I had so much fun making this card.  It was easy making the sunset with Ranger’s Distressed inks.

These are the products I used to make the sunset:

Tim Holtz™ Adirondack® Alcohol Ink Applicator

Inkssentials™ Ink Blending Tool & Foam

Tim Holtz™ Distress Ink Old Paper, Broken China, Faded Jeans, Mustard Seed, and Spiced Marmalade

Non-stick craft Sheet

White Cardstock

I always start by protecting my work surface with a non-stick craft sheet.

1. Start from the bottom of the page with Distressed Ink Old Paper. Apply the ink to the foam and rub onto the bottom on the page simulating sand, on a card that is 3.5″ high, apply the Old Paper ink along the bottom 1″ of the card.

2. Skip to the top of the page and using the foam apply Distressed Ink mustard seed to the top in a rubbing dabbing motion, on a card that is 3.5″ high, apply about 1″ of the mustard seed.

3. Using the foam, apply Distressed Ink spiced marmalade to the very top of the card, approximately the top 1/2″ of the page.

4. Mixing between the faded jeans and broken china, apply the blue ink to the middle of the page in a rubbing motion. The blue inks will blend with the brown and yellow.

5. Now stamp your image over the sunset. All the colors will blend nicely together making the sunset.

6. For that extra special effect I used Art Glitter’s ultrafine glitter in green on the hula skirt. I applied the pink art glitter to the wrists with a glue pen.

Let me know if you have any questions.

In March I took a star book class with Gloria at The Stamp Act. The class was so much fun. I used a great Washi paper with red dragonflies as the cover. The paper looks like leather.

I had so much fun using my altered art stamps in this book.

We are getting ready for Michael deMeng’s classes in June. We’ve been digging through the local salvage yards, going to flea markets, and buying really cool stuff on ETSY. Here’s a picture of some of the items we received this week from ETSY.

If you are interested in taking his classes, he’ll be teaching at Absolutely Everything the end of May and also at The Stamp Act in Marshfield in June.  I’ll be at all 4 classes!

In an effort to celebrate Earthday all year long, Freecycle is a great place. We’ve donated some great working items, a hot tub, snow blower, cerwin vega speakers, and some other items. These were all items on their way to the dump and were given a second chance at life with a new family. I’ve posted requests for other wanted items in the past, ephemera, vintage photos and national geographic magazines.

It’s just a natural step to jump in head over heels into collecting found objects for two upcoming classes I am taking at The Stamp Act in Marshfield, MA and also at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA.

Michael deMeng’s

Head Sea Scrolls: Art for the Head

Pez Dispensing Totems

I am obsessed with finding recycled objects. Today I posted a WANTED request on Freecycle in Hingham, Quincy, and Boston.

Here’s my posting on Freecycle:

Subject: WANTED: Old Stuff: door handles, clocks, brass objects, locks, rusty stuff…etc

I am an artist. I enjoy working with recycled art. I use old rusty stuff such as:

Doodads
door handles
clocks
brass, copper, steel and iron objects
door pulls
locks
keys
glass bottles
lenses
hinges
old mason jars
gears
hooks
nails
hammers
tools
typewriters
old keyboards
apple computers
metal frames
pretty much anything can be recycled into art

If you know someone that has an old garage or attic full of stuff they want to get rid of, I’d be happy to be that person to help clean out the garage/attic.

Ok, here’s the funny part…I won’t clean out my garage/attic but I am willing to go into a stranger’s home to find hidden treasures. I’ve actually received some cool responses.

Here’s what we’ve been promised received so far:

~2 mason jars of Boston cab keys from the 1980’s

~ 6 doorknobs, a few hinges, metal scraps from a renovation, and a piece of marble.

~rusty nails, and old tools

It’s so amazing to see how generous complete strangers are. This weekend we are off to the local flea markets to see what we can get our hands on. Wish us luck.