Pink Bird Studio

No Party Like an ARTchix Party!

Today I went over to Helga's (of ARTchix Studio fame) for a little party for the fabulous Jackie's birthday.  There were seven of us and we had lots of fun, some lovely munchies (including some amazing pumpkin cupcakes!), and best of all, we were let loose in the studio to make some ornaments with ARTchix supplies!

This is the card I made for Jackie:

And this is the front of the ornament I made at the party:

You can find these awesome hearts here: and the wings here.  I started out by painting the wooden heart with red paint, then scribbled some black watercolour crayon over top (when the paint was dry) and smooshed it around with a damp paintbrush (yes "smoosh" is an art term - haha).  Then I rubbed some gilding paste over the whole thing.  Then a little more bling was added with some gold glitter glue.

And here's the back:

The back was covered with this great map from an ARTchix collage sheet (which was also used behind the woman's portrait in the "window". 

What a lovely treat to get together with some very talented Chix for an afternoon of laughter and creativity!

Sunday Postcard Art - Hot Air Balloons

This week's theme at Sunday Postcard Art is Hot Air Balloons, and our host is Laura from That's Crafty.

At first I was stumped, because I don't think I have any hot air balloons in my stash of images.  But then I remembered The Graphics Fairy, and sure enough she had several.  Here's my card (read more about my technique below if you're interested.  As often happens with me, the theme brought to mind a song - Up Up and Away by the Fifth Dimension.

Technique:  I started with a vintage Quizmo card (came with some bingo cards I bought through eBay awhile ago - I don't know much about the game but I love the cards!).  I painted over it with a light layer of gesso so that the pattern of the card still shows through but won't overwhelm my main image.  Next it was time to make an inkjet transfer.  I taped a piece of wax paper onto a piece of regular printer paper and put it in the printer so that the print would be on the wax paper side.  I saved my balloon picture from the Graphics Fairy and then printed it onto the wax paper.  I flipped it onto my painted card (ink side down), and burnished the back with a spoon.  You can see a version of this technique on YouTube here, but this person was using the wax paper backing from sticker paper (which is great if you have some laying around - I didn't so I improvised with the wax paper / copy paper as described).  At this point the ink is just laying on top of my painted surface, but I wanted to add colour so I gave it a light spray of Krylon fixative to stabilize it and make sure it didn't rub off when I started to colour it!  After that was completely dry I coloured it with coloured pencils.  I added a strip of sheet music at the bottom which I also coloured with pencils, and then added a snippet of the song lyrics with my trusty white gel pen.

Sunday Postcard Art - Halloween Colour Challenge

I'm late for Sunday (internet problems), but I couldn't resist joining in the last Halloween challenge of the year at Sunday Postcard Art.  Kris Dickinson is our hostess with the mostest again, and the challenge she gave us was to create something Halloween-ie using orange, black, green and purple. 

I decided to make a playing card inspired postcard - the Four of Cats.  Wouldn't it be fun to make a whole deck?

Sunday Postcard Art - Retro Halloween

This week the theme at Sunday Postcard Art is Retro Halloween.  Our faboo hostess again is Kris Dickinson.  Here is my card:

Image from ARTchix Studio, fun retro cat stamp from PSX, and letters are a magnetic alphabet stamp from Making Memories.  Feel free to join the fun at Sunday Postcard Art or visit them to see all of the other fun entries!

Fearless - the Remix

Almost 2 years ago, I made a submission for Somerset Studio's "Fearless" issue.  You can see the original here.  My piece was accepted and published in the May/June 2011 issue - yeah!  Through no fault to Somerset's I didn't receive the piece back (they even wrote to me to see if I wanted it back as I hadn't included postage or a return request and due to whatever was going on at the time I didn't answer them, so it really was my own fault).  I really liked the piece but there were things I thought I would change about it.  The heart was too big and too "stiff" (if that makes sense) for one thing.  Anyway, I ended up making a similar piece over the last couple of days:

I used all of the same elements, but changed the heart to a better size and shape (my opinion), and added more gorgeous red.  I'm pretty happy with it, and do think I like it better than the original.

What do you think?  Have you ever remade one of your own designs into a new and improved version?

Image from ARTchix Studio.

Sunday Postcard Art - Ravens

This week, the theme at Sunday Postcard Art is Ravens!  Here's my card:

Raven stamp from Stampendous.  Poe image from Retro Cafe Art.  Be sure to visit Sunday Postcard Art to see more ravens!

Sunday Postcard Art - By the Light of the Full Moon

This week, the theme at Sunday Postcard Art is "By the Light of the Full Moon".  Again our host is the talented Kris Dickinson.  Here's my card:

Skeleton stamp by PSX and "Skull Baby" stamp by Stamp Francisco.  Bird was punched out from a playing card.

Sunday Postcard Art - Haunted

Oooh, it's Hallowe'en all month at Sunday Postcard Art, and our guest hostess for the entire month is Kris Dickinson!  The first theme Kris has chosen for us is "Haunted", and here's my card.

 

I used these fun "haunted houses" from ARTchix Studio, and 'haunted' them with some transparencies also from ARTchix.  Can't wait to see what Kris has in store for us next week!

Collaborative Book Project

For quite some time now I've been working on a collaborative project with Allison Berringer.  We each have a book, and one person starts a spread by creating a background.  The other person completes the spread, starts a new background for the other person and so forth.  I have had the books for a long long time, and finally completed my pages and new backgrounds...

This was what I did in Allison's book:

(Left Page)

(Right Page)

And this is what I did in my book:

(Left Page)

(Right Page)

I was challenged by the "upside down" page until I thought of this...

Books will be flying across Canada shortly and I can't wait to see the next pages.

Hallowe'en Cards

Can you believe it's almost October?  Here are a couple of cards I made for Hallowe'en.  I found these adorable owls in my junk mail quite some time ago and saved them for "something" (I wasn't sure what at the time, but how could anyone recycle these little darlings?).  I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out. Hats were cut free-hand.  Very simple but fun to make, and hopefully fun to receive as well.

In honour of my late friend Andrea - aka the Hallowe'en Queen - who I miss always, but especially this time of year.