What's new at The Loft - Episode 23

SORRY FOR THE ABSENCE OF LATE

I know it's been a while since I have posted on the ATC 3.6.5. Challenge, and I apologize.  My day job has been very stressful as of late, which for the most part has made me tired and lazy at night.  So after work, making dinner, helping the girls with their homework, and then make my ATC for the day I've been pretty much doing nothing else.  Well that's not completely true, but close enough.  As hard as it's been to get anything else accomplished I have still been able to make my ATC card every day.

TAMPA BAY SCRAPBOOKING GUILD

We had another great Guild meeting on April 27, which featured photographer Joe Roberts, who gave a fantastic and informative talk on camera settings, what they mean and how to use them. 

ATC 3.6.5. Challenge

4/19 - "And Away We Went" - I was looking through a back issue of "Artful Blogger" magazine and came across this lovely fall picture.  There was something about the colors, and the way the trees formed this natural arch that made me want to use it.  So with this as the inspiration for my background I went in search of what else I could put in it without drawing attention away from the color.  Luckily I found this black and white image of the man and woman in the old car among the Tweety Jill :"Vintage Photographs" collage pack.  I detail cut out the picture and adhered it to the background with some pop up dots.  I then added the title using some word stickers I had laying around.

4/20 - Springtime Graffiti - I have been taking this great class from Alisa Burke called "Graffiti Chic" and decided to use some of her techniques as the inspiration for today's card.  The card was made by using various acrylic craft paints in spring colors and applied in layers using several methods and combined with some stamps.  I was making large canvas versions of this using the same techniques for class and thought it would be fun to do one as an ATC. You can click on the link above to read more about Alisa.  I'm always inspired when I read her blog.

4/21 - "Dreaming of Italy" - I find this to be another example of what went wrong, and I can tell you it was pretty much giving in to exhaustion.  I found the image used for the background in a magazine and was the source of my inspiration for the card
I loved the architecture of the buildings but I was not fond of the color scheme, so I started by using a white Adirondack paint dabber and using a light dry brush approach tried to diffuse some of the brightness of the color without losing all of it.  I then detail cut the image of the woman from my Tweety Jill "Fashion" collage pack.  The exhaustion set in though and by this point in the day all I wanted to do was finish the card so I hand wrote the title.  Unfortunately my best efforts do not come when I'm tired, and I can't begin to tell you how much I hate my own handwriting sometimes.

4/22 "Carolena" -  For those of you that have been following my blog for awhile you know that one of my favorite things to do is to print out black and white photos of silent movie stars on a laser printer and recolor them.  Today was no exception, except at the time I recolored this one I couldn't remember which actress this was which is why it's name Carolena.  However I went back and researched it and this is actually Mary Pickford.  The card was recolored using my Neo II watercolor crayons, along with some Stencil Collection pastel chalks, and highlighted using a Clear Star Gelly Roll pen.

4/23 " Marie at the Party" - While looking through an issue of Cloth, Paper Scissors during my lunch break, I came across this great picture of Marie Antoinette, which immediately inspired me to make my card while eating my lunch.  I don't usually carry supplies for making cards with me but on this particular day my craft tote which usually houses my loom knitting supplies (yes I'm a lunchtime loom knitter) also happened to have a few craft supplies in it, so I was able to make most of my card at work.  I started by detail cutting the image of Marie Antoinette out.  Then while looking through a political magazine we had in the office I found this great background image.  I love the sunburst look, and if you look real close you can see it's the Capitol building in the background.  I then printed out the text and glued it on the side next to the image.  After this was all done however I thought the card still looked a little plain and felt it needed some detail enhancement.  Using a white Uniball pen I added some detail to the dress, and using a Clear Star Gelly Roll pen, dressed up the hair adornment.  I then used a black Zig marker to add faux stitched lines to the word blocks.

4/24 - "You Make My Heart Smile" - I loved this quilted looking element to this patterned paper and is served as my inspiration for my card today.  I cut the patterned paper so that I captured what I wanted to be the main focus of the card - namely the large pink, and medium blue heart.  From the same paper I cut a small pink heart and a mini red heart.  Even though the background paper already conveyed some depth with the quilted look of the flowers I wanted to add more with the smaller hearts, so I adhered them with pop up dots.  Once I had that done however I felt that something was missing on the left side of the card, so I came across this classic picture of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Lastly I added the title block which I stole from a wedding themed dimensional embellishment, which was adhered with pop up dots.

4/25/ - "Delicate Flowers"  I saw a design similar to this in a magazine which inspired me to create my own version of the piece.  I started by cutting a card from watercolor paper.  I like to use watercolor paper, especially on cards I will be painting to keep the warping to a minimum.  Using a Neo II watercolor crayon in a darker green I colored the card then added water to move the color around.  After the card dried I then stamped the card with a large text stamp in black ink. After this ink dried I stamped the card again using a flower stamp.  The next step was to paint, but before I could I needed to be sure everything was thoroughly dry so I gave the card a good blast with my heat tool for good measure.  Once I was confident that I could apply the paint without any moisture dilution, I began to paint using my Liquitex "Basics" acrylic paints to color in the flowers and add some detail.

4/26 - "Find Your Style" the main inspiration for my card today was two things, the artist paper used as a background I received in a issue of Somerset Studio magazine, and the image of the woman found in an ad at the back of the magazine which I detail cut out and adhered to the background.  I love how the black and white photo both compliments and contrasts on many levels against the paper used for the background.  The crayon scribble type look of the lines on the background vs the clean lines of the image, the bold red and hint of gold color in the back vs the gray tones of the image. I love teaming the messy with the refined!  I finished the card off with some letter stickers that I smudged some Color Box "Cats Eye" red ink on.

4/27 "Curiouser and Curiouser"   My card today was actually what I like to call a "made along the way" type card.  Although technically I wasn't traveling anywhere, I had to make my card at work during my lunch break because I knew I would be getting home very late, and would most likely be too tired to make a card then.  The basic premise to the MATW card is to only have a few supplies and make the card with items found where ever you are.  In this case the only supplies I had was a card blank a glue stick and a white Uniball pen. Strangely enough while looking through a political magazine in the office I came across this large Alice in Wonderland image, which I cut down, and pieced together in parts.  The title was cut from another page in the magazine which seemed to fit with the theme of the image.  I then added some white dots with the Uniball pen to add a little embellishment.

4/28 - "Never Be Afraid to Be Yourself"   My inspiration for this card was a piece of mixed media art that I saw and then reinterpreted here.  I started with a magazine image of a woman's head that was diffused with white paint dry brushed on lightly so as to minimize the original image but not lose all of the detail.  I next hand drew on a hat, and outlined the details of the image in pencil.  I'm not a good freehand drawer so I redid this many many times before I was even slightly happy with it. Next I went in with my Liquitex "Basics" acrylic paints and painted in the background, and then switching to a smaller brush painted some of the detail.  Once the paint was dry I used a white Uniball pen to add embellishment and draw the flowers on the hat. The flowers were then given a splash of color with a pink metallic Gelly Roll pen.  After everything was dry I hand wrote the title.  I can't tell you how much I hate my own handwriting sometimes which is why when I don't do a lot of journaling in my scrapbook pages.

4/29 "Sorrow"  I was planning on using this picture I found on the Internet in an altered art piece but due to it's small size I thought it would make a nice ATC instead, but rather than use my normal pastel chalks or watercolors for this I chose instead to use oil pastels.  I don't have a fancy oil pastel set but rather a cheap craft store brand.  I was going for a more dramatic effect which is why I kept the skin tone very muted and added the bright color to the lips.  I added a little embellishment to the eyelashes though by using a white Uniball gel pen.

4/30 "Wicked"  While looking through a mixed media magazine I loved the combination of using printed text with a black and white image, so I ventured to create my own collage piece doing just that.  I started with a background cut from my daily scrapbooking calendar.  I then found a black and white image of the girl from my Tweety Jill's "Vintage Photographs" collage pack and detail cut it and glued it down to the background.  Next I punched the hat out of a some Tweety Jill collage text paper.  I then free hand cut the brim out of some brown polka dotted paper.  For a final bit of color I used some Tsukineko chalk ink in Red Barn to edge the card.








Well we've made it up to the end of April, and hopefully with the next posting we will be close if not all the way up to date in presenting my cards.

I hope you have enjoyed what you have seen.  Please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.  Comments are always welcome.  Thanks for stopping by, I hope you come back soon.