June Side Trade - gift tags

Have you ever seen something really cool and think you want to try it. So you go to the store and buy all the materials to make it and then chicken out or just forget about it? No? Me either! Well that's not true. Digging through my supplies, I found packages of different sized gift tags. Whoops. Good thing this challenge came along! So we had to make two different styles to trade. Easy enough. Uh no. It's something new so I have to suffer anxiety over it.

Time to just count out what I need and plow in with materials!

This first set evolved over my dismay at not having achieved a summer day yet! I mean it's almost the end of June and we are barely above 70 this summer! Well my card worked. The projected temps for the next week are in the 90's! 
The sand is from the liquitex sand medium, then dye painted over it. The sky is ink and clouds painted in with acrylic. A hand carved bird stamp and grass stamp complete the look.

Now this tag was a technique driven design. I had some metallic paint from my faux finishing days. It was a sage green color and I troweled it on and stamped into it. That part kind of disappeared. I painted a sunflower yellow ink over the top. Still boring, so I used a stencil in dark purple along the edge, then splattered white acrylic paint with a toothbrush. Next a rubber stamp in sunflower yellow on the opposite side. Dragonfly kept running through my head the entire time I worked on this piece. On a separate piece of paper, I stamped a bunch of dragonflies and used embossing powder in black. When dry, I heat set then colored with markers. I trimmed around the outside edges and glued them to each tag. Still needed just one more element. Black glitter glue to bring out the stenciled dots. That was it. Add a decorative string and ta da!

Urban Decay-Fragments Challenge Piece

I can't believe I am finished with this piece already! Don't you just love it when work flows out of you so easily. And I am happy with the result which is unusual for me as I tend to hate it after working on it for so long.



I used rust dyed fabric and then painted it with orange and turquoise textile paint. Then I stenciled the tree in green and added a dark brown-black horizon line. I FMQ the entire piece and went back in with shiva paint stiks and dye sticks to add more interest and detail.



Detail 1




Detail 2

Miscellaneous

Last Friday was my son's 3rd grade end of year picnic and I got to do the craft! I bought the t-shirts from Dharma Trading and had them shipped to my house. The paint was red acrylic paint mixed with aloe vera gel to make it easier to stencil. I photocopied their logo and then created the text in Quark. Made a very nice stencil - well three actually. Back was killing me from leaning over the table all afternoon but the results were so worth it! We made 60 and even the teachers got into the action. You would think my son's would be one of the nicest but he had a boo-boo in the corner. But he loves it and so did his classmates.


I was out on one of my morning walks and veered off the beaten path. They redid a bunch of areas around the river and I finally decided to check it out. Well this little dragonfly landed right on my leg!! How cool is that??




This is the view of the river from another direction. The water was so calm. Considering all the rain we have been having, I thought it would be a bit faster moving. I love how the trees make a frame. Hard to tell where reflection meets the sky.