Journals & Collaborative Projects

Below you will find a sampling our members' work from previous collaborative projects.  Click on images to view them larger. We hope this will inspire you to come and play with us! If you are interested in joining our group, please visit us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/

Tutorials & Techniques

Below are some of our favorite tricks for adding depth and dimension to your art.  We hope you have fun giving these a try!

Current Group Swaps & Projects

Below is a list of current swaps and projects available to group members. If you are interested in joining our group and participating in these projects, please visit us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/.  

For existing group members, you can sign up to participate  in these projects here: Swaps & Current Projects.  

We look forward to swapping with you.  Happy Arting!

Member Gallery for Group Swaps
 
Below you will find a sampling our members' work from previous group swaps and projects.  Click on images to view them larger. We hope this will inspire you to come and play with us! If you are interested in joining our group, please visit us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/.
 
Come play with us... Join today!

Paper Traders is a friendly online community of artists from around the world. We nurture and value creativity, embrace new ideas, products, and techniques yet also value tried and true methods of artistic expression. Our projects consist primarily of paper arts, mixed media collage, artist trading cards, altered art, assemblages, collaborative journals, mail art, and more.

We are interested in creative individuals of varied skill levels who wish to challenge themselves artistically and help build a supportive community. We are at our best when we can share our creative efforts as well as techniques, resources, feedback, and insights. We encourage conversation about art, the art process, and what it means to be an artist.

Paper Traders is hosted on Yahoo Groups at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/.
We hope you will consider joining us on an artistic journey!

In order to prevent spammers and to insure that all applicants are actual persons interested in creating art, a questionnaire will be sent to all potential members. When applying, please submit digital examples of your work or direct us to a website where we can view your art. The intent of the questionnaire is not to judge the merits of your art but to safeguard the integrity of our community.

Free Images for Download

Below you will find images that are owned by our group members and offered for your personal use as well as images found in the public domain. Images may be freely used in your personal artwork but may not be used for commercial purposes of any kind without written permission of the owner. No images may be used to create collage sheets or image collections for resale.

To download, follow the link provided. In some cases, you may be able to just click on the image to enlarge it, then right-click and select "save image as". Content changes frequently and many images are available for a limited time.  Please check back often for newly posted images to use in your art journey.

Open Art Challenges !

We're changing things up here at Paper Traders. Instead of the monthly challenges of the past, we'll now be hosting special challenges that might feature a specific technique or product and will be rewarded with actual prizes sponsored by our group members.

Our new challenge for 2013 is a year long word prompt journaling project/challenge. Each specific challenge will be open for one month and all art bloggers can participate, whether you are a Paper Traders member or not. Each artist will comment with a link to their blog post that features the artwork for that particular challenge. For each challenge, a winner will be selected whose art best exemplifies the challenge. The winning artist will be featured here and get a "Trader Treasure" blog button to display on their own blog. They also will receive one chance for each entry for the end of the year prize drawing. Watch this page for more details and challenge announcements.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Product Spotlight: Flower Soft

The moderators at Paper Traders thought that our followers might be interested in an occasional product review for some of the many tools a "mixed media" artist might use.  We do not receive any kind of incentive for the products we feature; this is just a little insight on random products that we have tried.

For our first product spotlight, I wanted to share my experience with a fun product called Flower Soft.  I first discovered this stuff a couple of years ago when I attended a Scrapbook expo in Colorado.  My friend and I had lots of fun doing their make-and-take and I bought one container of their Heather color, which I shared with my mom.  Even though the containers are small, there is A LOT of product in each one - they really pack it in and, because it's a flexible foam type product, it's easy to flake up into a huge springy pile of the stuff.  For every color that I've purchased since (and I now have about a dozen different ones), I have split all of them with my mom and there is still plenty for each of us to play with.

So, what is Flower Soft and how would you use it?  This product is kind of like a flock but the tiny pieces appear to be some kind of spikey synthetic, like tiny pieces of foam.  It comes in a small plastic container full of colored sprinkles - available in lots of colors, including solids, mixed colors, metallics, etc.  I really love the sparkly snow of Polar White!  Their website says that it is acid free so it should be safe for all of your archival projects.  I think that it adds a terrific plant-like texture to my art projects.  Here is a matchbox shrine where I used several colors of Flower Soft to imitate the leaves and petals for different seasons:

When I purchased this product, they tried to sell me a special adhesive but I have found that Tacky glue works just fine.  And that's something most of us always keep on hand.  Each container sells for around $6 in the US but they also sell in other countries as well.  I have seen this product in several of our local independent scrapbooking shops.  Here's a link to their website showing the available colors: http://www.flower-soft.us.com/Cart/EC-Categories.php?CategoryID=67

If you're looking for something fun and different to add unique texture to your projects, I recommend trying Flower Soft.

And if you love this product as much as I do, feel free to comment and leave a direct link to a project where you used Flower Soft so we can all see the various uses for it.

Thanks!
Beckie Holso

1 comment:

aprilmariecole.blogspot.com said...

This is great... I simply adore it! :]
Thank you for sharing.