Florence Turnour's Blog

This week's Wednesday tutorial by Elaine Hughes at Splitcoaststampers was about coloring in a stamped image without the lines showing. Elaine does an impressive job coloring in one of those cutesy doll-faced images that are so popular with stampers who like to color. Poking around in the gallery, I found Lydia Fielder's tutoral , in which the shading process looks a lot more doable. Before I found Lydia's version, I decided that there was no way I was going to get my Copics to behave that beautifully, and took out my pencils to color this truck.  Look Ma! No lines! Want a Ride? I had my first go at using "bling" on a card. The flourish is a sticker that I had a really hard time applying to the card neatly.  I might go hunting for a tutorial on that in my copious spare time.

When I made the inside of the last card for Georgina , I stamped the border, masked the center and added snow flakes around the outside. I really liked how it worked out, and decided to explore that idea a bit more. I am trying to get a framed effect like that of the stamps from Justrite Stamper designed to coordinate with various Spellbinder dies. The Kindness cling set is a great example. Here are two cards that I made to show off the results of my efforts. The design for Just-a-Peek Butterfly was inspired by the Splitcoast Stampers technique challenge " Crop it ." The butterflies in the purple border were stamped on white paper using a single mini butterfly stamp (I think from Hero Arts in their Itty Bitty series, but I'm not sure). Just-a-Peek Butterfly I tried my hand at the technique I mentioned in my previous post for making round cards that open in Wishing You Happiness (and Chocolate) . Wishing You Happiness (and Chocolate) The yellow-green flo...

This paper crafting frenzy that I'm in was partially inspired by a trip to a rubber stamp show with my friend Georgina a few weekends ago (and it seems to be partially fueled by a desire to avoid doing my taxes). We decided to trade cards, using our new tools and techniques. I was very excited to get my first card from Georgina: Isn't it pretty? I like pink and yellow together, though I've never really selected that combination. I should try that in my beadwork. I also like the popped up look of the central element (adhesive foam squares are now included in my supply box ready to pop). I also hate to admit that that ribbon looks cool. I have zero ribbon, so far, and I'm trying to hold out on that one. I can't tie a decent bow to save my life, despite the many on-line tutorials on the web. Thank you, Georgina! So I went back to my craft table, to make a card for Geogina, using some of my favorite lacy circles. Lacy circles and a charm After I ma...

I'm having a tea party. Want you join me? We're going to drink tea out of huge cups, and cut and paste paper circles.  Nested ornate paper circles appeal to me. They always have. I can remember coveting paper doilies as a child, thought I never knew what to do with them once I had them. Now, however, they have a new purpose in my life: the desire for them drives me to buy more and more crafting equipment so I can make those lovely nested circles whenever I want, in all sizes (stepping up by 1/8 inch increments). This tutorial for a Telescoping Card from Beate  at Splitcoaststampers.com , and all of its nested circles, continues to inspire me. This weekend, I had both my Silhouette Cutter and the Cuttlebug making shapes for me to complete my own version of the Telescoping Card, "Tea Caddy." Tea Caddy, telescoping card, closed Tea Caddy, telescoping card, open I stamped my images and colored them in using colored pencils (and Odorless Mineral Spi...

Farmer Ben only has ducks and cows. He can't remember how many of each he has, but he doesn't need to remember because he knows he has 22 animals and 22 is also his age. He also knows that the animals have a total of 56 legs, because 56 is also the age of his father. Assuming all the animals have the usual numbers of limbs, how many ducks and how many cows does Farmer Ben have? I adopted a liberal arts math textbook ( Crossing the River with Dogs , by Johnson, Herr and Kysh) for my Introduction to Higher Mathematics course for math majors. I love the book; it has loads of figure it out questions and great rhetoric about doing them efficiently that apply broadly to life as well as to higher mathematics. But, I think that, with the exception of those who study at Harvey Mudd College, most liberal arts math students think questions like this are contrived and silly (like, what's the guy going to do next year? Get a one legged duck?), even though the author clearly th...

I sometimes think that I can do some paper crafts with my boys. I'd get to play with my toys and entertain my kids at the same time. And they do like it, as you can see, but realistically, I don't get to make anything myself. Mommy can you help me open this? Mommy, where's the freight for the freight train? Mommy, can I stamp on the green and then the red and then on my paper? Mommy look what I made! They did make great pictures, with houses and a chicken on a hill and lots of trains and airplanes. Stuart even wrote a word on the white board easel describing the creative process. See it?

In the five issues this year, Beadwork Magazine will publish five beaded bead patterns. The February/March issue included the first, Seeing Stars," by Beadwork editor Melinda Barta. On Cindy Holsclaw's blog , she posted a few pictures of the ones she made. The April/ May issue , featured an 3-paged version of Gwen Fisher 's Cube Cluster design (we sell a much easier to read and much longer pattern at beAd Infinitum ; read more about it on Gwen's blog ). Gwen's lovely beads even made the cover! On page 92, they advertise the continuing series of beaded beads and include an image of my contribution, "Stargazer Beaded Bead," which will appear in the June/July/August issue. Beadwork Magazine gave me permission to post images of the design early, in hopes that some of my excitement will rub off on y'all. So, without further ado, may I introduce the Cubic Stargazer Beaded Bead: Look for the design in the next issue of Beadwork Magazine! This tec...

Inspired by research into mathematical art by Craig Kaplan , I set out to bead a design that morphs from one tiling pattern to another. M.C. Escher's use of this idea is famous in his designs, such as the Air and Water I (from the " Official M.C. Escher Website "). Craig writes about his research into formalizing deformations of planar tilings, and includes images that are beautiful partly because the design is regular, and partly because that regularity is lost as the design varies. It was the Islamic Parquet Deformations that set me to beading. Here is the result, inspired by the   deformation shown here , from Craig's work. Beaded Deformation: From Kepler's Star to the Night Sky by Florence Turnour 6" by 1.5" In this sampler, I explore techniques in bead weaving that allow me to express subtle changes in shape, and in particular in the "contact angle," that Craig describes. Unlike the deformations shown in Craig's image , the ...