Grim(m) is Right!

I'm terrified of fairy tales.

The Brothers Grimm and other assorted HORROR writers (that's what most childrens' stories are, at least the fairy tale variety) pursued me through many a nightmare as a child.

I never understood why it was appropriate to read a child a story about a witch baking a brother and a sister in an oven, or a wolf eating a little girl in the woods, or assorted other hideous fates that awaited the mostly parentless tinies in the pages of these awful books.

I've heard the pointless rationalizations about how they were designed to keep children safe, but can we all agree that that is complete balderdash, and that the quite successful aim was, in fact, to give us all phobias?

Well bravo, Grimms. I'm still afraid.

I thought I would put together a few little creepy fairy tale ditties after discussing with a coworker how dark and dismal the subject matter most modern graphic designers choose is. Communication Arts magazine, which is really one of my favorite designer magazines, features some horridly dark illustrations.

I believe these designers were terrorized by fairy tales as children, and hence deserve our pity. ;).

To twist that all together, I took the pages of that magazine and an old used book to create three little scenes for you.

Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and Alice in Wonderland.I cut the pieces freehand, and collaged them with the book pages to 4X4 canvases with matte Gel Medium, thanks to some instruction, found here, by Claudine Hellmuth.

After cutting, I just laid them out on the canvas one by one to help me cut the next piece and make it fit in the scene.Something about collage takes me back to my childhood, so this project was the perfect mix of memories for a Sunday...

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to look behind you.

My Heart For my Country

For this card, I reanimated some old snare drum lessons in a book of sheet music I bought from Half Price books. I used my Stampin' Up! punch with two of the three hearts it makes. Very quick and easy card, using only scraps!

Happy Independence Day!

Petersburg, 2011

Wouldn't that be cool?

I may get to do just that. We will see. St. Petersburg is a place of my dreams that is for sure.

So today I reanimated one of my old Russian dictionaries. I probably have 20 of them. It was okay to dedicate one to the fires of art, yes?

I started by making some "water" out of a reanimated security envelope. The insides of these are crazy cool.

If you want to use a lot of the real estate of these, use a heat gun to neatly undo the seals where it is stuck together. Just heat them up and the glue will let go. Then cut it up as needed. I just needed a little stripe.

I punched squares from my Russian dictionary and rounded their corners. I sponged them with brown ink to age them.

Then I stamped little fishies from the Stampin' Up! Just Beachy set and colored them with gel pens.

I outlined them in white to pop them off the page a bit.

I added some of the new dotty Stampin' Up! ribbon and voila - quick and easy double Reanimation.

Lots of paper in the world. Use it, don't buy it! :)

Memorial Day

I prepared this card for today's 2Sketches4You Challenge!It's a hero for all our fallen heroes today. Handsome and brave. Loved and missed.

The stamp set is the Super Parents Doodle Factory set, and I loved the sketch, because it once again gave me an opportunity to do thought bubbles.

Just a girl, dreaming of her boy. As they do :)

I used as a background a page from a Fantastic Four compilation comic book that I got at Half Price Books. I cut extra talk bubbles out to add along the edge of the main circle.

I colored both characters with Copics and then added the rub-on dots for a Lichtenstein effect.

Comics are one of my favorite places to find beautiful use of red, white and blue together.

To see the rest of the Starving Artistamps' team's submissions for the challenge, click here. To see the 2Sketches blog entries in the challenge, click here.

Take time today to remember America's fallen heroes as you enjoy your freedoms. They gave so much.

God Bless America.

Post Secret

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone thought I meant postage stamps were my hobby instead of rubber stamps. I'd for sure be stamping full time!

However, I do love postage stamps.

And I love office supply stores.

So put your hands together, and you have a very cool project.

When I was at CHA, I fell in love with Graphic 45's paper. It was warm, collagey, interesting and inspired this idea.

A while ago, I bought some full sheets of Avery label paper - 5353 is the product if you're interested. I also have bags of old postage stamps.

I peeled off the lining of the label paper - one row at a time, since the lining is in three pieces - and started sticking my stamps down one by one. Since they are all different shapes and sizes, some need to overlap a little - just make sure you cover up all the sticky parts.

When I had a rectangle big enough for what I needed, I stopped and cut the paper in my paper cutter. Look at this cool new Graphic 45 style paper!You can reanimate anything into paper with these label sheets. Just think of the possibilities. Wait - you don't have to, because I'm going to do it! :) Stay tuned.

Anyway, I took this piece and ran it through my Big Shot with the Stampin' Up! Bird and Leaves with Flower die and then just stuck them on some black cardstock, used reanimated music sheets as a background, and put it on a black base.

So now you know my secret! :)

Wonder Mom!

I found this awesome book of WonderWoman comic covers at Half Price books for basically nothing.Do you know how inexpensive making your backgrounds out of used books is? Consider designer paper for 50 cents a sheet, and books for 50 cents a book!

It was the purrrrfect backdrop for my Super Mom for Mother's day.
The image is from the new Doodle Factory set "Super Parents". The card base is Basic Black, and I colored her with copics, chose a good cover from the book to use as a backdrop and punched a few circles for accents.

Do You Get It?

See if you get what I did on this card.

The paper is retired Stampin' Up! DSP and the little bear is from Doodle Factory's new Oh Baby! set. I stamped him on a reanimated Hardy Boys mystery. when I opened it to rip a page out, a 1950 wheat penny fell out of it.

Cool.

I colored him with pure color pencils.
The reanimated book pages take pencil sooo nicely because they are a little rough.

So do you get it?

If you do, leave a comment. ;)