Friday, March 2, 2012

All about Sharing

Today is all about sharing...sharing inspiration, sharing tips and sharing news!


Sharing Inspiration...Sometimes certain paper collections inspire me by their colors, the mood they convey or the wonderful designs and embellishments in the set. When this happens, I just can’t seem to stop using items from these in my cardmaking, even long after their debut release. One of these collections is Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection. It has some of my favorite bright colors combined together with some super cute chipboard elements. Another is Crate &; Company’s Recollections collection. Love the warm, vintage feel of this collection along with the amazing color combinations. Another amazing line of papers and accessories is Little Yellow Bicycle’s Cupcake Collection. The colors and cute embellishments can’t help but bring an immediate smile the second that you look at them.


For these assorted handmade cards, I used two of my favorite collections and a few of my digi art designs, but one thing that these cards have in common are that they are all bright and cheerful. Two of these are hybrid cards (they mix traditional cardmaking elements with digitally produced & printed art) and the other two are traditional cards made using stamps and other embellishments.

The Hybrid Cards



Caring Owl Card
This hybrid card was created using a printout of the night owl from my Owl Love U 4ever clip art set. I trimmed around the image and mounted onto cardstock from the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely collection and added a flower, button and ribbon as embellishments.



Hummingbird & Flowerpot Card
Hybrid card created using my Ain't Love Tweet digital stamps collection with 
Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection papers. Can be used as a sweet 
everyday greeting or a special get well card for a friend.


The Traditionally Made Cards


Little Late Turtle Card
Used a chipboard image mounted onto squares of Coordinations cardstock. 
Stamped verses added with stamps from Stampin Up!®. A cute cupcake from 
Little Yellow Bicycle's Sweet Shop Collection of Fabric Favorites was added 
with a ribbon to dress up this cheery, belated Birthday card.



Birthday Sweetness Card
For this traditionally handcrafted card, I used an adorable felt embellishment mounted 
onto a tied ribbon and scallop floral diecut from yellow Coordinations cardstock. 
Stamped an old birthday verse with a stamp from Stampin Up!®. 


Sharing Tips...Since this post is getting longer than anticipated, I will keep this tip short. It is a tip on how to integrate digital artwork into traditional cardmaking; something that I used on one of the cards above. TIP: Use Selective Matt Cutouts of Clip Art to add to your cards. Can you guess which card uses this tip? If you guessed the Caring Owl Card, you are correct! The easiest way of doing this is to place your print out onto a cutting mat, and use a sharp cutting knife (like an Xacto knife) to selectively cut around the contour of the image/design. You can leave as much of a white border as you like. Printouts can be done on cardstock or paper, although beginners may find it easier to cut through paper rather than heavier weight cardstock. Don't own or fear a cutting knife? You can do this with a pair of short blade paper snips.


Sharing News...Just couldn’t resist sharing news of a cool blog giveaway! My super talented friend and fellow crafter, Melissa Bove has a blog giveaway. For complete rules and instructions, check her Giveaway Time blog post on this event. You can win a $50 gift card and goodies from the Echo Park Graceful This and That collection! Here is a peek of just one of the items you can win! Be sure and mention that you heard about the giveaway here! (The neat thing about this collection is that it reminds me of a blend of Crate & Company’s Recollections collection with a mix of my favorite softer color hues!) Good Luck!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Leaping Ahead to New Adventures



Leap Day is a special day. It only comes once every 4 years. What makes today special for me is that I will be leaping into new and exciting areas. The first is promoting my photography, a passion that I have kept pretty exclusive to my family. And through the encouragement of so many, I am now opening those doors and making it official specializing in on-location, natural lit portrait photography. 




Yes, this will include families, couples, friend sessions, senior portraits, children, adults, pets...you name it! I can’t wait to express my creativity through the lens. My focus will be on capturing real moments, natural emotions that portray the real people behind them. My photography mantra is “capturing images; creating memories”. I will be able to combine my photoshop & design skills to create even more unique portrait, event and vacation memories as well as bring that creativity into fun photo shoots. For a little sampling of just some of that creativity, take a peek at yesterday’s blog post or take a peek at the vintage look given to this portrait of Kylie and James with his State Championship soccer medal.

I am working on putting together a website that will house all of this creativity, for Cheri Wenger Design, Cheri Wenger Digital Designs as well as Cheri Wenger Design Photography. It is a huge endeavor, but I am up for the challenge. Updates on this project will appear on my blog, so check back to see the progress reports. Feel free to contact me at artz1@cfl.rr.com for pricing information or to book a mini session or full photo session.

Change breeds more change, as they say. And with this, I will regretfully be closing up my shop at mygrafico.com to concentrate on these new endeavors. So if you are dying to purchase any of my sets, you can still do that today, or you can contact me directly about how you can purchase those by emailing me at artz1@cfl.rr.com. 

There are so many exciting things happening right now. I will be hosting a blog giveaway for a very exciting product. Keep popping back and visiting my blog for more details on this, and as always, for inspiration on how to live life creatively!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Texture Challenge = Inspired Art

A true sign of a creative talent is someone who is willing to share their gift with the world. This is truly the experience I found today signing up for Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday list. There are some simple guidelines for receiving and using the free downloads, all of which are very easy to follow.  And did I mention the challenge that corresponds with the texture? Today’s challenge lead me to a fun mini still shoot, that I refer to as White Hot Shells. I plan to share more of these series of photos as I work on them, but I want to encourage everyone to check out Kim Klassen’s Cafe website and blog.

If you are a photographer wanting to experiment with combining textures and your images, you will feel like you found the pot of gold in the selection of gorgeous textures available on her site for purchase. And for those just dabbling, you can try out some of her freebie downloads...all are stunning! I purchased the Bens collection and the group of rectangle textures to get started. For my photo art project I combined a few of these textures, plaster & teddy, with one of her freebies, called Simplicity. Each of which I applied different layer styles, opacities and some masks. See what you think of my first photo art creation...


Be sure and leave me a comment to let me know what you think!

Here is what the original image looks like:




Here are some of the textures I used on this image. You can see the texture collections here.

simplicity


plaster

teddy

I challenge you today to step outside of your creative box and try 
something new like I did. You may be pleasantly surprised with the results!