The Weekend.........

How wonderful are weekends? They are super when you've had a lot of stress during the week, that's for sure! I went to a little Amish junk shop with my mom and aunt on Saturday morning after I got a hair cut. This shop had a lot of "stuff" from glassware to old books. I bought a Mobil road map of Pennsylvania from 1958. I also bought a road map of Ontario from 1967 (I got it for my artist friend Heather who lives in Ontario and I figured she could use it somewhere in her collages). And the last thing I bought was a cabinet card of a cute little boy. I spent all of $3!!!! I know, I'm a big spender! Please feel free to use the photo of the boy in your artwork. Can't you just picture him now with a pair of wings and a pointy hat???!?!?! LOL!

Weekends are also a time for reading. These are a few of the magazine's I read this weekend.....

Now getting back to my previous post about wing, crowns and pointy hats. I'd like you to go click on this artists name Stephanie Rubiano to see how she has taken hat, crowns and wings to a whole new level. Her art is simply enchanting.Ha, ha, ha, ha (read this with an evil laugh).....more pointy hats and wings in ATCs.......

I've been thinking more and more about gardening, both flower and veggie and it spilled over into this ATC. I'm so excited, Gary ordered asparagus crowns to plant this spring. I LOVE asparagus!!! Does anyone out there in Blogland grow asparagus? If you have any tips on growing it I sure would appreciate it!

Talk about a look of determination! I've used the image of this little girl several times in my work. I just love the stubborn, fierce look on her face. The "Beautiful" stamp is an unmounted dollar stamp from Pat Catans.

Oh yah, not even dogs are safe from getting the pointy hat treatment! Hope everybody is having a nice weekend and having fun creating!

Pointy Hats and Wings.........

You know every time I pick up the Somerset magazine I see several letters to the editor about artists sticking pointed hats, crowns and wings on people in collages. There is a faction which detest this practice, as they apparently consider themselves higher on the evolutionary collage chain. They are embroiled in this battle with the "pointy hat lovers". I for one LOVE hats and wings.........there I said it and I'll say it again.......I LOVE HATS, CROWNS AND WINGS!!! There are wonderfully talented artist who use pointed hats, crowns and wings everyday in their creations and when others do it perhaps they are emulating their favorite artist's work. Emulation not only the highest form of flattery it is also how we learn, it's been done through thousands of years of art. In this uptight, politically correct world, I feel that hats, crowns and wings add a jaunty sense of humor and encourage people not to take themselves oh so seriously. So for those who like the pointy hats, crowns and wings, I say ROCK ON! Keep cutting and gluing those tiny triangles!!!!

I'd be interested in knowing what the consensus out there in artistic blogland is on this topic. Please leave me a comment!

Decorative Paper Tutorial......

I've been experimenting with pages from books to make my own decorative papers for backgrounds on my Artist Trading Cards as well as collages. I thought you might like to see the process......

The first thing to do is to get a book you are willing to sacrifice and tear out a page. Dilute a little acrylic paint and brush over the entire page. Make sure it is diluted enought that you can still see the text show through.....

Next dilute a little bit of robin egg blue acrylic paint and dip the bottom of the paint bottle in it and stamp circles randomly over the paper.......After the blue circles have dried, I took a bronze colored ink pad and dabbed it all over the paper here and there.......

I looked throught my stamp collection and found swirls and I flower that I liked and stamped with black ink over everything.....Next, I took the tip of the brush and dipped it into crocus yellow paint and made dots all over...The last thing I did was to take sequin waste and use to it stencil dots with brown ink.So now I have a piece of background paper to use for a few ATCs!

Give Away Winners!

I've eyeballed the winners for the spring ATC giveaway and they are as follows:
Artful Whimsies - Pierre Card
Dianne C. - Natural History Collector
Janna - Happy Easter George
Obsessed Scrapbooker - Honey's Bunny

I emailed all of you and hope to hear back from you with your addresses so I can send them out!

Check back tomorrow afternoon when I post the next give away!
Smiles-
Tootie

Happy Easter....

HAPPY EASTER !

Wishing my friends in blogland a very Happy Easter!

Spring Joy Give Away!

To celebrate spring and Easter I made these 4 Artist Trading Cards. They are part 1 of a 3 part give away that is taking place over the Easter holiday. So if you see a card you would like, leave a comment and the title of the card and I'll contact you for your address and send it out to you!
Easter is a time of rebirth, a time to start fresh and new, a time to celebrate the beauty of nature which is hatching, blosssoming, budding all around us!

Pierre Padu Poussaunt

Armed with his vintage postcards Pierre Padu Poussant set off to Grandma's house one fine spring morning for tea in le gardin!

The Natural History Collector She stalked the forests with her winged crown firmly on her head searching for oddities of nature.......looking for the perfectly shaped leaf or the delicate unhatched robin egg. She carefully tagged each specimen with a numbered tag and took them back to her museum.

Happy Easter George George woke early each and every Easter morning, got dressed in his freshly pressed pastel shirt and pants, stood in front of the mirror and ceremoniously placed the tall white bunny ears on his head. Now and only now was it time to go in search of his Easter basket!

Honey's Bunny Honey had a bunny. What more can I say?

Irish Girls........

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my friends out there in blogland! I am part Irish, my grandmother's maiden name was O'Shea and her married name was McManigle. Pretty Irish! Today is the day when everybody is Irish, if just for one day. So you get to be fun loving and hard headed. I am very tenacious which I think of as a product of my Irish heritage. I stick with something even if it is difficult because "tough times come and go but tough people don't". I'm leaving you to celebrate the day with these 2 Artist Trading Cards. The one with the young girls in it are my mom (the little one) and my aunt (the tall one), they were 7 years apart in age. The picture was taken in the spring. My mom has a new hankie that she wanted everyone to see and that's why she is holding it fanned out between her fingers. My aunt is wearing a sour frown with her hands shoved in her pockets, one sock up, one sock down, collar all messed up on her blouse. She's looking so put out because she told my mom she was stupid for carrying around the hankie! The picture makes me smile no matter how many times I see it. That's the beauty of photos.....frozen in time, forever spring with a new crisp white hankie or hands in your pockets with one sock up and one sock down.......

The ice is melting......

The ice is finally melting on the lake and that means that fishing and boating are coming soon! More so the fishing than the boating. I won't go out in the boat until probably the end of May b/c it's pretty cold on the water! I made this card to celebrate fishing. It probably doesn't look like much but I spent so much time on the background. Here's what was done: base painted blue, sanded, stenciled with green dots, stenciled with white dots, stamped with blue plants, stamped with green plants, stamped with black bubbles, stamped on the sand-dollars, stamped fish on blue decorative paper and cut it out, painted definition light green and cut it out, glued the fish and the definition, dotted with blue glitter....DONE!

A Few New ATCs......

These are a few of the newest ATCs in the 'ATC a day for a year' project I am doing. I'm trying new techniques and really trying to stretch the limits so I have a wide variety. Here are 3 in which the first one is all hand cut paper with a hand doodled background, the second is built around the Mona Lisa rubber stamp and the third is collage with a copy of a vintage photo and other decorative papers.

Robin......

The King of Spring

Spring???????? Where is it????

ATC Tutorial

I call this the anatomy of an ATC. Putting together the elements of an Artist Trading Card reminds me of quiltng in a way. I have a quilting friend who told me the formula for a nice looking quilt which is the following: fabric in 3 lights, 3 darks, 2 mediums; 2 solids, 4 prints, 1 plaid, 1 stripe. The same is true of creating an ATC, at least for me. I have a little formula for myself and although I vary here and there this is basically how it goes: a dark, a light, a medium colored papers; black rubber stamp(s), a stripe paper, a dotted paper, paper punch forms (flowers, etc.), a copy of a vintage photo or postcard. Then I start to layer the elements. I use gel medium which really adheres papers nicely and keeps them down.

ATC Tutorial

These are the tools I used: flower paper punch, matte gel medium, black ink pad, flower stamp, Cutter Bee scissors, vintage photo distress ink, round sponge.......

Pick out 4 to 6 papers, one dark, one light and one medium in colors.....

I start with a paint chip for the back. It adds good stability.

I glued the dark blue decorative paper onto the paint chip back with the gel medium.......

Next I stamped the flower image with black ink 2 places on the card and used the distressing ink and smudged on the ink with the round sponge here and there......

I copied a bunny image from a vintage postcard and a vintage photo of a little boy. I colored the boy's shirt and pants in with marker. Flowers were punched out of the pink with white polk-a-dot paper and glued down.

Lastly, I add the little finishing touches such as adding ears to the boy and a tiny banner with the word "joy" stamped on it.

Here is the finished ATC, ready for Easter! The title of it is: Two Bunnies!

The Big Blast of Winter..........

So we were in the path of the big blast of winter that hit this weekend and here is my husband digging us out! We got about a foot of snow! The robins are really confused!! Spring????I would love to show you the things I created in between running out and shoveling but Blogger is being stubborn and I keep getting an error message. It took me 15 minutes of trying just to get this picture loaded. I'll try to post tomorrow. I made a good tutorial on ATC card backgrounds!

Irish Paper Bag Album

This Irish paper bag album is salute to all that is green and Irish! It has 12 original collages all celebrating the Irish spirit.

March.....a busy month!

This March is going to be a busy month with both St. Patrick's Day quickly followed up by Easter! Gives us a lot of reasons to create! I made a few more peat pot baskets.......... They are in the Honey Girl Studio Shop.

And to honor my Irish heritage........ this Artist Trading Card is entitled "Gerald and Mary Margaret". My friend Jacque named them!

This ATC is simply entitled "Kate". Doesn't she look like a "Kate". Such a strong, confident young Irish woman with red hair! I punched tiny holes and stitched across the top with DMC thread. The shamrock are connected with French knots.

No this is not a leprechaun....rather it is an Irish Kewpie wee person! Just a little twist on the traditional leprechaun...... All ATCs are available for trade!