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, December 15, 2012

Using the Inkadinkadoo Stamping Gear


A tutorial presented by Cathy C. of Paper Traders

This is one of those stamping accessories
that I wondered if I would ever use,
but I had a 50% off Michael's coupon
and I thought, "What the heck, let's try this!."

Seriously, I'm glad I did buy it because
it is SUPER fun and I love the results I got..


Here is a little tutorial on how I made this card:



Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Fired Brick and Forest Moss
Cosmos and Fern stamps from Rogue Redhead Designs
White cardstock

 This is how the system works with their stamps.
Move along the circle gear, stamping in each space.


One of the problems that I see
with this system is that the design you end up
with is very large. Too big for cards but
good for scrapbooking or journaling.
I think that could be remedied by
using smaller stamps or making the gear smaller.

So I thought, what about using my own stamps?

1. I placed the gear in the center of my  folded cardstock.
I placed the fern stamp in the position I wanted it
and then place the acrylic block over that and 
pressed down to seal.


2. Lift up carefully and apply ink from the distress ink pad.


3. Move around the gear, stamping in
every other slot and only re-inking 
every other impression. 
This way you get the lighter/darker shading.

4. Re-position the stamp at a slightly different angle
and then go around the gear again in the
same fashion as previous step.

5. Get the Cosmos stamp and as in first step, 
position it on the paper first and then press
acrylic block to attach it. Lift up and apply
Fired Brick distress ink.

6. Then I did a third round of the fern stamp
to plump out the wreath using the same
technique as step 4.

7. Finished the stamp by adding a sentiment and
the cardinal stamp from the Ornate Christmas set by
 Inkadinkadoo and the Fired Brick Distress Ink.
Tip: When you use distress inks on acrylic stamps, 
the ink separates and so the stamped image
is not a solid uniform color. 
I like the effect, though.

Thanks for stopping by and Paper Traders
hopes you enjoy this tutorial.

Cathy C.

1 comment:

Ivy said...

Thanks so much for posting this Cathy, I am so hoping Santa leaves me one of these under the Xmas tree!