Mojo Making

I love making cards and collages.  But like everyone, I get into slumps.  I don't like my stamps (ANY of them!!).  I don't like my inks!  And my forest-worth of paper....all garbage!!

So, I take a class in anything but card-making.  I try new techniques, I meet new people, and sometimes, I even make something I like :)

Yesterday, I was at Sandra Spanuolo's class. She's an amazing collage artist and painter who generously shares her secrets with students. I attended her classes when she lived in |Milton, but now that she's literally around the corner from me, I find I am attending more.  We did a sweet little bird house.

Now, Sandra warns us -- for a long time, it's going to look ugly.  Then it gets better.  You just have to keep working.  It was my day to be ugly yesterday.  I was sorely tempted at one point to gesso over the whole thing and start over.  I was surrounded by masterpieces!  (Note to self: sit elsewhere next time)  But, with her encouragement, I persevered, and here's the result!

The little ball of wool at the top is a nest, but I need to sew it together.  The verse is, "The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best." (Henry van Dyke)  It's happy and spring-y.  Time to put away my brown and saffron and pale teal palette, and go with pinks and yellows and greens, I think!

desk clean up

I was cleaning my desk.  I found some re-inkers, and so that meant digging out the ink pads they match, and topping up the ink.  While doing that, I poured a blob of mahogany distress ink on my desk.  The handiest thing to grab was a sponge.  Now I have a sponge loaded with ink!  So, I swiped it across a sheet of Whisper White and let it dry.  Then, I spritzed my desk surface to wipe up the last of the ink.  It beaded up on the craft sheet, and I swiped a piece of  Very Vanilla through it.  Now, I have two pieces of unexpected paper.  What to do?

This is what i did with the splattered paper.  I stamped my favourite stamp, Nature Walk, in Staz On.  I rubbed ink in Pool Party, So Saffron, River Rock and Crumb Cake over the image and the edges.  Long ago, I sliced my In Stitches wheel apart, so I used the straight stitch stamp to stamp the stitch lines. I crumpled a piece of First Edition, swiped it with River Rock and layered it under the paper.  I used the Trinkets brads at each corner.  I wrapped the panel with twine.  Under the twine, I layered three Tiny Tags, stamped with Friends from Tiny Tags, and a key and butterfly from a retired Hostess set.

As for the former Whisper White paper...

This really was a desk-cleaning project!  I ran the paper through a Tim Holtz embossing folder with an alligator pattern, and then sanded it.  I stamped a Certainly Celery card base with the Distressed background stamp and Soft Suede.  I applied a rub-on (K and Co) to the edge of a First Edition scrap, and layered it underneath.  The bee is some paintable sticky canvas from Little Yellow Bicycle, painted with Bordering Blue, Daffodil Delight and Soft Suede markers.  The Hello stamp is from the spring catty, and the Petite Curly Label punch is from Sale-a-Bration.