Bookmarks XXXV: Pressed Flowers

I'm really happy with the background I made for this bookmark, and I like it overall. But I'm pretty sure this vintage-y lace-y stuff is not my strength.

Partly because now I have to remember to hide the ribbon and lace ribbon from my cat, who loves to eat it. Not only is that bad for the ribbon, it's pretty bad for the cat.

For this vintage-y lace-y thing, I took my main inspiration from two different photo inspiration challenges: Loves Rubberstamps and Stampalot. I'm not actually entering the Stampalot challenge, because I'm a bit late for it, but it seemed only fair to show the inspiration photo anyway.

Lace-flowers-vintage was the message I got from both photos.

Now, most of my inks are pigment inks. Last night I stamped myself a floral background on a white base, sometimes stamping twice without re-inking for a faded look. I was also determined to color-distress the edges. With pigment inks. And I don't actually have any brown inks that aren't really dark chocolate-y chestnut-y brown.

The closest I do have to light brown is the Amber Satin in my Silks 'n' Satins Colorbox Queue. It's sort of a metallic taupe. I know, distressing with a metallic pigment ink? It's not ideal. But I tried it and I think it worked out okay.

I did go out this morning and get some Tea Dye Distress ink. If that's what Tim Holtz thinks things dyed with tea looks like, he maybe ought try tea-dying again, because this is way too dark and way too red-orange. I mean, sure, I can dye things pink with tea, but that is because I drink herbal strawberry tea, which involves no actual tea leaves.

Actual black tea does not dye an orangeish color and it's usually not this dark. I wanted neither dark nor orange for this project -- although I did use it to color a bit of white ribbon, and that turned out to be a color I could use. I didn't like it for edging.

I think maybe dye inks just aren't for me? I guess I should give the Antique Linen and Old Paper colors a try before I completely give up on a product designed to do exactly what I'm trying to do with it. Sheesh, I'm glad I didn't try Vintage Photo, that stuff's even darker than Tea Dye. Am I using it wrong? Edging doesn't seem like a technique that's easy to mess up.

Where was I? Oh, yes, so then I tone-on-tone stamped a couple of small pieces of paper with the same flowers as the background -- you can't see it in the photo and can hardly see it in real life, but at least it adds some texture -- and edged them too. With Amber Silk. I stamped myself a little button, backed it on another piece of cardboard, pierced it, threaded the Tea Dye'd ribbon through and tied it in a bow. I couldn't make myself use a real button; it would be too hard to shut a book on it. As it is I have my doubts about the knot of the bow.

I used this week's sketch (#72) from Papertake Weekly, turning it on its side and doing away with one of the matting layers. My button isn't exactly text, but it's the right shape...

I had a sort of empty space left on the middle paper layer, so I punched a little flower using my corner punch, cut around it, and colored it with more of the red-purples from the Silks 'n' Satins queue. I don't know that it quite fits the rest of the bookmark, but it's a flower in the right colors, so close enough.

(It's not backed on black, that's just the photo background.)

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Loves Rubberstamps: Pintrest Photo Inspiration (Lace! But none of these stamps are carried by Loves Rubberstamps.))
• Papertake Weekly: Sketch #72 or Sketchie Free For All (I used #72)
• PaperPlay Challenge 39: Flowers and Lace
• The Crafty Pad #190: Floral
• Our Craft Lounge Challenge #136: Buttons and Bows
• Sweet Stampin' Challenge: Vintage
• That Craft Place: Make Your own Backgrounds (most noticeable on the main background)
• Creative Inspirations Paints: Inspired by Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party.

Supplies: (ribbon is Spool o' Ribbon white 1/8" by Offray, and lace is Celebrate It Occasions (i.e. Michaels) white 7/8")

Bookmarks XXVII: Acorn & Oak Leaf

I am far too sleepy for it to be this early on Friday night, so this is going to be quick rather than ramble-y. I'm fairly sure I haven't used any fantastic new techniques here, but feel free to ask in the comments if you want to know how I did something.

And lo, there was an autumnal bookmark, and it was layered shimmery taped distressed heat embossed good.

I'm entering this bookmark into these challenges:

• Crazy 4 Challenges 154: Anything Goes with a Fall Twist
• The Crafty Pad Challenge #188: Autumn Colors
• Sweet Stamps Challenge #83: Shades of Autumn
• Delightful Challenges: Distressed (rip-rip-ripped those backings for the stamped images)
• Divas by Design Challenge 53: Lovely Layers
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Emboss It! (both stamped images are heat-embossed with embossing powders from Stampendous)
• That Craft Place Challenge Blog: Bling it on (plenty of shimmer here!)
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Tape it Up! (green & brown striped tape)

Supplies: (patterned paper is from DCWV's Autumn Melody matstack, washi or "crafting" tape is from Recollections/Michaels, and the stamps are from an Inkadinkado mini-set. I can't find any product listings for these online, so they're not in the widget.)

Bookmarks XXIV: Cut and Paste

The irony of the thing is that I can't really make something with a "Cut and Paste" stamp without doing more than cutting and pasting -- i.e., stamping. Perhaps it would make more sense as a die? Or perhaps someday a "Stamp and Emboss" will show up.

I pulled out this "Cut and Paste" sentiment stamp to use as a focal point, inspired by this week's Sweet Stampin' challenge.

I bought this stamp on a trip to the store to get some fall-themed stamps for a different project. You may have noticed that a stamp reading "Cut and Paste" is not terribly autumnal, but I was rummaging through the dollar stamp bin looking for leaf stamps, and there it was. I don't know about you, but I do quite a lot of cutting and pasting, and I'm not terribly sure how any papercrafter could really have refused to take it home. I certainly didn't.

Let me get back to the point, which is bookmarks.

For these bookmarks, I'm using the colors from this week's challenge at The Play Date Cafe. (I'm starting to wonder if all color challenges must include orange. Is there a secret rule somewhere?)

As always, I had fun picking out ink colors to match the challenge. I even used the purple and the green on the actual bookmarks -- you can't tell in the final photograph, but I promise there is real color underneath the sparkly embossing powder.

I chose a tan-ish neutral cardstock as a base and matted it on some pretty paper from DCWV's Pocket Full of Posies mat stack. This paper fits the colors of the challenge beautifully, but it also has a significant amount of pink, so I wanted to keep it mostly out of the way.

It turns out that one half of a 12" x 2" strip fits perfectly on one half of a 6.5" x 4.5" mat, and then the other halves sit there and demand to be a bookmark too. So I made a pair.

I used the same sketch for both bookmarks, from this week's Sunday Sketch & Stamp challenge, but I used it in two different orientations. It turned out to be pretty easily adaptable to the long skinny shape of my bookmarks, which was pleasant.

I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to use for the embellishment part of the sketch, but eventually realized that I could just hand-cut-out versions of the shapes that appear on the stamp and use those. My attempts at a little garland of people were just slightly less than totally successful, so I settled on hearts. I can do hearts. Especially hearts that should really look a little lopsided and not completely rounded, so that they echo the hearts on the stamp. I'm really good at those.

See?

I think these would make great bookmarks for a favorite papercrafting book. I don't actually own any papercrafting books that are not origami books, though, and "Cut and Paste" is not really a sentiment that fits in an origami book! I'd need a "Fold and Score" for that. So I'll just stick 'em in the next book that needs a bookmark.

I'm entering this pair of bookmarks into the following challenges:

• The Play Date Cafe Challenge #149: Orchid ... Seafoam ... Tangerine
• Sunday Sketch & Stamp Challenge #124: Emma's Sketch (one with the basic sketch, the other with the sketch turned on its side)
• Sweet Stampin' Challenge: Simply Sentimental
• That Craft Place: Bling it On (glittery embossing powder)

Supplies:

Bookmarks XXI: Luminarias for Christmas

On my father's side of the family, luminarias are a Christmas Eve tradition. We get a bunch of brown paper sandwich bags and put some sand and a tea-light style candle inside. The sand keeps the bags from blowing over and steadies the candle. Then we line the driveway and the edge of the street with them, two to three feet apart, and light them. As dusk turns to dark, they transform from paper bags into magical glowing lights.

Most of my grandparents' neighborhood also light luminarias on Christmas Eve. Some of them use white bags instead of brown, but in the dark all you can see is the lines of lights... it's beautiful and peaceful and feels so right for Christmas Eve.

I'm told the more correct name for these little bags is "farolitos", and that they were originally lit either to replace more traditional luminaria mini-bonfires or to guide the spirit of the Christ Child. My family calls them luminarias, and we light them because... well, because that's what we do, and because they're beautiful, and because, now that my grandfather is dead, it is a way of remembering him. He was always the impetus behind getting the luminarias out, even when he became so stiff he couldn't really put them out or light them himself.

This week's Timeless Tuesday challenge at the Flourishes blog was "A Pinterest Christmas" -- find an inspiration on Pinterest and make a Christmas creation inspired by it. I chose these beautiful luminaria pictures:

Source: theroamingboomers.com via Marly on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Brooke on Pinterest

Source: romanceandrevolution.tumblr.com via Liana on Pinterest

I made a luminaria bookmark with these inspiring photos. I don't know that most people would think this was a Christmas project, but for me it definitely is.

I actually made a two-sided bookmark this time: one side inspired by the beautiful swirly luminaria display, and the other by a single glowing luminaria. I didn't quite succeed in capturing the same beauty that the photographs captured, but I am still satisfied with it:

It looks acceptably glow-y here, I admit, but that's a happy accident of messing about in Photoshop to try to get the black to look black. It's rather less stunning in person.

Next time I will read some tutorials about how to produce glowing effect first. Also, I'm pretty sure pigment inks are the wrong kind to be playing with for this effect, but I don't have any dye inks -- I do a lot of heat embossing (as you can see on the swirly side of the bookmark), so pigment inks are more useful.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Timeless Tuesday #186: A Pinterest Christmas
• ABC Christmas: R for Recyling (used a bit of paper bag; luminarias mean Christmas to me)
• Top Tip Tuesday Challenge 85: Recycle It! (used a bit of paper bag)
• That Craft Place: Bling It On (lots of sparkly embossing powder)
• Delightful Challenges: Anything But a Card

Supplies: (brown paper ripped from a brown paper bag)

Bookmarks XVIII: For Telling Tales

I have got to get some detail embossing powder.

Click here to skip the rambling and jump straight to the project and challenge listing.

Sorting through my stamps in search of some inspiration for a group of black & white challenges, I settled on the ravens from an Inkadinkado mini-set. For a moment or two I couldn't decide which one to use, and then I realized, hey, here's an awesome inspiration for a pair of bookmarks! It's probably only been a week since I made a pair instead of a single bookmark, but it feels much longer.

With a pair, I can make one white bookmark with black accents, and one black bookmark with white accents. I also thought this was an excellent set to give another shot at the clean and simple style, which seems particularly appropriate for black and white.

Did I mention at least one of those black & white challenges was black & white & something else? I kept the amount of color small; I hope the crew at That Craft Place will forgive me -- theirs was a pure black & white challenge. I'll certainly understand if they'd rather disqualify me, though; no hard feelings, there's no question I've stretched the challenge a bit. (Just a bit, though: please don't be confused by the pink background in the picture, which is not part of the bookmarks. Maybe I should not have used that background.)

I'd like to point out that I cut the strips of pink, black, and white by hand. The craft knife, ruler, and I were in harmony tonight.

I'm so much happier with this attempt at clean & simple than the last one. Yay!

The name for this pair of bookmarks is a little out there: it's from a poem, Ode to a Corbie. I've reproduced the first two stanzas here:

My hero is the raven,
The raven and the jay,
The magpie and the jackdaw and the crow:
Trickster-god or world's creator,
Ravn, koras, corvus, corbie,
Stealing sun to light the world below.

Post-flood, the first to fly
(The dove gets all the credit),
For telling tales, Apollo turned you black:
Unhappy bird! or lucky bird —
Too smart, with human qualities,
And speech, one of the few birds with the knack.

(Ode to a Corbie, Bess L. Walker)

Unfortunately naming is a step that usually comes between making and blogging. So my bookmarks look more like a black raven has turned into a white one! If I'd thought of the name first, the colors would have gone the other way: first the white bookmark, with the flying raven in white, then the black bookmark. Oh well, I still really like them. I suppose if it bothers me that much, it would not be at all hard to make another pair!

I'm entering this pair of bookmarks in the following challenges:

• The Ribbon Reel Challenge #36: Black, White, & Pop of Pink
• That Craft Place Challenge: Black and White
• CAS-ual Fridays Challenge 69: Embossing (the ravens are heat embossed)
• Craft Your Passion Challenge 127: Blast From the Past (This fits #125 Emboss It, #120 Black & White + One, and, though I didn't realize until just now, #116 Things with Wings.)
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Hero (first line of poem)

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party.

Supplies: (The white cardstock is 110lb. from Staples, and the ravens are from a mini-clear set by Inkadinkado, but I can't find good references to get them into the widget.)