Making Greeting Cards: Tips and Tricks

Greeting cards are so fun and quick to make as Melanie Statnick who is a published artist/writer will attest. She has a happy and whimsy style which she uses to create art daily from her private studio. As a result of having to send cards to each other with her mum and the fact that she loves to send gifts, happy mail, post cards and handmade cards, she wants to get in the habit of snail mail again. You too can do the same and this is how she says you can do it just the same way she does it:

• Hand fold 140lbs cold press watercolour paper into a card shape.
• Open to lay card flat and spray with your favourite then air dry or dry with heat gun.
• Cut the card stock paper to smaller size to centre in the front of the card and glue. Stamp all four sides of card stock. Stamp image of 2” art squares. Glue squares to cardstock.
• Stamp your greeting on top and bottom of watercolour card.

Using Pitt Pen Big Brush Markers colour in the stamped images. Add Stickles in your favourite colours and washi tape to the edge.

You have finished making your card and you can make many more to use them as gifts.

Happy creating!

Being Creative with your ATC Backgrounds

Besides being a mixed media artist as well as writing for mixed media art, Shari Welch also enjoys helping others discover their creativity. She has been in a number of art shows in her hometown of Denton where she also volunteers on the education committee, teaches workshops, art camps, and performs art demos. At some point, she needed to find a way to produce a series of artist’s trading cards with the same background colour scheme while being able to make each an original little piece of art in itself.  On the other hand she loves Gelli plate because it is reusable and cleans up easily. As a result she tried to print out GelliArts gel printing plate and this is how she did it: –

Materials used

• Flower masks and stencils by Heidi Swapp
• DecoArt acrylic paints
• 8×10 printing plate
• Stencils by Prima
• Rubber brayer
• Stencils by Tim Holtz
• White card stock 8.5×11 (cut to 8×10 after printing)
• Yarn, texture tool, cut out decorative paper

With template in hand, you can create a colour scheme and print out sets of ATC background. However she says that from http://www.gelliarts.com you can get a better understanding of what the gel printing plate is, and what you can create using it. On the same site, you will get instructions, projects, and Youtube videos.

Making Handmade Halloween Decorations

Kim Kelley is borderline obsessive about her crafting and her art. She loves to learn and explore new techniques and hopes that any art she creates leads someone to find their inner creative artist. She is in love with Halloween projects and she wants to create something special for her BUNCO party. The idea she wants to use is that of decorating a skull. So what got her inspired? On what she had seen, real flowers had been used but she needed to use something that would last so she though using fake ones would do.

She picked up onStyrofoam skulls which she could use to stick the flowers in where she wanted. She ended up pulling all of the stems out once and starting over wanting a different look. She did not like the way the stems showed from the back, so she added a thick, almost cheesecloth material hanging from the flowers and draping down the back of the skull. She glued one of the glitter spiders to the skull and one to the top of the highest flower and took her glue gun and created strings of webbing all over.

She had an inspiring project and she advises that you free off from your comfort zone, start using your imagination and exploring an anything that goes through your mind set.

Get Discovered by Sharing our Creativity with others

“Creativity is not an antisocial act”. Let go of your ego and remember: there is no one-size-fits-all plan for everybody. Flow with whatever’s good for you”. This is according to Martice Smith who has established herself as a freelance Illustrator and graphic designer having receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree.  The following are some of the approaches she advices every artist to use to get their works exposed so others and who will get to know you and your creations: –

• Be true to yourself by doing that which interests you and that which you consider authentic to you.
• Be open about what you are working on by collaborating on a project with other artists, sharing sneak peeks and ideas of your works in progress and also highlighting various techniques.
• Take records and document what you are doing. You can photograph your work at different stages to give people the experience of how you shape your art work.
• Celebrate other people’s work by teaming up with other artists to spread the word about each other’s recent success. And finally push yourself to try new tools and experiment with unfamiliar techniques.

In summary Martice acknowledges that being open to share your process while allowing for the possibility of people to have an ongoing connection with you and your creativity makes you grow as an artist.  Let people know what you have to give them.

Mixed Media Art Tags from Scrap Papers

Tamara Dinius who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and chocolate lab believes that mixed media allows for a broad range of styles and anyone can find success in this form of artistic expression. While to her Mixed Media is all about creativity, she know too well that Mixed Media Art Tags are created using scraps of papers, old art work, music sheets, and other items that add texture and depth to the tags.  And how does she achieve all achieve all this?

• Add the assorted scraps to an old manila folder. Besides, any type of adhesive medium will work.
• Add the scraps to your manila folder in a haphazard manner and once dry, layer a glaze of paint over the top to tone down the first layer.
• Use a stencil and acrylic paint to create additional depth and interest to your tags. On this, use a paint color that is dominant in your scraps of paper.
• Using your favorite stamp and ink pad add additional interest by stamping your project. You can also add acrylic paint using stencils or other items.
• To finish, use additional fabric and papers to back the tags. Using a zigzag stitch, sew around the perimeter of the tag. Punch a hole and add your ribbon. Your tags are now ready to use as luggage tags, gift tags, decorative tags, or other item.

That’s it!

Making Card Pockets

Melanie Statnick the published artist/writer has a lot of her artwork in art galleries and shops extensively in NC with international private collections. She is one person who misses to have library cards in the back of books with memories of having to look up books in the card cataloguing boxes being so clear in her mind.

She altered paper library pockets with Silk Acrylic paints. She then painted the first colour coat onto the pocket first, then used a paint brush to apply the second colour to the applicator and rubbed it over the stencil onto the pockets in a circular motion.  Drying the paints is the next step while adding some stamps and paper collage sheets and embellishments using a gel medium or mod podge. To outline the images you will use black Pitt pen, white get pen and then add some Stickles.  Valentine theme will come in handy to stuff the pockets with. They are best for sticking a magnet strip on the back or onto your refrigerator to leave notes for your sweetheart.With her happy and whimsy style, Melanie creates art daily from her private studio. From her website of http://www.melaniestatnickart.com you can get and learn more about Melanie.

Making a Customized Grunge Mat

Anjuli Johnson began her art career as a scrapbooker, and it’s been an evolutionary process ever since. Since she loves all things mixed media- paper, paint, pens, wire, gears, and clay she is constantly trying to push through her fears to discover and develop her talents, meet new people, and learn from those around her.  Being a new home owner her head is full of plans for how she can update and improve certain things… new tile in the bathrooms, different coloured accent walls, perhaps some new kitchen cabinets at some point and of course, a brand new art studio.

While looking for décor ideas before deciding what she likes and want to incorporate in her home, she has been spending months scouring Pinterest and internet images and many of the gallery walls caught her attention.  She knew she wanted to frame some small art pieces rather than photos and the position was to be on the outside of the mat, rather than having it framed underneath. She also wanted to do a whitewash grunge type of effect rather than having a plain white or black mat.

So what did she do?She used the cardboard insert from the frames she bought as mats and used gel medium on book pages to transfer text onto the surface.  Once the medium dried, she dipped her fingers in water and rubbed off the excess paper to show the bottom text transferred to the cardboard.  She used watered down acrylic paint as a wash and applied several coats until it was the colourshe wanted. She did let the cardboard dry in between before adding watermark stamped images in a few places to complete her mixed media mat.

Making an Autumn Layout?

It is on Sandra Pares’ site where you will find a lot of art and craft products. The colours and textures on many mixed media art amaze her and she confesses to be enjoying creating and getting her hands dirty with paint and gesso. With autumn having refused to come to her land, she also loves the forest on this season and the trees are wonderful with intense colours and a lot of contrast, ideal for shaping it with mixed media. This is how she does it…

Supplies used:

• Dylusions inks spray: ground coffee, melted chocolate, lemon zest and pure sunshine
• Autumn Leaves drawn in a cardstock
• 12″x12″ watercolour paper
• Gesso and 1 photo
• Primary Elements and Silks Acrylic Glaze
• A brush and sponge
• 12″x12″ Cosmic Swirl Template and scrap paper
• Some stencils to make texture like punchinella
• Gel medium

What to do:

• Paste some scrap paper with gel medium over watercolour paper to add some texture. Then, put a thin layer of gesso, without covering the scrap paper.
• Add a little colour in the background with Lemon zest and Pure sunshine
• Put the template in a part of the paper and with the brown ink spray the template.
• Add more texture in the background. With a sponge and Silks Acrylic Glaze stencil different templates with punchinella.
• Stick with gel medium all missing elements: doily shape, photography and leaves. The result will be an Autumn Layout with a lot of texture and contrast.

There you go!

Using Dina Wakely Paints – Michelle Style

Michelle G. Brown understands that many of us have an inner need to create and by learning a few basic techniques the amazing world of mixed media art is accessible to everyone. It is for this reason and the passion in her that she gives you this painting tutorial while using Dina Wakely Paints.

Materials and tools needed.

• Dina Wakely Paints
• 10” x 12” canvas
• Scrap paper
• Sequence Scrap
• Masking Tape
• Gesso
• Archival Inks
• Removable adhesive
• Stencil Girl Stencils
• Black markers
• Impasto medium
• Blending tool

Painting Process

• Gather up your blank canvas or art journal
• Prime with Gesso and leave to dry
• Add texture with Impasto medium and Sequence Scrap
• Leave overnight to dry
• Add colour with the acrylic paints
• Continue to build up colours and Leave to fully dry
• Use the Masking tape to add masked lines to the painted canvas.
• Add a layer of Gesso,applied with an old credit card
• While gesso is still wet, carefully remove the masking tape. Take care with this step; it can get a bit messy.
• Using your range of black markers, outline “roads” and add other features.
• Gather your stencils and stencil with the Archival inks.
• Put the stencil in place and add a little masking tape to hold it.
• Add ink and remove the stencil as well as the masks.

You only need to add a few finishing touch ups to your work and you are good to admire your work.

Have you ever Tried Making Encaustic and Origami Collage?

Vicki Ross has always been involved deeply in the creative arts, from professional soft crafts publications to French Hand-sewing, stencilling to macramé, oil painting to encaustics. She believes in the healing power of creating and she is focused on sharing her journey to art and how life events can shape us through creativity. She also loves the local thrift store since she is always wanting to learn and see how she can incorporate various types of treasures into my regular art. She tries out there craft on various materials and still gets it right all the way. Some of the materials she will use include 4″ square tumbled marble tiles, plain encaustic medium and pollen that you will get from flowers.

Each of them gets a pour because she wanted to keep the three dimensional look of the folded paper. After two pours, fusing, she takes a brush and make sure all crevices are filled. When cool, she scraps back as far as she can, again maintaining the 3-D looks. It is after this that she declares all victory to her work. However she admits that it is not an easy task. Here creativity takes toll of the whole project and the willingness to learn and create.