Monday, November 2, 2009

Queen of Hearts follow-up

This is what I finally ended up submitting for my Queen of Hearts swap. I figured out my other cards just didn't quite have enough embellishment, and now that I go back and look at them, they sort of do look like a beginner made them. I think if I put a little more into them, they can look better.
For this card, I already had the background, a texured gold piece of paper, I rubbed my mellow moss and Green Galore Stampin Up classic ink pads over it. I have quite a few old books, so I took pages of one, ripped them and then rubbed the edges with really rust su pad. I stamped the face on a piece of fabric and colored it with chalk. The crown is a foam stamp, that I used in a almost dried up Colorboxpetal point pigment option pad called Alchemy, the color I used is Goldrush. I'm really disappointed this stamp pad dried up, I think the top got loosened sometime, but it's a gorgeous ink pad, I plan to buy another one some day. I added the pink heart and clear circle gems as a little embellishment to the crown. When I laid the head and crown on the book page, they seemed to be hanging in air, so I cut a little piece of red doily heart, flipped it over to the back where it looked pinkish and glued everything down. For the Q, I used a sticker, only I didn't have enough "Q"'s for 6 cards, so I had to change some "O"'s as well with black permanent marker. The heart is a shell charm from Hobby Lobby.
I think these cards came out much nicer, though I still really like the others. I've noticed with some of my artwork, I seem to fall into a rut and don't put near as much into them as I should. People in the new group I joined won't be taking that, so it's a good push to keep going in my art.
I already signed up for more swaps in this group, and have a couple ideas for them.
1. A Christmas Chipboard book with 5 pages. Each person has a different shape (I got a Santa Hat). Once we get them all decorated and back to the hostess, she will string them all together to form a garland that we can hang up.
All I could think about at first when I saw the hat was to decorate it like a normal hat, but now I'm thinking of adding some red foil to the bigger part and adding some kind of vintage Santa photo, then adding some white fur stuff to the top of the hat (I bought some neat stuff at a sale this weekend), embellishing the Santa photo and then covering the whole thing with some gold webbing I bought.
2. A House Chipboard piece and 6 charms to go with it. We will get the charms back on the bottom of the house from 6 different artists, plus a different artist for the house.
I have no idea what I'm doing for this one. I'm hoping people will post pictures and I can get some inspiration from those. The only thought I have is to cover it with book pages.
3. Christmas Charm Swap. Each person will make at least one set of 6 charms that are Christmas themed (but not religious). The hostess will swap out the charms and put them on a charm bracelet.
I have already made some polymer clay snowman charms and they are cute. Only problem is they darkened a bit in the baking, so I need to buy some white paint to paint over them. I think it'd be cool if it were iridescent or pearly. I signed up for 2 sets of 6 charms, but I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with the second set.
I love these charm bracelet swaps. It's so much fun to make the charms and see what everyone else makes. I rarely wear charm bracelets because I get caught on stuff, but I sure am displaying them.
4. Glittered Mucha Swap. We make 4 ATC's with Mucha girls (an artist) and decorate them, making sure there is some glitter on all of them.
I haven't started these either. I haven't even thought of what I'm going to do. But, they sound like fun.
5. Fabric Book. This isn't a swap, every week we get a set of instructions to do a page for the book. This lasts six weeks and in the end we have a little fabric book.
I bought the fabric, but am thinking of waiting for all the instructions to come out, and adding some quilt batting in between the pages so they're a little bulkier and sturdier.
6. Altered Filled Matchbox. You decorate a slide out matchbox and include some 3D items in it.
I haven't officially signed up for this one yet, I want to make sure I can do it first. But I think it would be really fun. I also have to find a matchbox. I don't use matches for anything, my stove is electric, and if I light candles I have one of those flame things where you just push a button.

I am looking forward to do all of these. Unfortunately I never get started on them. I started a new job at the library, so I get up early to go to that, but I have about 4.5 hours between jobs that I certainly could be working on them.

No comments: