Inside Card

This is the message inside the card.

Finished Card

Here is the finished card that I made for my 83 year old mother on Mother's Day.

Mother's Day

This spread shows the drafts that I made while testing spacing, etc. for my Mother's Day card this year. The flowers are rubberstamps from Hero Arts from the series called "Real Wildflowers." I colored the rubber with Tombow brush markers and squirted them a couple of times with a fine mist of water before pressing to a piece of watercolor paper. The poem is adapted from words by Maureen Hawkins, which I changed slightly so that it is written from the child's point of view instead of the mother's.

Italian Cappuccino

I found this wonderful picture of a cup of coffee that went just great with my background, but I needed to get rid of the white writing that was printed on the brown liquid, so I put some Ronsonol lighter fluid on a paper towel and wiped it around to remove the brown ink and obscure the white lettering. Happily, this caused it to look more like cappuccino!

Mosquito Invasion

Until today I hadn't noticed very many mosquitos because it's been so much drier than usual, but it rained and now they have hatched in droves. I thought they were going to pick me up and fly away with me when I was weeding the bed alongside the driveway!

I painted these pages with Napa Red and touches of Deep Lilac. The illustrations are magazine cut-outs, and the title was stamped with a set of "Words & Crafts" letters from "Magnetic Poetry." They are such a pleasure to use and line up easily because of their handles. See what they look like here: http://www.wordsandcrafts.com/

I used a Brilliance "Lightning Black" ink pad, and I was surprised to see that the letters appear to be slightly outlined in black while the insides are gold (this depends on the light and doesn't show in the photo.)

Faux Momi Paper

These pages were first painted with "Laguna Blue" acrylic, and then I painted over the edges with gesso, which was outlined with a Zig "Navy" Writer. Then I dotted the gesso using other colors of Writers. The date was written with one of those fabulous RoseArt ColorSharp gold markers, which was also used to draw the writing lines. Used a Pitt pen for the writing. The geometric shapes on the right side are samples of faux momi paper that I make with brown paper grocery sacks and acrylic paints.

Valentine's Day

Both of these pages were basecoated with "Eggshell" paint, and before it was totally dry I pulled a Nick Bantock "Sapmoss Green" pad across the spread. The red was put on around the edges with a small square of the holey kind of sponge. The hearts are from a rubber stamp, colored with Prismacolor pencils. I wrote the title with a red brush marker.

Chair and Sheep

I don't know what possessed me to paint with black and royal blue on this page, but I ended up liking the effect, especially how a pastel blue RoseArt gel pen made the writing pop off the dark background.

Gloves

The illustration on this spread is from a French glovemaker's sign c.1860. I had been saving it for a long time because I just love it. Finally decided it would be perfect to go on this page that tells about my sewing a shade for Missy's & Jerry's front bedroom. The little "grook" by Piet Hein on the right side seemed apt, and is another little item I'd been saving for a good spot. This compo book was slightly used and these two pages had some writing on them in red ink, so I painted over that first with brown and dark blue acrylic and then dry brushed on a very light blue paint. It doesn't show well in the photo, but that unreadable red writing gives a nice depth to the background.