Halloween Friday & Water Transfers

I was one excited girl yesterday when I pulled out some old instructions for water transfers. The instructions were from Lesley Riley who heads my ink jet yahoo group. Your supplies consist of,
an ink jet printer, photo paper (glossy) & a spray bottle of water! I tried this one other time & could not get the ink to roll off the paper. I pulled out an old package of photo paper we purchased at least 5 years ago & it worked perfectly. The problem is...I have no clue who made the paper. It was in a plain box & the paper was wrapped in black plastic inside. No maker whatsoever! This is what I did:
1) Print ink jet pic on glossy photo paper. 2) Dampen your substrate. 3) Spray your photo 2-3 times with the water. 4) Lay photo face down & burnish.
Now as far as what glossy photo paper works......you'll just have to experiment a bit.
TRY IT! It's so quick & easy. I printed mine on a Mulberry type paper.
Have a wonderful weekend! Happy Halloween!

Million Dollar Friend Award

WOW, The million dollar friend award!
I have been fortunate enough to receive this very nice award from Brenda at: http://memoriesandtreasures.blogspot.com/.
Brenda has been a good friend, popping in & checking out my blog.
Brenda does beautiful work so please check out her blog.
Thanks so much, Brenda! I am to pass this on to 4 blogs & visit regularly & 1 new blog. It's extremely difficult when you look at so many beautiful blogs every day. I'm going to TRY & spread the wealth around & not give this to the same people over & over. I have selected the following blogs:
Anne at http://bullesdorees.blogspot.com/ Jaw dropping beauty.
Nicki at http://nickileigh.blogspot.com/ Fabulous bath & body products
Melissa at http://pugnotes.blogspot.com/ Wonderful Pug/ animal art
Diana at http://dianaevans.blogspot.com/ Diana is an artist/illustrator doing amazing work
The newest blog I've been following is:
Jennifer at http://artisticallydesigneddiversions.blogspot.com/ LOVE her ATC's

Congratulations to all!

Promoting the work of others

I entered a contest last night on Jennifer's blog at http://artisticallydesigneddiversions.blogspot.com/. Jennifer is a part of the Stampsmith Yahoo group that I belong to also. She's a California girl & I'm always excited to meet someone from my home state. When I was looking through Jen's beautiful blog I noticed a link she referenced for another wonderful blog that also offered FREE images. It's not too common to see this so I jumped right over there. I am so glad I did!
The blog belongs to Gaby at: http://gaby-cajubrasil.blogspot.com/. She is a fiber & mixed media artist from Brazil & extremely generous with her images. This is just one of about 8 collage sheets that I saved. Check out both of these blogs...you're in for a treat!


Check this out! Stunning or what?? I was making my morning run through my favorite blogs & stumbled across this etsy shop at: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=35796. Her name is Julie & her work is fabulous!
Please check out her beautiful items.

New image transfers to canvas using TAP by Lesley RIley

Lesley Riley who heads up the ink jet yahoo group has developed a new transfer paper called Transfer Artist Paper (TAP). I tried it on some canvas bags & was very pleased with the results. You can find more info on this paper at http://transferartist.com/. I find this paper to work best on fabric (at least canvas, anyway.) TAP will give you a nice bright, vivid transfer whereas Sheer Heaven is a little softer look. I love them both. TAP is a simple iron-on. There is no gel medium involved.....hooray!!! No little crumbs of white paper to wash away. No mess!
I will try it on some paper next. Have a wonderful weekend!

CELEBRATION!!!!

Well, we are celebrating at my my house. My sweet little Quincy, whom is pictured here, has FINALLY received a good report from the vet! Quincy was diagnosed with Diabetes about three months ago. We've had a terrible time trying to get his blood sugar regulated. He's gone from the upper 400's to a 128 reading this week. I just knew he was better as he looked so much brighter than he'd been for a while. He also complained in the car on the way to the vet's office & he's normally very quiet when he's not feeling well. We are so happy! He is 13 years old & we've had him since he was about 5 months old. His owner dumped him & his mother in a parking lot....What a gal, huh! Need I say...I have no use for an individual that would do something like that! We love this sweet boy very much!

New picture

Good Sunday morning! I'm still playing with texture & paint rather than my all paper backgrounds. This pic is 6x9 inches. I also did some experimenting with stamping Sheer Heaven & transferring the stamped image. It works quite well for borders or background. Reading a post on my inkjet transfer group today gave me the idea to try some more Lazertran paper. I really didn't care that much for it when I tried the first time but sometimes when you go back it's a different story. I'm going to give it another shot. I am heading out for a street faire in Thousand Oaks this morning. That should be fun. Have a great day!

I guess I've been slacking a bit lately. I have a couple of things to cover. First off, is this lovely jewelry that I purchased from Vicki at: http://vickiorion.blogspot.com/ & etsy at:http://vickiorion.etsy.com . I love these pieces. I told Vicki I wear the earrings daily. They just go with everything. Check out Vicki's stuff.
My next purchase was from Nicki Leigh at: http://nickileigh.blogspot.com/ who makes her own products. I bought this moisturizing lotion bar that you hold in your hand for a moment until it softens enough to spread around. I had never seen this before. It softens immediately & OMG...the wonderful smell is amazing! Thank You Vicki & Nicki!
Last thing I want to mention is.... The Technique Junkies at:
http://www.techniquejunkies.com/. I saw reference to them on Kathy Eddy's blog at http://kmeddy.blogspot.com/. The technique junkies have numerous tutorials that you can purchase. Needless to say, I couldn't let that one go by. Pat at Technique Junkies was extremely helpful & now I'm all set to go!

I wasn't going to post today but since I discovered this new blog link this morning I had to write a short note about it. It's called http://thesecretisinthesauce.blogspot.com/. This is a blogging community dedicated to supporting one another by leaving comments on your blog, a lot of comments! Please check it out & join in. When I peeked this morning I found over 300 blogs listed! They feature different blogs also & give away prizes. How much fun will this be?

New Transfer to Tissue Type Paper

Good Monday morning! Unfortunately, we are experiencing some pretty heavy duty winds this morning & there's a fire burning out of control. Seems like every time the wind blows in Southern California, we go through this. Today is pretty bad as I've seen several structures & automobiles burn already. Glad I live in the flat lands & not backed up to some brush covered mountain. On to more pleasant thoughts........I had to do at least one more (HA! like I would stop with one!) transfer to wipe that last one I posted from my mind. I just couldn't get comfy with that one.
This is a transfer to a tissue type paper (maybe mulberry) I am not really sure. Because of the texture of the paper it lays beautifully over a textured background. I played some more with my molding paste & some Lumiere acrylic paints. The transfer was done with Sheer Heaven & I am pretty pleased with this one. Used the thick canvas & not the flat. It has a gold border & is 6x8 inches.

New Transfer on Textured Background

Well....This did not turn out to be one of my favorites but.......it is fun to do something a bit different. This is actually a transfer over another transfer. The basic transfer was a photo shot from my upstairs deck directly into the sun. I was harassing my brother about living in Washington & never seeing sun. I shot the sun pic as a reminder for him of what the sun actually looks like. It was an odd but pretty nice picture. I played with it in photoshop tweaking the colors & effect a bit. I overlaid the mother & child directly into the sun itself. I did this on freezer paper that I did a little light background stamping on. Would you believe me if I told you I crinkled the paper before placing it on the canvas? Well, I can't lie! I had a heck of a time getting that freezer paper to stay down! I finally had to use stick glue & then polymer medium around the edges. The final touch...Golden Brand Metallic Gold Glaze. I love this stuff! Once I brushed that on every little wrinkle imaginable raised their ugly little heads! Once it dried I worked it & worked it to try & get it to lay flat. No luck! I guess you can't expect something to lay flat when it's placed on top of texture. After looking at it a while, it's starting to look a little better to me.

Texture Time

It seems like all my work is so FLAT. I like the smooth look but would also like to get some texture going on. This is my first attempt at using some molding paste & rubber stamps to achieve that look. Once everything dried I added the acrylic paint. All my supplies were Golden products. I will try to finish this off in the next few days & hopefully I will be pleased with the end result.

New Flat Files

I have purchased some flat files to store my art supplies in. What a deal I got. We found them on Craig's list & was able to purchase 4 of them! I can't believe how much I've been able to fit in there. It feels so good to be organized! Take a look inside those drawers!

Image Transfer

Good Friday morning! Well, my transparency transfers were somewhat of a nightmare. I can not get one to transfer to canvas. I get impatient when 4 or 5 of them turn out bad...so impatient I moved back to Sheer Heaven where I know I will get a transfer that works. This is what I came up with. Everything was transferred except the faint writing & the music. Those are both stamps. The image came from one of my art book cds that I purchased recently on Ebay. The photo is 6x8. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Stampsmith Stamps

Here is a couple more Stampsmith Stamp pictures. I used the Memories Mist background with some stamping around the borders. I absolutely love these rubber stamps. Find them at: http://stampsmith.net/. I am heading back to image transfers today. I am bound & determined to get a decent transparency transfer using gel medium. I've already failed twice this morning...UGH!!