Kayla's Smash Book

I showed my daughter Kayla the video of the Smash books and asked her what she thought. She immediately told me she wanted one. Of course I had to buy it for her.

This afternoon she came by Wingdoodle with a bag of stuff and her Smash book. For about 3 hours she went through her stuff, cutting and gluing. The pages above are what she did today.

She looked so happy and had fun remembering things as she went through her mementos. This would be a great ongoing project for the summer and a really great gift for someone going off to college in September.

cool buttons

We just received some neat clear tabs from Ranger....which of course comes from the creative genius of Tim Holtz (can you tell my heart goes pitter pat when I mention his name?). Anyway...I wanted to fool around with them and Mondays at Wingdoodle is my day to try new products....provided I don't have a pile of boxes from UPS!

So I started out stamping some small parts of rubber stamps on to the shapes. Now Tim uses a lot of these just as is to enhance a card or an area of a piece, but I can't settle for simple. So after stamping with Stazon (because it will work and dry on non porous surfaces) I heat set the image and then stamped a Versamark pad on to it. This enabled me to add Pan Pastels on to the image for color. Now if you haven't tried Pan Pastels....well you have to!! We have a set at the demo table and are happy to break them out for you to try. They are wonderful, smooth and easy to use pastels...they last forever and don't break apart like the little sets that you can get at the "big box" stores (they'll remain nameless). I use Qtips because I feel like I have more control but you can use the tools that come with the PanPastels or make-up sponges. I used quite a few colors and blended them so it gave a nice color effect. I like to seal the final piece with JudiKins' Diamond Glaze...it gives this wonderful glossy dimension to the piece. I also fooled around with Ranger's clear tags and clear buttons. I have a fetish with buttons and use them a lot on my mixed media pieces as well as on my books. Buttons make great closures for books, sew them in place and run a waxed piece of linen from the back side of the book to the front and wrap the thread around the button. Yummy!

this shows how I used these buttons and tags on my own work...combined with my calligraphy I think the final presentation looks pretty good!

I'm a newbie

I am introducing myself to the Wingdoodle blog...I am Adele and I am new to the store but I was at a store meeting last night, and have been asked to write things for Wingdoodle's blog. Well this is all new so I am sure I am going to stumble and make mistakes, but I'm willing to give it a try as long as no one teases me!
Some of you may know me from Caardvark, the store I owned in downtown Concord, NH. I closed it 6 years ago and started to work full time as an artist. I am a calligrapher by trade, but do a lot of mixed media work and love the fact that I am back dabbling in rubberstamps and new art products. I am also teaching a bunch of classes here with SherRee, as a matter of fact I just taught a fun Domino class last Saturday. The students were full of ideas and one of them brought in an accordion folded water color sheet that she had painted and decorated with rubber stamps. It fit perfectly into the mini domino and once put together it was a sight to see. She decorated it with a rubber stamped bird that we then added Versamark too and then colored with PanPastels (mmmmm spreads like butta).  I love teaching, I always get inspired by my students, and although they are always very appreciative, I consider myself lucky because I learn so much from them.

Zentangle: Alphonse Insists

 Want a really great idea - or perhaps a bizarre idea? - for how to use the Hands Bookends? Take a look at the Zentangle blog. Go ahead, take a look right now...

Zentangle: Alphonse Insists: "Our Alphonse (ever grateful for his rescue from a lonely bat-filled attic) wanted in on this blog. He says he's particularly fond of this ..."

How cool is that?!

Halloween Spider Web Cards

 

I used the new Cling Spider Web Set from Stampendous to make these three very different Halloween cards.   I have done all three cards for make and takes in the store, they are quick and easy and take about 10 minutes to do.  The first card I just stamped the web and spider and layered papers.  The shaker card I used the Impression Obsession Shaker Pouches, Overlays and the background I did with Distress Ink Pads on glossy paper and then stamped with Staz On.   The third card is glossy paper, alcohol inks and then stamped with Staz On.  On all three cards I used the new super fine black Flower Soft to make the spider's body hairy.  Come by and see me at the demo table on Saturday and I will be glad to show you how to use the alcohol inks and Distress Ink pads to make the backgrounds.  

SherRee