Please feel free to use any of the vintage images on the website in your artwork. Be sure to share your artwork with us. This is a labor of love and I love to see what you create. Please do not post the original unaltered image on the web but post your artwork and link back to this site for the original image. Please do not sell or post the image alone or in a collection without my permission. Thank you. I can't wait to see what you create!


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Digital Two for Tuesday 37







We are expecting snow again today. So I thought I would warm up your day with two beautiful images of children cooking. They are both from a vintage magazine from the 20's. Our guest designer this week Maxine has done an amazing job working with these images. Her playful style mixed with vintage is an award winning look. I hope you will be inspired to take part in this weeks challenge and use one of these images in one of your projects. Please make sure you post a link in the comments section so we can all enjoy you work.
Here is Maxine our guest designer's bio in her own words.
"From a very young age I have been interesting in 'making things' - this was channeled into sewing as I grew up, specifically tailoring, making all my own clothes, and then sewing for the family when they arrived, this also included embroidery where appropriate on the clothing. Later I took up embroidery to a much greater degree, then changed tack and started to make bobbin lace in addition to knitted and crocheted lace.

I first started stamping ten years ago when a friend introduced me to the craft as part of her launching a stamp making company. I had a few lessons from her, and then puddled, along pretty much on my own, using magazines and the occasional stamp or craft show for instruction and inspiration for the next eight years. Then I found Splitcoast Stampers and we got broadband, and the revolution started! It is very interesting seeing how my card making has evolved as I have kept a fairly comprehensive gallery of my work on the computer - I cringe when I look at some of my early cards!

I am basically a CAS card maker, but can add the layers and embellishments when I am in the mood.

Cora said that she gives us images to work outside our comfort zones. I enjoy a challenge so I was not unduly worried, until these images arrived. I realised then that I have not had 'people images' in my cards other than one stamp image that I have!! I find it is better not to try and work on a challenge immediately, so I let my mind 'simmer' over them for a while, then inspiration finally arrived!

I coloured the images using chalks, and to highlight the children I used a blender pen to strengthen the colours.

In the card with just the boy cooking, to give a focal point I printed the image twice and cut the boy out and popped him up on foam tape. I had come across the quote and could not resist using it here. The edges of both the image and the quote were sponged with Tim Holtz distress ink - Tea Dye. The green striped paper was sponged with Memento Bamboo Leaves. The brown layer was also sponged with the Tea Dye ink, and the ribbon and star clip added before being mounted on the dark, Evergreen base card.

The 'window' concept arrived out of the blue, and thankfully it was not too difficult to construct - again because I had given myself time to think things through. The lace I used for the 'curtain' was some I had in my stash, and I found it framed the window perfectly. I mounted the finished window scene on the black for definition, as I find the black can make an image 'pop', and I wanted it to be clearly defined from the background. I left the base of the black card long and placed the wide lace across that, adhered the whole onto the base of craft, having sponged the edges with the Tea Dye ink, which softened the whole look. The black half pearls were added last."
You can see more of Maxine's work at her blog.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Check out Clearly Vintage

I just wanted to let you know I have posted a bunch of B&W images over at Clearly Vintage this week. They are wonderful images from an old seed catalogue. I don't know about you but I am dreaming of a garden this summer. Also here is link to whole group of Peter Henderson seed catalogue covers. They are not B&W but I thought you all would enjoy seeing them. This is a link to the Smithsonian site with over 10,000 seed catalogue images. So make sure you explore the site. You will be in awe. I hope you enjoy. I know I copied dozens before deciding I could alway come back and copy more. Perhaps some of you that are good with graphics could make a few of these into digital stamps for all of us. I think I see a challenge in our future using all of these wonderful catalogue images.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Digital Two for Tuesday 36







Well I don't know about you but I am tired of snow. Last week I was on a business trip outside of Washington DC and got stuck in a hotel room for two days. It was a Marriott Courtyard and they only served breakfast. So I ate a lot of candies and stuff from the market. Anyway, I think it is time to think about flowers and Spring. This week our images are from a children's book from the 1920's. I just love these fun images of flowers. I hope you will take the challenge and create something wonderful to share with us. Please post a link in the comments section of this post so we can all be inspired. I know that these images are a little harder to use than those cute children images but our hostess Doreen did an amazing job with them. Doreen has only been papercrafting for a short time but you would never know it from her beautiful work. She is truly talented. Here is her bio and a description of her projects in her own words.


"Hello I'm Doreen. I live in Sheffield UK with my husband of 41happy years, I have three children who have now flown the nest and 2 grandchildren. I have only been making cards since May of 2009, I have never done any crafting until then and it all happened because I decided to tidy the loft and get the old photos out to have a look. I decided they needed to be put into new albums. I then thought I would sort them into scrap books and journal them for future generations. I have now made 10 scrapbooks.
When the photos came to a stop I decided I was having so much fun and I had all this gorgeous stash left over, I wanted to carry on crafting and so I started making cards. My husband has turned our spare bedroom into a craft room, and I am crafting every spare moment I get. I haven't decided what technique I like best I still haven't tried them all, I am enjoying stamping at the moment.

The yellow Daisy card
I decided to add a frame around the image using My Craft Studio, the backing paper I printed from a Joanna sheen Cd, I have matted and layered both the image and the backing paper with a gold linen card and also some cream card, the image I coloured with pro markers added some brads, gems and ribbon.
The Yellow Lady
I decided to cut the lady out, coloured her with my pro markers and found some nice vintage backing paper from a Joanna Sheen Cd along with an image of a vintage seed packet I matted and layered these added some gems, ribbon and a computer generated sentiment. My idea was to keep the vintage look, and I feel I have achieved that."
Doreen
http://doreensdream.blogspot.com/

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Valentine's Day Cutie Challenge







Happy Valentine's Day! Here is a Valentine's Day cutie for all of you. She comes from an awesome magazine I found last year at the flea market called John Martin's Book The Child's Magazine from February 1929. Almost every page has an amazing illustration. I have posted a few other images from this magazine on the Clearly Vintage Valentine's Countdown. My challenge to you is to make a tag using this cutie. If you do, I will add it to this post, so we can all see it. So today whoever takes the challenge will be the guest designers. In order to enter your project email me a photo at coraharkins@sbcglobal.net. I can't wait to see all the beautiful tags. This challenge is over Monday night. So be quick.



Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Digital Two for Tuesday 35


The two images this week represent winter and summer. They both come from a children's book from the 1900's. With all the snow they have been getting in the mid- atlantic USA I thought some may be thinking of winter snowball fights while others are dreaming of summer fun with friends.
Our guest hostess this week is Esther. This is her second time hosting on Digital Two for Tuesday. Again she has created for us some inspiring cards. I just love her use of texture and embellishments. I can't wait to try her idea of using an edge punch to create a lace ruffled frame in the last card. You can see more of Esther's work on her blog Shore Girl Creations. Without further ado here are Esther's beautiful cards.

Snow Day
I used Crayola markers on it
Cut it out with Circle Nestabilities
Matted it with Petite Scallop Nestabilities
Embossed the pink cardstock with Swiss Dots Embossing Folder
Inked over the dots with navy ink
Punched/Attached small snowflakes
Tied Gauzy ribbon on top and attached a hat pin done up with misc. beads
Attached Stone Sticker to bottom right corner w/a bit of fiber tied through hole

The Sea
On white cardstock I stamped and embossed (with black embossing powder) the
ship/sea gulls (Coastal Set - Inkadinkadoo)
The sentiment is from the same set --stamped on the bottom of card with Versa Mark
Using chalks I chalked brown on the bottom/med. blue for water/light blue for sky
Embossed w/Swirls Embossing Folder
Colored image with Crayola markers/matted on red cardstock - attached to card

Rose Card
Emboss cardstock with textile embossing folder
Cut pink strip of paper and run through paper crimper -- attach to middle of the card
1/2 of paper doily on right side of card
Rose image printed from http://www.birdscards.com/ - four times on pink cardstock
Embossed w/transparent embossing powder -- cut and layered
Tag - Provo Craft die cut
My Friend stamp - Studio G
Image colored with Crayola markers

Yellow Flower Card
Image colored w/Crayola markers
Cut two or three strips of yellow cardstock 11 inches long x 1 inch wide
Punch with Martha Stewart lace border punch
Run through paper crimper
Attach around the image to form a frame of sorts - folding and "pinching" along the way
Flower - Provo Craft die cut
Leaves - Cuttlekids die cut
Flower/Leaves/Cardstock embossed with Swiss Dots embossing folder





Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Digital Two for Tuesday 34


Every week I task a guest designer with making a project with one or two images. This week I challenged our guest hostess Juliet to make something with 72 images. She didn't let us down and has created a beautiful project that is sure to inspire you to take the challenge. When I first saw the purse she created, all I could say was wow. Make sure you visit Juliet's blog Ballpoint Bliss to see more of her exciting projects and cards. Here is her description of her project and her bio in her own words. " When I saw these two images, all I could think was INCHIES! Each image has 36 squares ready to print and cut for inchies. With a little juggling, I was able to print all 72 on a single sheet of paper. I first tested my margins on a sheet of plain white copy paper, to see if they would all fit, then whipped out a sheet of Poison Ivory Incandescent (http://www.papertemptress.com/ ). The Incandescent papers have an interference finish which makes the paper seem to glow, even through the coloring.

It might have been boring coloring 72 different images, but I kept switching it up - alcohol markers, water-based markers, pencils, glaze gelly pens, metallic pens, glitter pens, pencils, and a couple dozen which were not colored, but burnished with Tim Holtz distress inks (this was on my plain white test sheet - my incandescents were already cut apart at this point, and too small to hold down and burnish). Some of them were left square, others were punched, fussy cut, trimmed for layers, and most of them were finished on the edges with leafing pens.

A lot of people ask me what I do with inchies. I swap a lot of them online, and I like playing with my little collection the same way a toddler likes to play with blocks - sorting, stacking, and mostly just getting inspired by them. Sometimes a cluster of them will "ask" to be arranged together on an ATC or larger card. These little gems wanted to be walked about - I was able to fit 63 into the 8x10 pocket of my memory purse. "

Bio: Juliet Arrighi is currently trapped by snow in her colonial house in Northern Virginia. She lives there with her archnemesis, the last of her four demon spawn, an arthritic cat, two passionate parakeets, and a drowsy snake. She works as a freelance digital artist and papercrafts in her spare time.
I hope you take the challenge and create something to amaze us all. Please remember to post a link to it in the comments section of this post so we can all enjoy your creation!!