Lovin' the Playing Cards

I snatched a few hours to play with altering a few more playing cards the other day but I had to wait for a sunshiny day to retake the photos. Today was that day! It's bright and gorgeous here after many days of rain. The backgrounds are layers of gesso, watercolour crayon, distress ink, big brush pen, and anything else I could find to make colour. Then there are scraps of paper, a little stamping, stencilling, and doodling before the main images were collaged together. The first one, above, has a combination of two images (hat, moon face), a flower button, and a chipboard arrow. All of the messages are computer generated and matted with black cardstock. I think it's an Einstein quote and seems oh so true. Doesn't the moon look like a fun fellow to hang out with?

The second playing card features a combination of three images (bird, egg, nest). To me, it suited the message because this is a bird that will take on a mega-task and persevere. Courage isn't about not being scared or overwhelmed. It's about feeling those things and doing it anyway. This bird is an optimist. The circles in the upper corner are nailhead stickers. The edges of all of the cards are darkened with black Big Brush pen to frame them and direct the eye in.

The third card has a scrap of embossed black cardstock highlighted with Treasure Silver rubbed over the raised areas with my finger. There is only one image which was trimmed to fit the curve of the rounded scrap. Tiny bits of a black and white border were glued to three places to add a bit of pop and pattern to the card. The black circles were made with watered down black gesso and a mister cap.

I actually did several more but I will save them for another day. I don't want to wear out my welcome.  I actually think I will sand another deck because I want to make some and send them off to a few friends. It's always fun to get mail, especially if it makes you smile. Thanks for visiting me today. I love it when we can get together and your support is always appreciated.

Life is good: so is art.
Bonnie