Autumn Leaves

the storm blowing in

The leaves have been slow to change this autumn in Eastern NC. Finally the maples and dogwoods, the first to turn, are a bright red. The oaks are still green, but a few other variety of trees are showing hints of yellow.

My son and I went out yesterday before a big storm rolled in to collect leaves to draw in our journals. We found some lovely reds from the crape myrtles and the neighbor's maple tree. Our little magnolia tree dropped a nice green leaf, and we collected two more from my rose of sharon and redbud trees.

This is my journal page. I used colored pencil to sketch the leaves and a rubber stamp of a splatter pattern to make the mottled brown on the maple and yellow rose of sharon leaves. I'll probably paint around them and embellish the page later.

Here is my five-year old's journal page. I think he did pretty good! Last year he was capable only of doing leaf rubbings. My how quickly they progress in just a year!

And finally, I leave you with this...

Our post-storm view! It was actually a double rainbow but the second one didn't show up very well in this shot.

Monthly Stamp Club Cards

This month's cards are Halloween themed. Trick or treat!

This was just a stamped image of the hat and boots with a couple of ovals punched out and stamped.

The raised background of this card was made by running the paper through the "Big Shot" die cutting machine, using an embossing plate instead of a cutting plate.

Then we lightly sponged green ink over the spider web pattern to make it stand out more.

We then adhered a piece of this crinkly black tissue paper over the card and tied it with a lace ribbon.

The ghost was made from an owl punch turned upside down with the feet cut off. (See owl image below)

Hoot Hoot! This was made entirely from punches by Stampin Up. The card had room for a greeting on the bottom right corner.

All stamps copyright Stampin Up.

Product Review: Making Memories Precision Paper Trimmer

The product under review today is the "Precision Paper Trimmer, 12x12" by Making Memories. It is a rotary cutter and claims to be self sharpening.

I go through paper trimmers like some people go through...well, I can't think of anything. Point: I wear out paper trimmers!

I bought this at Michaels using my 40% off coupon. The original price was $49.99 USD.

I actually had the opportunity to try out two of these. The first one I bought had been used and paper was jammed up inside the entire length of the track where the blade runs, hindering the movement of the rotary blade. I returned it and got a new one.

The new one started acting up almost immediately. It made a few good cuts (I cut about 8 pieces of paper).

The next time I used it, the trimmer mangled my 80# text paper so, thinking perhaps the paper was too thin for it (which is silly because 80# paper is about 3 times the weight of regular office paper) I tried cutting two sheets at a time. It mangled both sheets.

I tried cutting card stock. It got grease on my paper and also mangled the card stock. It seemed as if the blade was dull. The paper started getting caught in the track...just like the one I returned. Hmmm, perhaps that's why the previous customer returned it!

The only thing I liked about this trimmer is the magnetic ruler that comes with it. The ruler is extremely stable and stays where you put it. A few times I didn't think I was going to get the ruler off!

My rating of this product is a huge thumbs down! I wouldn't buy this product at any price because it did not cut paper in an acceptable manner for me.

Playing with Photos

Playing with images isn't just for the pages of my art journals. I've been tinkering with my digital photos, discovering what Photoshop Elements can do. I used these templates from flickr, one and two.

Snow Covered Hydrangea

photo by Studio B (UberArt)

I must confess, I spent about an hour trying to erase part of the image down to a transparent canvas. My hubby, who is a computer whiz, strolled in and said, "You're doing it the hard way." One click and he accomplished what it took me an hour to do. Duh.

New Facebook Fan Page

I have a new Facebook fan page for my UberArt Art Journals!

For those of you who were fans of my old page (UberArt Handmade Journals and Pendants) I will eventually be deleting that one since I couldn't change the title of it. I haven't made pendants in over two years and it seemed silly to keep that page!

My goal is to keep my fan pages updated regularly, but not so much as to be annoying. :D  Just a little note here and there to let you know what's going on, or if I have a new blog post on visual art journaling.

So if you'd like to keep up with me on Facebook, please visit my pages.
(Emerson Bindery guest book fan page is here.)