Portrait Transfer Class...

So here's a little peek at what I was doing over at Jen's house, while Deedee was busy making gorgeous polymer tiles.  I'll do a whole seperate post for that magic.  You can click here to go see the rest of the portraits that happened over at Goodnewsart.

This is Jen Johansen's portrait of her daughter Olivia.
She's crazy creative!  She's still going to add another embellishment
to the heart as soon as she find that perfect something.  :-)

Flower Emma...

Resources:  12x12 inch canvas with gallery edges, acrylic paints and mediums, pages from vintage magazine, personal drawings, packing material,  Cottagearts photo filters, Tim Holtz flower die cut, K&Company Studio K Round Word Brads

What a wonderful rainy day... the perfect day to scrappage.  On my first visit to the scrapbook store here in Ankeny, I picked up a book on photo transfers.  It shows all kinds of ways to tranfer your photos on other materials.  Here is my first attempt at combining, photography, painting, and scrapbook on canvas.  It's so much fun.

This portrait canvas has gallery edges, so it's ready to hand on the wall.  My big plan is to put together some canvas transfer kits with all the supplies with a how-to (I want to make a video how-to tutorial too!), so I can do workshops and people can make their own canvas photo portraits.  Let me know if you'd be interested in a workshop.  I'm also making Custom Portrait Canvases available at my gallery.  (click here to visit my goodnewsart gallery)

discover

Tonight I started working on a digital collage for a scrapbook page that I want to make.  I've been thinking about being a mother, and how my children help me discover creativity... when I take the time to see what they're showing and teaching me.  I used filters from cottagearts for this collage, and put it together in Adobe photoshop.

letter to Martha - tags

These tags are inspired by a letter that George Washington wrote to Martha. I copied the letter from the book 1776. I love how the letter is adressed... My dearest

Aeva drawing page

I'm just loving making scrapbook pages, where photography is the base of the design.  This is actually a digital collage.  I took a photo of Aeva drawing, and then another layer of an aerial photo of trees to give it more dimension.  When Emma saw the picture, she said, "Aeva draws just like you do!"  I had printed the collage and given it to Deedee.  Last night, Deedee asked me if I wanted to make a scrapbook page with her.  I didn't have any photos with me, but I saw the print out sitting on top of her scrapbook papers.  I asked her if I could replace her print, and use the collage on a page.  It was so much fun to take it out of it's original format, and make a scrapbook page around it.  The extra papers give it so much more dimension and tell a more whimsical story.  I always try new things with Deedee, and come home with a head full of ideas.  I love combining the clouds and the flowers.  This is one of the flowers I made the other day.  They're so much fun.

Finding Treasure

I've always been inspired by paper. The paper is what inspired this collage back in 2007.  The hills on the paper made me think of a treasure hunt, and so I found a photo of Emma collecting things to create this page.  I love how the decorative rub-ons make such a whimsical crown.  I also love how the vintage buttons give this collage so much extra depth.

New tools in my red bag...

This morning I'm going to Deedee's house for our weekly creative get together.  I can't wait.  Deedee's been working with polymer clay, and I've been learning about all the die cut options, machines, and embossing powders.  Adriaan took me to Archivers this weekend, and told me to feel free to buy a die cut machine, so he watched the girls and I was able to demo their die cut machines.  I ended up coming home with a Big Shot Express, and a few die cuts to get me started.  The lady who helped me bought the other one they had in stock.  We were both sold.  I bought a few Tim Holtz dies and a Sizzix tag die cut.  So, here are the experiments I made last night, trying out my new die cuts, some of the color copies of the collages I've made, and my new embossing powders.  So, all my new tools are packed in this red bag, filled to the brim with my tools, papers, and new machinery.  I told Adriaan yesterday, that I was so excited about all the ideas swarming around my brain, that I was on the verge of tears.  I don't know if too much coffee was playing a role there, but either way... I'm excited.  I'll post some of the highlights of me and Deedee's day later!

This is a beautiful day worth celebrating

Today, I went over to Deedee's house, and we got to creative brainstorming.  We couldn't leave it at that, and I asked her to show me how to use stamps, and new ways to use alcohol inks and distress inks.  It was great.  She showed me how to clean and care for my new Tim Holtz stamps... She uses an awesome cleaner by StazOn.  It has a wonderful scrubber built in which makes clean up easy.  I was introduced to resist inks... oh the ideas.  I made a collage, and Dee started two tags.  Here's a few pictures to give you a glimpse into our day.  My collage says, "This is a beautiful day worth celebrating".  I think that pretty much sums it up.  Deedee has some awesome ideas to finish her tags, so we'll post pictures of those when they're all done!  After dinner we headed out to Archivers.  Oh my goodness, that store is incredible.  I can't wait to go back one of these days without the girls.  Note to self, three year olds and scrapbook stores (yeah, not so much).  I had to exit the store three times for "time-outs" because the twins kept screaming.  Yay for the stroller.  I saw some incredible ideas with embossing powders, and bought a brush pen, so I can use embossing powders on some of my paintings.  That's going to be an amazing new texture.  We stopped by Starbucks on the drive home, and now I'm just going to have to write down some of the ideas we came up with, so I can actually sleep tonight.  Fun fun.

A good day for a "Journal Spilling" adventure...

This morning I had to try out some of my new scrapbook supplies.  I started by looking through my new Journal Spilling book and gathering materials.  I found a piece of cardboard in the recycle pile, pulled out my new Tim Holtz inks, watercolor crayons, some bright page marker stickers, and colored staples, and then I started playing.  I worked quickly and started experimenting with the supplies.  When I was done, all my beautiful inks matched the new Tim Holtz paper stack that I bought and so I put my cardboard collage on one of my new papers and photographed it.  Then to make it personal, I pulled in a photo of Emma over the top in photoshop and voila.  Here's my creative "journal spilling" adventure.  I'm loving these new colors and inks, especially the distress inks.  They are super fun.  Now I've got to call Deedee, so we can get together and experiment!

Today scrappage began....

What a great day.  Deedee Garcia and Angela Meijer (hereafter "we") were having a garage sale over at Deedee's house.  We decided to make collages and art journals at the garage sale, and got to creative brainstorming.  We were selling a bunch of scrapbook embellishments and collage cards, and we decided that we seriously need an etsy shop to sell all of our scrapbook and collage goods.  We've been getting together to do creative stuff together, and so we decided that we should start selling it all too.  The name of our shop is a combination of scrap, page and collage.... and it's pronounced the French way.  That way, you can hear the collage part of the name!  Spread the word and come back and visit lots and lots.  We plan to keep it full of all kinds of goodies and we'll photograph our creative sessions too.  We're going to fill our shop with supplies for your own creations, fun collage/scrappage artwork, and lots and lots of bling.

After our garage sale, we went to the scrapbook store in here in Ankeny, and spent our garage sale earnings on new arts and craft supplies.  Fun Fun Fun.