Trippin' with My Medieval Alter Ego

Okey Dokey. Here are some examples of my illuminations. Actually, these three are taken from a star book that is practically all I have left of my illuminations. I made the book just to experiment with different color combinations. Tell me which is your favorite!

Trying to overcome a distaste for brown. Sorta worked.

Monochromatic blues...yum.

Looks more Chinese than Celtic, but so what?

Here are directions in case you're feeling the desire to follow your inner medievalist.

1. Trace the designs (from a variety of sources...lots of copyright-free line art out there) onto 90lb hot-press Arches watercolor paper with a light table and a dip pen using waterproof India ink. If you don't like dip pens, you can trace with waterproof artist pens. But I like dip pens...they make me feel like a medieval monk.

2. Paint the design with Windsor & Newton gouache, which is opaque watercolor. (If you decide to try this, DO NOT go cheap on the paint. You will deeply regret it. Trust me. Get the W&N.) You'll need a couple of small round watercolor brushes for this. (Again, don't go cheap on the brushes...they shed hairs into your paint and make you swear. Get sable for life or plan on replacing the mid-price brushes frequently.)

3. Finally, go over the inked lines with a very, very tiny brush and black gouache to clean up the lines.* This was really hard and took a very steady hand. I practiced A LOT before I made this book. Fortunately, if you screw it up, you can paint over it again. Gouache is pretty forgiving.

Some designs are fairly simple and quick, and others are hugely complex and take days just to trace. My best project was a Psalter for my mother. I made a complex Japanese stab binding with mat board covered in black Canson paper and a recessed illuminated medallion in the center. I copied ten psalms in calligraphy using Carolingian lettering and embellished each with a different small illuminated knot and random little embellishments (such as a little lizard from the Book of Kells). It was the last calligraphy/illumination project I did. Took three months and by the end I really, really, really needed a break. I took up stamping, and the rest is history.

*Funny story. My mom is a serious watercolor artist who kept all her drawing and painting talent to herself and passed none on to me, a person who stoops to tracing on a light table without shame. When Mom saw my tiny, tiny outlining brush, she got all snooty about it, calling it useless. She deigned to paint an illumination with me and when it came time to do step three, she tried to use one of her larger brushes. It didn't work. She kept moving to smaller and smaller brushes until she asked to use my tiny, tiny brush. I may have gloated.

On Yu-Gi-Oh Cards and Old Biology Textbooks

My firstborn son experienced epic violation Tuesday evening when his Yu-Gi-Oh deck was stolen in the waiting room at the Children's clinic where my second born receives speech therapy. If you don't know what a Yu-Gi-Oh deck is, you are so very, very lucky. If you DO know, please pray that whoever stole these will have a parent discover the theft and return the cards or be stricken with a guilty conscience and return them of his own volition. For Nick, this is the worst thing to happen to him in his short life and is a tragedy on par with the Titanic, the Hindenburg, and going to sixth grade.

Oy. Sometimes, motherhood involves standing quietly by as your child melts down in agony and knowing just the right moment to go in for the hug. I'm traumatized. Can you tell?

ANYWAY, as I've been going through books and purging, I found my mother's old biology textbook. I've kept it for sentimental reasons: I pretended to be a college student studying biology when I was in third grade and mom was in dental hygiene school. The book she let me play with was actually her old high school book, a paperback printed on highly acidic, cheap paper that has yellowed beautifully with age. As my purging self contemplated throwing it in the recycling bin, I realized that I would rather tear it up and use it on cards.

So I made this.

A close-up so you can read how appropriate the text is for the image.
I searched for hours to get this right!
(Not really.)

It's not bad for a first effort at tearing up a book...an act that made me look over my shoulder repeatedly in case my third-grade librarian should appear and yell at me for violating a book!

And isn't that tiny paper clip the cutest widdle ting ever?!?!? It's from a Tim Holtz hardware pack I picked up a few years ago. Eeep! I used one!!!!

And now for two points of business from my last post.

1. I heat-set the Memento ink on the fabric because it wasn't drying quickly enough and I worried it would smear. Memento is waterproof but I'm not sure how waterproof it is on fabric.

2. I will take some pictures of my calligraphy and illumination efforts to share, but I warn you...there's a reason I turned to rubber stamping. Calligraphy and illumination appealed to the medievalist in me, and they were fun, but they're not clean and simple, and I wasn't good at them.

supplies
stamps: Papertrey Turning a New Leaf
ink: Versacolor
paper: Papertrey vintage ivory
accessories: old biology book, paper clip, ribbon, glue stick, corner rounder

A Little Book

In the giant stash of stuff Audrie sent me last fall was a little fabric book on a ring. Y'all may not know this but I started my life as a papercrafter by making artist's books with calligraphy and illuminations. I have fretted and worried over what to do with this fabulous little cloth book...until the other day when I had Papertrey's Beautiful Blessings out on my desk and realized there were enough verses and saying in it to fill the ten pages of the book. So I made this.

The leaves are from Papertrey's Turning a New Leaf...a wonderful set for CAS stamping. I used three shades of ink from Memento, plus brown, and heat set the ink with an embossing gun. The simplicity of the design keeps the focus on the words, while the touch of color (canteloupe, lavender, and pear tart) adds interest.

The book is a gift for a friend who has done me several favors over the past few months and who prays for me and my family every single day. She gives amazing hugs, too. So thank you, Audrie, for giving me this little blank book. You blessed me and my friend with it!!!

You're in my Prayers

I never think of using my computer to make cards as I spend quite enough time on this thing as it is (writing, you know...not surfing Pinterest or anything wasteful of time like that!). When I craft, I like to channel my inner kindergartner...from way back when kindergartners didn't have iPhones and internet access in their bedrooms. In fact, before whats-his-face even invented the internet.

So my complaint about how annoying PTI's Simple Alphabet is to use sparked an idea in kind reader Mary Anne that never would have occurred to me in this lifetime. She suggested making the tag letters on Friday's card with a computer...which would be a very easy way to get lots of fonts and not have to mess with tiny little clear stamps. For those of you who appreciate just how stunningly creative our computers can make us, I share Mary Anne's idea with you. Run with it.

Also, several people have asked about the status of my craft room. I've decided to move everything to the nook in the main room of the basement, the one with the sliding glass door and wonderful natural light. I despise being in the bedroom as it's incredibly quiet and isolated from my family. The carpet pad under the nook is askew and needs to be fixed before I can effect the move, but hopefully, that will be finished this week. I'll get all this figured out eventually and will share pictures when it's all said and done.

And now for two cards I need to send this week. I love Harvest Berries and Beautiful Blessings, two wonderful sets from Papertrey. They really compliment each other so well! The cards are 4.25" square and I rounded the unstamped corners to create a greater sense of movement on the totally flat card. I think it works!

Thanks so much for reading Simplicity, for encouraging me, and and for making my little corner of the internet such a warm and wonderful place!


Supplies
stamps: PTI
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white
accessories: corner chomper

My First Christmas Card of 2012

I'm still working through the cool gifts I received last fall and Christmas, and today's card features the SU tag punch sent to me by Audrie, aka girlgeek. I wanted to make a white-on-white card, and ended up making a white-on-white-on-white-on-white card instead. That's a lot of white, and a little bit of cherry cobbler thrown in, you know, just for fun.

The letters are from PTI's mini alphabet called Simple Alphabet. This alphabet is a pain in the butt to use because the letters are SO SMALL and lining them up perfectly is almost impossible. Since it's such a clean alphabet, each little spacing bobble shows up like a neon sign, at least to my AR/OC eyes. (Whimsical alphas are so much easier to work with as spacing is more forgiving.)

For this card, I stamped each letter on white card stock with plenty of space around it for punching, then centered each letter in the punch (turning the punch upside down to see where the letter was!), and punched. The l is still a little high, but it's nowhere near as noticeable as it would be if I'd stamped all four letters together.

If you're AR/OC enough, you can ALWAYS find a work-around to a problem.

And yes, if you are AR/OC enough, you start making Christmas cards in February. Just for fun!

Supplies
stamps: PTI
ink: SU cherry cobbler
paper: PTI
accessories: SU tag punch, embroidery thread, dimensionals, tiny little self-adhesive rhinestones

Self-Adhesive Canvas

Kegbo (her name at SCS) kindly sent me some pieces of self-adhesive canvas, and I finally had a chance to play with this cool product that I didn't even know existed until she sent it.

Isn't she the sweetest?!?!

Some free advice...don't bother cutting out flowers stamped on the canvas and then adhering them so they directly overlap each other. It looks bad. Just sayin'.

I'm always more successful when I keep things simple (well, duh) and this card keeps it simple.

Crisp and clean, yet soft and weathered, with that wonderful canvas texture, and a touch of brown Stickles...JUST BECAUSE!

*giggle*

I look forward to making more cards with kegbo's gift. I'm determined to cut out shapes and layer them successfully, but I suspect that will require mounting the canvas on card stock first, and then using dimensionals. Sigh.

I'm getting tired just thinking about doing that.

No, I'm not lazy. Why do you ask?

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (discontinued), Papertrey (sentiment)
ink: Ancient Page Deep Harbor, Memento cocoa
paper: PTI white, self-adhesive canvas
accessories: Stickles

One-Layer Wednesday 80: Two by Two Plus Masking

This week's One-Layer Wednesday (a.k.a. OLW) Challenge is to use two colors, two images, and masking. Sentiments are optional but must be in one of the two colors, just to make the whole thing more diabolical, um, challenging.

Like this.

Red and green. Two strawberries. A sentiment in green.

Go, me!

OLW80 Rules

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single layer of card stock folded in half. No other layers allowed.

2. Use two colors PLUS two images PLUS masking. Sentiments, if included, must be in one of the two colors.

3. Keep embellishments to a minimum.

4. Upload your card somewhere on the internet and then link to it using the InLinkz tool on the sidebar of Simplicity!

5. Most importantly, HAVE FUN!!!


Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Green Thumb
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white
accessories: corner chomper