Story behind the stamps; The Fleur de Girl Collection

The Fleur de Girls have their roots back in 2001 when Carol and Jim, owners of Stampotique had begun producing art rubber stamps.  I was an art educator in the public schools and taught at the Stampotique shop every once in a while.  Carol suggested I try drawing some images for their new rubber business.

School kept me fairly busy.  I was also teaching art education classes at the university.  Then my husband found himself victim of downsizing. 

My response to this was the original "Fleur de Girl" in the upper right of this photo of ATC's.  While she doesn't appear very happy she is undefeated.  I began drawing girls that looked like and named for flowers.  Strongly influenced by artist Paul Klee, all my work seemed to have letters and numbers mixed in, so I thought it was natural to add type and various text within my patterns.  I wasn't sure if I was on to anything.  When I showed my husband my drawings he smiled, immediately naming them "The Fleur de Girls."

I don't think I knew to scan images back then, so I sent the hard copies images to Carol in a large illustrated envelope.  Carol's response was, "Are these mine?"

Fortunately my husband was back to work in no time and the Fleur de Girls collection grew. 

These ATCs are cropped images from the collection. They are paper pieced and colored with Prismacolor pencils.  The garden themed collection includes sentiments, flowering shoes and handbags that should grow in every girls garden.

New nine image digi set for the holidays

 There is a new 9 image holiday digi set  available in my Etsy shop.  This set is a variation of images I created for Creative Publishing's  recent issue of Simply Cards & Papercraft.

 Images and sentiments are combined to create endless combinations of holiday cards and tags.  The designs are perfect for paper piecing.

When paper piecing your digital images, it is wise to scale down your paper size. Trim your scrapbook paper, and adjust in your printer's paper size settings.  For the tree, I printed on blank cardstock as well as a variety of scrapbook papers.  Once I cut out all my scrapbook sections I arranged the various patterns and glued them in place.  The tree was cut again and mounted on color coordinated papers.  Metal snowflake brads and Ranger Liquid Pearls were added accents.

Glue dots were used to make the images dimensional.  A little Distress Ink was applied to the paper sides after lightly sanding the edges.

Coordinate your papers for a monochrome look or use color opposites for some contrast.  I think the tree in combinations of pinks and cream would make a lovely and different holiday card.

A tag for sister

My sisters birthday is tomorrow. 

I must confess, I bought a card. I did.  One of those cards that makes you burst out laughing, (we try to topper-kill

each other that way).  So with the SDC "Tag, you're it" I can at least make a hang tag for her gift.

 

I layered and lifted (paper toweled) various colors to create my background and added paper scraps on the edge of the tag.  Accented with Pitt pen and white Gelly Roll make a loose boarder.  "Sister" is stamped and cut from Kraft paper and "Midge" is stamped on the tag surface and partially paper-pieced. Prisma colors and Pitt are used to touch-up the image.

 

The ribbon is torn from white cotton that is stained from my inking fingers. It's amazing that a small simple tag can create such a mess. : -)

Fiddle

Humphrey just got his summer cut -- he is all ears.  With his slender little body he reminds me of "Fiddle" -- little simple stick dog with full floppy ears, a little sweet, a little mischievous. 

Here Fiddle is paper pieced on white on white on white...pretty simple?  I rolled a little Distress marker around the edges but I think I should have just let the shadows create the contrast. The spine of the card has a slit to accommodate the ribbon tuck.