Highdesert Stamper – Artistic Inkspirations

I don’t know how many of you have ever “traded” Artists Trading cards… They are small, compact, and easy to make or can be very “tedious” as the one I’m going to show you.  They were orignally started in the 1700′s as miniature portraits that were sold.  During the Impressionist age, Artists cards were traded to study each other art styles and techniques.  If you’d like to read about their history… here’s a link. They’re very interesting.  I have traded Oriental style ATC’s,  “vintage” style, and now we’ve done a 44 color Stampin’ UP! style. I will be posting all of the Color Families over the next few weeks, on Mondays… so come back and check to see the next batch!     Enjoy.

Bashful Blue colors

Recipe: Stamp sets: Puns from the past, Charming

Card stock and Ink: Bashful blue, whisper white; Accessories: Eyelet lace border punch, crimper, new tiny flower punch from Itty Bitty Shapes, boho blossom punch, jewelry tag med. punch, Vanilla smooch spray, lt blue embroidery floss (ties on tags), pearls from pretties kit, BS Lattice emobssing folder.

Techniques: ined embossing,  I teach this in a class–it is NOT the brayered folder technique; “ruffled” borders.

If you’d like to take a class and learn how to make this card, contact me at “highdesertstamper@gmail.com”

I had to include Jackie Topa’s Card here… since I used some of my retiring papers to make this little book. So here’s her card first!

They're all retiring!!! BOO HOO HOOO

I watched a 2 hr long video and decided I needed to try my hand at making this little book.  The design is by a quilter no less…who got into paper crafting…..”Follow the paper trail”…. I made this little book for a special little grandson who loves to hike all over the mountains, tracking animals and discovering things in the Smokey mountains. So shhhh… don’t show him the pictures!!  The cover has copper leaves I punched out with my bigshot, and similar paper leaves decorate every page inside. He has plenty of pockets  to stuff things in , and lots of pages to put pictures of all his animals, their tracks and whatever he discovers.  If you click on the link above , you can watch the 2 hr utube video to learn how to make the book!!

Leave book Cover

Here’s the accordian fold out pages.

Front pages

Here are the pages on the back of the front folds.

Back pages

all papers are SU designer papers from the past year. I tried to use colors with leaves, and colors a little boy would like. I hope he likes it!!  The book ties shut with the retiring 1″ stitched chocolate grosgrain ribbon.

The book is a 5″ chipboard base for front and back covers. There is a tag in each of the pocket.

I saw an old post by Amy Celona on a tag book she made after receiving one from a friend. I decided to reproduce a similar book using some of our retiring colors. Recipe follows. I have been working on a different way to do the flap, since it’s a bit difficult to score all the “flaps”..when you get a bunch of layers.  How do you like it??

Front with flap closed

cover untied

tags in pockets

I made this book to use the 3×5 flat cello bags. I did insert a blank pc of cardstock so the tags show, but it really doesn’t need it.
I made it so you could easily repeat this for a class, using designer papers for the bases of all the tags and the front cover. You can use a 6×12 sheet for each person, the different colors of cardstocks and some scraps. The flowers were punched using the Bigshot Blossom Party die. The birds and leaves are from the new large bird punch.  The body of the booklet is a 3 1/2  x 10 1/2 inch piece of Ruby  Red cardstock, scored at 5 & 5 1/2.  The ‘pockets’ inside are 3×5 flat cello bags (#103104). I ran the scallops through the lattice embossing folder to give them more texture with the gold spray on them.

Accessories, inks, papers: Ruby red, garden green, choc chip DSP, yoyo yellow, very vanilla, large bird punch, round fire rhinestones
Oval punch, 1 1/4″ circle punch, bigshot Scallop Circle #2, crop a dile, kraft tafeta ribbon, gold foil smooch spray, sponges, scallop circle punch, scallop border punch (available 1 July 2010)

Watercolor Trio stamp set.