GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE SEVEN

Siberian Iris / Water Color Technique #2500004

Red Flower / Water Color Technique #2500003

Blue Flower / Water Color Technique #2500004

Small Scottish Thistle Thank You / Water Color Technique #2500001

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GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE SIX

Pear Squared Water Color Technique # 2500011

Reverse Flower Over Stamp #2500009

Double Pear Chalk Technique #2500007

Scottish Thistle Water Color Technique / Water Color Paper #2500006

Japanese Lady #2500005

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GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE FIVE

Dimensional Travel / Paper Pieced #4000010

Art Glitter Flower On Transparency #3000016

Put On Your Big Girls Panties....#2500023

Sassy #2500019

Create Water Color On Water Color Paper #2500012

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GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE FOUR

Art Glitter Hydrangea On Transparency # 4000021

Art Glitter Butterfly On Transparency #4000014

Art Glitter Dragon Fly On Transparency #4000013-2

Art Glitter Dragon Fly on Transparency/Bronze #4000013-1

Hand Painted Cherry Blossoms /Water Color Paper #3000024

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GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE THREE

Art Glitter Calla Lily On Transparency #4000028

Art Glitter Flip Flops On Transparency - Brights #4000027

Pink Ensemble / Paper Pieced #4000022-1

Art Glitter Pink Heel On Transparency / Reversed # 4000020

Art Glitter Hummingbird On Transparency #4000018

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GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE TWO

Dimensional Red Heel/Paper Pieced #4000032

Assorted Greetings Set of 8 with Satchel #8000033

Art Glitter Lilies On Transparency #4000031

Art Glitter Koi On Transparency #4000030

Art Glitter Fancy Goldfish on Transparency # 4000029

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GREETING CARD GALLERY - PAGE ONE

Art Glitter Flip Flops/Transparency Overlay # 4000015

Radiant Pearls Dragon Fly On Black #2500008

Water Color Koi /Water Color Paper #3000026

Isn't It Hot In Here? / Hand Painted #3000025

Art Glitter Lantern & Bamboo #3000017

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Water Sprite Layout

These are the fruits of my Sunday afternoon crop with a friend. We worked hard but had a great time, and the time we spent on detail! The true colors on the two pages are actually a brownish grey, pink, green and white. Most papers are double sided by S.E.I. and the green background on the second page of the spread had a very faint white vertical pin stripe. It's very difficult to detect. The flowers were hand cut from the back of one of the prints and were white on pale grey. They are a continuous string of flowers and where cut with a craft knife and glass setup. More hand cutting ensued to create the layered embellishments and then were topped off with rhinestones and pearls for some of the flower centers. Pop dots raised some of the flower petals for more dimension. A day well spent!

JEWELRY AND CARD TRUNK SHOW - JUNE 9TH!

Save the date! June 9th, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Bellisima Salon and Boutique, 1138 Commercial Street, Downtown Astoria. Holly Cook of "Jewelry By Ji" and I, will be holding our 5th Trunk Show in Deb's beautiful salon. We've had so many great people stop in, it will be good to see both our repeat customers and new ones too.

Holly and I both offer a great selection of hand-crafted jewelry; you're bound to find something that you just won't be able to live without. It's sparkling, it's summer; what a great combination! Also featured is my current line of sparkling glitter cards and matching envelopes. You will love the quality of papers used and the detail in the artwork. Because this line is blank inside of each card, you're not restricted to one occasion, you can use them for anything or can give them as gifts. Some customers have decided to cut the front from the card and frame it! You can do whatever your heart desires.

Those of you on our mailing list will be receiving a post card in the mail as a handy reminder. Hope to see you there!

Glitter, Glitter and More Glitter!

Love that glitter! The transparencies aren't bad either! Well, as you can tell, I've been going a little crazy with production on glitter cards lately. I think I've worn out my StazOn black pad just stamping images on transparencies and then using Art Glitter and their fantastic glue and glue tip. It's really the only way to go when using this technique. The glitters come in countless colors and the metal nib lets you put the glue into the smallest spaces with precision. Check out their web site at www.artglitter.com and take a look at the PDF files listing all of the glitter colors. I went so far as to print off their color charts on 8 1/2 x 11" photo paper just so I could track what colors I had and which ones I want to order! A collector's dream! I found some of the basic glues i.e. Dries Clear and Dries White, on e-Bay, and found some pretty good deals but the listings were limited. The Art Glitter site seems to have great service and a small but informative gallery.

And if you're interested, the cards featured here are also currently available on e-Bay (that is, if they haven't already sold!) along with others that I will be posting this evening. Check out my listings under the advanced search about half way down the screen under pl50tw, you might find something you like!

Dragon Fly Carry All and Cards

This was so much fun to make! The carry all contains eight blank cards with envelopes. Each card is lined with white paper with decorated corners making it easier to write on because the card stock is dark. The cards fit every occasion so this makes a great gift i.e "Happy Birthday". "Thank You", "Best Wishes" etc.

At Pacific City

It being Mother's Day, I thought I would post the pictures and pages I recently completed but from our celebration at Pacific City last year. The pages are an outcome from a Karen Russell class and I began thinking a little differently as a result when it came to design especially on the first page. I enlarged the main picture and cropped out the bottom of it. I distressed the edges and then cut a slit in the overlay and cut around the part of my granddaughter's image that I wanted to slip through the overlay. I then cut around her thumb so I could insert a matted picture of another shot of her on the beach the same day. The whole thing really produced a 3-D effect. The only disappointing thing about this posted picture is the overlay line shows up when the page is outside of the page protector. If you would like to try something similar to this, rest assured when the page is in the protector, the overlay line does not show. Anyway, I was happy with the results and the effect.

Kickin' It Up!!! Paper Pieced Cards

This set of 6 cards with envelopes will be posted to eBay this evening but I wanted to get them on the blog to show you what paper piecing can do with the dimensional interest of a hand-crafted card. This technique requires three stampings of the same image; 1 on glossy card stock for the background, 1 on red or pink (in this case) card stock for the body of the shoe and 1 on black card stock for the lining of the shoe. I ran out of white polka dots on black for the lining but got out my trusty white opaque pen and made my own.

If you would like to check out the eBay listing tomorrow, my i.d. is pl50tw. If you would like to see this as a class and posted on the group blog, go to http://groups.google.com/group/crane-island-comforts--tootsies-toys and leave me a message. If there is enough interest, it can be added to the upcoming schedule.

Enjoy your day!

Asian Wastebasket Reconstruction Project

It's interesting what projects come your way as you follow your artistic path. This is one of those. I was approached with the challenge to reconstruct an item treasured by a family member who had passed away several years ago. The desire was to have this Asian wastebasket restored to some level of attractiveness and also functionality.

This situation brings with it a certain sense of responsibility to save a keepsake worth more than just money. Since the wastebasket is 25 - 30 years old, it was an intense process working to remove the silk and paper figures on the eight sides of the container. Some of the male figures have hair beards and all of the figures consisted partly of very thin paper embellishments. Delicate is an understatement. Unfortunately, I was unable to save most of the tiny shoes peeking out from under the garments; made from the thin paper previously described, they literally disintegrated during the removal process. I am happy that I was able to save from 95-100% of the detail. I also felt preserving what I salvaged and mounting each figure on a mat before adding it to the base structure was more important than trying to make replacement parts from cobbled materials.

After eight hours of work and a lot of acid-free materials, I'm pleased with the results.