Guest Artist

From time to time, I like to post cards made by other people. I have so many talented friends and acquaintances that I am always dying to show their work on my blog. However, I have to admit I am a little in awe of today's guest artist. I am posting cards by the one and only Dee Gruenig. That's right, Dee was generous enough to let little ol' me share some of her designs with you. Cool!

Dee spent the weekend teaching at Angela's, and all I can say is the woman sure knows her stuff! If you ever get a chance to take one of her classes, be sure to do it. She is a fountain of knowledge about designing, stamping, and organizing. As an added bonus, she has a wonderful dry sense of humor that makes her fun to be around.

Anyway, back to the stamping. Dee made the above card at Friday night's demo. That's right, this is a demo card. Wow! The background paper is one of Dee's coated Zig-Zag Triple Tags. Dee primarily uses coated or glossy papers so that the colors really pop, and we all know how much Dee likes color! The center stripe of color is from one of her Blending Blox, and the plants are the positive and negative images from one of her stamp sets. Both images were stamped in black ink, but the center one looks like it was colored because the background stripe of color shows through the open area of the plant. Did that make any sense? The animals are layered onto the card using sticker paper. Dee prefers sticker paper over masking, and I have to admit, the end result is very cool. Dee distributes all of her items through Sunday International, but of course, you can pick them up at Angela's!

I chose to take a picture of this second card because I got such a kick out of it. I mean, who else but Dee would think of combining flowers with an animal print? I love it! The "dream" card is another demo card from Friday night, and it reflects Dee's typical use of bright colors. It is stamped on one of her Vertical Inspiration Fold-over Cards so that the inside saying shows even when the card is closed. The right hand saying is stamped over a background of color that was rubbed directly onto the paper from a Blending Blox ink pad. The same ink pad was used to color a solid rectangle stamp for the left hand side of the card. A leopard print image was inked in black and stamped over the yellow/orange background. The flowers were colored with her brand of markers and then stamped onto some sticker paper. Nice.

I am sorry to say I didn't take a very good picture of the third card. The end result is rather blurry. It is hard to tell from the picture, but the background text is embossed in white on purple cardstock. The flowers were colored with markers and then stamped onto a white layer. Dee finished the card with some green stippling and splattered the finished piece with watercolor paint.

While I am apologizing, I would like to say that I am VERY sorry I didn't get a picture of the new circle journals Dee finished. They were wonderful! The journals themselves aren't on the market yet, but they will soon be coming from Sunday International. What made them so great was that they were very thick board books and had parts that would slide out so that you could include hidden pictures. It kills me that I don't have a picture! I guess you will just have to keep an eye out for them. Trust me, the cool factor is very high. :)

I want to conclude my post by thanking Dee again and by saying "hi" to her husband Warren. He and I talked a lot about blogging over the weekend, so I hope he likes how I presented Dee's work on my site.