Happy to be this week’s guest artist for The Documented Life project!

I am happy to be the guest artist for The Documented Life project. Love those women and the impact they've had on mixed-media!

The theme this week is "Stripes." I didn't put any pressure on myself, I sat down to create. Here's what happened.

• I grabbed some art from my "art pieces" box. The box is full of backgrounds, experiments, half-done projects, "ugly" art, etc. I use the materials in this box constantly. It means I never have to start from scratch for anything. It also means that no art time is ever wasted. I either love it, or if I don't love it, I can put it in the box and repurpose it another day. Or, if I feel like creating but don't want to worry about it being good, I just throw some paint around and fill up the box with colorful goodness.

• I chose a piece I didn't really like and cut it into ATC-sized pieces. Busy backgrounds make the best small ATCs!

• I find it's just as easy to make several ATCs as it is to make one. So I chose three of the pieces, and used my Dina Wakley Media Tape to add stripes on each one.

• Next I inked the edges with black Archival ink, and added some sewing to each ATC for interest and to "embed" the stripes into the background.

• Next I flipped through my stamp compendium to find some stamped images to use on the cards. What's my stamp compendium? It's simply a journal filled with pre-stamped images. When I get a new stamp set, I stamp it a bunch of times in the compendium. That way when I need an image, I can just flip through the pages instead of digging through my stamps.

• I added the stamped images, colored them a bit with crayons, and then added quotes with Tim Holtz's Idea-ology Small Talk Stickers. Easy and effective.

Products I used: Dina Wakley Media Tape (printed), Dina Wakley Media Stamp sets Boxed Faces, Sketched Faces, Silhouetted Women, and Collaged Hearts. (The Silhouetted Women and the Collaged Hearts sets are the smaller versions available at Michael's Stores.)  Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink. Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayons. Tim Holtz Idea-ology Products: Small Talk Stickers, Tiny Attacher.

Dina Wakley Media Paint Colors in the Background: Lemon, Evergreen, Cheddar, Ocean, Magenta, Night. Stencils in the background: Fractured Circles and Variegated Stars. Also in the background: oil pastels.