Other people's letters

Sometimes I would like to read other people's correspondence - what are they writing about? Trivialities, children, pets, or are they exchanging recepies? Or do people write about themselves, of things they've seen? Of their innermost thoughts? Of fears and concerns?
Friends used to write letters to each other, I wonder if they still do?

Today letters have been all but replaced by text messages, emails or facebook messages... but here I offer a few glimpses into letters, into a slow life and not so instant correspondence.

For me, monochrome is an excuse to use a neutral color - even though I do know any color can be treated tone-in-tone. But I do love my neutrals, especially after heavy doses of high colors as in my recent works.
Here I started with my absolute most favorite neutral ever, Hickory Smoke by Distress Inks.

Hickory Smoke is a complex color. Its value strongly depends on your surface and other materials. That makes working with it so exiting. Sometimes it is pure grey. At times it veers towards purple, at other times towards blue. Did I say how much I love it? Love it!

I stamped the writing hand onto a piece of vellum. I cut a small slit into the picture and inserted the feather.

The feathers were found one afternoon on our yard. We live close to a wood. A hazel grouse (link to awesome photos) had been snatched by a bigger bird which must have dropped it into our yard for some obscure reason. It had been a veritable death fight, feathers flying around.
But such perfect beautiful feathers! Grey, fluffy with peaks of elegant brow and rust. For this I selected the more tonal feathers.

With all this bla-bla about making it, have you been paying attention to the letters at all?  These friends have quite a lot to say to each other. Go now, and be inspired to write a letter to someone!

entering into:
The Artistic Stamper: Monochrome
Scrapper.sk: Monochrome
Anything but Cute: #17 Friendship

Birds and words

I have been tremendously inspired by a couple of challenges. This is what you get when you combine birds and words...

Background is from an old dictionary that was gessoed and sprayed and inked and stamped... let's just say, there is plenty of mixed media goodness there. With the colors I went out of my comfort zone, it would never enter my mind to combine yellow red and blue - but it did work nicely.

As for the words, I went with a combination of crossword puzzle and scrabble. Here are the birds and they have all something to say:

This blackbird is trying to be scary (imitating an owl), but he knows he is not scary and so he tells us to 'fear not'.

 Because Love is inexplicable,  love song has to be inexplicable, too. *VWwWwXx* (Did you understand that?)

Sing out Joy!

Listen to this: "00001223445..."  I have never heard a song like that before.

The blue bird sings a blue lullaby: "Zzzz"

And love? It is inexplicable...

I am entering this set into:
Anything but Cute: #14 Birds and Bees
The Artistic Stamper: Red, yellow, blue
Mixed media Monthly: #25 Anniversary celebration. I chose #15 Get Texty

Letting out some steam / Päästelen höyryjä

A series of steampunk cards with dapper gents and lots of gleaming copper...

They live in the best of all possible worlds. The Victorian age firmly believed they had come to the end of history, everything was just perfect and hardly could be improved upon.

Gas light, electric light, steam engines...

)

railways and hot air balloons,

huge machines working with steam power - uniting coal and water in an exiting, unprecedented way. All that noise and clamor meant progress. 'We hold the keys to the future' is what these gents are clearly thinking.

entering into:
Emerald Creek: B-words (brass, brad)
Anything but Cute: #13 Celebrate your style
Crafty Individuals: May anything goes with CI product (gents)
Steampunk challenge: anything goes May

I left out some steam of my own (ha ha). I had too many scraps on my table! I got tired of looking at them and glued them all onto cards:

I needn't have bothered with color coordinating, because next I coated them with black gesso:

When they were dry I painted over with blue, purple, turq and olive, then rubbed in some gold:

I made some other cards the same way (more about them some other day) - now my desktop is almost clean...

Sain kohtauksen kun pöytäni ajelehti täynnä paperisilppua. Liimasin kaikki pienet silput korttipohjiin, päälle mustaa gessoa ja sen kuivuttua hieroin päälle tummia sävyjä. Itse asiassa oli täysin kannattamatonta tehdä pohjat tällä metodilla (vaikka lopputulos olikin kiva), nimittäin pohjan silput ovat ihan näkymättömissä. Ainoa 'hyöty' on, että pohja on epätasainen ja sehän tuo tietenkin hieman elävyyttä.

Lisänä kaikenlaista tilpehööriä, kuten esim, ruosteinen ruuvi, ohutta kuparilankaa (kadulta löytynyttä) ja ruskea kiekko jollaisia tipahtelee ilotulitusraketeista. Tämäkin haisi vielä ruudille. (Kortit jäävät itselle mutta voin tehdä niille sisaruskortteja jos kiinnostusta on.)

Earthy colors and big thoughts

Vanhaa ja värikästä on KK:n vintagehaasteen teema. Pari vuotta sitten tein kovin ruskeavoittoisia vintagekortteja, mutta sittemmin olen tullut tajuamaan, että entisaikaan oli kyllä värejäkin. Värit eivät tietenkään ole pysyneet kirkkaina meidän päiviimme, pöly, lika ovat tehneet tehtävänsä ja aurinko tai sade haalistuttanut värit.

Manumiina räväyttelee näytille toinen toistaan upeampia taskukirjeitä ja on jo houkutellut minuakin kokeilemaan. Pakko siis oli kokeilla saanko nuo 9 korttia aikaiseksi. Ja sainhan minä... Tosin epäilen, että tähän se jääkin eikä minusta tule taskukortti-käännynnäistä - ainakaan vielä.
KK-vintagehaaste avautuu tänään. Voit osallistua kahdella eri työllä (tuplaten siis voittomahdollisuutesi), ja työsi voi olla ATC, tägi tai onnittelukortti.

 I used earthy colors for an artwork to celebrate Earth Day. The man made environment collides all too often with nature, sometimes with catastrophic results. Here I wanted to show only the nice results: birds, flowers and butterflies on nature's side, science, liberal arts (but also the wish to dominate the nature) on the human side. Every card has an inspirational quote built in.

 Keep moving forward

Be yourself

Create without fear.
 For me this is the most significant one - I often hold myself back thinking something is not going to work, or it's not good enough, or simply I am not trying something because I've never done it before. I will confess you my biggest apprehension: I would love to try paper transfer. I even bought the medium - yep, 3 months ago. But I am scared to be disappointed if it won't work, so I am not even trying. So there, a major confession. What about you - are you able to create freely and without fear?

 entering this into:
Unstampabelles: #56 Flora, Fauna wit a twist of Texture. (bronze glitter highlights)
Anything but Cute: #12 Earth Day

October / Lokakuun tunnelmissa

October is sneakily here. Rain and golden sunshine, crisp mornings and early sunsets. I really like this time of year.

A gentle low wind was coming up

With my crow and pumpkin I participate in:
ATC around the World: #10 Halloween
Wicked Wednesday: #179 Trick or Treat
Anything but Cute: #6 31 Days of October

Monen viikon blogihiljaisuus on nyt vissin ohi, vaikka päivitykset eivät varmasti jatku yhtä runsaina kuin kesällä. Lähdin opiskelemaan aikuisiällä, ja luennot kotitehtävineen vievät nyt enimmät mehut. En silti valita. Opiskelen historiaa, keskittyen keskiaikaan. Luentojen valinnan edessä olin kuin lapsi karkkikaupassa: kaupungit keskiajalla, keskiajan maalaisväestö, matkustaminen 1800-luvulla, työn historia, tilastotiedettä, arkistotiedettä... jee!
Minulle voi silti ehdottaa vaihtoa - postimaksu on sama kuin ykkösluokka kotimaassa. Mieluiten vaikka sellainen vaihto, jossa tehdään kortteja vastaanottajalle, valmiit kortit kun ei mahtuneet mukaan.

Ylläoleva kortti on tehty lokakuun tunnelmissa. Sateet ja kultaisen auringon päivät vuorottelevat, iltahämärä tulee aikaisemmin ja aamut myöhemmin. Jotenkin tämä on vuoden parasta aikaa.

A summer romance

It's a great idea to be supplied a mood board and having to take one's inspiration from there. Makes one feel like a pro :-)

I wanted to create something about romance and travel (Paris!) and use that great color combo blue-white-brown.

Instead of making another ATC card I took my cue from Stampotique challenge where Twinchies are asked for.  What could one use twinchies for? The size is that of a small tile, and has nice space to work on.
I decided to make a set of magnets. It will be a nice gift for someone.

clicks for larger

I stamped the background curlicues with porcelain blue chalk ink, fussy cut a few butterflies from an old nature guide, stamped the sentiments (Hero Arts, Cherry Pie) on a tissue with brown Archival. The Eiffel tower is from a Crafty Individuals picture pad, the musical instruments from a magazine ad (in 1923).
I backed the twinchies with brown cardboard and inked the sides in brown too.

The shiny finishing is called Dimensional Magic. It creates a almost resin-like glossy raised surface. My thinking was that it will make the magnets smudge free and easy to clean.
That stuff needs to dry 3 hours, but I left it overnight.

Entering this project into:
Anything but Cute:  #3 Summer Romance
Stampotique SDC204: Twinchies
and last but not least into Rubber Dance Art July color challenge

Tein lahjaksi setin magneetteja. Nämä ovat kaksituumaisia, eli pienen kaakelin kokoisia. Oikein passeli koko, siihen mahtuu tekemään kunnolla. Tuumaiset on olleet vähän liian pieniä minun makuuni (tai sitten nakkisormeni ovat estäneet näin pienimuotoista näperteyä...).
Leimasin vaalealle taustalle sinisellä musteella, liimailin päälle erilaisia kuvia. Tekstit on leimattu silkkipaperille. Lopuksi liimasin ruskean pahvin taustalle, mustasin reunatkin ruskealla (haasteiden värimaailma oli sini-valko-ruskea) ja päälle valutin koholakkaa. Magneetteja liikutellaan usein, ajattelin että niiden on parasta olla helposti puhdistettavia.

Men

In the current Stampers Challenge they want to see men. Here is my dapper cowboy:

He's a marvelous fellow

Also entering this into Simon Says Monday Challenge for "Stamp and Mist" and Anything but Cute "Masculine", Stampotique "Shimmer and shine"

Background is a rough kraft card. It was sprayed with glimmer mist (suede), then stamped in black linen weave texture stamp. (For some reason the misted area resisted stamping, could it have been the moisture?) The cowboy was worked on a separate piece of paper, colored in and cut out. Only when it was pasted a small accident happened to the hat. But then I decided that a real cowboy would most likely have had a very tattered hat, so this is just being realistic. I added plaid bunting, some found words from a book and a metal star.
Thanks for looking!

Gentleman Callers

A lot of the challenges this month (week, too!) give masculine prompts. What's considered masculine? Pipes and cars, cigars and airplanes, fishing, tobacco brown and navy for color, hunting, hiking, paragliding... what else is there? Oh yes, grilling, pitching a tent, washing a car, reading a newspaper. (I am bored already.)

I started thinking of secret and urgent desires of gentlemen, perhaps of an era gone by. A"gentleman caller" chez a lady was never appropriate and would tarnish her reputation. However, there were always ladies not too picky on reputation and more concerned about their bread and butter (and a new silk gown...) if you get my drift.

The atc's are about men, but they don't show men.

Gentleman callers in the Night 1-3

Rosie lives in 940 B--- Street

She also plays at a revue theater

Ellie in apartment 2 will stay up late

Entering these into:
Smudgy Antics Challenge: Anything goes (but with a twist into macabre, dark, creepy or saucy... this is saucy)
Anything but Cute Challenge: Masculine
Stamps and Stencils: Small is beautiful (meaning atc's, tags... the likes)

On technique:
I made the background paper. It is a babywipe, dried up long ago but kept for just this purpose.  It had blue ink from cleaning some stamps. I placed wooden numbers on it to get a stencil and sprayed everything with blue and brown Tattered Angels mist. While it was drying I took all my vintage office stamps and stamped all around. When it was dry I cut it into three pieces for backgrounds, added Victorian photos of ladies, the spray painted numbers and some found objects.

Vintage Garden

There's a new challenge blog on the block - Anything But Cute. How happy was I to find it! It's their first challenge, themed Vintage Garden, It has to be vintage, but it cannot be cute. For me this is quite a conundrum as I feel anything vintage is automatically cute. But perhaps not?

Hopefully this works. On the surface it may appear sweet, but it has some sinister traits. I made two atc cards.
Little Ella, why are you mowing your lawn all by yourself, watch out!

Vintage Garden 1. (Ella)

 Mommy thinks that Baby William will be guarded by their trusty Bello. Oh no, not so!

Vintage Garden 2.  (Little William and Bello)

 For the first one I used watercolor paper as background. I sprayed it with glimmer mist (Tattered Angels ) through a stencil, then stamped with a self carved background stamp with brown Stencil Gel. I then stamped the flowers with Ranger Distress Ink (stamps by Stampendous, Stampington). Pictures are from a sheet by Tuscan Rose, aptly named "Vintage Garden". The fly is from my private collection.

The latter has background from a cereal package that has been sanded down, then smeared and painted with several different shades of gel paints and acrylics. Stamping and pictures as above.

This was a fun challenge. Be sure to watch out for their monthly cues.