Dresses at CHA Summer

If you read my post after attending Winter CHA in California, you saw the scrapbook paper dresses.  Well check these out:

This is an art journaling paper dress by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  No kidding.  How incredible is this?

How about this one?  The skirt is made of broken tea cups and saucers.  Can you see all the cup handles?

And this one dressed in packages of felt balls.  You've gotta love all this imagination.

Motherboards and Art Doll Bookmarks at STARS

Hello,
I've returned from a week in Chicago attending Summer CHA (Craft & Hobby Assn), and before telling you all about the show I wanted to show you projects from this month's STARS meeting.

For years I've been teaching a class I call my "motherboard".  In recent years there have been magazine articles referring to this type of art as "masterboards".  Doesn't matter to me what you call it.  My idea was to create colorful, layered backgrounds that would be scanned into my computer and then printed for use in projects, maintaining the original forever, rather than cutting it up for art.

When I traveled to Orlando for Stampfest last month, I'd made photocopies that we used as backgrounds for ATC's, which were housed in our Elevated ATC Shrines by Coffee Break Designs.

So for stamp club, I pulled out some of those same copies, stamped my favorite art doll from Teesha Moore, and then let the ladies choose one to decorate in the creation of a bookmark.

Normally I'd want this doll layered and dimensional, but to save your spot between pages of a book, flat was required.

Everyone was given a white pen from Ranger's Inkssentials line to add accents.  I also had a few  white Marvy Reminisce gel pens which are also fabulous for everyone to try and compare.

So let's start at the beginning.  I stamped the art doll on copies of my backgrounds.  Next I used some of my newest rubber stamp purchases from Lost Coast Designs and stamped more of the motherboard copies, giving the girls a contrasting background to use in the creation of a hat.  The dolls were layered onto scrapbook paper, hats were added, and then the doodling in white gave each one their own unique personality.

Sharon's doll had a dunce-type hat while Michele used 3 of them to create a different look.  But notice the patterns on the dresses.  Sharon chose to add accents to her dress while Michele accented a dabber dot only.

I love the pattern on this dress that I created with a stencil and white paint, but look at the hat Janie added with a wide brim.  She also created a choker and straps for sandals.  And she chose to highlight some of the stencilled areas as well.

This doll wears a crown.

 And this one has punched dragonflies added to her dress.

 I confess I love this background, created with a stencil from Coffee Break, and the colors of ink I'd used, but notice she has tiny punched swirls added.  And the image I stamped on extra pieces that created her hat is truly going to be a favorite for a long time.

Our swap for July was bookmarks so I found it appropriate to let everyone create an extra one as the monthly project.  I was busy pulling more supplies and didn't make one at all, but of course you know I will...later.

STARS Challenge

A couple of months ago during stamp club we were trying to come up with an idea for a swap.  This month for instance we're swapping bookmarks again, something we haven't done in a while.  Instead of a swap we agreed to a challenge.  Everyone brought a ziploc bag of goodies that included handmade paper, scrapbook paper, stamped images, die cuts, stickers, ...just oodles of stuff.  We all took home a bag and returned last month with a finished piece for the owner of the bag. 

The above 5x7 legal pad was covered by Laurie for Sharon, using the papers, rub-ons, etc that she'd included in her bag.  Notice the alcohol inked metal washers strung across the top?

Joyce chose my bag and completed this scrapbook page for herself, featuring a photo of her granddaughter.  That 12x12 sheet was actually created by Joyce with strips of papers I'd cut up.  The die cut birds were plain white but she decorated them to match.

Lyn had filled her bag with stamped images related to golf, and Michele made her a portfolio from a colorful file folder, using those images and adding lots of fun elements.

Pockets filled with handmade tablets for notes and lists.  Lots and lots of pockets with things tucked inside.

Lyn missed the meeting and hasn't picked up her portfolio yet, so if you're reading this, I've spoiled the surprise, but doesn't it make you want to race over today??

As usual at the meetings I'm so busy oohing and aahing over everything that I forget to take pictures, so I don't have photos of everyone's projects. 
But I did take a photo of the shadowbox collage I made for Michele.

This was a class I taught at Stampaway last year and I had some of them left over so as a last minute decision, I made one using quite a few of the elements she'd tucked inside her big bag.  The background was a piece of cupcake scrapbook paper.  Honestly, it wasn't a pretty paper, but I spritzed it and stenciled it, turned it sideways to disguise the cupcakes and then tried my best to cover the majority of it. 

The roof of one house was heavyweight cardstock she'd run through a texture plate.  The second was aluminum flashing tape she'd run through a different texture plate and colored with alcohol inks.  And the third was covered with tiny metal cupcake liners.

Two of the houses were covered with papers she'd inked, and one was covered by fabulous tissue paper scraps I'd been hoarding for decades.  She'd stamped an "M" on a piece of mulberry paper with fibers, and I colored it to match the background. 

We all agreed it was a lot of fun and that we'd take on another challenge like this. 

Now doesn't this make you want to get creative with a few friends tonight?