Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Weekend of art, hon

This was such a busy weekend for me! I was so lucky to have my mom visit so that we could celebrate her 60th birthday together. As always, we had so much we wanted to see and do while we were together. And as always, we had so much fun!
For her birthday, mom wanted to drive up to Baltimore to see a quilt exhibit celebrating the women of Gee's Bend Alabama. The quilts are phenomenal and are even more amazing when you realize that the women were/are able to create such works of art from found scraps and pieces of old clothing. If you are interested in quilting, check out the NPR radio broadcast about the Gee's Bend quilts. Those women are amazing!
To continue our fun "artsy" weekend, we went to a bohemian/kitschy area of Baltimore known as "the Avenue." It is loaded with fun galleries, shops, and diners. We had to have lunch at Cafe Hon and have been saying, "hey, hon" and "how ya doin', hon" ever since. I had to include a picture in today's blog of a sign I saw on one of the stores. It still makes me smile.
Now, back to my crafting.... for today's card, I stamped the vine border (Impression Obsession) on the top and bottom of the page and used scissors to cut around the leaves. For places that were harder to cut, I actually cut a little further out and then used a watercolor pencil to hide the fact that I didn't cut right up to the line. I then used a "kissing technique" to stamp the butterfly. (Sounds kinkier than it is). I inked a solid butterfly with yellow pigment ink and then inked the same vine stamp with green pigment ink. Then I "kissed" the green vine to the yellow butterfly to transfer the green ink to the butterfly. Then I stamped the new patterned butterfly to my card. This is why I love solid stamps so much...you can put any design on them that you want. You could vary this technique a bit by twisting the two stamps slightly when you touch them together so that you get a blurred pattern. Also, instead of using a second stamp, you can place a patterned brass stencil over the solid stamp and sponge color through the holes. Solid stamps are so versatile, hon!

1 comment:

Chrisi said...

Love the true Baltimore reference. Good girl - HON!