52 Card Dress Up

  I began co-hosting a project some months ago to ‘dress up’ a deck of 52 cards & called it ’52 Card Dress Up’  I had seen ’embellished’ decks of cards around on the web & thought that it would be fun to create one of my own.  The truth is that I just haven’t had the heart or head space to create something whimsical like this but there was no escaping this month as I am hosting the theme – A LITTLE WHIMSY – I had never seen an Alice deck so this was the obvious choice for me. (I am not suggestion no one has done one – but I haven’t ever seen one!) This deck is 5″ x 7″ tall, so there is lots of space for the

story.  I have used ALPHA STAMPS Alice Collage Sheets – there are HEAPS now – including several that I have designed (Urban Driftwood). 

PENS & MARKERS
I have been doing lots of experiments with pens lately – fed up with spending $4-$6 AUD for a single pen to find that it has a very short lifespan or that it doesn’t write over painted surfaces.  For a while there – I was using a Sharpie as recommended by one of the Journalling prompt challenges I did, however I have been advised (and have already found) that it ‘ghosts’ with a halo around it after a while.  As I have mentioned before, I really look at my journals lasting indefinitely as my artisitic journey & heritage for my children & grandchildren – so I certainly don’t want to use a pen that has this kind of limitation and is likely to contaminate the work over time.  I started doing this writing with a CD writing pen as recommended by my art pal Letha.  I found over time that the nib got ‘shiny’ and wouldn’t write over the gessoed & watercoloured background.  I ended up resorting to the age old goodin’ Stabilo Marks All pencil.  I have a love hate relationship with these.  I LOVE how black they are – BUT I hate how easily they break & that some I have had break with each sharpening & you sharpen them away to nothing.  Considering that I haven’t yet found ANYWHERE in Melbourne that I can buy these – I am buying them by the doz from USA – which was fine while the $ was high – but has become expensive now…..  I have my thinking cap on about that one!