Bookmarks LVI: Dots and Fonts

I wanted to enter this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, "House Rules", but I wasn't sure how. Did I have any house stamps? A rummage later and I found that I did: one of a birdhouse, and one of a haunted house.

Well, I decided to have a go with the birdhouse, and I took the colors from this fortnight's Lawnscaping Challenge:

The birdhouse itself is so busy that I kept the rest of the bookmark pretty clean and simple: a couple of pieces of paper and a dotty strip of washi tape. (Well, "printed paper tape" from Target, anyway.)

I'm entering this wordy bookmark into the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: House Rules (a birdhouse is a house, surely?)
Lawnscaping Challenge #47: Turquoise, Kraft, Red
• The Artistic Stamper: Home for Christmas (I thought the words in the birdhouse were particularly appropriate.)

Supplies:

Bookmarks XLIX: Jill Sparrow

At first I was going to paper-piece my little pirate girl, but then I got intimidated by all the cutting. Instead, I decided to try my hand at something else: coloring with Copics.

Now, I have no illusions about my skill at shading and blending at all: my coloring abilities are at "Level One: Can Stay Inside The Lines," and I'm actually pretty okay with that.

Also, I own a total of four Copics. You see, I bought them to edge paper terrain, so I have a grey one for stone, a brown one for dirt and wood, a green one for foliage, and a light blue one for water. It's a very sophisticated collection.

I love the little eyepatch I made, too! It was Krisha's idea several weeks ago when I asked for idea help on a WOYWW post, and I loved it immediately. I thought the bookmark needed just a little something more than Captain Jackie Sparrow there.

(Well really, look at that hairstyle and bandana and hat; it's a miracle she's not wearing heavy eyeliner as well, I think.)

I wanted to find my copy of Swiss Family Robinson to photograph the bookmark on, but I couldn't. So I've used Pippi in the South Seas (a Pippi Longstocking book), which fits rather well. (Unfortunately while reading through it I've realized that the story of Pippi's big fat white man father ruling a South Seas tribe of stereotypes is just a tiny bit racist. Bother.)

I'm entering this pirate-y bookmark in the following challenges:

• Cute Card Thursday: Girls Only (I'm so pleased to enter something so very not-pink-and-frilly into a girly challenge, I think the entries get a bit stereotypic a lot of the time...)
• Rogue Redhead Rebel Challenge 17: UnCard (it's a bookmark!)
• Dream Valley Challenge 45: Anything Goes
• The Artistic Stamper Creative Team: Anything Goes
• One Crazy Stamper: Anything Goes

Supplies:

Bookmarks XLVIII: Foil in the Fall

I picked up one of Repeat Impression's vertical stamps at the Southfield, MI Stamp & Scrap Art Tour show this weekend, and almost immediately inked it up and stamped it to show it in Sunday's (late) State of the Stash.

(As I link to it, I realize that maybe I should have bought it online... it's one of the vertical stamps on sale this month! Oh well, I'm sure shipping would have eaten up the savings.)

In fact, it didn't take much more than that to work up this bookmark. I took the stamped-and-emobossed leaves, a neutral strip of cardstock with a bunch of gold and bronze and copper smudged on, and some of the acorn-y paper I used on the squirrel bookmark, and bam! Simple but effective, and undeniably seasonal.

I'm entering this leafy bookmark in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp: Autumn Leaves
• Great Impressions: Fall
• Wags 'n' Whiskers Challenge 91: Fall Colours
• The Artistic Stamper Creative Team: The Natural World
• Totally Stampalicious: Anything Goes

Supplies: (foiled acorn paper is from DCWV's Autumn Melody matstack)

Bookmarks XIII: The Mage Wars

This week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp & Show is to "Read All About It": make something using text or books, or inspired by them.

I pretty much always make bookmarks when I papercraft, and that seems pretty book-related to me, but I figured that was rather less effort than the challenge designers were expecting. So I made some bookmarks specifically to go with a trilogy of books.

Let me just repeat a picture from my last post to show the book covers:

And here are the finished bookmarks:

That was my first try at reverse stamping, with the black gryphon. I quickly realized I wasn't going to become a master of reverse stamping in a half an hour (hah!), but since I was embossing, I just filled in all the less-than-perfect parts with an embossing pen... fake mastery!

I ended up tying the bookmarks together stylistically, smudging gradient backgrounds based on each cover and then stamping and embossing a gryphon of the title's color on a circle of fancy cardstock. Each bookmark is also splattered with mist flicked from the end of the tube: gold & silver with the black gryphon, gold with the white gryphon, and silver with the silver gryphon, which also helps tie them together. (I'm so glad I came across The Artistic Stamper's Splatters and Speckles Challenge; I wouldn't have thought of doing this otherwise and I love the effect.) Usually I tie bookmark duos together using colors and/or stamps, so doing it mostly with techniques here was new and fun.

In The Silver Gryphon, the gryphon protagonist Tadrith has a twin brother. My Tad has a twin too, the result of an attempt to make the yellow-green paper fit the blue-green of the bookmark better. I liked the green I got by covering it with ink, but alas! Tad #1 was unable to completely resist the ink and became a very dull little silver gryphon. I decided I wanted shiny silver more than I wanted better-coordinated paper.

(Tadrith in the book isn't actually a silver-colored gryphon; he's a member of a scout group called the Silver Gryphons. But just like the cover artist, Jody Lee, I rather skipped that nuance. SHINY GRYPHON IS SHINY.)

I'm entering this bookmark trio in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Read All About It (trio of bookmarks inspired by a trilogy of books)
• The Artistic Stamper September Challenge: Splatters and Speckles (gold and silver splattering)
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Put a Stamp on It (adorable Lawn Fawn gryphon on each bookmark, but no washi tape)
• Loves Rubberstamps Challenge #16: Anything Goes (the aforementioned adorable gryphon is part of Lawn Fawn's Critters Ever After set, which is carried by Loves Rubberstamps)

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

Supplies:

Kit: The Mage Wars

Over at the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog, this week's past challenge, Read All About It!, has been to make something inspired by books or writing.

Until someone starts hosting a "Bookmarks by Newbie Crafters" challenge, this is the best fit for my stuff there is.

I pulled together this kit to start from:

I know, I know, it looks a lot more like three kits than one. But for these bookmarks I'm drawing my inspiration from a trilogy, so I have a mini-kit for each book, with colors from the book's cover:

These three books are known as the Mage Wars trilogy, by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. The cover art for all three books is by Jody Lee, whose work is beautiful. Also, the books that Jody Lee illustrates the covers for are almost always books I enjoy. In this case, I do judge books by their covers -- if it's one of her covers, that's as good as any written recommendation.

I also pulled out a few things to try to tie the three bookmarks together visually, rather than inspired-by-series-ly. I don't know that I would normally have pulled out the Shimmer Spritz, but The Artistic Stamper's challenge this month is Splatters and Speckles. I've not tried the splatter-paint-with-mist technique and this seems like a good time -- and then the technique as well as the colors can tie the bookmarks together.

And of course Lawn Fawn's adorable griffin stamp will be a pretty obvious tie-together element as well. I tried to put it on the lens cover to help it show up, but it's pretty unrecognizable in this picture, which is why I mention it. It's just a little cuter and happier than the gryphons on the covers, but hey, griffin stamps aren't a dime a dozen. Actually, fantasy stamps that don't involve fairies or princesses seem pretty rare. Why is that?

I'm looking forward to working these up. I think I'll do the same kind of background for The White Gryphon that I did for the Rainbow Cupcakes bookmark and the unicorn Bookmarks Ever After one, putting pigment ink down and smudging it together.

Supplies: