I did a final layer on my leaf painting. I’m sure I could add more but I think it’s enough at this point. I will be doing another  one anyway and since this is just going into my studio journal, I decided to stop.

 Here’s the whole spread. I really enjoyed painting this because if you “mess up”, you can always paint over it on the next layer.

 Here’s a little closer view.

And the other page a little closer. You can find the directions for this on Create Mixed Media.

Today I met with my local group and we carved stamps. We had a great time and the stamps turned out great.  I also put another layer on my leaf painting and fused the fabric down on my stitched cards.

 Here are the cards all finished up. I just took fusible webbing and fused the fabric to the paper card.

 Here’s another layer finished on the leaf painting. I think I will add a few more layers yet. This is what we’re going to do for our next monthly meeting. I think I’ll do the next one on a canvas.

 This afternoon our group met and carved stamps. This is Louise’s stamp based on frost patterns. Isn’t it cool?

 Here are some of Jan’s designs.

 And another of Jan’s designs.

 Here is one of my stamps partially carved out.

 These are more of my stamps. You will see these in the future as I have plans to make some wall hangings with these.

 Here are a couple of stamps that Carole carved.

 These are Bunny’s prints of ginkgo leaves.

 And Bunny carving her take of the frost design.

 Here’s Bunny’s butterfly stamp.

 This is one of Carole’s prints.

 Here’s Bunny’s leaf stamp.

 And prints of her butterfly stamp. She is going to work further into these with pen or colored pencil.

 Here is Louise inking up her stamp. I forgot to get a photo of her stamped image. We had a great time.

I finished stitching the last two cards that I laid out over the weekend. I also did another drawing into an “ink blot”. I’m not as pleased with this one as I was with Stanley the Snail. Particularly what I dislike is the black tongue, he looks diseased.

 Here’s one of the cards I stitched today. It was originally supposed to be with the three small blue stripes towards the top but I liked this orientation better.

 You can barely see the stitching on this one in the photo. There is blue stem stitch on the blue fabric.

 Here you  can see the stitching a bit better.

So here is the page before I started drawing the lion. Can you see his nose and eyes?

Here he is after I drew in the details. The black tongue just looks silly. Oh well, these are supposed to be silly sketches and so here is my diseased lion.

I’m getting the stitches out of my finger today. I think I might have damaged some nerve endings as my finger tip is a bit tingly and numb feeling. Hopefully, that will return to normal.

I’m still working on my hand stitched greeting cards. They are all pretty simple and I’m not adding much stitching so I got three done today.

 This one is stitched with running stitch and stem stitch.

 I used back stitch to applique the rectangle of fabric down and then just simple cross stitch to couch the felt down.

This one I spent a bit more time one. I used chain stitch on the blue fabric following the outlines that were already on the fabric from sun printing. Then I used blanket stitch on one edge of the felt. I’ve decided that I am going to fuse these down to the card stock so there won’t be any additional stitching.

Do you make your own greeting cards? How do you make them? I’d love to hear your methods.

I had to get up early this morning for an appointment so I had a spare 45 minutes before I needed to go to work. I spent that time painting another layer on my leaf painting experiment. I also finished a second fabric collage for a card.

 Here’s one page. I sketched in a couple of leaf shapes and then painted them with gesso.

 Here’s the next fabric collage card. I used herringbone stitch to applique the blue pieces to the background.

 And a closer view. The felt has been couched down in a few places. You can see it still is elevated from the surface quite a bit.