Teacher card

This teacher card has a lot more going on than my clean & simple teacher card. It's definitely a more layered look.

This one started with a Jillibean Soup journal card, which I stamped with an apple stamp and added a Thank You (Jillibean Soup) sticker and yellow ribbon.

The bottom gray layer is plain cardstock that I stamped with gray ink.

More Altered Book

I've been working my way (very) slowly through the Altered Book Class at Altered Book Lover.

I posted earlier my butterfly niche page for Lessons 1-3 and have since done several more pages.

I didn't do a separate page for each lesson, but rather did several pages encompassing the design principles & elements (lessons 5,6,7). I found it hard to identify and separate out each principle and element and work on just one at a time. That's something I'd like to go back and work on further.

I particularly found Harmony and Unity as challenging concepts. What I tried to focus on for Unity was "When a composition has unity, the design will be viewed as one piece, as a whole, and not as separate elements or parts. "

This page shows movement (the dancers) and balance & proportion (smaller upper and lower pictures beneath the larger center picture)

The problem I see with this layout is that it has harmony (all elements encompass a Postal theme) but there is no focal point! I've made a nice background here, just need to find a focal point to emphasize.

This layout is the opposite of the one above. It has a focal point (the bright pieced butterfly) but the other elements are disjointed and don't have harmony or unity.

This is my favorite layout so far. The woman is the focal point, the butterflies add movement and the whole piece looks like one complete image to me.

I love the focal point image of the girls, but I think I got a little carried away using my paints to add contrast around the focal point. It kind of looks like a bloodbath!

Here I'm really happy with the end product, the focal point and background work well together. The large focal point balances well with the small gold squares opposite.

This is meant to show radial balance. It's a bit boring though.

I'm up through Lesson 7 and can't decide whether to move ahead or go back and work through the concepts again because I'm not 100% comfortable that I've got them all down so far. It's a lot of material to grasp!

Thanks for looking.

Clean and Simple Teacher card

I have an apple stamp from a Fall stamp set, and I wanted to re-purpose it into a Teacher card.

For this clean and simple card, I embossed the apple stamp with red ink, then colored it in with a red pencil. Then, I drew the border outline and added the black Thanks! sentiment.

There isn't much to this card, but it actually took me quite a while to make so that everything was precise and lined up correctly. I'm really happy with this one, love the clean & simple look!

Composition Book Journal

This journal started life as a simple composition book. I love the Graphic 45 collections, and this project uses Olde Curiosity Shoppe to turn a composition book into a funky journal!

The cover uses Olde Curiosity Shoppe papers & stickers plus some vintage lace and American Crafts ribbon.

The inside cover uses tan cardstock dressed up with stamps, a border, and a G45 sticker.

The inside of the journal is divided into 3 sections, with decorated pages in between. On those divider pages I used Studio Calico paper, distressed to blend with the G45 stickers and elements.

The inside back cover is a pattered paper (from Michael's or AC Moore, can't remember which!) with a library envelope and G45 tag and more stamping.

This was way more time consuming that making cards, but I love how this journal turned out! Thanks for looking!

-Susan

Clean and Simple Inkpad Card

This card was inspired by the Tuesday Trigger photo:



I wasn't sure what direction to go with this, because I don't have any patterned paper or stamps similar to that horizontal leafy / teardrop pattern.

However! I do have several teardrop shaped ink pads!

I used ink pads to stamp the "leaves" and used a sharpie to draw in the stem. I then used a distress blue inkpad to ink the edges of the stamped piece. The sentiment is stamped with the same grey inkpad used in the design.

I think this is a clean and simple version of the inspiration photo, made using what I have on hand!

Flower tag

This flower tag is for the Symphony of Flowers challenge. The bottom tag is a standard manilla office tag that I got in a pack from a resale store. The top tag is cut from a vintage book about flowers. I used bubble wrap to stamp grey and green acrylic paint, then added color with distress ink, markers and butterfly rub ons.

I like the way this looks in person... but looking at it in the picture I think I should have added a bit more layering and maybe some text as well!

Butterfly Altered Book

This is an altered book page from a book I'm working in for Altered Book Lover's online class. The theme of my book is "fly" and this page is titled "Born to Fly."

With the key niche, I thought this worked well for the Three Muses Lock & Key challenge. Hope you enjoy!

Father's Day Notebook

Father's Day will be here before you know it! Cool stuff for guys can be so hard to find.

These notebooks are designed to be hung on a garage pegboard and used for any sort of lists or notes, such as

• measurements for a project
• remembering paint colors & brands used in the house
• reminders for home maintenance
• honey-do lists :)

- Susan

Ombre Paper Doily

This is my second card for the Doily & Lace Challenge. My first card used a doily as a crown. On this card, I sprayed the doily in the trendy ombre style, with one side being dark and fading to a lighter shade at the edge.

The layout was a challenge on this card because I wanted to add more layers, but didn't want to cover up the doily! So I tried to keep it pretty simple.

-Susan

Using a Doily as a Crown

For this card, I used a paper doily as a crown.

First I sprayed the doily purple and added some glitter glue. Then I put the card together with a stamped background and Teresa Collins World Traveler patterned paper and Jillibean Soup sticker onto which I stamped the "My Queen" sentiment.

Once the crown was dry, I added some rhinestones and adhered it to the card.

This is a fun one!

Created for the Doily & Lace Challenge at MoxieFab!

- Susan

Simple Birthday Cards

This Clean and Simple birthday card was a snap to make! I stamped the sentiment in orange ink on an orange card base, then attached the sticker.

I made another card using the same technique with watermark ink on a kraft card base. I then used a scallop punch to punch a hole in the front of the card and put the sticker on this inside of the card.  Here is a picture of the card and a close-up of the sticker detail:

Posted at Casual Fridays!

Thanks for looking!
-Susan

Tuesday Trigger: Vintage Vogue

The MoxieFab Tuesday Trigger is "Vintage Vogue" with this pretty picture:



The first thing that jumped out at me in this photo was the lovely vintage lace and the second thing that jumped out was the taupe fabric with shiny accents.

I happen to have a bit of vintage lace that I got at a resale store, and I absolutely love it! It has that vintage-y off white color to it. I combined it with taupe/light brown tones and just a hint of sparkle on this card.

The patterned papers and rhinestones are from the Teresa Collins World Traveler Collection.

Don't you just love that lace??

- Susan