Yellow Thinking of You Card

Using my new Sheer Heaven paper I printed an image of one of my floral arrangements and transferred it directly onto the yellow card stock. The rosewood figurine was brought back from Singapore almost 50 years ago. It was carved by a man from Bali.

Mural Walls

My friend Pat and I were asked to do murals on the walls of one of the Sunday School classrooms. The room is so huge that it has a room divider curtain across the middle to divide it into two rooms. First some of the men of the church painted the walls a sky blue, which fit in with the theme we had chosen - the different seasons. Each scene has a scripture accompanying it.

Hugs Birthday Card

This child's birthday card was made from two-sided cardstock. One side is golden yellow and the other is a lime green. I used my elephant stamp and a handcut stamp for the front of the card. The letters are embossed as well as the elephant. The green does not show up well in this scan.

Merrie's Quilled Angels

These precious angels were quilled by Merrie for my Bible study ladies.

ATC using Transfers

This ATC was made on watercolor paper onto which I had done a Sheer Heaven transfer. This is a special vellum-like paper that serves as a transfer medium when combined with isopropyl alcohol. The image is transferred to the receiving card by lightly burnishing. I also used a little gold embossing on this ATC.

Green ATC

This ATC was created by applying thin streams of Glossy Accents to green card stock. I then put down two different colors of green alcohol inks. I think this looks like a bunch of grapes so I may include it in my Italy series of ATCs. I affixed the green card stock to a yellow card to make it the correct 2.5x3.5 size. The texture achieved with this combination of glaze and AI is amazing. I can't take credit for dreaming it up, though. Another artist had this kind of background on her blog, only she used a different kind of glaze. When I locate her website again, I'll post the link.

Purple Mountains

Purple Mountains
Originally uploaded by hastingshall2

I love the vastness of the west. This is a watercolor painting from my imagination. Of course, I realize the colors are a bit exaggerated, but I wanted to point out the beautiful colors that can be found out there. Sometimes when we think "west" we think of sand and browns and tans. There are just rainbows of color to the mountains and big sky.

Card using Sheer Heaven®

My order for Sheer Heaven® arrived. I have been experimenting with it to make transfers for my ATCs and cards. Sheer Heaven® is a finely etched plastic sheet, similar to vellum, but far more versatile. It can be colored with paints of all kinds and with pencils. The most fascinating use for me is the transfers. For some reason there is a wonderful reaction between 70% alcohol and the Sheer Heaven® in that it works perfectly as a transfer medium. Here I used the computer image from a scanned ATC as the transfer and stamped around that image with a hand-cut stamp. It is embossed with fine gold powder. I have dry embossed a rectangular margin about 3/8 inch from the card edges.

Happy Valentine's Day

Years ago there was a song: My Heart belongs to Daddy! Not sure but I think that was a sugar-daddy. This card has a marbled background with a packing tape image.

Primaries in Virginia

Here is my latest ATC to remind folks in Virginia to vote today!

Geranium

Geranium
Originally uploaded by hastingshall2

This watercolor was part of a much larger one. I picked out the part I like best and made the painting smaller. The cut-off pieces were used as ATC backgrounds. It was too big to scan so I had to take a picture. That's why the shape looks a bit warped.

You're Always on my Heart

This valentine card was made using an image of my maternal grandmother. One of my yahoo groups is trying different methods of colorizing black and white photos. This was tinted with watercolor pencils. The background is alcohol inks on glossy paper.

White Flowers

White Flowers
Originally uploaded by hastingshall2

This was a project we did in one of my watercolor classes. We floated all sorts of colors onto the background, leaving white for stems and petals. Then we went back and filled in some color for the shadows on the petals and around them.

Valentine

I am making a few valentines for some special friends who are homebound. This is one of them. The eyes part of the valentine is a packing tape transfer. Inside it says: 'I only have eyes for you,' which are lyrics from a very old song. The background is marbled paper.

Work Day

Today was mostly spent trying to make order out of chaos. I cleaned out the downstairs linen closet and straightened up. The linen closet had not had a bare bones clean-out since we moved here 15 years ago. I took everything out - all 6 huge shelves - sorted, removed to another area of the house, or tossed out. A number of towels and lacy doilies were declared either rags or something I can make ATCs out of! Then I went upstairs and made 2 ATCs that reflected on our trip to Italy a few years ago. I'll be showing them off in the days to come.

Hang in There!

I tried and tried to get in my own blog. I guess it took about 10 minutes. I have a couple of google accounts and it was getting the two confused. Hope no one else is having that problem.

Here is a new ATC. One of my arttechniques groups is doing arch ATCs. This is my first attempt. The background is alcohol ink and Glossy Accents. My title for this ATC is Queen Cat, because I've always felt that cats believe themselves to be royalty.

Wish ATC

Wish
Originally uploaded by hastingshall2

A few weeks ago I was experimenting with high quality slick paper from a magazine, spraying it with various alcohol inks. This is a piece from the larger sheet. The woman is from a bookmark sent to me as an advertising gift. The word "wish" was handwritten on blue cardstock. I covered it with a layer of Glossy Accents.