See my other CWS projects HERE!
See my other CWS projects HERE!
I added some splashes of metallic gold watercolor by FineTec on the background. Next, I gold embossed a sentiment from the Hymn Word Art stamp set and rounded the corners with a punch. I like how the background is a striking color, but also picks up the underlayer of watercolor. It was a fun experiment!
I finished by layering over a white panel stamped with the Diagonal Plaid 6x6" background stamp. Oh my goodness, I love this XL plaid stamp! Thankfully I had some vintage seam binding in the right shade of gold to coordinate and complete the card.
For my last card today, I added another sentiment from the Hope Word Art stamp set and paired it with mushrooms from the Colors of Fall stamp set. For the sentiment panel, I dipped a scrap into Distress Inks in Fired Brick and Crackling Campfire then stamped in VersaFine black.
Hey everyone! I'm back today to share a couple batches of my handmade bookmarks. I'm being painfully honest with you by saying I was never much of a reader. I just never took time to read books and even with art articles I was interested in, I would generally skim them over. What a pity, I know! Well, several years back I decided to truly become a REAL READER. After a while, I decided to start documenting my reads in an Excel spreadsheet. Long story short, we went to Mall of Georgia to the massive Barnes and Noble for my son's birthday this past weekend and I was perusing the isles, I kept noting, "hey I've read that!" I was really surprised and happy! It got me to wondering just how many books I've read these past few years so I did a quick tally and the grand total is 99 books! <insert happy dance>
It's no surprise that I've also found a small addiction to making handmade bookmarks because I am prone to read about 3 to 5 novels simultaneously and have several art books in process as well, so I need a good many bookmarks, plus I love to give them as gifts. Yes, that is definitely me showing why I was never a good reader, because I am totally ADD. But actually reading has helped me a lot with focus and minor memory issues.
I recently posted on IG my latest watercolor bookmark collection. I like to take a 9x12 sheet of Canson watercolor paper and use it for practice, you know to get my hand warmed up to fluid motion and control.
I simply paint one type of flower all over the page, then repeat with another and another, some leaves, berries, etc. until I have a nice full composition. I then cut the sheet into 2.25x7" strips. I use a corner rounder for the edges and add tassels. I love the serendipity of seeing what sections appear in the cut apart pieces and the general looseness of these play pages. I recommend THESE tassels from Amazon. They are much nicer than others I've ordered and quite reasonable.
Well, I also love love love do dabble in gel printing, especially with botanical elements, but also with stencils and my beloved PaperArtsy Fresco chalk acrylic paints.
I have piles and piles of prints and thought it time to try out Susan McCreevy's technique for transforming them into beautiful artsy bookmarks. I did not use matboard, as Susan did in her video HERE, but used an Avery permanent glue stick and adhered my pieces to black cardstock instead.
Actually, these were some of my least favorite prints and maybe just one part of the page was worth using. This made the process even more rewarding. I love a good trash to treasure project indeed!
I hope you like my bookmarks and my little story of overcoming an obstacle in my life, resulting in a truly beneficial pleasure. Please let me know in the comments what some of your favorite reads are. xx, Autumn
Hi friends! I found this post I prepared last year and forgot to publish! Ha ha, I'm barely getting it published this year while it's still July, but loved these cards and wanted to still share. I have a couple of Christmas cards for with Tim Holtz stamps. Have you started your Christmas in July projects? THIS year I have not, but last year I must have been more froggy! Anyway, for this first set of cards I used the gorgeous Department Store stamp set to create some vintage style cards.
My calendar popped up a reminder for June 3 that it was my blogaversary and I looked and saw that it had been ten years since I started SewPaperPaint! WOW!
I wanted to share a fun tutorial with you based on inspiration by Karen Stamper and Traci Bautista from this year's Sketchbook Revival Binge Fest. What fun!
My friend had spent the weekend with me for some creative fun and we decided to work in our accordion books following Karen Stamper's process of adhering various paper elements and masking/washi tapes to a long accordion paper, then adding inks or watercolor, spraying and letting the drips run free. Oh my this was fun! We both made two panels and I could have made ten. Ha ha!
I really wanted to turn mine into a completed work. Karen uses her pieces as a base for future architectural drawings, but that wasn't traveling - I've become such a homebody!
Meanwhile, I was so inspired by Traci's use of a dagger brush and the way she held it upwards to produce beautiful, fluent leaves. We had used a bottle of liquid watercolor in black by Blick and had a lot left in our little jars days later. I thought it would be beautiful to add some of the leaves and happily reactivated the dried color with my wet brush. It worked beautifully, though the black does turn quite blue when very wet.
I fussy cut my practice pieces I had done on book pages and adhered them for a variety.