Retro ATC Again

I finished up 12 of these Retro ATC's yesterday. I changed the design just a little. I stamped on the text with the circle stamp and highlighted some of the circles with the metallic markers. I'm glad to have these completed!

Retro ATC

At the Collage Stuff Yahoo Group, we're doing a Retro or 1950's themed ATC swap for March.

I used two images from the Crafty Secrets Kitchen Creative Cuts. I scanned in the Kitchen Queen image because I needed to change the letters from red to pink, so they would match the pink oven.

I started out by stamping pink polda dot paper with a Hero Arts circle stamp. I added part of a page from a vintage book about making bread. I added the two retro images and the crown. I decided that it looked blah, so I ripped off the bottom of the pink paper and put the whole thing on blue paper that I had stamped with the same circle stamp. This is more interesting and brings in the blue from the kitchen queen image. I edged the ATC in black ink. I used a silver Marvy Metallic Artist Marker to hightlight all of the images, crown and text. I underlined some words in the text. Powdered cheese? Who knew? I also went over the black on the edges with the silver marker.

The crown brads are available at Collage Stuff in mixed packs of gold, silver and pink. I have markers in gold and pink too, so I'll change things up based on the color of the crown brad.

This is another simple design that will allow me to mass produce them for this swap,.

Back of Front Cover

I made a couple of different designs for the back of the front cover of the Silent Angels LFB, but this one is my favorite. I like to acknowledge everyone that participates in the swap. I made a list of everyone and printed it out on a transparency. For the green angel, I printed her on a transparency, painted the back with green paint, glued it to vintage text and cut it out. The pink angel is from a Collage Stuff collage sheet. I printed the whole collage sheet out as a transparency and glued it to pink paper using gel medium. Then I cut out the individual images.

I made the pocket by cutting a piece of scrapboop paper 4" wide and about 3" long. I folded it and set the page in it. I glued the part of the pocket that wraps around the back of the page and sides of the pocket. A very easy way to make a pocket.

I got the "believe" stamp for like $1 on sale at Michael's a while back. I like the K and Company 12 x 12 paper pads that have the double-sided cardstock papers that coordinate. They are perfect for a project like this.

LFB pages should always have something hanging off the sides or bottom. I decided to use wide vintage lace with a floral pattern.

I have all of my covers done for this LFB. I'm even done ahead of time! That's practically unheard of!

Back of Skinny Book Page

Here's the back of the page. I had a devil of a time getting something to work. I had the Graphic 45 papers and I wanted to use them. I had a cool background with the papers, the Filmstrip Ribbon, Watch Face and Game Spinner. Then what to put on it? The Graphic 45 paper pack I have had some die cut tags. I had one I wanted to use, laid it down and them couldn't find it. The usual. I glued down the boy image (another one that I need to get on a collage sheet someday), cut more of the papers and wound up with this. I wanted to put a crown on the boy, but none of my German scrap crowns were big enough. The little images under the Filmstrip Ribbon are from the Graphic 45 paper pack that I used.

These pages fit the theme. They're done so that I don't have to worry about getting them done on time.

Front of Skinny Book Page

I finished a skinny book page today. The theme of this person's book is "Grandmother's Attic" and the sorts of images that should be included are children, birds, Victorian, anything vintage.

For this page (the front of the page) I used Victorian scrap from 2 different scraps available at Collage Stuff. I never use the Victorian scrap, so I thought it's about time that I did. It's really pretty, embossed and definitely goes with the theme of this book. The butterflies already had some silver glitter on them, but I added a little Rock Candy Distress Stickles to them. I put vintage UK bus tickets at the top and bottom of the page. I accented the sides with Pink Lace German Scrap.

Better photo of re-re-worked cover!

I started making these pages and decided that the original rose in the background was too big. I sized it down a little. I decided to color the woman a little differently - give her dress two colors. This is the first chance I've had to photograph the design in natural light. Photos in natural light are more realistic than a scan or a photo with a flash. No more changes to this design!!!

Re-worked cover

I really didn't like the cover page that I did the other day, so I decided to re-work it. I started out with the pink again and ended up going red. I like this red better. This is a scan, so it's washed out. I couldn't adjust the colors perfectly in PSP. The woman is colored with Copic markers. I used the same elements as in the original design - the woman, the raffle ticket, a flower and the birds on a wire punch. I added the gold paint blobs and stamped on the papers around the top and left sides. The red rose was too bright, so I dabbed some gold paint on it to tone it down a little. I'll come up with a way to hang some lace, ribbon or rick rack off the bottom of the page. I also will not edge the birds on wire with the red Copic marker when I make these pages for the book. I'm happy with this design. The back of the page will have minimal decorating and will list the participants in the book.

Front Cover of Silent Angels LFB

Here's the front cover design for the Collage Stuff Silent Angels LFB. This is really the prototype and I'll probably make some revisions as I go, like adding some words. I'll post the final design later on this week.

New Postcard

Here's a new postcard. It's a re-work of the front page of the back cover of the Collage Stuff Silent Angels LFB. The postcards are larger, so this time I used the entire photo as the background. This postcard will be here in a few weeks and will then ship with Collage Stuff orders!

Silent Angels LFB front of back cover

I've been working on this for about 4 hours trying to get this just like I wanted it. I think it's close. Earlier I posted the back of the back cover for the Collage Stuff Silent Angels LFB. This is the front of that page. This prints out with more brown tones on my color laserjet. I had to adjust the colors, then print, adjust again, print etc. You get the idea! Until I liked what came off the printer. The background photo is a vintage photo of New York City. I thought this would be a different background for a cemetery angel-themed page. I put a glow around the angels as I wanted them to look a little otherworldly - like maybe they are from some other reality. I think we all make our own little realities in this life.

New Postcard

I decided that I liked the design of the LFB cover so much that I would change it up to make a new postcard. Here it is! This will be here in a couple of weeks and will ship with Collage Stuff orders.

Back of Back Cover of Silent Angels LFB

At the Collage Stuff Yahoo Group, we're doing a new LFB. This one is cemetery-angel themed and titled "Silent Angels". I'm doing the covers front and back for all of the books. I will make a handmade page for the front cover, but the back cover will be a digitally designed cover. Here's the back of the back cover. It took me about 2 hours to come up with this. Usually, my digital art flows, but not tonight. The cross image is from the Collage Stuff Paris Cemetery collage sheet and the woman image is from the Collage Stuff Cemetery #12 Collage Sheet. This is more kitschy than my usual cemetery art, but a girl's gotta have fun sometimes!

Collage Stuff February ATC Swap

The February Collage Stuff ATC theme is "Pocket ATC's." There are all different sorts of pockets, right? My pocket turned out to be a lace pocket! (The colors are off on these photos. In real life, everything is more brown.)

Let's start with the tag. I have a bunch of Sizzix dies that I hardly ever use and several of them are tags. I cut the tag with a Sizzix die out of some Graphic 45 paper. The couple image is from the Collage Stuff Romantic Minis Collage Sheet. I put it on the tag and there was too much black and brown. A little snippet of vintage text behind the man's head took care of that problem. I edged the tab with brown ink and added some lace to the top.

Next the ATC base. I used an image from the Collage Stuff Vintage Paris Collage Sheet and sized it to the size I needed. I glued it down and then glued down vintage text on the right-hand side. I over-stamped the whole thing with one of my favorite text stamps with brown ink. I drug the edges of the base through brown ink. I used glue dots to apply the lace. I used glue dots on the front at the sides to make the "pocket" smaller - to hold the tag more securely. The Paris label is from the Collage Stuff Artwords Collage Sheet. I changed the color of the label from red to brown digitally. This is something anyone can do with a digital collage sheet (collage sheet on CD) and graphics editing software.

To finish this off, I used a corner rounder on all four corners of the base and made sure to ink the newly cut edges with brown ink. The round corners on the base echo the round corners of the tag.

I hope the swap participants don't think I cheated on the pocket. I don't think I did!