Robin's Birdhouse: Mail Art

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Undersea Dreams

Hi everyone! Guess what?? Today is my birthday and I wanted to share my post over at Altered Pages Artsociates today. It's a card that I've been working on for quite some time. Last summer I started this project by taking a beautiful mermaid image from the Mailbox Muse collage sheet and blending it into a larger background with distress paints and a background stamp.

When that was done, I thought, "Now what?" I didn't have an answer so I put it into the box on my desk for art-in-progress. I take it out every once in a while and try different things, but now I've finally finished it.

I had the perfect stamp to finish this all along and it came in the same kit as the image! The Mermaid Fantasy Mailbox Muse kit has a great set of stamps including an one of seaweed. I masked off a border at the bottom and stamped a row of seaweed in permanent black ink. I stamped the seaweed again on the envelope along with the adorable seashell from the same stamp set.

I wanted the seaweed to stay in the foreground so I opted for paint instead of markers because it was stamped over paint and metallic ink circles. I used flat, metallic and Art Anthology dimensional paint for the fronds. I roughly followed the rubber stamp with a detailed brush.

I love using German Scrap on my cards. There are many designs and it is a great way to add a little dimension and a little shine without overwhelming the artwork. On this card I chose a border piece from one of my favorite designs in my collection. The bottom border helps blend the card and the painted seaweed. I added an identical border at the top for balance. Then I trimmed a few tiny flowers off another piece of German Scrap. A few were glued right to the card and a few were attached with bits of foam tape.

I added words from two different stamp sets. The mermaids came with 'UNDERSEA FANTASY" and Altered Pages also has a Dragonfly Dreams stamp set with a lovely script "dreams" so I combined the two and came up with "UNDERSEA dreams", which is stamped in gold ink.

I colored the envelope with permanent markers so that if it has to be delivered on a rainy day, it won't bleed or wash off. There are a few other pictures over at the Altered Pages blog if you want to see the steps along the way. I hope you'll pop over there anyway and check out the other projects this month using Kunze German Scrap. I just know you'll enjoy them.

Now it's ready to be sent off into the world. I love making cards and sharing fun mail. Thanks for stopping by. Until next time...Happy Crafting!

Friday, April 11, 2014

Mail Art - an all-in-one card

Hello and welcome to my first post as part of the Altered Pages design team! I appreciate the opportunity to share my art with you! This month, Altered Pages is teaming up with Unruly Paper Arts, which is a BlogZine with wonderful art, and Leaky Shed Studio products. Their theme this month is Mail Art and Moos. I had never heard of a MOO before. We’ll get back to that. First, let’s see my mail art project!

The Unruly Paper Arts April issue features an RAQ (ReaderArt Quest) challenge for their readers to play along and create using a theme and a visual prompt. Teacups and Tiaras was the theme this month. I made an all-in-one greeting card/envelope combo.

If you have an envelope template that would make an awesome starting point. I don’t have one so I cut mine out by hand to measure 10” x 7 1/4”. Using the paper in portrait format, score in 3/4” on each side, 2 1/2” up from the bottom and 3” down from the top. Fold along all lines and then cut out the four rectangle pieces in the corners as shown.

To create the inside greeting panel I used a Prima stencil and Versa Mark ink to give the background some texture.

While that was drying I started on the chipboard crown from Leaky Shed Studio. These little crowns are beautiful and since they are laser cut some of them have intricate patterns. I chose to gild the crown for this project so I chose a plain surface. I brushed on a coat of US Art Quest Duo adhesive. Once it was ready I brushed on the gold leaf by Gildenglitz. It created a beautiful shiny gold finish. I used a Leaky Shed teacup on this project, too. It was painted with bright blue acrylic paint with a matte finish. I wanted the only shiny thing on this project to be the crown!

I chose several images from Altered Pages collage images for both inside and outside of this project. I’ve provided a list and links below for you.

Finally, I knew I wanted a border at the top and while I was looking for one…I found three! All of them again from my favorite Bazzill package. (I’m starting to run out of these so I had better get some more!) The swirly border was cut in half to use as steam for the teacup. All four were inked with Dark Brown Colorbox Chalk Ink.

Because the envelope is part of the card I thought a word of caution was warranted and wrote “Open Gently” across the flap.

Now, what’s a MOO, right? For anyone who doesn’t know, they are bigger than an inchie and smaller than an ATC. They measure in approximately at 1 1/8” by 2 3/4”. I think they make cute little pops of color and design. Altered Pages has a page of MOO backgrounds or you can certainly make your own.