Zentangles

Spent part of the Super Bowl doing zentangles on envelopes.  Found some terrific ones nonline to try.  Love the cat ones. Here's a few of my favorites:

 

2013 Valentine Card design

Wow - This year I'm way ahead of the game, for once.  Here's my 2013 Valentine card design.

I used pink patterned paper for the background and over stamped it with a sheet music stamp from Oriental Trading Company (yes, they sell a few stamps and at a terrific price).  I then stamped the bird on a branch and script images from a stanp set by Tim Holtz.  I used another TH stamp for the heart stamped over the music notes.  The Love script is form a JoAnn's dollar stamp set, as are the tiny hearts. 

I'm really in to tickets at the moment so I used my Tim Holtz tickets die on my Cuttlebug (using red cardstock of course).  I stamped a border and "You're Special" on each ticket.

I finished the card with a lace border using my Martha Stewart punch, and a ribbon with little hearts on it.  Adding the 3 tiny hearts in the lower right corner, with stickles in the middle of each really helped balance the design and added some sparkle.  Hope the recipeints like theirs!  Lucky for me I only had to make 12 of these babies.

For the inside I used patterned paper, stamped the Greeting, and added a strip of "birds on a wire," from a Martha Stewart punch.

New Year and New Techniques

2013 - I want to do a better job of keeping up on this blog this year.  I'm working on a new art journal and some new techniques.  Here is a new one for you.  I made these steampunk bookmarks for my brother-in-law.  I made one for him last fall and he loved it and asked for more.

I ran plain cardstock through my Xyron machine then layed in onto a sheet of aluminum foil.  This gave me a metallic piece that can be used for all kinds of embellishments.  I trimmed the paper to tag size then ran them through my Cuttlebug using the Gear Box strip embossing folder,  This gives great texture for embellishing with more "guy" stuff, like clock gears and washers.  I layered small pieces of the aliminum paper and used metal embossing tools to replicate metal joins.  Alcohol inks added color.