Father's Day Card with ATC inserted

Today I worked on Father's Day things. I am posting the card I made and the ATC, however I will not post the painting I finished for my Dh until Sunday - No previews of it for Dh. Due to the workweek here, he will receive his painting on Saturday.

The first picture is the card front without the ATC inserted. You can see the cuts where the ATC will be inserted.

Pentel Hybrid Gel red, unipin 03, stamp: Stampabilities, Ink: Tsukineko Lady Bug

This second picture has the ATC inserted.

Unipin 03

And, this last picture is the ATC.

126FathersDay, unipin 03, 12 June 2014

Other than the card with the ATC inserted looking like an octopus, I think it came out rather well, especially since, I don't draw it out first, I just doodle...

Have a great day!

Theta

Doodles - cut and paste organization

No ATCs today.

For last several days I have been doing some cleaning up of my desk - what!?!? a clean desk, yikes! Well it was getting to the point that when Kitty wanted to lay on my desk he basically had to curl up on my hands, normally one of his favorite spots, but inconvenient. I had to get my stuff down to one pile, my computer, my drink, and the paint water (actually the cat has decided the water is put there for his personal use, so every time I need to use it for painting we have a disagreement).

I spent some time finishing up a couple of projects, working on my key words for scrapbooking, and getting that pile sorted and filed. I save my doodles from when I am waiting for things to load on the computer (our internet is terribly slow), am on the phone, and other waiting times. Then I cut them out - I don't often want to remember the text or words that I was doodling around - and paste them on a sheet of paper. This piece of paper then gets put into a sheet protector in my ideas binder. Below is a sampling.

My Doodles

My Doodles

My Doodles

My Doodles

I mix old and new, pasting on doodles where they will fit. Apparently in the above doodle I needed cream...

Anyway, I have found this system works great for me... just as long as I don't wait too long to cut and paste my doodles, then I find them flying everywhere and/or under the cat.

Key Word Notes

In an old art idea journal I left in the states, I had started a list of key words for scrapbooking and cards and things. This week I started a new list. Today I made a couple of psd files of 12x12 templates with 2.5x3.5 'pockets'. That way I can easily drag and drop ATC's into a layout with having to resize to 3x4. I made frames of other sizes too, otherwise the layouts would be boring. My next 'job' is to take one of my old kits and re-make some things to fit with my new scheme. I found that printing to fit A4 size paper made my layouts 8x8, down from 12x12, which is perfect for my needs - and economical, just have to figure out a good use for the portion of page protector I cut off. They are just over 3 inches wide.

Have a wonderful day!

Theta

ATC flower and layouts with Project Life

I finished this ATC today. It took several days as I was working on other projects.

I looked into Becky Higgins' Project life and decided to download her free stuff and give it a try for our 2013 yearbook (yes it's 6 months late, but that's okay because by the time anyone gets a copy it will be 7 or 8 months late). So I downloaded her free starter pack, opened up Photoshop, and started piling in photos and cards. In a very short time, I had picked out pictures to use for each month and plopped in pictures and cards for every month except July. It went fast... I even turned and flipped some of the cards and resized photos when I clipped them to the mask. I did not add much in the way of embellishments - that would sending it out next year or so. July was a bit more difficult. That was the month we went on vacation to St. Moritz, Switzerland, and the big kids joined us, so we were all together for a short time. Too many pictures to choose from... so I made a few too many layouts of that time, but it really didn't take very long. After all the pictures and cards were loaded into the layouts, I journaled a bit in the spaces I had left for writing. That didn't take too long either. In less than a week I have a finished album ready for the printers that reminds us of what we did last year. This process usually takes me months and weeks and days. It was nice to let go and just plop things in. The kids love the prototype. Even though it's not up to my usual and the colors don't thrill me, I am incredibly happy that it is done, well almost - I have the challenge of uploading it to the printers.

Here are a sampling of the pages:

Project Life journaling card and paper, Theta photos and ATCs. The accompanying page has the birthday journaling and more birthday pictures.

Project Life paper, Theta photos

Project Life journaling card, filler cards, arrow, and paper, Theta photos, just a bit of photoshop brush on the month card.

I am planning on doing a separate album for our vacation using this system, possibly with my own papers and things. Although the colors in this free kit are not ones I would have chosen, they really worked well with the photos. I did recolor (using the same color palette) the two cards above Caramel and flipped one of them horizontally. 

It might be fun to do a black and white kit with my ATC flowers... hmmm...

Have a great day,

Theta

Leaf Dragon with a flower

This one I did about a month ago, but forgot to photograph. It is about A4 size and done with pen and watercolor pencils.

Have a great day!

Theta

Horse Painting

Last week I didn't do very many ATC's, I was working on a painting of Saba Al Hasa for my husband for our anniversary. It came out ok, I've done better. I used Staedtler watercolor pencils, pastels, and Winsor-Newton watercolors.

Have a wonderful day!

Theta

ATC Doodles

Something a bit different for my ATCs.

121Doodle; unipin 03; 03 June 2014

123FlowerLinear; unipin 03; 03 June 2014

Have a great day!

Theta

ATC Happy Birthday

I made this ATC for my birthday today :)

124HappyBirthday; unipin 03; 03 June 2014

Have a most excellent day!

Theta

ATC Flower Doodles

ATCs: one from today and one from yesterday...

120Flower; unipin 03; 02 June 2014

122Flower; unipin 03; 03 June 2014

Have a great day!

Theta

ATC 2 + 1 flower and a Graduation

My daughter graduated from High School last weekend, so I made her a ATC to go in her card. Since she collects playing cards the ATC's fit right in. I've felt like drawing Calla Lilies for some reason, perhaps because of their clean lines compared to the doodle flowers I've been drawing. They sort of give the mind a rest.

116CallaLily; Copic pen 03, Staedtler watercolor pencils; 30 May 2014

117ABGrad; unipin 03, Ink: Tsukineko, gold gel pen, Stamps: owl - Inkadinkado mortar board - hand carved, Sumitape; 31May 2014

118CallaLilyPink; Zig 01, unipin 03, Staedtler watercolor pencils; 01 June 2014

119FlowerLarge; unipin 03; 01 June 2014

Have a great day!

Theta

ATCs - mixed

I am still doing a few black and white line flowers, but now I am branching out and doing flowers and Leaf Dragons again. Variety is good, but I had and still have to get all those flowers out of my system...

110FlowerLarge; unipin 03; 29 May 2014

111LeafDragonPortrait; unipin 03, Faber-Castell Watercolor Pencils; 29 May 2014

112CallaLily3; unipin 03, Faber-Castell Watercolor Pencils; 29 May 2014

114CallaLily; unipin 03, Staedtler watercolor pencils; 29 May 2014

Have a great day!

Theta