Handmade Christmas Cards and Gift Exchange

These are the cards I gave to everyone on The DSC Christmas

Show on 12-18-09.

I used Tim Holtz stamps, alcohol inks, various rub on's and borrowed my friend Sally's Cuttlebug for the embossing.

I put them together as panels with black, red and green card stock, then taped them to blank Strathmore cards, which had deckled edges.

I made another 30 cards and they were basically the same, but had different embellishments and look similar to these.

This is what I got in the gift exchange from Shelly. I told her to get me anything from the Papayaart.com web site. I spend hours drooling over the cool artwork there. She did good! 

"More Joy" Art Panel 15"x15" - such gorgeous colors, plus I love anything with circles.

Collect Your Life" Reversible Cover Sketchbook 10"x7". This has super thick paper in it, so I'm going to use it as an art journal and paint and collage galore!

"Dream" Journal 7"x5" I love this cover! I will definitely be chronicling My Bliss in 2010 in this tome.

This is one of the gorgeous new Luxe Tote Bags they offer. It's huge - 15"L x 14"H x 6.5"W with 13" straps. Someone commented that it looked kinda "Beatles-Circ De Soleil," I love it!

 

Listener Kelly McG sent me a gift card from Dick Blick. Every artist craves/needs more art supplies, so it's always a winner!

Listener Brent sent me a white satin L.A. Laker's jacket with sparkly blue letters across the front. Lucky me, huh?! I love my listener's and really, really love the people I work with.

I drew DSC producer Sarah's name in the gift exchange. When she told me she has a thing for mermaid's, I immediatly thought of my friend, Mixed Media Artist Suzi Blu and her original, pretty, girl paintings. Here's the painting I commissioned for Sarah. It has a piece of lace across the bottom of the 6"x12" wood panel. In person, it's super sparkly, with vibrant colors and has tiny sea shells on it.  It turned out so nice, I wanted to keep it!  But Sarah loved it and I enjoyed giving it to her. I've never commisioned an artist before, so that was special. I'm taking Suzi's Goddess Faces classes, so hopefully I can create something like this myself in 2010!

It was a wonderful last day of work before my annual two week vacation. We don't do the show live again until Jan. 4, 2010. Everyone got wonderful presents including; a flat screen TV for Emily, a Blu RayPlayer for Chainsaw and the new Kindle for Shelly. There were lots of DVD's and a few gag gifts as well.

We also feasted on some delicious HamUrkey. That's turkey cooked with a ham in it. The chef makes the most scrumptious stuffing I've ever had and gravy to die for. I drank orange juice, while they drank champagne. He's available for catering, but I can't seem to find his web site at the moment.

I am one grateful happy girl today!  Thanks for stopping by! Merry Christmas to you and yours! xoxo

Chris Cozen Classes Halloween Weekend at Stamping Details in Poway, CA

(That's me on the far right.)

Mixing Fall Colors Class Friday night

Chris's Color Chart

My favorite art girlfriends Sally and Diane!

My new friend Suzi Blu and Gigi took the class too.

Chris explaining something to the only man in our class - a Frenchman

My classmates mixing new fab shades of Golden Fluid acrylics

Faux Encaustic Class Sat. am

My artist friend Davi holding up her work in progress

We used soft gel medium to adhere collage images to the canvas. I made three of them. After the images were dry, we used a palette knife to add two colors of Golden Fluid Arylic paint to the canvas. After that dried, we selected a third accent color and painted it on a rubber thing, which was then pressed onto the canvas. The checkerboard looking thing is used under carpet padding. Chris gave us each a sample.

Chris and Diane

My friend Kat is spraying alcohol over the faux encaustic layer to get rid of the air bubbles.

Diane and other classmates

Here's the first layer of faux encaustic mixture spread onto the canvas. Chris gave us a few different formula's, including a base of acrylic ground for pastel or soft gel medium. But we used a formula which dried the fastest, consisting of less than 1/4 cup Golden Fluid Matt Medium for each 8"x8" canvas, with a drop of Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold. Another formula substituted the gold for 3 drops of Interference blue and 2 drops of Iridescent gold to add a sheen to the finished look.

You can see the spreader tool (top of photo) we used to smooth the mixture over the canvas. It was difficult to get it perfectly smooth.

Works in Progress drying outside. Diane made the two on top.

More works in progress drying; top 2 are Kat's

More works in progress drying; top 2 are Davi's, bottom 2 are Vickie's

My green canvas wet with the mixture. I used the rubber thing to make the red marks and then used it again while the faux encaustic layer was still wet.  8"x8"

This is my Green canvas after it dried. I'm not sure what made those white spots, but I took it home this way and will be adding additional layers of paint, collage images and marks. I used Turquoise Phthalo and Diarylide Yellow on the first paint layer, with Cadium Red Light as my accent color.

My pink canvas while wet with the mixture. 8"x8"

I used Quinacridone Magenta and Indian Yellow as the first layer of paint and Cobalt Teal as the accent color.

My Pink canvas after it dried.

My purple canvas while it's still wet. 8"x8"

I used Quinacridone Magenta and Cobalt Blue on the first layer of paint and Chromium Oxide Green as the accent color.

My Purple canvas after it dried.

The gang from Stamping Details, Vickie, Clare and DiAnn

DiAnn, the owner of Stamping Details in costume #2

I'Il post the photo's from the Reverse Painting on Vinyl Class next time. Thanks for stopping by!