK group ;)

Paper: Green cs, beige handmade paper (unknown), River Rock cardstock (Stampin Up!), “Far East” 8×8 Stack patterned paper (DCWV).
Stamps: Asian Panes (Stamp Magick)
Inks: Versamark (Tsukineko), Palette Burnt Umber (Stewart Superior).
Misc: 1/4″ grossgrain ribbon (Stampin Up!), fiber, corner rounder (EK Success), glue stick (UHU), double sided tape and foam mounting tape (Scotch)

Happy Sunday my stamping friends! How did the first week of the year went for you? I hope you all managed to keep up with those New Year resolutions ;)

I am very happy with myself by the fact that I’ve been creating card with stuff that was only gathering dust on my desk, and that they have turned into something beautiful (if I say so myself, I love my latests cards ♥).

Today I wanted to make a origami project, but it’ll have to wait after lunch (meaning it’ll be late by the time I finish and will be tomorrow’s post). So, I’m leaving you with a special “Flashback Sunday” so you don’t miss me so much :p

Having an online gallery is both a blessing and a curse. Meaning, most of my oldest cards are on the other side of the world and through the years I’ve had several computer crashes, so I can’t really count with the original scan. If it wasn’t for Flickr I wouldn’t have a way to show you this. It’s a curse because, well… you can really go back too much. Some of these early cards make me want to stab my eyes out with the closest sharp object.

Now, this is my first rubberstamped card ever. Seriously. Flickr says I uploaded it on early september of 2006, but I think I actually made it on late August.

When I joined the Oriental Stamp Art Y! group I was just starting to develop an interest on this whole rubberstamping thing. I didn’t had any stamps at all, but a couple of really kind ladies sent me some of their UMs so I could get started creating. One of them was Carolyn Summers and this was a thank you card for her. Ironically, I didn’t use the stamps she sent me, but one I bought myself online. The origami paper is from the same store as the stamp and everything else was locally bought (the coin charm, beads, cardstock). Not even the ink is for rubberstamping, it’s just a standard cheap office inkpad. I remember hated it because the “black” was more “purpleish” but I couldn’t get a decent pad until December.

I still have lots of that origami paper, I bought a pack thinking I could use it for card-making. Truth is, it lacked the golden accents from the other papers so I drew them myself with a golden gel pen. I quickly dropped this idea, lol.

So, today’s lesson is: there is such a thing as improving! (looking at this card and the one I made yesterday). I still have a looong way to go, but at least I now know that I’m a few steps closer to my goal ;) Thanks for looking and see ya tomorrow with a fresh new project!

Today I wanted to go back to make an asian card, but not the “cute” type (like the ones with the Kodomo bunnies). Truth be told, all the elements of this card had not been touched in a long time (from a year to a couple of months). Actually, I received both the cardstock and the washi paper as a birthday RAK last year from a girl at the OSA group.

So, I started with the asian lady panel first (by Stamp Magick). I stamped it three times with Palette Burnt Umber ink over: white cardstock, washi paper and then over a golden paper that I painted. I paper pieced the kimono and adhered it to the white cardstock, cut out the lady and adhered her to the golden panel with dimensionals.

Then I mated the stamped panel to blue textured cardstock (leaving like a 1/16″ border) and then to the same washi paper (a slightly larger border).

Leaving that aside I started working on the card base, which is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of blue textured cardstock folded in half. On it I stamped one of the Elegant Flourishes by Rhonna Farrer clear stamps (Autumn Leaves) with Versamark ink (Tsukineko) and decorated with some punched out flower from the same washi paper (with the medium sakura paper punch, Carla Craft) and adhered with mounting foam tape.

Last, I wrapped some old red ribbon around the card and since tying the knot wasn’t really working I just grabbed a leftover, tied a knot and glued it to the ribbon with double sided tape, yay for quick solutions! Oh, yeah, over the ribbon I placed the asian panel, with smal bits of mounting tape on the cornersso it’d hold better :)

Even though I struggled *a lot* with this card I like how it came out. It is a real improvement since my first asian cards :) A lot to say, since my very first stamped cards were in this theme because the Oriental Stamp Art group was the first stamping related club I joined. I think I’ll try again tomorrow, thanks for looking :)

The OSA group has several sub-groups for different things, like RAKs and Birthday RAKs. One of this groups is the 1-4-1 group where if you receive a card from a girl you have to send one back within 2 months.

I joined the group several months ago, because I started to feel guilty for not sending RAK Back’s. It is weird, but I thought that I’d do better on this group than on the RAK one, LOL. Only recentlyI received a card to be answered, from Sharon Moore.

I was so excited about my first 1-4-1 that I started right away, LOL. I started with a 4 3/8 square card from paper of previous projects for my card base. For the rest I based on a sketch from Amy Westerman :)

I adhered a strip of Basic Grey’s Lilykate paper and added some gold accent with a gel pen on the stems of the flowers. Then I punched three little flowers in peach origami paper with a locally bought paper punch (misc. brand), I added a golden border to thew flowers with te same pen.

The crane is stamped with black Staz-On, which is the only black ink I have, lol. Before I bought it on last December I only had a “office” inkpad, shame on me. Anyway, the stamp is also pretty special for me, it’s the first one I bought, though it wasn’t my first choice and that’s why I think I haven’t really used it in many projects (I wanted a cat stamp, but the store was out of them at the time ): ).

By now I thought I was finished, but I also had the feeling that the right side of the card was really empty. So, I decided to use some thread an a dragonfly charm I received as gift in the OSA Secret Santa swap from last year (: For the little ring the dragonfly is hanging I used a tip Nichole Heady poster a two months or so ago in her blog.

And there you have it, a return 1-4-1 ready to be mailed! :)

This is actually an old proyect, but since it’s from before I started this blog and I loved how they turned out, (and I don’t have anything better to post, lol) I’m gonna talk about this ATCs (:

ATC stand for “Artist Trading Cards” (or Artistic Trading Cards). They’re small pieces of art, measuring 2,5″x3,5″. I’ve even heard on mini-ATCs, which are 1.75″x2.5″ (for those who really see a challenge in small canvas!). Besides from the size, and that you have to include your contact information on the back of the cards, there are no limitation at what technique to use in them!

I really liked the concept behind ATCs, since they’re are supposed to be only traded, and never for sale (I think the cards made for sale are named ACEO). Besides, the small size allowed me to make quite a few without running out of supplies.

This ATCs are for a swap on the Oriental Stamp Art Y! group (if you like to do your artowrk with an asian flair, this is definetely your group!), my first ATC swap actually (and i read today that the returns have been mailed, so exciting!). The theme was Bamboo/Gingko and by that time I wanted to combine my passion for drawing with rubberstamping, and that’s where this came up.

There’s actually a little history lesson behind this ATC, he he. You’ll see, the girl is supposed to be Kaguya Hime (Princess of the Bamboo), which is the main character of a really old japanese novel. It is the story of an old childless bamboo cutter that found a little baby girl inside a shining stalk of bamboo. He named the girl Kaguya and she grew to be the most beautiful woman in the land, even the Emperor wanted her to be his wife, but the girl refused because she had to go back to where she belong, which was the Land of the Moon (you’ll see…the girl was an E.T, lol). The emperor was really sad, because he was indeed in love with Kaguya, so he refused to drink a pot of elixir of immortality that she had given to him before going away.

That, in a few words. If you would like to read more about it, there’s a better version on Wikipedia.

Now, the “artistic proccess”. I first drawed the girl in a piece of scrap paper and copied her in the five white layers, made of watercolor paper. I painted her with very dilluted watercolors and salt and let it dry.

When it was dry, it was time for the rubberstamping <3 I used a stamp that dear Heather Taylor (OSA ladie) gave me when I just entered the group (: Then I applied yellow and light green ink from my Colorbox Petal Point pad and to give it a watercolor efect i sprayed a little water on the stamp. I tamped randomly on the white part of the layer, so it’d look like a bamboo forest.

I cutted the corners by myself with a craft-knife, to resemble a corner paper punch I have seen on the OSA galleries before. But I wasn’t going to wait for 3 weeks and spend at least $10 in shipping for 5 simple ATCs, lol. I gotta say that by the 3rd I had regreted my decision, it was way more work that I though! :p Then I added some green thread to the corners (which I had seen on OSA too!)

Finally, I adhered the layer to a black heavy cardstock base and added my contact info on the back. Whow, I had a lot to say about this!

Papers: Black heavy cardstock (misc.), watercolor paper
Inks: Canary, Lime (ColorBox Petal Point Pinwheel)
Stamps: Bamboo vertical border (ArtNeko)
Other: Multiliner 0.1 black (COPIC), black ink (winsor & newton), watercolors (w&n), green thread (misc.), water, salt.

I’ve been quiet, as always. Although I have made 2-3 cards in the past weeks, I cannot show them because the cards are actually gifts for overseas pals, and I couldn’t risk to spoil the surprise :)

So, this my first “random” project in a while. I just knew I wanted to use my DCWV Far East paper stack and to do something purple. I think I should have used “masking” on the geisha face, the swirls across it look a little off to me :(

Anyways, rub-ons are from Sandylion, locally bought at a store in the local mall. It was the first store I saw brought scrapbooking items (all from Sandylion, btw). And, in my original idea I was going to use an eyelet for the flower, but I couldn’t set the darn-thing correctly (and the white paint kept falling from the eyelets), so I gave up on that idea and used a brad instead. The brad was colored with COPIC marker BV08.

All in all I really liked how it turned out :) and I’m thinking about sending it as a RAK.

My order from Japan Keystone Gifts finally arrived! Woo-hoo! :3 I’ve been looking forward to play with these. Liz is an elite vendor of the OSA group and carries a lot of origami papers, oriental paper punches, mizuhiki cord and, of course, stamps (both rubber and foam),. Go check her store, it’s full of awesome oriental supplies! :)

I loved the paper punch (Carla Craft Cherry Blossom Medium) and I had to try it right away with plain normal printer paper, LOL. To my surprise, it worked! I have bought paper punches from local stores (made in Argentina, I think) and they stuck when I try to punch thin papers. Any suggestion about how to keep a paper punch like new?

And the bunnies couldn’t get any cuter (Kodomo Die-cut Bunnies foam stamps)! The one with the dandelion is my favourite <3 I also have been wanting a cherry blossom rubber stamp for background since I started rubber stamping (august 2006, LOL). I’m really happy to finally have one :)

Too bad I have a partial tomorrow! :( I’m sooo close to not studying and start crafting. Shame on me, lol.