Christmas Card Party 2014

 My friend Karen had her annual christmas card extravaganza this past weekend.  It had a theme (of course!) of Christmas Red and Winter White.  Here we are beside her two hand made trees.

Here is the adorable invitation she sent up for the party - yes an altered Altoids tin!  

She encouraged us to dress in the theme colours.

   One tree was made with miles of red velvet ribbon and the other a dripping willow tree with white lights and red balls.There were even MORE decorations around the house.  Check out last year's party HERE.

 Here are the little presents i brought for the ladies.  I wrapped them simply in white deli paper with red velvet ribbon and a glass candy cane.

 Inside the tins i placed some bling - sticky gemstones and pearls. Here's how i made them.

 Here are just SOME of the supplies Karen put out to share with us.  If we brought nothing, she had us covered.

 Of course there was coffee, pastries, fruit and yogurt when we arrived.  But in addition she served a delicious luncheon - including this tasty and beautiful citrus salad with pomegranates.

 She made us individual chicken pot pies and an arugula salad with dried cherries and goat's cheese. 

For my cards this year - i decided to make the base from pretty scrapbook paper - the heavier weight card stock.  I made good use of Karen's generosity with her supplies!  I designed a simple pattern of trees in a landscape format.

 I cut down the scrapbook paper from 12" x 12" to 9" by 7 1/2" to fit perfectly into a standard business envelope when folded in half.  this was to avoid having to fold up my annual christmas letter to fit.  A simple tri-fold and i'll be done.

 I usually like to do a simple design that i can crank out pretty fast.  But i still want it to be nice.  I cut 100's of "trees" - in triangle shapes from coordinating papers.  Sticking mainly with a blues and greens palette. a splash of red thrown in here and there.

 Here they are work in progress all stacked up.

 After a few more hours of play, it was time for tea!  karen made this impressive layer cake with a white chocolate frosting.

 Inside was even prettier!  and theme appropriate - of course!  Red velvet cake and cheesecake.  luckily we all got a second piece to take home!

During "tea time" Karen gave us all a little gift bag.

 Inside were three festive napkins which had been coated with resin - which transforms them into a mica like material, suitable for collage.  there was also some rose soaps, a little calendar, a notebook, a music rubber stamp and some chocolates.

My friend Z gave us each a vintage christmas card and a little vintage photograph, prettily packaged in a vellum envelope with lace trim.  The colours were perfect with the theme of the day!

My friend D gave us each a pretty scented soap.  I wonder how she knew i like birds so much?  (snigger)

Our friend M owns a bead store and brought some of her "bead soup" - a box filled with assorted bead for us to choose from.  Sunday (after the party on Saturday) i made this necklace with the beads i had selected. I used waxed linen thread and simply knotted the thread between the assorted green and amber beads to create separation.  it turned out long enough to wrap two or three times. 

Since i got out my bead things - i went ahead and made this one as well!

I didn't get any pictures of the Christmas cards the other ladies made (just so much going on!)  But my friend D made these eclectic new year's postcards and offered us each one.  They look just like one of D's quilts all laid out together.

 She has such a talent for collage and mixing patterns and themes.

 I, on the other hand, stick to pretty and predictable!  Here are the 44 cards i made all lined up on my dining room table.  A veritable forest of christmas tree shapes.

Oh - must confess.  there is ONE card that was upside down when i glued on the trees!  OOPSIE!  so i just added a few more triangles, some sticker balls - and now it is a festive holiday banner!

It goes without saying that our friend Karen is UNBELIEVABLY talented at throwing these parties.  her hostess skills, her cooking and her decorating are over the top.  We are truly blessed to have her as our crafty buddy.  She knows just how exactly make us feel special.  Including giving us SHOES!  well, ok, just one shoe - this pretty sparkly red one.

Thanks Karen!

Bling - Altered Book

 This month I had my friend S's book to work in - BLING!  She created a black and white and sparkly book from a binder style bound book with assorted printed pages.  Love the lavish use of stones and metallic.

 We were asked to create spreads using black and white (or cream) and to add some bling - hence the name.  Here are the little sign in cards - we were to decorate and sign a blank card.  I clipped a bunch of black and white graphics from decorating catalogs.

 For my first spread I was drawn to this gentleman with a striped suit.  I thought he should look over his shoulder at some femme fatale. I placed this lady in white beneath a striped tent and glass star lantern.  I stenciled the background with gold ink pad and a stiff brush.  the ruffled ribbon was the perfect striped final touch to add texture! 

For my second spread I found these two ladies in black gowns in a magazine.  I thought they'd look great with a zebra to ride!  I collaged the background with some dictionary text and copper snail tape.  then added some words clipped from a Ralph Lauren ad - a  bit of creative poetry.  I added some black tulle netting to the gowns to add some volume.  and some swirly copper adornments to create bigger headwear.  then some jet black stones to create a yoke and reins for the zebra.

To see the other color themed altered books  from our 2014 round robion swap, click here:
 PINK, GREEN, PURPLE.
Next up - Red and Teal!

Winter Bouquet

My AB group meets monthly to swap books and do a small workshop or project. For this month i chose as inspiration the artwork by Jo Schukar in this month's "With One Pallette" feature in Somerset Studios magazine. The pallette she chose was Black, White and Green. The overriding theme in the January issue was black and white - so it was nice to see how a splash of green gave life to these collage pieces.To get started i needed a base. I decided to use some heavy weight black cardstock i recently purchased at a art supply warehouse sale. The paper was huge - 20" by 14". Kind of an awkward size, so i cut it in half to give me a 10 by 14 strip - which would be suitable for a "portrait" orientation.The background in the magazine artwork was various black and white papers, but i recently acquired a huge quantity of scrapbook paper with a lot of grey tones. So i went with that. I cut several coordinating prints in geometric shapes. If it helps, think of them as the table, the floor, the wallpaper and the drapes.
Next i needed a vase. I had a an assortment of textured papers that would make nice contemporary vases. I chose a heavy texture and left it quite cylindrical.For the flowers i used roughly torn circles from old sheet music. The leaves and stems are green mulberry paper.

Once all the background shapes were glued to the black paper, i softened the patterns with some gesso. Applied lightly so not to completely cover the paper. I also applied a bit of gesso to the sheet music flowers. Once everything is gesso'd and glued down it is time to add some drama with Portfolio Oil pastels. I just LOVE these things. You just outline your paper cutouts then smooth and blend with your fingers. it gives a painterly effect to a collage that it otherwise somewhat childlike. Although - that can be cool too!

I used light and dark green to accentuate the leaves and stems. Black for the petals and stamens and to add shadows. Then i as inspired by Jo's artwork, i added a mid century modern squiggle along the top left and bottom right edges. A smidge of yellow bightened the whole thing up.
Once done i found that the whole thing was too high on the page. The flowers were kind of bunched up at the top and there was a big space at the bottom. So again to emulate Jo, i added a couple of pears, cut out of mulberry paper and outlined with oil pastels.
Well, I don't love it - i think my flowers are too much in rows or something. But for my first attempt, not bad. I'll be back to share my second attempt and the art created by my artistic friends. I hope they enjoy this as much as i did!

1.20.2009

Here in honour of this special day, with apologies to Shepard Fairey, here is my Obama collage. It looks better if you squint at it!

Someone once left all this patriotic red white and blue scrapbook paper at a craft swap, so i took it home. Being Canadian, i thought i'd never use it. But i think it was put to perfect use here. We got up to watch the inauguration this morning and i wanted to do something creative to mark today. As much as this blog is about art and not politics, i still need a job and i am as hopeful as most americans that today is the beginning of renewal for the country.

If you are interested in doing this yourself - here are some basic instructions. Print out an image like this, a photograph converted to blocks of coulour. Or you can take any photo and use editing software to convert it to grey scale. Enlarge it as big as you can - the bigger the pieces the easier it will be. Obama was challenging, to get all those squinty lines. Keep your original to have a reference.
Cut out the largest sections of lights and darks These are your pattern pieces. Lightly glue them to the BACK of paper. Cut them out. Remove the pattern. Place the cut out pieces on a background. Note that your collage will be reversed from the original. Lightly glue the large patterns onto the contrasting paper. Cut out the next smallest section of the image. repeat until you have cut out all the different shaded areas.

I used the same technique to create this puppy out of scrap paper shown here.