Art Nouveau Pop-up and some hints on finding Free Artwork

Today's card uses some of the work of Alphonse Mucha, a truly inspirational Czech artist of the Art Nouveau movement. If you want to learn more about him, there is lots of information on Wikipedia and a whole gallery of his images, all now out of copyright and freely printable, on Wikimedia Commons.

"Art Mystique"

The front of the card features a woman from a very famous travel poster "Monaco - Monte Carlo". All the women have been cut from printouts and shaped before attaching to the card. The backgrounds are made with distress inks, stamps, perfect pearls and lace.

"Inspiration Tree"

The trees are diecut from old cat food boxes and embossed with a woodgrain folder before decorating with distress inks and distress stickles. Only the trunks are attached to the card, leaving the branches hanging free. Tiny tags are inked and stamped with inspirational quotes before attaching to the branches. I love the way the branches form an arch above the woman's head in a form reminiscent of the Art Nouveau style.

"Pop-up!"

Tom tells me he like a card with a "wow" on the front, and a "WOW" inside. I hope this one does the trick! There are three separate pop-up elements and the two groups of people at the back are attached to the background with Pinflair dimensional glue to bring them away from the blue-green background.

"Ladies!"

The central figure in this group reminds me of my niece (hi Abs!). I just love the plate of chips amongst all the glamour :-).

Ingredients:

Sizzix Bigz XL pop-up tree

Sizzix Bigz Scallop pop-up

Sizzix Bigz Tiny Tabs and Tags

Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels

Distress Inks

Distress Stickles

Vintage Images by Alphonse Mucha from Wikimedia Commons

Adhesives: PVA, Pinflair Glue

Jump rings

Lace

Epilogue

Some time ago I was working on a card with some Graphic 45 stamps, and did some internet research wondering what colours would be good for trapeze artist costumes. I happened upon Wikimedia Commons which has thousands of copyright-free images, and came across a lot of the artwork upon which some of the Graphic 45 papers are based. If, like me, you like the papers but find them expensive, you can print off a lot of these images direct from Wikimedia and use them in your art comfortable in the knowledge that you are not breaking any copyright rules! I was surprised just how much of Graphic 45's "Le Cirque" artwork resembled real vintage circus posters such as this one, which you might like to compare to the artwork in the background on Graphic45's website here:

"Vintage Circus Poster from Wikimedia Commons"

Having discovered Wikimedia Commons, I carried on with my research. A lot of the images in the Graphic 45 "Steampunk Debutante" papers bear striking similarities to artwork by some well-known Art Nouveau artists, including Alphonse Mucha and Henri Privat-Livemont, and sadly I haven't noticed these artists being credited. If you're looking for good artwork to include on your cards, why not start with a trip to Wikimedia Commons and see what you can download for free?

Entered for the following challenge:
Gingersnap Creations - Last Century

Eggs Don't Grow on Trees

Here's another Easter card. I made this one for a lady on Docrafts who sent me some gorgeous lace - thanks Kathy :-)

"Greeting at Easter"

The tree diecut and tag were both embossed with a woodgrain effect and coloured with a mixture of Dylusions sprays and distress inks. These inks are all water-based, so you can mix and match!

"Eggs Don't Grow on Trees!"

Distress stickles add a little vintage glass glitter effect to the tree. Tiny tags are coloured and stamped with eggs before attaching to the tree branches with jump rings

"Easter Bunnies"

This fabulous vintage Easter graphic was printed from the Graphics Fairy's blog, then decorated with Glaze pens to highlight the eyes and add an eggshell effect to the egg. Pink glitter pen was used on the flowers, and some white pen on the white rabbit's fur. After drying, the image was shaped and adhered to the card with Pinflair for a little dimension. The greeting at the top of the card was cut from the same image.

The background is coloured and stamped with distress inks. The lace at the top of the tag was also coloured with distress ink to match the rest of the card. I've had a bit of fun with colour lately and quite enjoyed the orange and blue colour scheme. Perhaps all that sunshine has influenced me recently. Hope you are all having a great Spring.

Ingredients:

Sizzix Bigz XL:  tree pop-up

Sizzix Bigz: Tag diecut (thanks Lee!)

Sizzix Bigz: Tiny Tabs and Tags

Sizzix Embossing Folder: Woodgrain Effect

cardstock: white, 300g & 160g

vintage image from the Graphics Fairy

Distress Inks: Spiced Marmalade, Tumbled Glass, Fired Brick

Dylusions Ink Sprays: Pure Sunshine, Postbox Red

Hero Arts Stamp: Bloomin' Meadow

Crafty Individuals unmounted stamp set: CI-234

IndigoBlu unmounted stamp set: Wild Meadow WM1

7Gypsies clear stamp set: Conservatory

Jump Rings

Entered for the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp and Show - a Tag!
Joanna Sheen - Spring / Easter
Gingersnap Creations - 4th Annual Copper, Ginger or Rust Challenge

Easter Wishes

Just a quickie today; I made this card for the Easter swap on Docrafts.

"Easter Wishes"

The gorgeous ribbon was sent to me in another docrafts swap and provided the starting point for this card. The background colours were chosen to match, then the stamping just seemed to follow naturally.

"Easter Wishes"

I've kept the design really simple to show off the gorgeous stamps from Indigo Blu and because the colours are a little unusual, with an orange sky! A little picket fence distress stain was added behind the area where the sentiment was stamped to help the wording stand out. The sentiment is stamped in sepia archival ink and heat embossed in clear. The other stamping is all done with distress inks in the same colours as the background. The ribbon is wrapped around the inked card and secured at the back before adhering to a dark green card blank. A second ribbon is added on top of the first with some very pretty, delicate flowers inked with distress colours to match the project.

Ingredients:

Indigo Blu unmounted A5 stamp set: Wild Meadow WM1

Indigo Blu free cover stamp from Craft Stamper magazine

Distress Inks: Dried Marmalade, Rusty Hinge, Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint,

Distress Stain: Picket Fence

Ribbon

Entered for the following challenge:
Joanna Sheen - Spring / Easter

Buzzin'!

Woohoo - the new Dylusions sprays have arrived in the Izzwizz household, and it's inky fingers galore. I spent all last night playing with sprays, stencils and stamps and went to bed with honeycombed hands! Anyway, this is my first creation, hope you like it! Tom thinks it would make a good label for his honey jars :-)

"feel the BUZZ"

I sprayed the background, added some water with a tiny bit of Perfect Pearls, and sprayed through some sequin waste, then flipped that over and pressed down on the other side (hence the inky fingers!). The bees and letters are stamped in archival with a white pen highlighting.

Ingredients:
Dylusions ink sprays: Crushed Grape, Vibrant Turquoise
Archival Ink: Jet Black
Inkssentials opaque pen: white
bee stamps, various
Hero Arts alphabet stamps

Entered for the following challenge:
Simon Says Stamp and Show... Create Your Own Background

Enjoy the Journey...

This is one of those projects that will never be finished, but I've been working on it on and off for four months now and it's about time I showed it to you! Without further ado, my first configurations box...

"Enjoy the Journey..."

First off was to cover the box using Tim Holtz paper and tissue tape. A sheet of patterned paper was cut into pieces to fit the back and base of each aperture.

"Stamped tissue paper"

The tissue tape was homemade by stamping distress inks onto tissue paper then cutting into strips. Lots of masking was used in order to get the effect of lots of layers of travel labels, and each label was stamped in its own colour, keeping the colours consistent for a more realistic look. The colours were chosen to match the backing papers. The strips of tissue paper were used to join the boxes and cover the edges of the papers by applying with a very thin coat of PVA. All the horizontal edges are done first, followed by the vertical ones.

"Paris"

The boxes each have a theme based on travel. "Paris" has an eiffel tower charm and vintage postcards with handwriting, printed in miniature and aged with distress inks.

"Treasure Chest"

This is what the traveller is looking for! The miniature treasue chest was made from card and covered in wood-effect papers then filled with beads and trinkets. I dug that tiny gold-coloured bracelet up from the garden so thought it was really apt for this project :-)

"Books"

I always take plenty of reading matter when I'm travelling - it's great for passing the hours in airports and hotel rooms. These little books are handmade by stapling tiny bits of paper and a cover on the spine, then giving each a title with a fine promarker. My favourite is "If they don't understand, just shout!" :-)

"Treasure Map"

Here's the map showing the location of that chest, and a lovely pen nib that was used to put "X" marks the spot! In the foreground is one of the embellishments made from stamping shrink plastic with black archival ink, cutting out with scissors, shrinking with a heat tool and gluing to the box with Pinflair or glossy accents.

"Medicines"

Every traveller needs a well-stocked first aid box, and these pills should come in really handy! I couldn't resist adding the funny looking cat, just the sort of weird animal you might come across on your travels abroad :-)

"Beach Fun"

I love the figure of the surfer in the background in this box, so this one had to have a beach theme with shells and sea creature charms. That bracelet came from a buddhist monk in Thailand and I wore it for years. This seems like a fitting home for it now.

"Vintage aeroplane"

This little vintage aeroplane is another embellishment made from shrink plastic.

"Don't care was put in a pot and boiled 'til he was done!"

Did this worry the weary Victorian traveller? Being eaten by cannibals? As a little girl, if I ever said "Don't care" to my Nan, she would say "Don't care was made to care, Don't care was hung, Don't care was put in a pot and boiled 'til he was done!". Perhaps that was the inspiration behind this main scene, which is the end of our interpid traveller. Lee sent me these fantastic stickpins and I knew immediately what I would do with them. They look so scary, they just had to be cannibals. There's a cooking pot full of skulls, skulls and fish bones strewn on the ground, bats peeking out from the rafters, a strange mask hanging for the main character to hide behind, and weird decorated poles (empty lipstick cases covered in gold peeloffs!). Could this be some sort of strange religious ceremony?

To the traveller I say. "Enjoy the journey, for who knows what you'll find when you get there!"

Ingredients:

Tim Holtz paper pad: Lost and Found

Graphic 45 paper pad 8" x 8": Tropical Travelogue

free vintage printoffs from the Graphics Fairy

wood effect patterned paper

scrap card & paper to make treasure chest & books

Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz stamp set: Travel Labels

Tim Holtz clear stamp set:The Journey

Creative Expressions stamp set: Vintage Aviation

Distress Inks, various

Archival Ink: black

adhesives: PVA, pinflair

Shrink Plastic

gold peeloffs

charms & metal embellishments: skulls, bats, cat, used lipsticks, eiffel tower, fish, starfish, fish bones, drawbridge, shells, braid bracelet, beads, chain, decorative pins

two small vials of seed beads with stoppers, decorative stickpins, pen nib (all thanks to Lee)

Entered for the following challenge
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes
The Artistic Stamper - Travel

Wearin' of The Green

Good luck on St. Patrick's Day!

"Wearin' of the Green"

We live within sight of the mountain of Slemish, where St. Patrick minded his sheep as a slave boy. This is a really beautiful part of the world with the green Glens of Antrim, waterfalls a plenty and a fabulous coastline with a road at the foot of the cliffs and miles of golden sands on the beaches. Things are looking up for Northern Ireland and I wish everyone a fantastic weekend.

Ingredients:

Distress inks: Pine Needles, Bundled Sage

Vintage images from Magic Moonlight Studios

"Good Luck" sentiment stamps from Dovecraft and Papermania sets

"Irish Luck" and "Blarney Castle" images from junk mail!

Entered for the following challenge:
Wags n Whiskers - Luck of the Irish (use green)
Simon Says Stamp - A Bit o' Green
Pile it On - St. Patrick's Day and/or Shades of Green

Colour

I've been having lots of fun with some new IndigoBlu stamps from Joanna Sheen. It's amazing the different feel you can give to a project by choosing the colour scheme carefully. Now someone sent me some fabulous ribbon in a swap and that was the starting point for this project. I chose colours to match, and the rest flowed from there.

"Colour"

It's funny that there's not much of the ribbon left on show now! I like to use pieces of cut 'n' dry foam to blend the distress ink background, it's great getting your fingers good and close to your work. Splodges of picket fence distress stain are used on the main panel before stamping the sentiment to make it stand out better against the background.

"Butterfly"

Watercolour paper makes a great medium for butterflies. It takes lots of colour well and soaks up any amount of distress stickles you want to add; it's easy to cut out and shapes nicely when dry.

"Flower trim"

Plenty of flower trim left yet - thanks Lee! It's so easy to colour with distress inks to match your project.

"Dimension"

This angled view makes it easier to see the dimension.

Ingredients:

IndigoBlu unmounted stamp set: Wild Meadow

Distress Inks: Pine Needles, Bundled Sage, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade, Rusty Hinge, Barn Door

Distress Stain: Picket Fence

Archival Ink: Cobalt

Cardstock: thin white for inking and stamping, thick red for card blank

Ribbon

Flower trim

Entered for the following challenge:
Joanna Sheen: Spring / Easter