Inspired by our guest designer!

Well, was that not a magical week of gloriously beautiful art by Jacqueline? I feel like I’ve been on a trip to the South of France, visiting gardens and walking through sunshine. If Jacqueline’s art is music, we’ve just experienced a week-long concert. There is harmony, soft tones, and an occasional trill of flutes. She is a maestro composing lovely pieces that express nature’s beauty.

I have admired Jacqueline’s work since I first met her in a Flickr group more than five years ago. Her work has been recognized and honored in many ways. She is a true artist and I have put her in a class all her own.

Jacqueline’s art reflects a very gentle, lovely spirit. I have spent hours going through her Flickr photostream and I will share some of what I learned.

Blossoms, butterflies and birds gather on beautiful patterned papers. Jacqueline uses grids, tags, inchies and solid images of flowers to make her magic. She assembles beautiful collages and often has a large sentiment as the focal point. Here’s my first attempt at a Jacqueline-style card:

As you can see, my love for deep darker colors came through, but I did use inchies in a grid pattern.

I haven’t made a card with inchies for several years, ever since the tragic event involving the image of a very large owl that I cut into 20 pieces not very successfully. Bad idea, bad result. Actually, I think there is an ordinance somewhere forbidding me to use inchies!

For this card, I made the beautiful patterned paper the focal point and embellished with stamped images. I created the background using the Floral Tapestry background stamp embossed with liquid platinum embossing powder. The butterfly was made the same way. This card includes the birds, blossoms and butterfly so often found in Jacqueline’s work.

Jacqueline often uses collections of small butterflies, artfully arranged on a card. She perfectly mixes patterned papers so that each butterfly is different, but they blend into a cohesive display. I tried that and realized my pattern mixing skills are limited so I used only white butterflies displayed in grid fashion on patterned paper. The fun part of this card is that the “frame” is made from the negative die cut of the notebook sheet in the Creative Die set A Pocket Full.

I admire what Jacqueline creates using tags. Sometimes it is a single tag, filled with lovely details and sometimes it is a grouping of tags on a card. I used the stamp set Blooming Tags to create three tags which I tucked into the library pocket diecut . As you can see, my attachment to stronger colors prevailed, yet Jacqueline’s influence remains.

When I first saw the A Pocketful die set, it brought back memories of my high school years when I volunteered in the school library. I used to love putting those little cards into the machine that made that gentle clunking sound as it bit off a bit of the card when the book was checked out.

Noble is one of my favorite floral images by Penny Black. Here I simply stamped the image on patterned paper and embossed it with the liquid platinum embossing powder.

And now I have this fun photo to share with you:

This is one of Jacqueline’s secret weapons for creating beautiful art. It is the small drawer unit where she stores her supply of inchies and butterflies that she makes up in advance. Here is what she has to say about it:

In the top drawer I have butterflies, then the next three drawers have square inchies in three different sizes and the fifth drawer has banners and strips of patterned paper which I could use on any card or project that needs it.

Jacqueline also shares that when she is away from her crafting space, she takes along butterfly images stamped on patterned paper and she “can cut out butterflies for hours”.

Because of where she lives, Jacqueline has limited access to crafting supplies and doesn’t discard the smallest scraps. She has a “scrap basket” that she reaches into frequently and makes magic with the pieces she pulls out. It is a testament to her artistic vision that she sees such potential in her scraps.

Well, we cannot stay in beautiful gardens forever. During our RV traveling years when Mr. Runs with Scissors and I were traveling with his brother and his wife in our separate RV’s, we spent days and days in beautiful surroundings: waterfalls, lakes, trees, mountains and incredible vistas. One day, after weeks of enjoying Mother Nature’s treasures my sister-in-law and I approached our husbands, hands on hips, a tone of desperation in our words and declared, “We have seen enough beauty! We want to find a shopping mall.” Happily the men then planned our next destination to include a quilt store for Shar and a stamping store for me. Happy wife, happy life!

Speaking of beautiful things, Cooper has not been looking very lovely lately. And as much as he hates it, it was time for a bath. The first step in the bath-for-Cooper process is coaxing him from under the bed because whenever he hears bath water run, he hides.

It’s time to put the scissors away for today and gather my scraps for my newly purchased scrap basket.

Thank you, Jacqueline for the week of inspiration. Your art does make my heart smile. And thanks everyone for spending time with me today on the Penny Black blog; that also makes my heart smile.

Shop for today’s featured Penny Black supplies:

• Stamps: 40-276 Botanical Notes, 30-160 Friendship, 40-283 Floral Tapestry, 30-117 Free Flight, 30-162 Eloquence, 30-228 Blooming Tags, 30-207 From the Heart, 4277K Noble, 40-132 So Blessed
• Creative Dies: 51-006 Flutters, 51-027 Triple Banners, 51-053 A Pocketful
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