Paper Leisure

Bye, Bye

2007-10-07T17:07:41Z

MOVED

This blog has officially moved to Wordpress.com :) This LJ will stay here for a while, until I export all of the entries to my wordpress account. So, go and check my new site :)

http://paperleisure.wordpress.com

Sick :(

2007-10-04T13:54:40Z

Well, no crafting and not too much study either, bleh. Yesterday morning I woke up with a really bad stomachache. Only since 7am I've been 5 times to the bathroom D:

I'll just watch tv for now, while I wait for a doctor. Then, I'll see if I can get in the mood to study for a while and then write a letter or maybe sketch some card design.

To make it worse, last night there was a huge blackout, the whole city was without light from 8pm tgo 1am (or so I think, I just know I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and there was light, LOL). It was a really boring day :(

Anyway, off to study.

Sketch Filler #1

2007-10-02T03:14:06Z

Following the great example given to me by my dearest friend Laura, and now that I got Photoshop and we reconciliated after years of being separated (LOL), I decided to try my hand at sketching cards :)

Their main purpose right now is to be fillers for when I don't have time to post a card or some other project, and to serve as inspiration to all of you. I hope that, with time, this turns into a challenge of some sort. It'll also encourage me to sketch more and have some more ideas for my cards :)

This sketch has "08/05/07" on my sketchbook, it's obviously pretty old and the first one I made by myself. I don't know why the idea for this sketch has haunted me for months and I still haven't actually make it. Of course I had a lot of excuses: the set I had in mind ("Gently Falling", SU! retired) wasn't in my hands yet, I didn't had chipboard to make the big sign and then, I was a mess at stitching. Now I have set, as a personal challenge, to make this card as soon as I can, so it'll get out of my brain for once, leaving room for more ideas.

The layer on the left doesn't have to have a zig-zag edge, what I actually wanted to show was zig-zag stitching. Or could be doodling too (just thought of that one, lolz).

I also tried today (unsuccessfully) to install a small scrip that would make commenting easier for those non-LJ users who read me. I'll keep looking for an alternative for you, because I understand it can be somewhat of a bother to leave "anonymus" comments for you. I love to hear from you, so I won't stop looking for a script.

In the meantime, if you write me a comment, could you put your name on the Title bar? That way, when the e-mail notification arrives me, I can know who commented. I feel terribly wrong when someone comments on my cards and doesn't leave a name or weblog address because I don't know who to thank :(

Pastel Paisley

2007-09-30T19:07:10Z

Hello everyone! :) It's a cloudy and cold sunday here in Antofagasta, it seems that spring sure it's taking its time to arrive. I don't really care, summers are SO HOT here that I'm not looking forward to it, but I do like that daylight lasts more.

Anyway, it's the beggining of october and that also means the "beggining of the end" for us, law students. In october starts the last period of tests at my faculty and then, in November, final exams begins. Chaos, collapses, ultimate doom and etc.

So, I won't be able to do as many projects as I'd like but I'll keep updating and making cards and ATCs. I'll try to make more projects on weekends so I have more things to post on the week (every second day or so). I have my tests on fridays/saturdays morning, which would leave me weekends to rest and be crafty.

Well, onto today's project. This is a failed Trifold card that turned into a Criss-cross card :) On July I made a card for my dearest friend yuih. My intention was to make a trifold card, but I screwed up and scored wrong on the right side. I finished the card how I could and then I saw this whole "Criss-cross" card thing invading the blogs and galleries. I felt so smart because I had made something similar by mistake and decided I would try to make a criss cross card "again" :p

I started this card with this gorgeus paisley patterned paper from the Lilykate collection of Basic Grey. I have a small pack of 6x6 lying around for months and had only used it for a few projects. This paper deserved more love <3 I grabbed also one of the non-patterned sheets from the pack to cooordinate. The indigo (?) and light green cadstock are from a local paper pack (which I have to buy more, it has saved me many times already!).

Card base is a 4"x12" piece of indigo cardstock, scored at 4" and 8", in order to make a nice square criss-cross card. Then I cut the diagonals in the squares left of the side (so the whole piece looks like a trapezoid). Then I cutted a 3,75" square in the patterned paper and cut it diagonally, so the triangles would leave a 1/8" margin. Glued the flaps together and a small portion of the bottom of the card (so the insert wouldn't fall, LOL).

For the insert I cut a 3,5"x4,5" piece of the light green cardstock and added a 1" strip in the yellow paper, which I scalloped with my corner rounder (can't you tell I'm addicted? :D). I added a beige fabric flower and a paper flower I dyed myself with COPIC BV02 so it'd match the paper and added the small blue brad (since I don't have a small punch to make the hole for the brad, I used a pushpin to make a small hole on the paper). Then I adhered a small square of kent paper to write a sentiment.

Finish touch was the small light blue rounder clip with the tied ribbons, which are scraps my mother gave me because she does ribbon embroidery and always ends up with little pieces of ribbon here and there. The knot was hard, because the scraps are the size you see them in the picture, I didn't cut any of it.

Oh, and while I was enhancing my picture in Photoshop I decided to make myself a watermark :) Fonts are free from DaFont.com (Mutlu & 04b_03) and there's a small butterfly brush in the background (for now, I'll make myself an illustration soon). The watermark is actually pretty small (200px) but I enlarged 250% with Photoshop and it didn't got screwed, yay! I defined the watermark as a brush for PS so I could use it with any color ;p

I was thinking about making a small tutorial/walkthrough about how I clean my pictures in photoshop to be posted or about how I made my watermark (or maybe both, I don't know). I hope someone is interested :)

Christmas already?

2007-09-29T22:56:44Z

This card is for the Weekend Sketch Challenge #21 by the amazing Beate and was made using the tutorial she wrote. WOW, 21 weeks already? I remember I participated on the very first one :)

This is my first card using the "Merry & Bright" stamp set that appeared in the Holiday Mini by SU! And it's actually the first christmas card I make in *years*. When I was a freshmen in highschool I made christmas cards with cross-stitched motifs as the main image, but only for close friends and the guy I dated back then. This year, celebrating my "stamping anniversary" I want to go back to make christmas cards, so this is the first of many (or so I hope).

Since "firsts" are important I wanted to try untraditional christmas colors, at least once, and I had this river rock/blue bayou/soft sky combo stuck in my mind for a few days until I had time to make it.

I'm not very good at following tutorials so I always end up screwing something up. On this one, the corners of the folder were a pain for me, lol. For the front of the card I made my "own" patterned paper stamping the snowflakes from the Merry & Bright set and a random snowflake I got as "Thursday Tip" prize in the OSA group (I knew that snowflake would come handy sometime!).

For the inside of the card I, as always, made a scalloped border using my corner rounder, stamped the snowman with black Staz-On and watercolored it with the same inks as the papers. Then I stamped the saying in Blue Bayou on the little tag... I'm very happy tht it turned out right where I wanted it! (which is a first to me, LOL).

To hold the folder closed I used a light blue fiber I had around, but I'll replace it with soft-sky stitched ribbon as soon as it arrives 'cause I just ordered some from Laura. Now I know what she meant when she said she loved SU! product because they're easier to combine together.

By the way, I tried a "different" kind of photography, using a complete white background (well, enhanced in photoshop <3) which I think shows the colors a lot better than my other pictures. I think I'll stick with this kind of picture for a while :) Thanks for looking!

Whatcha looking at?

2007-09-28T15:30:42Z

I was browsing through my Flickr and I found this drawing and realized I haven't blogged about it. I'm in my faculty's computers lab. I should be reading some text for a mini-test in the afternoon but it's sooooo boring and I have heard about the stuff in there since last year. Besides, it's totally useless by now (because the new civil process will see light in.. 6 years or so and i'll be graduated by then, why torture us *now*?).

This cat drawing is for the "Funky Cat Swap" (ATCards.com), I love cats and this is the first swap about them I join. We have to make a cat in every color *but* the normal ones a cat have. Although I love cats, it's been ages since I actually drew one, so this was a bit hard at first. I ended up basing on a cat illustration I found via Google. I don't know why but this cat look really pissed of being looked at, LOL (cats tend to have such a expression towards us, unworthy humans). I like it, though, and I guess he'll have to get used to the attention.

Since this is about strangely colored cats, I wanted to use a embossing resist technique on this one, combined with a watercolor background and reverse masking (or at least, I think it's named that). I want it to look like the "Mulberry Batik" technique on SCS, only withouth the mulberry paper, LOL.

This is why I was asking for clear/white embossing powder before, but I'm not sure if it'll turn out. I actually managed to trade some UM stamps for some white embossing powder and a little pink inkpad, the girl said she'd send it off today, so it'd be here in 15 days or so. Deadline for the swap is Nov. 16th and I prefer to send my cards 3-4 weeks before deadline, so they have time to arrive or I have time to re-make then if they got lost (which has never actuall happened).

And I'm not even counting "test" time, LOL. It'll be the first time I heat emboss and I'm looking forward to some messy trials. I don't actually have a heatgun even, but I know from the personal experience of Heather Taylor that it *IS* possible to heat emboss in a toaster oven, so hope isn't lost! :p

I have a dentist appointment today, soo not looking forward to that. Take care and thanks for looking! :)

Yatta!!

2007-09-28T03:08:29Z

By now, everyone and their mothers know that "Yatta" means "I did it!!" (Hiro, my favourite character from the Heroes t.v show, popularized the word). And it was like I totally felt today, when FINALLY Claudio brought me the damned toner photocopies of images I printed.

Milly, the colorless blender thing didn't worked for me :( I tried several times with different images and different papers and solvents until I found one that worked. My best results were on a smooth paper (for marker coloring) and using nail polish remover as my transfering medium, LOL. I found that better results are achieved when rubbing nail polish remover both on the front of the paper where I wanted to transfer the image and then on the back of the image to transfer. I even could transfer some color from some laser photocopies :)

On the left one I applied solvent both in the paper to transfer and in the back of the image and scrubbed with a spoon. On the right one it was only on the back of the image to transfer.

My only complaint is that toner photocopies are really expensive. I mean, it is $1 for one letter sized sheet, and it was $0.50 for the laser photocopies, which is also pretty expensive for me. I mean, being a student I'm used to photocopy for 2c each one on photocopy center around the university. I'm not really used to this thing of going to professional photocopy center.

I'll have to go, though. Because in my experiments I used almost all the images I had in mind for the definitive ATCs. I'll work on getting a better "collage sheet" over the weekend so I can send it to photocopy on monday or so :3 I want to paint a background for them and then transfer the images.

Argh, I always make it so hard on myself on just little card. I should probably start making easier things for trades, so I won't take so much time doing then. And my hand were sore for scrubbing so hard with a spoon D:

Flowers from a bunny

2007-09-26T19:28:15Z

As I mentioned, a friend of mine is having her birthday. Her name is Dafne, she's a year older than me, but we ended up being classmates :p She loves the color pink and she is known as "bunny" by everyone (and she's quite known! she is very kind and knows people from every corner of Antofagasta, LOL).

Yesterday I also received some new rubbah and wanted to use it right away, so I got busy right away. I find it easier to create cards if I have a color combination and a card sketch, so I grabbed this patterned paper (K&Co I think it is, for what Laura told me). From the endless color combination it offered I choosed purely pomegranate and soft sky, haven't even touched the firt one and soft sky is my favourite! I can tell because I'm running out of that one :(.

Having my color combination ready I browsed around and based on an old sketch challenge by Beate.

I used the patterned paper as my first layer and faux stitched the border, though it's barely noticeable because my sister borrowed me a white gel pen and it seems she's also running out. Over it I added a small square of light brown textured opaline (again a failure to match the cream color in the DP, grr) stamped with a big swirl in soft sky ink and small flower in purely pomegranate, both stamps from the Baroque Motifs set I just received <3

I wanted to change a little my very used bunny stamp, so I masked out the dandellion (I put masking tape on the stamp, inked and removed the tape) and instead added a small paper punched flower in the same patterned paper from the first layer. The white scalloped square was punched by Laura and she kindly send some samples to me (OMG, I'm so spoiled :p) so I don'tknow exactly what punch it is.

And that's it, I'm ready for saturday's party :D

(I took this picture with Claudio's camera since my sister just told me yesterday that she broke ours. Crap.)

Unmounting SU!

2007-09-25T22:56:05Z

Today I received my first "stamps" order from Laura. It's the "Merry & Bright" set from the Holiday Mini Catalog by SU! and the Baroque Motifs set, which is already very popular and I have resisted since July :p I'll take pictures later because my sister asked the camera for a trip with her classmates and she left it at one of the girls home. She's so careless for that kind of things.

I asked Laura to send me only the rubber and the stickers for index, since the case and the woodblocks would only mean bulk and more shipping expenses. Laura is so nice that she did so and also included a bag full om awesomeness, like paper flowers in every color and size, punched papers and other little amazing things.

Since I wanted to "de-virginize" my stamps right away I needed and idea for a card. I had the best excuse: a friend is having her birthday on saturday :p So, I grabbed Baroque Motifs and separated the stamps following the default trims in the rubber. I don't feel comfident enough to trim them myself, so I have to wait until Claudio arrives :(

I had THE worst time using the foam backing fro the sets to adhere the stamps onto the CD case I use as acrylic block. Since that foam is intended for permanent stick on a woodblock it was really sticky, and it was a pain the take the stamps off the case. Even my arms hurt, because I thought that by rubbing them to my bare arm would take out some of the stickyness. Wrong D:

I didn't want to separate the gray foam from the rubber, though. My folks always try to keep things just like they received, some stuff even had the original stickers still after 10 years! (those stickers from TV, DVD players, etc that number all the features). Eventually I gave up, stuck the stamps on the microwave for 10 seconds and voila, that gray and damn sticky stuff was out of my sight in less than 3 minutes.

For now, I'll use the stamps with repositionable double sided tape. I guess I should start organizing my um's (currently in ziploc bags) and start thinking of a better way to use them. CD cases crack when I press hard and tape runs out way too fast. So, I was thinking in a Tack n' Peel + Acrylic Block set (ArtNeko has one for $17.95 but if you know a better deal, PLEASE let me know :D).

(Edited to add picture)

Image Transfer (update)

2007-09-22T17:39:11Z

ETA: If someone has clear/white embossing powder to spear... could you send me a small sample? I really really want to make some ATCs (3 actually) with embossing resist and $10 (jar + shipping) seems too much for a little jar >.<! hope someone can help!

Also known as "My last and ultimate artistic frustratioh. Gah". I have two make 2 ATCs for a trade with a user on ATCards.com. My first intention was to draw and paint with watercolors, as always, but for some reason the subject of the cards didn't turned out fine =/ (vintage nudes, lawl).

Since collage isn't my thing I didn't know what to do. That until I was surfing some links posted on the Art Discussion forum and it came to me: image transfer. It seemed nice, because I could paint my background and apply the picture over and it'd look ancient and distressed and pretty. Besides, it seemed like a easy technique.

EASY my @$$ :(

I tried first printing with my inkjet printer over the smoth side of a transparecy the rubbing it on the paper with a popsickle. While this worked on a small image with only one color (black, and white background) it didn't turned out with a more complex one :( Then I tried printing on a normal paper and rubbing alcohol over the image (partially worked, probably because the image was printed way before). Finally, normal paper and acetone (no luck at all with this one, LOL).

Most of the sites I browsed on Google mentioned that it worked with laser photocopies (color or b&w). I'd have to try that on monday after my classes. I have to go send some envelopes and there are many printers and photocopy centers in the way :) Other sites talked about inkjet printing over photo paper.

Does anyone ese have a tip on image transfer? I would appreciate anything that uses common and cheap materiales.

Makenai!

2007-09-21T23:46:15Z

As far as I remember "makenai" means "cheer up" in japanese :) (i could be awfully wrong too).

Yesterday Laura posted her second sketch, and to make it even more fun she's making it a challenge and will be sending gifts to the best card.

I started this card with the paisley patterned paper (which was a gift from Laura, thanks! :D), I don't know why it's much easier when I have a color combination. So, I took a sheet of soft sky, wild wasabi and river rock (this one is not such a close matcha, but it is what it is).

I decided I would be using soft sky a my base so I cut a 4,25"x8,5" strip and folded it in half. Since I wasnt going to anything with the base son I put it aside for a while, after I cut a 4,25"x2,75" strip of the patterned paper. I matted it with river rock, leaving a 1/8" inch on each side. Then I addered a scalloped border in wild wasabi using my corner rounder.

Since I don't own any sentiment stamps I decided to make mine. I found a quoute about friendship by Louisa Mary Alcott ("Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary"). To choose the right colors I used the SU Color Combos page :) One of the fonts is Mutlu (the light blue scripty one, available on DaFont) and the other is a default one that comes with Windows. I printed my sentiment and matted it with soft sky (again a 1/8" margin).

Then I painted the fabric flower (also a gift from Laura :p) with Soft Sky ink, with a brush. The brad is also painted with wild wasabi ink. The small flower were done with a flower punch I bough here, I punched two on two colors and then glued one in the back of the other (hope that makes sense).

After all of this was done I glued the strip of papers to the card base. I really liked how it came out, even when most of the card is empty one hardly notices because you're too focused on the main strip and all the layers and embellishments. I'm also not used to make so many layers, so this took me a little out of my comfort zone. Glad I did though, and I must thank Laura for that. I hope you keep those sketches coming, I really like the challenge! :D

A card for Chile

2007-09-21T02:56:08Z

Some time ago I posted about a personal trade with lw2dragonflies, she wanted some ATCs with some of our local holidays/festivities as theme.

Both were hard to produce, I had to search a lot of reference pictures to make them as accurate as I could. But it was also difficult to not get inspired to make a card about our "Fiestas Patrias" when we were actually celebrating them :p

So, the "huaso" is the most important tipical character here in my country. Still, in the rural zones of the central regions of Chile, there's people that dress like that :) Surrounding the huaso we have our national flower (the "copihue"), kites and trompos, which are both tipical games.

The scanner didn't get the colors too well they're more subtle and brown-ish. This one was painted it two steps: first I applied brown in different tones (ochre where lighter colors would be, a dark brown/black tone where the darkest color) and then I painted with the colors, so that would be a "antique" look to the painting. The background is not white, it's a light blue with ochre :p

Inking is a little screwed, because my pen nib broke :( The kite was the first thing I inked with sepia ink, where the lineart is worse, the rest was done with a fine brush.

So... with this I declare my trade with lw2dragonflies FINALLY over :D I already made the envelope and have both cards ready to be send tomorrow.

I'm baaaack! <3

2007-09-20T04:53:37Z

Well, actually... I've been in Antofagasta for at least two hours now, but I was watching a program about our national heroes, so I got stuck there :p

I didn't get a lot of chances to draw as much as I wanted but I have some sketches and a couple of ideas that I'll be, with a bit of luck, making reality this weekend. Wow, time flies.

It was a very fun trip, with its downsides, obviously. Let's start with friday, shall we? Well, I had classes so we didn't leave "early" as always (10-11 am?) but after lunch (4pm!). Claudio traveled with us half of the way, up to Tocopilla (a small city between Iquique and Antofagasta) which is where his mother lives and his father rests are too (since this year is the 10th year since his father passed away, he wanted to go).

I arrived to Iquique at around 10pm, and we all went to have dinner with my "aunt" and cousin :) She's the partner of one of my mother's brother, but they're not married (my uncle is still married to his first wife... it was understandable when legal divorce didn't exist, but now it really doesn't make sense). My cousin is 17 years old and I like him very much, we don't see too much of our cousins because they live in Santiago and we rarely go there, so it's nice to have someone around my age on Iquique, for a change :p

Next day my parents and my aunt went shopping to the ZOFRI (it's like a "duty-free" mall LOL). I was feeling a little sick, so I stayed in the apartment (by the way, that very first picture is the view we had on the apartment (: ) and watched some random movies and series. Although I carried my laptop along, I didn't had much luck with connection to wireless signals, most of the time I could only check up my e-mail and then the connection failed. I spent a large amount of hours trying to connect to internet, yay for frustration >P.

Hum... I think next day we went to a barbeque over at my grandfather's place, I really don't remember. I think I blocked it out of my memory :p This, actually, is the only picture where he was more or less sober on the entire weekend. My grandfather is an alcoholic, from as far as I have memory. He excuses himself saying that it's because all the hard things he had to go through during the militar government of 1973-1989 (he was a political prisioner and all that implies). But, seriously, 30 years later is kinda too much. I guess I'm no one to judge (since I was born in the ends of the dictatorship), but it's kinda sad because he's the "annoying drunk" kind (he likes to be center of attention and yells and sings and stuff). We all love him, though :)

Today we went to have lunch with at my great-grandfathers place. That's also a pretty sad view, because he's been sick in bed for almost 10 years now, he doesn't move and he barely speaks. He suffers from osteoporosis, a disease that seems to run in the family, from my fathers side. After lunch, we went to my aunt's place to chat a little before leaving. Like before, we stopped on Tocopilla to pick up Claudio, yay! I had been so lonely without him! We chatted a lot more than kissing and hugging, LOL :p

Anyway, more pictures of my travel are on my Flickr. I don't have too much, because I don't like to take pictures on cloudy days and guess what... only monday was sunny!! LMAO.

Going, going...

2007-09-14T16:02:41Z

Hey everybody! :) Nothing to "artsy" to post, here, but I wanted to let you know that I'll be out of town as from today and up to Sept. 26th. It's our national independence celebration. Actually it's on Sept. 18 and Sep. 19... and since Monday's in the middle the guys at the National Congress thought it'd be nice to make it legally a holiday too, so a 5-days-weekend it is! :D

There's a little chance I'll have internet conection there (yay for un-encoded wireless signals), so, with a little of luck I'll be able to post pictures and blog a little here and there (kuroba).

The hardest thing for me when I travel is to choose what art supplies I'll be carrying and which I'll leave behind =/ It has happened to me that I miss a little thing I thought useless and it frustrates me enternally and brings a serious case of "artist's block". But, that's also a very good excuse to buy new supplies, there are better art stores on Iquique that in Antofagasta, if I must say (that's where I bought my Cotman watercolors) and cheaper, because in Iquique items don't are charged the 19% tax that all product elsewhere have <3

So, here's what I'm taking with me
TOP (from left to right)

Scotch and double-sided tape.
Corner rounder punch.
Sketchbook, bond paper 90grs.
A small notepad where I write swaps information, 1-on-1 trades and letters I owe :p

BOTTOM (from left to right).

Hobby knife (I'm still saying myself I gotta get a new one).
A pair of scissors.
Hum... a little tool used to paint with acrylic, that I use to remove the salt from paper without screwing up.
White dry pastel pencil.
0.3mm lead pen (and 0,3mm HB refills).
HB graphite pen.
Various sizes of watercolor brushes.
0.1mm and 0.3mm COPIC multiliners.
Watercolor colored pencils
Watercolores
Acrylic palette
Sharpener, syringer and eraser, LOL.

Besides, I have to carry some watercolor paper. I'm cutting some sheet from my block in half, so they can fit a small folder. I keep telling to myself that, the minute I find a watercolor paper sketchbook I should totally get it. So far, no luck on that side :( Claudio suggested that I could buy a heavyweight paper block, trim it and send it to a photocopy center to get it "ring-bound", it's not a bad idea actually (because I'll get the chance to choose my own paper) I just lack the time :p

(I uploaded this to Imageshack because Flickr decided to fail on me for the first time :( I hope to upload this to my account as soon as I get back. Imageshack feel so wrong)

Finally!!

2007-09-11T03:24:44Z

Whew, I finalled finished my ATCs for the "Next 9x9 Swap" hosted by heymaggie on ATCards.com. Ladies, let me tell you this is a *huge* task for someone like myself, who had only participated in 5/5 swaps. And I like to make my life even worse, by making 3 different design and all handpainted and stuff. I spent way too much time doing them.

I'm waaaaay to tired to start scanning and fixing and uploading right now (just thinking of it makes me sleepy), so it'll have to hold until tomorrow morning, because I have clases a little later than usual (10:30am).

On other notices, I sent "Wishlist" RAKs to Paperfairys and Robin. Hope they arrive soon!

Good night people, so you all tomorrow! :)

ETA (09/11): Here they are in all their glory! I will only post pictures since I gotta run for school, but I'm free in the afternoon so I'll have time to add a description :) As always, they're uploaded on my Flickr account if you want to see a bigger version and a somewhat lame description :p

So, I started with a 7,5"x10,5" piece of Fabriano paper, and I discovered that the sheets of the block I buy are perfect for making two sets of 9 ATC blanks, with only a 0,1" scrap on one side.

The background was painted in two rounds with two differrent techniques: first I did a light wash with lots of water and little watercolor, letting the colors blend by themselves with the water, added a little bit of salt and let dry outside for a day. Usually, it's a pain to remove the salt from the paper, and I always ended up screwing up the paper bu rubbing so hard. Not anymore, I found a little useful tool <3 (that I NEVER imagined it'd be useful for this, LOL). Then I splattered some more watercolor with a syringer (i can't make "nice" splatter with a brush :( ), then dry outside again.

When the background was done I cuted it to the ATC-size and added a sturdy background. Then, I traced every design on 3 ATCs and added little details with white and red gouache paint. The lineart is made with COPIC multiliners, which are awesome because they're anything-proof (bad thing I only have black ones)

Lastly, but not least (I think), I choosed one of Pablo Neruda's poems ("Poem 20" to be exactly) to add random verses on the big empty spaces of my cards. I like to incorporate something "chilean" on my cards from time to time, so I can make my country a little more known abroad :)

More on ATCs :p

2007-09-08T21:07:50Z

A while back there was a thread about the back designs for ATCs. I knew that you had to put osme information on the back of the cards, but I haven't seen people actually making design specially for it. It seemed like an interesting concept, so I tried it myself :)

I doodled the birds design last night (I have a scan of the sketch on my Flickr, too). My first idea was to make a vector design on Illustrator, but after a couple of hours of total frustration I gave up on that and simply "traced" the design on the program (which is an awesome feature). Then I added text with a font named "A Yummy Apology" from DaFont.com, I think the curly font matches my design :)

Then, I saved it into a JPG format, but it turned out really low quality and looked like poo when I printed. The BMP version seems better, but my Open Canvas won't open it (on OC I know how to print ip to 9 backs on a Letter sized paper). I'll try my luck with Word :p

Comments, ideas? Did I mispelled something or forgot important information? Please, let me know if you like it.

Inspiration Everywhere

2007-09-03T22:19:49Z

Hello everyone! Happy Labor Day for those in U.S.A :) It's a quiet (and cloudy day) here in Antofagasta. I just came back from class and I wanted to share this card right away.

The little book on the left is a compilation of short stories about Santiago and the urban life. It's an annual literary contest financed by the company my father works for, so this year they gave their workers a free copy of this book. I was thrilled! (and I'm looking forward to participate next year :)

Anyway, I loved the cover design and thought about making a card about it. The colors, the design everything called me. At first, I was going to imitate the circle design, but I found some technical difficulties, lol, because I seem unable to cut a semi-decent circle without a paper punch, so I gave up on that and instead used one of the new card sketches from Pagemaps.

And this is what I came up with :D (right). The red cardstock is from a stack that I bought in a local supermarket (9"x12") cut to make a 4,5" square base. Then I added a 4" square layer in Soft Sky and stamped some of the Elegant Flourishes in Versamark. Third layer is a circle with the teapot stamped in red ink from my Colorbox Petal Point pad. I punched a 1/4" circle on each side and added the ribbon (which was a gift from Laura, thanks! :D), following the mentioned sketch.

I like this color combination very much, though I had a hard time putting this card together. I really did want to make a design witgh circles :( I was browsing the SU catalog and getting all of the circle punches at once would cost me $65, which is something I can't afford right now, so I'll put that on hold (and start looking for local circle punches :p).

Another disappointment this week was the cost of buying a Cuttlebug. I was looking through eBay and there are some machines for $49.99, but the shipping fee to Chile is (take a sit).... $75?!! OMG Dx And that was the only store I saw that shipped them internationally, others are USA-only. Sooo... the Cuttlebug is a "little" far from me now :p

Anyway, thanks for looking and for reading! <3

Groovy Bunny

2007-09-02T15:32:14Z

Last week, Laura (aka The Stampin' Soldier) posted a Sketch on her blog. It's been ages since I don't use a sketch for cards, and I've noticed that everytime I do it I end up with a really nice one :)

So, I started with a 4,2" square white card, the last of my prefolded, precut white cards (gotta go buy more, they save me a lot of time). I wanted to make a "fake" patterned paper so I grabbed my Rhonna Farrer Clear set (Elegant Flourishes) and added Soft-Sky swirls here and there in a 2"x4,2" strip. Then I inked one of the blossoms on my Kodomo Die-Cut bunnies set and added little touchs of Groovy Guava.

Next I aded a strip of Groovy Guava cardstock which upper and bottom edges I scalloped with my corner rounder paper punch (the green one). My original idea was that the Soft Sky square had to be scalloped also. Laura sent me a punched one so I could trace it on cs and cut it, but neither my fiance nor myself could cut the little scallops really well, so I ended up using a simple square with rounded corners (bleh, didn't like it that much). Last layer is a 1,8"x1,8" white square with the dandellion bunny stamped in both colors. Isn't he cute? It's my favourite stamp on the set. In fact, I love Kodomo stamps, the designs are so darn cute, sad thing I can't get more right now :(

Here's and inside view of the card. I wanted to add a little "extra"and I remembered a Doodlebug alphabet that has been sitting around my room for AGES now (I got it on 2peas). I can color that, I thought. So I did. I stamped swirls and cherry blossoms and some I inked directly on the inkspot and in one I handpainted the design. I'm starting to think I should have put the "Thank you" on the upper portion of the card =/

Now, if you're wondering: Yes, I did used SCS Color Challenge, though I'm not a registered member in there. I just loved how these two colors look together and probably will use them again.

I still think this card looks a little empty, but I'll just leave it there for now. I'll go look for another sketch and color combinations, I want to make more cards, yay!.

A little note: For those concerned about my health. My wisdom tooth was hurting so much because I had a small infection on it. Curses. The Dentist gave me antibiotics and a antiseptic mouthwash, and I'm feeling a little better now.

Drawing + ATC = Fun!

2007-08-29T01:34:11Z

"Este 16 de Julio sale la reina a pasear, saludando al peregrino que la viene a venerar"

Someone on ATCards.com requested a card from me that featured traditional festivities/holidays from my country. I thought it was pretty cool that someone actually cared for these things, so I decided to put all my soul on the 2 cards I'll be making for her ;)

This one, the first, is about a festival that takes place in the town of "La Tirana" in the inner part of the Tarapacá Region. This town venerates the Virgin of La Tirana, and every year on the 16th day of July the image of the virgin is taken out from the local church and "takes a walk" around town, while everyone dances around her (gypsies, natives, etc). There are even these folks dressed as demons that used to scare the hell out of me when I was little (lower left corner, my drawing doesn't make them justice!).

My father likes to make us go to La Tirana every year, to spend time with family and such, thought we (me and my sister) don't really like it now and we make sure he knows, LOL :p

Moving on, I've noticed I'm having a hard time drawing directly on the 2,5"x3,5" format so I decided to sketch in the double of that size (5"x7") the I scanned and printed in the correct size. It's a lot of work, because I still have to copy it to the ATC blank, since I want to paint this with watercolors and the ink from my printer bleeds.

I was thinking about painting the original too and maybe make some ATC-sized prints, if anyone is interested :D

No crafting

2007-08-26T18:10:41Z

Argh, I hate weekends with no crafting! :( But I have two very good reasons why I haven't done anything this week:

I have a test tomorrow (Monday, Aug. 27th), and I had to use this days to study. Or I've been trying to x(
My wisdom tooth hurts!! It's the bottom right one. I don't want my wisdom teeth to come up! (No, I don't wanna be a child forever either, LOL) I have limited space on my mouth and relatively large teeth, so, if this come out, I'd have to have them extracted or they'll ruin my orthodontic treatment. Bad news, I'm a total wuss when it comes to dentists, nevermind surgery!

So, there it goes. Crappy weekend it is. The only bright side is that Laura received my payment for my new SU! goodies and she's filling the envelope with mystery gifts. I love her packages and I'm already anxiously counting the days til it arrives! So far, the only good thing I've done has been cutting a sheet of every In-Color cardstock to ATC size (60 bases) so I'd have them ready when the inspiration hits me.

paper_leisure @ 2007-08-21T23:52:00

2007-08-21T15:54:36Z

HI, sorry I've been a little missing -AGAIN- I made a couple of projects this week and I'll be showing them in the afternoon :D But, for now, I gotta run for a class.

Work in Progress - Rufous-collared sparrow

2007-08-12T18:28:27Z

Not too much "craftiness" this weekend, I'm afraid :( On Friday I made a watercolored ATC but I don't want to post it here until it's all done.

Here's is a little project I was working on yesterday, it's a sketch of my entry for the Postage Stamp ATC Swap on ATCards.com hosted by Carol Schmidt (who I know from Nness.org and she's a great host!).

This weekend I worked on my living room rather than in my little corner on the "computer's room" because I wanted to work with watercolor and I prefer to paint with daylight (and the light in the other room kinda sucks). You can't notice but this picture was actually taken on my living table <3

I love this series of stamps <3 You probably don't know but I'm an amateur philatelist for some years now. It was this hobbie that got me into the mailart/penpalling world. So, I thought this was a perfect swap to join and show the world the stamps in my country. In general I don't consider the stamps in my country to be amazingly beautiful but this series of endangered species from my country is by far my favourite (better news, the stamps this year are actually better than in previous ones, yay! :3), most of the stamps feature birds, but I've also seen one with a wild-cat.

Besides, this postage stamp was my first excuse to use my bird rubber-stamp that I bought from a local decor-store a few weeks ago :) It is supposed to be a stamp to mark books ("This book belongs to....") but I really liked the bird design, it looks like those made by natives in this region. Very appropiate because this bird ("Chincol") lives in my region too.

This is just a sketch to see gow my finished work should look like. It is made on 90grs. Bond paper from a sketchbook and I used masking tape tomake a frame the size of an ATC to arrange my drawing, the stamping and the postage stamp in actual position. I haven't started the definitive ones because I don't have heavyweight watercolor paper right now :( But I already asked my fiancé to go and buy me some tomorrow while I am on classes.

A card for Galadriel

2007-08-08T02:54:51Z

When I made this card I decided to re-read my J.R.R Tolkien's books (starting with "The Hobbit", of cours) which I have not touched in over 6 years! I met the Lord of the Rings saga when I entered highschool (14-15 years old), when the movies where only a vague rumour, lol.

I think that by now everyone and their mothers know something about the adventures of Frodo, but I also believe that an explanation could be useful. Galadriel is like "the queen" of the forest of the Elves (Laurelindórian) and their colors where green and gold. Therefore, the title of this post :)

I started this card with the patterned paper, which is a scrap from a A4 page I printed long ago and it's by the CANON Papercraft site I posted a few weeks ago. The original project was my first Deco FB :)

Then I found another scrap of cordinating cardstock that I thought I had run out. I added the grosgrain ribbon, that I received as a RAK long ago. I bought the flower and leave embellishments from a local supermarket (sadly they're already running out on the card-making supplies :( ) and glued the flower with a circular dimensional that I made using my little tutorial. I punched the corners with my small and handy 1/4" circular handheld punch to resemble the Ticket Corner punch by SU!.

I though the card looked a little empty on the upped side, so I added faux stitching and a handwritten sentiment with a golden gel pen. And there it is, ready to go (:

I ran out of cards to post so I'll better start working on some projects soon, lol! Thanks for looking :)

Bamboo/Gingko swap arrived in Chile

2007-08-05T04:29:02Z

Remember those ATCs I posted a while ago? Well, my returns from that swap arrived on Friday and I'm very excited! Making ATCs was already a fun thing, but receiving my returns was even better!

For a bigger picture of the ATCs (and the names of the ladies who made them) click on the picture and you'll be taken to my Flickr account, as always :)

OSA swaps are really fun, because with each swap you receive an UM or other kind of goodie and you get to see a lot of new techniques and stamps. Now I think I might need a Gingko leaf stamp, hmm...

I went to check up the OSA Site for more ATC swaps to join but there aren't pretty much left. Then I remembered a site which is entirely dedicated to ATC swapping, and decided to join to give it a try. It is ATCards.com, if you're there, could you please let me know your username? So I'd know I'm not that alone in there (: I've also seen lots of ATCs swaps on SCS but I didn't felt that attracted to them. I mean, I love their resource page and often I browse the forums (but I'm not registered), but I think it's a very large community and it's easier to get lost among so many users.

Besides, I've noticed that those are more like greeting cards in the shape on a ATC, but on other communities (like Nness.org and the ATC Y! group) there's more of a conceptual thing behind each ATC which is what I like to do :) I don't mean that the other style is wrong, it's just that it isn't my thing, lol.

Well, I'll go back to ATCards.com and see if I join a swap or make a trade. Thanks for looking! :)

Pocket card, revisited :)

2007-08-04T05:28:42Z

I don't know why my camera has been taking pictures with a "blue" shade. I just found out how to fix it with Open Canvas (which is a little program very much like Photoshop but not so heavy). Since I uploaded this picture a couple of days ago (and not today) it is not fixed, but as from tomorrow they'll be (:

Well, now about the card. This is actually my second attempt at a Pocket Card, which tutorial I saw on SCS. The first one didn't turn out so fine, I had trouble with the scoring (I didn't know how much pressure to use and tore the paper a little) and I read the instructions wrongly and ended up cutting the flap :p This onw came out much more nicely.

So, I started with a 4 1/4" x 11" piece of chocolate brown textured cardstock that I received as a Birthday RAK back in January. This paper was my favourite and this was the last scrap I had ):

On the flap, instead of just using round corners on both sides (as shown on the tutorial), I took out my Corner rounder and used it to make a scalloped edge on the flap. This was the first time I didn't messed up anything with the paper punch and the scallops turned out nicely aligned :p

For the card front and the inside I used the Far East collection by DCWV, love those papers <3 To enhance a little the flap I added some ric-rac through it. The inside in a piece of light-blue plain opaline decorated with an inch of DP and a cherry blossom punched from the same line of papers.

Well, that was all for now. Thanks for looking! :)