Crafting With Style

Tuesday

ATC Background Technique: Oil Pastel Resist

purple oil pastel with blue acrylic paint

I happened upon a new technique for ATC backgrounds using gesso, oil pastels & acrylic paint.

orange oil pastel with purple acrylic paint

As I make more I'll take photos of each step.

Supplies: ATC (needs to be pretty sturdy stock - junk mail postcards are a good free possibility); Gesso, Oil Pastels, Acrylic Paint, Paper bigger than ATC

Tools: Pallet knife or gift card, paint brush, brayer

1. Cover card with gesso. It should be unevenly spread, leaving ridges and valleys. I generally use either a pallet knife or credit/gift card to spread the gesso on. Let gesso dry completely.

2. Draw over card with oil pastel. Make it sort of uneven with some areas heavier than others.

3. Paint over card with acrylic paint. I use a pretty dry brush and paint unevenly over the whole card. Have the brayer & paper right at hand before you start painting.

4. As soon as you've finished painting, quickly lay the paper over the card & roll the brayer over the entire card. Lift paper to see what's happened. If you like it, you're done. If not you can lay the same paper over again & roll it with the brayer, which may deposit some of the paint from the paper back onto ATC. Or, you can use a clean piece of paper and remove more paint from the ATC. The images on the paper can be interesting as well. And you can reuse the same paper on different ATC's/colors to have layers of contrasting colors.

Swap-Bot's 100,000th Swap

I've been swapping on Swap-Bot since February of 2008. I've completed 105 swaps & Swap-bot has just celebrated their 100,000th swap, with 653 people swapping any piece of Swap-Bot themed snail mail. My assigned recipient listed Miss Kitty as her top favorite thing so I gave a stab at a Miss Kitty themed ATC. Miss Kitty's sense of style most certainly doesn't come naturally to me, but here's what I came up with:

I used a new (to me at least) oil pastel resist technique that I describe here.

Saturday

ATC Background Technique: Tissue Overlay on Chalk Pastel

I came up with this technique while working on a Sentence-A-Day Art Journal, and have started using it as an ATC background as well. I wanted to be able to write on top of chalk pastel without having it smear.

Finished Page

Materials & Tools:

Paper (this is a medium weight watercolor paper), Gesso, Chalk Pastels, Tissue, Mod Podge

Steps:
1. Apply gesso unevenly to paper with palette knife or gift card, leaving ridges. Let gesso dry completely.

2. Color randomly over the gessoed surface. It's a messy, chalky process.

3. Add a second color of chalk pastel, being mindful that it's easy to smudge what you're working on.

4. Cut tissue a bit larger than the paper. Carefully apply Mod Podge (matte used here) to one side of tissue, bieng very gentle as tissue tears easily. Carefully lay tissue onto paper. If you move it around as you lay it down it will smudge the pastel. Rub over the tissue to make sure it's completely attached. Apply a coat of Mod Podge over the whole surface. I rubbed a bit in some areas to tear away the tissue and reveal the pastel layers below. The Mod Podge will seal these spots.

Friday

ATC's for October 2011

Here's what I've done in October:

Mesh on Wax

Melted Wax on paper with embellishment of mesh & metallic ink drawing.

Zentangled A ATC

Micron .25 mm pen on paper

Zentangled B ATC

Micron .25 mm pen on paper

Zentangled C ATC

Micron .25 mm pen on paper

Zentangled D ATC

Micron .25 mm pen on paper

Zentangled E ATC

Micron .25 mm pen on paper

Zentangled H ATC

Zentangled I ATC

Zentangled J ATC

Zentangled K ATC

Zentangled L ATC

ATC 2011-58: "Art/Mysticism"
Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Acrylic paint, vintage text and embossing on paper

ATC 2011-55: "Black Flower"
Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Acrylic paint, sponging and tissue paper on paper

ATC 2011-56: "Flower"
Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Alcohol Ink, Rubber Stamping and Distress Inks on paper

ATC 2011-61: "Flower"
Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Napkins, sponging and direct to paper inking on paper

ATC 2011-57: "Instinct is Enough"

Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Acrylic paint, alcohol ink and rubber stamping on paper

ATC 2011-62: "Old Pond"

Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Direct to paper inking, collage and found poetry on paper

ATC 2011-63: "Tree"

Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Torn paper, tissue layers and distress inks on paper

ATC 2011-59: untitled

Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Melted crayon, acrylic paint & sponging on paper


ATC 2011-60: untitled

Made for the ATC's For All Swap, A'La Carte Mixed Media
Tissue layers, direct to paper inking & embossing on paper

The above ATC's were made for the ATC's For All swap titled A 'La Carter Mixed Media. The challenge was to use at least 3 techniques from the following list:
Vintage sheet music
Vintage text
Foreign language papers
Torn paper technique
Text pages
inks
Beeswax
Rubber stamped images
Tissue layers
Pen or Pencil drawings
Acrylic Painting
Watercolor Painting
Distress Inks
Collage
Vintage Ephemera
Transfers – i.e. gel medium/packing tape
Transparencies
Stenciling
Printing with bubble wrap
Embossing
Direct to paper inking
Used postage stamps
Alcohol inks
Altered Photos
Paint over technique
Water soluble oil pastels
Resist techniques
Melted crayon background
sponging
Napkins
Found Poetry
Watercolor pencils
Embellishments (light and not too high off the card)

ATC's made for the Blue & White ATC Swap on Art 42:


ATC 2011-64: "Blue & White". Mixed media on paper.

ATC 2011-68: "Buddha Blue". Torn tissue, acrylic paint and ink media on paper.

ATC 2011-69: "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly". Acrylic paint and paper cut outs on paper.


ATC 2011-65: "Snowflake #1". Acrylic paint and ink on paper.

Created for the ATC's For All Swap "Winter Potluck Mystery Swap":

ATC 2011-66: "Snowflake #2". Acrylic paint and ink on torn paper collage.

ATC 2011-67: "Snowflake #3". Acrylic paint and ink on paper.

ATC 2011-70: "Winter Citrus". Acrylic paint and ink on paper .

ATC 2011-71: "Winter Storm". Ink on paper

Tuesday

Pillow Knit From Recycled Silk Saris with Free Pattern

Pillow knit from recyled silk saris

Garter stitched squares are knit on the bias and sewn together to create this pillow cover. This is a great project for the beginner who’s ready for something a bit more challenging than a scarf. You’ll practice increasing and decreasing. And there’s so much going on with the yarn that your stitches don’t have to be perfectly even, and assembly is a breeze. No neat sewing required!

KNITTED MEASUREMENTS:

18” Square

MATERIALS:

700 g. Recycled Silk yarn

18” pillow form

1 pair US 7 (4.5mm) needles

GAUGE:

16 sts and 14 rows to 4”/10cm

NOTES:

The recycled silk yarn is uneven in both size and color throughout the balls. I prefer to buy skeins (instead of balls) so that I can see the colors and control how the color plays out. If you can’t find skeins, you can either unwind the balls, or, just let the color come naturally and be surprised!

SQUARES:

Cast on 3 stitches.

Increasing:

Row 1 (Increase Row): Knit into front and back of first stitch. Knit to last stitch. Knit into front and back of last stitch.

Before turning work, place a safety pin on the first stitch of this row. The safety pin is placed so that you know when to increase. Whenever the pin is on the right-hand side of your work, you increase at each end.

Row 2: Knit across row

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until you have 47 st on the needle (edges should measure 9”.)

Knit across row.

Decreasing:

Decrease Row 1: K2tog, k to last 2 st, k2tog.

Decrease Row 2:Knit across row.

Repeat these tow rows until 3 st remain. Pull yarn through 3 stitches and knot.

Make a total of 8 squares.

ASSEMBLY & FINISHING:

Sew together 4 squares for front, and 4 for back.

Block to measurements.

Sew three sides together. Insert pillow, sew remaining side.

I designed this project after becoming fascinated by the yarn, sold by Himalaya Yarn Company. It is a a multi-colored, multi-textured, 100% silk yarn composed of 100% recycled, or more accurately, upcycled, silk fibers from the industrial weaving mills of India. The fibers are handspun in Nepal, supporting a cottage industry of spinners with each one working independently. Therefore, no two skeins are alike and the random color combinations vary widely.

Himalaya Yarn recommends you alternate skeins throughout your multi-skein projects in order to achieve an even effect. it's great fun to knit with as you're always wanting to see what comes next. The striping that occurs from using two skeins alternately is sometimes obvious, but mostly not.
To make the yarn silk scraps are swept up off the floor at the end of the day in the sari mills in South Asia. (So although it's called recycled, it's made from scraps from new saris, not used or old saris that have been cut up.) The yarn is then hand-spun using a drop spindle or wheel. The spinning is often an outdoor village occupation, so there may be bits of leaf or straw caught up in the yarn. The twist is not as even as on yarn that has been mass produced in factories, but that only adds to the charm of your finished item. (I find I have to sometimes stop knitting and let the yarn dangle to untwist.) Making this yarn enables the women to earn much needed income from their cottage industry, and to earn a fair wage.

A number of companies are retailing the yarn in the US now. I've tried quite a few and found varying quality levels. I was excited to see some on ebay selling for about $2.50 a skein, but the quality was awful! The yarn was hard and board like when knitted up and came untwisted and broke apart as I was knitting. The best I've found is from Himalaya Yarn. Although it's more expensive, the quality is so much better that I think it justifies the added expense. I hate to spend all the time it takes to knit something and find that I hate the finished product.

You can view this project on my Ravelry page

Thursday

Postcards from September 2011

Postcards that I've made using the free template I created, which you can view and download for your own use here.

First Postcard

Tuesday

Creating Your Own Postcard

Today I decided to make some postcards to send out, similar in feel to the ATC's I've been making. I thought I'd easily find a template for the back of the postcard. Very wrong assumption. I've just spent a good half hour searching online, using lots of different search terms for an easy postcard template that I could print onto card stock, decorate & send out quickly. Finally gave up & decided to quickly make one in Photoshop. This of course led me to try to figure what size it should be.

I went to the USPS website and got the following information.

Postcard Sizes:

According to the USPS website you'll pay .33 (that's as of today, 2/14/13) to mail a postcard with a minimum size of 5" long by 3-1/2 " high by .007" thick to a maximum of 6" long by 4-1/4" inches high by .016 inch thick. International postcards just went up (January 2013) to a whopping $1.10. The good news is that there's now a Forever International Stamp so we can stock up before the next rate change. The bad news is that it now costs as much to send to Canada and Mexico as it does to Nepal.

Additional notes from the USPS site:

Any item smaller than the minimum dimensions is not mailable
For postcards, length is the dimension parallel to the address
Postcards must be rectangular and be made of unfolded and uncreased paper or card stock.
Large cards that exceed the maximum dimensions of a postcard pay the First-Class Mail letter, large envelope, or package price

This is what I ended up making. They're 4" x 6", so all there is to do is print them on card stock (I prefer 110#), decorate the front, address it, slap a 29 cent stamp on it & it's ready to go. I did the graphics in my current favorite color, indigo blue. Easy to print black & white instead of color when I want black instead.
Please download the blank postcard template here in pdf format.

Saturday

SmoothFox Crochet and Knit: Winter 2011 Charity Square Drive

This looks like a great charity challenge with a number of prizes. The site also has a number of terrific crochet square patterns that are perfect to quickly work up for blankets and afghans for charity.

Here's a list of other charities that accept knitted or crocheted items.

Wednesday

Free ATC Templates and Artwork in jpg Format

Go to ATC Templates and Artwork, a set on Flickr, to download jpg files of ATC templates and artwork if you'd like to be able to work on the files in a photo editing program.

To download .pdf files of these free ATC templates click here.

Click on the captions of the images below to go directly to that individual image file on Flickr:

ATC Blank Template with Grid Lines

ATC Backs

Blank ATC Template

Birthday Bird ATC Background

ATC's for September 2011


Curiosity ATC

Punched Art Artist Trading Card

No Paper ATC

Zentangled G ATCs

Field of Flowers ATC

ATC's made from pages from Carl Jung's book "Man and His Symbols"

I came across this book, "Man and His Symbols", by Carl Jung, an old text book of my husband's from the 70's. He'd underlined it and scribbled notes all over it which made it even more interesting when I began to tear it up and repurposed it.