Father's Day - My Dad, My STAR!

Here's a look at the card I made for Father's day last week. I wanted to make something with star as my theme , so I made a star shaped iris folding card.

I took the iris folding pattern from here and traced the pattern on the cardstock paper. Then I cut it creating a star shaped window.

Iris folding is done by layering strips of papers in a spiral form. Once it is completed, it resembles the iris of the camera and hence the name. Next, I placed the back side of the card over the pattern. The lines/numbers on the pattern indicate the order in which the strips have to be placed. I used two shades of origami paper for this project. Selecting the number of papers would depend on the pattern, but there is no such norm. Ideally, I should have used five colors for the star pattern, but I ended up using only two. For example : a square pattern can be done with either 4, 2 or 1 color paper. 

I then cut 1-1.5 inch strips of the paper and folded them in half. At this time, I assigned colors to the numbers. I generally make 2 copies of the pattern.. one which is taped to the card and the other one I use for tracing on the card and then assigning the colors to the numbers. 

Then I started taping the strips of paper with the folded edge towards the center of the pattern. Using thin paper gives it a crisp look and doesn't make the project bulky. Alternatively, you can use ribbon or just thinner strips of paper without folding them. That's something I want to try too. 

I trimmed the pieces as I went along so that the paper didn't extend out of the card. While taping the strips make sure you tape only on the card/paper strips and not on the pattern guide as it will show on the right side of the card. 

Once I finished taping all the paper, I stuck a bright colored paper over the iris. For a finished look inside I stuck the same colored cardstock on the back side, so that the tape and strips of paper won't be seen. You can also make the aperture card that I showed in my previous post. I used the decorative frames set with the Big Shot  machine for the tag. 

Here's the link to a tutorial that I found interesting. They also have some free patterns that you can use. I find this to be a very simple, easy technique to make unique handmade cards, especially when I have less time on hand. Until next time.. 

-Smriti.

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What kind of paper do we use!

It has been a while since we got a request from a reader to do a post on different types of papers available for painting and/or crafts. We have given this one some thought and debated if we should give a list of different paper or craft types. Since the topic is wide and more details are available on the net, we decided that we will basically share our experience with paper and how we have been using it!

Smriti:

Quilling/Punch art - I started with cutting regular printer/copy paper for making the quilling strips. They come in a variety of colors and have the same color on both sides. I did do a lot of research on what weight of paper would result in great looking coils, but that was extremely confusing for me. For punch art, I have experimented way more than quilling. I have concluded that different punches need different papers. Some can punch through even cardstock/scrapbooking paper, whereas some need thinner papers. Printer/copy paper works well, but if I need to do some more intricate embossing on the paper I go for a slightly thicker paper than printer/copy paper.

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A lot of times I would go to the store and would end up getting the wrong paper, the result of that being I have a stack of papers which I can’t use for quilling. Good part about being an artist - nothing goes waste!! ;-) So the best I can say is to play around ...and don’t forget that when you do experiment, share it with us here

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For madhubani paintings I have always used handmade paper. Some problems I face with that is the inks I use for coloring blot on it, due to the fibres. If you use acrylic/craft paint you can use just about any paper/canvas.

Shamoni:

My experiments with paper started through school and with plain white chart papers for drawing and coloured marble paper squares for craft. Over the years I have experimented a bit with paper as a base for my paintings or as a medium for my craft.

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Painting and sketching - Like I mentioned when I started with my paintings and these were the days of basic poster colours and pencil colours or crayon pastels I have extensively used the basic sketch book. The basic sketchbook which I believe should be anywhere between 70gsm to 120gsm*. The thinner one (70-90gsm) is usually thin enough to only allow pencil or pastels and water col ours etc. may tear the paper, but a thicker one (100-120gsm) suffices for all paint mediums. As I advanced further I did experiment more with the paper thickness, texture and colour. I have predominantly used white to cream tone papers. Thin paper (25gsm or what we may know as butter paper) for tracing, slightly thicker and minor texture (70gsm) for sketching and rough notes, ticker paper (100gsm) for sketching, ink, col our and the thickest (anywhere beyond 120gsm) for individual art work and water cooler since this paper is very absorbent. I have used acrylic colours on papers above 100gsm but for oil colours I have predominantly used canvas. Canvas can be used either as fabric, which can be stretched on a mount board or you can get ready mounted canvas board or sheets from your local art stores. I have also used handmade paper for paintings and sketches and these can give an even better effect to the finished work. You need to choose your paper depending on your paint medium as water col ours required a thick and rough paper while ink thinner and rough while pastels thin and smooth and so on. Understand the relationship between your medium and paper and that shall come with some experimentation and practice.

(*Note: In the metric system, the mass per unit area of all types of paper and paperboard is expressed in terms of grams per square meter (g/m²) or commonly knows as (gsm). This is a common measure of paper thickness in countries following the Metric system. In the U.S.A, paper is measured in Standard American English Pounds (lbs) & 1 lbs, = 1.4802 gsm

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Cards and Craft- I started using the colouful marble paper and I would still like to use it for certain projects but you can be very experimental with paper you use for craft projects. For cards I used to use what was commonly known as chart paper (these are large sheets we get at stationary stores) and cut them into sizes required. These were much thinner papers though hence now I use card stock papers which are thicker and come in various colours, textures and prints there by making the cards firmer and more interesting. I can layer different card stocks together, punch them, stamp them or even colour and sketch on them! I also use a lot of paper we see in our household and scraps I save from either invitation or birthday cards, magazines, interesting chocolate wrappers and so on. The same applies for craft projects as well where I make used of card stock as a base most of the times and add other embellishments to it.

There is of course much more to paper and its uses in art and craft and we have only but scratched the surface of this topic through our experience. There is certainly a lot more to know about paper and you can get on to Google and Bing to help you with your search. Here are some good links to get you started!

· Trueart

· Drawsketch

· EHow

· Thinkcrafts

We hope this post was helpful and if you have any more queries do drop in a line cause we love to hear from you!

 - Smriti & Shamoni

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Mother's Day

It's super late for this post, but nonetheless, I will share this with you. Mother's Day or not, its always a good time to make Mother's feel good.

I wanted to create something that would revive all her memories of the various trips we have made together. After some brainstorming I came up with this ....

I took my Big Shot die cutting machine and used this die. These were the flowers on which I decided to stick her pictures. I used the smaller dies for cutting out the pictures.

I made 4 big flowers for which I needed 8 cutouts (front and back of the flower). I needed the flowers to be a little sturdy so I cut 8 more shapes from cereal boxes. I made 3 flowers using the smallest size die.. for which I needed 6 cutouts. I used bamboo skewers for the stems. 

I colored the stems green with acrylic paint.

Once the stems dried, I stuck them between the flower cutouts.

The flower size was big and the stems looked out of proportion. So I wrapped up lots of green tissue paper to give it volume.. and also added some leaves using the leaves dies. I embossed the leaves using the embossing stylus and an embossing pad. Alternatively, you can use an old leather diary(something soft under the paper) as the embossing pad and for the stylus you can use a round surface like the back of a pen. 

The small flowers I made for the bouquet were stamped with the alphabet stamp set with the word 'MOM'.

On one side of the flowers I wrote some quotes ..which were so apt for my Mother.

It all came together like this..

Hope this inspires you to create something special for your Mother. Do remember to share your creations with us. 

-Smriti.

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Madhubani Pattern

The first few Madhubani paintings I did were very simple. I tried basic motifs like fish symbol. Fishes are a symbol of fertility/abundance and also avatar of Lord Vishnu. 

I drew the motif on a tracing paper and traced it on handmade paper with a pencil.

To finalize the details, I re-traced it with a black micro fine pen. 

I used drawing inks to paint. These inks work well on handmade paper as they blot well. I used brush sizes 000 to 1 , depending on the painting. 

I framed these with mirror and used as wall decor and some as photo frames.

Going a step further, I expanded the border with some geometric shapes, mainly triangles and some flowers at the four corners of the frame. These can be done free hand or using a ruler.  I stuck to the same color scheme of yellow and brown. To make it brighter I added the pink and purple.

These look beautiful and are ideal for beginners as it doesn't require any previous art experience. Go ahead and give it a try!

-Smriti.

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Quilling Therapy

I was (still am and always will be) fascinated with paper. 4 years ago when I discovered a quilling kit in a craft store, I knew I had to buy it!! It sat in my studio for about 2-3 months before I opened it and experimented. It was magical and then there was no stopping.

Quilling (also known as paper filigree) is therapeutic, addictive, fun and inexpensive. It’s an art form that uses narrow strips of paper that are coiled and then pinched into different shapes. Quilling can be very versatile and one can create unique gifts like cards, wall art, photo frames, trinkets, jewelry. It isn't difficult, just needs a lot of patience because you are dealing with tiny paper coils and trying to shape them. With practice you will get it just right. So let’s practice! J

This is where you will get some basic instructions, tools, supplies, techniques to begin. Google ‘quilling’ and you will see some really inspirational quillers who stimulate me.

Before working with the paper strips that came with the kit, I thought it would be more appropriate to practice with plain paper. So I took A4 size papers, cut them into strips (2mm or 3mm width each) coiled and shaped them. There are different ways of gluing the strips - a lot of quillers use a fine tip glue applicator, but I take out some glue on a plastic sheet and use a toothpick for application. A MUST have equipment while quilling for me is a tweezer.

The picture below was a card for my Mom's birthday. Since it was one of the first few cards I made, I played with a few shapes (basic)  which included circle, tear drop, marquise, triangle and some scrolls. 

-Smriti.

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