all in an inch

Seasons Givings - A special thank you!

Happy New Year 2017 !!

We are so excited to be included again in the Seasons Givings Blog Hop!

This really is a spectacular event and all the credit goes to Latisha Yoast for her vision and organization! She has created a wonderful way for all of us...to thank all of you...for the love and support that has enabled everyone on this list to continue to share their creativity. And, as we learned last year, this is a great way for us to introduce Inchie Arts - Art Squares to those unfamiliar with our products. 

 

 

This year we introduced our Little Village kits, Original and 2. The response has been tremendous and as we, and others, continue to experiment with how they can be used, there is no doubt that these will become part of your year round papercrafting and card making. If you are looking for samples and ideas on how to use Little Village kits be sure and visit the Inchie Arts Facebook page.

 

 

We would like to extend a very special thank you to all the artists and crafters who shared their work with us!! You continue to inspire and demonstrate that Art Squares are the perfect substrate for everything from stamping and coloring, mixed media, Gelli Plate, die masking, watercolor, stencils, Pan Pastels, Stendoodling, photo collages, cubes, tags and so much more.

 

 

 

 

Whether you already love our Art Squares....or are super curious to create with them....please leave a comment below on THIS POST as your entry to win this collection of Inchie Arts - Art Square and Little Village products. In order to be eligible please leave a comment between now and Sunday January 8th at 12 midnight PST. We will randomly select one winner and will post their name here on our blog, and on our Facebook page, on Tuesday January 10, 2017.

 

 

The Inchie Arts - Art Square Giveaway Package includes: 2 packages Original Little Village, 2 packages Little Village 2, one package each of white: 1" Inchie Squares, 3" Art Squares, 4" Art Squares, ATC size (2.5" x 3.5") Art Squares and 2" x 4" SWATCH Art Squares.

 THANK YOU for stopping by and we hope you will visit again to see if you won, but more importantly to explore this blog and our Facebook page to see what you can create with Art Squares. 

And what a list for this year - WOW! 

Lawn Fawn

Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L

Reverse Confetti

Taylored Expressions

Paper Smooches

Neat & Tangled

Technique Tuesday

Clear & Simple Stamps

Richard Garay

My Sweet Petunia

JustNick

Stamp Simply Ribbon Store

Sunny Studio Stamps

Inchie Arts llc

Scrapbook Update

Buttons Galore

Latisha Yoast

Julia Stainton

ChariMoss

Cristina Nunez

Wanda Guess

Vera Yates

Amy Tsuruta

Mary-Ann Maldonado

Lori Craig

Lydia Fiedler

Jenn Shurkus

Lisa Henke

Dina Kowal

Libby Hickson

Emily Leiphart

Cindy Lawrence

Kelly Klapstein

Erica Houtghton

Elise Constable

Julee Tillman

Lee Murphy

Lisa Arana

Giovana Smith

Karen Baker

Lindsay Amrhein

Dana Joy

Marcie Sharp

Megan Hoeppner

Alicia Thelin

Asia King

Debbie Seyer

Yvonne Van De Grijp

Tenia Nelson

Michelle Woerner

Christina Griffiths

Lori McAree

Barbara Anders

Jill Hawkins

Veronica Zalis

Leigh Penner

Margie Higuchi

Amy Coose

Melody Rupple

Karen Letchworth

Heidi Ramsey Blankenship

Jennie Harper

Jodi Collins

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Gracie Chavez

Stephanie Klauck

Savannah O’Gwynn

Terre Fry

Neva Cole

Maria Levine

Misti Oblander

Ceal Pritchett

Thank you for visiting All In An Inch from Inchie Arts! Don't forget to leave a comment below on THIS POST as your entry to win the Inchie Arts - Art Square and Little Village products shown in the picture. In order to be eligible please leave a comment between now and Sunday January 8th at 12 midnight PST. We will randomly select one winner and will post their name here on our blog, and on our Facebook page, on Tuesday January 10, 2017.

Happy New Year everyone!! 

A Forested Little Village

Experimenting with different ways to color and decorate Little Village kits is addictive!

The emphasis on this project is on the background; with select components from both Little Village kits used sparingly across 3 white ATC size Art Squares. By only using a few of the little kit pieces you have the opportunity to really spread them out and create more 'art' in the background.

We first stamped repeatedly (and masked) a holiday tree stamp from RubberMoon across all 3 white ATC Art Squares using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. Twinkling H20 watercolor paints were used to color the background in very light blues for the sky and white for the snow (along with some detail ground lines drawn with a 0.3 Copic multiliner pen).

The trees were colored by first shading with 2 different watercolor pencils directly on top of the stamped area (a bright green for the body of the tree and a darker green around the edges). Using a small wet brush, 'activate' the watercolor pencil and blend until the desired color is achieved. 

After the background is complete, flip the 3 pieces over and connect (leaving a 1/16" space between panels) with washi tape on the back side.

Select pieces from the Little Village kits, and using the 0.3 pen, draw windows, doors and other doodles on the pieces. Paint them with Twinkling H2O watercolor paints in blues and tans. When dry, add pops of white with a white fine point Sharpie paint pen.

Be sure and visit Ellen Hutson's inspiration and education blog, theCLASSROOM, every day this week as they join us in celebrating everything Inchie Arts - including 20% off all in-stock Inchie Arts merchandise at Ellen Hutson LLC.

And join us here for the next several days as we share even more Little Village creations! 

 

A Holiday Sparkle Little Village

 

Working with the Little Village kits can be overwhelming as there are SO MANY options in terms of how you can color and decorate them!

We laughed when asking Sharon if she was finished with her sample for today's post and she said, "Not yet, I can't decide how I want to color them!" But decide she did, and we think her sparkly Little Village is a perfect example of how you can color and decorate them for the holidays. 

Just as Dina did with her Spooky Village on Monday, Sharon has mixed the components of Little Village 2 with a super cute town silhouette die cut that she positioned in front of, and behind the Village pieces. And to add additional 3D dimension to her piece she actually used the dies to emboss extra details of doors and windows into the LV pieces!

By using a 4" white Art Square as her background she was able to accommodate a lot of pieces! And of course the color and sparkle comes from painting the background and pieces with Perfect Medium, Perfect Pearls and the addition of a bit of glitter tape. 

 Please visit Sharon's blog, PaperFections to learn all the specific details. And be sure and visit Ellen Hutson's inspiration and education blog, theCLASSROOM, every day this week as they join us in celebrating all things Inchie Arts - including 20% off all in stock Inchie Arts merchandise at Ellen Hutson LLC. 

What exactly is a Little Village?

Little Village kits, Original and 2, are new from Inchie Arts!

This is the first time that Inchie Arts has experimented with die cut pieces. The kits were created to provide a series of small shapes that when decorated and assembled would be like little buildings, or a "Little Village". All of the components of each kit are made from our signature 4 ply museum grade matboard. In addition to the small pieces, each kit includes a white Inchie Square and a white ATC size Art Square that may be used as a background piece.  

 

These are all of the components of the Original kit. You can use the carrier sheet as a stencil for drawing buildings on your ATC background, cut more pieces of your own choosing, or even as a palette to test stamping and coloring ideas.  

 

Just to give you an idea of how they might be assembled, here are the pieces from the Original kit arranged (before decorating) in the same way as shown on the packaging. The original kit is distinctive because it has a crescent moon. A single panel village is a perfect size to put on a card.

 

As soon as we shared the Original kit with our friends there were immediately requests for another version with a greater assortment of shapes and sizes. Here are all the pieces included in Little Village 2.

 

This layout shows the pieces arranged in a similar fashion to the sample shown on the front of the packaging. And by popular request we made sure there was a steeple, circles for moons, suns and clocks, and even a Mansard roof!

 

Each kit has completely different pieces so that they may be combined and mixed to create oodles of versions of Little Villages.

 

 By using ALL of the pieces in both kits, you might create a standing 2 panel layout that looks like this!

 

There are SO MANY pieces that you can spread them out by adding another ATC size Art Square to create a 3 panel standing Little VIllage.

 

Or, use only a select few pieces chosen from each kit and arrange them on a bigger background like our 4" white Art Square.

 

(select pieces from both kits, spread out, with an extra white ATC Art Square background to create this 3 panel piece) 

Now that you know what they are, be sure and stop by again for the next several days to see different ideas for coloring, stamping and decorating Little Villages.

And, if you want to see more creative ideas for Little Villages and other Inchie Arts products, visit Ellen Hutson's education and inspiration blog, theCLASSROOM this week to see samples from their design team! And while you are there you can see (and purchase!) every size and color of all Inchie Arts products! at Ellen Hutson LLC. 

 

Last day of hopping with StencilGirl

Our 3 day blog hop isn't even over and all we can think about is doing it again! It has been such a joy to work with StencilGirl and we can promise that you will be seeing many more Inchie Arts projects with these fabulous stencils. 

As we said earlier, it's like our products were meant for each other!

After reading so many wonderful comments, it is apparent that many of you are new to Inchie Arts and our Art Squares. We hope that you have been inspired to use our products and will poke around this blog to see more than 8 years of tips, ideas and tutorials. And be sure and visit us on FB too.  

Thank you for joining us for this 3 day event!

Today - Wednesday January 27 - you will want to visit: 
Janet Joehlin
Sharon Harnist
Kae Pea

Sharon's project just makes us wish we were at the beach! 

 

 

And don't forget to leave a comment to be entered in the giveaway!

 

Leave a comment ON ANY (or all) of the blogs involved in the hop as your entry

We'll be picking one lucky winner to receive a 

$25 StencilGirl Products Gift Certificate and

1 package each of White 4", 3", ATC (2.5" X 3.5") and Swatch (2" X 4") size Art Squares!

All comments left on the hop list participants’ posts will be entered. 

One comment per blog. 

Comments close on Saturday January 30^th @ 11:59PM Central.
Winner will be announced on StencilGirl Product’s Facebook Page on January 31^st.

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 (if you are just joining the hop - here are the blog links from the first two days)

January 25
StencilGirl Talk
Mary C. Nasser
Mary Beth Shaw
Lisa Lee

January 26
StencilGirl Talk
Maria McGuire
Gwen Lafleur
Dina Kowal

 

The most gorgeous ornaments....from inchies!

Dina has truly outdone herself with these incredible ornaments...all made from Inchie Squares!!

Not only that, but she has created a very detailed step by step tutorial that you can view over at the Splitcoaststampers website.

WOW!!

A special welcome to Simple Pleasures

It's always a joy to announce that an independent art/stamp store will be carrying our products! We are like proud parents when store owners and artists share our passion for creating with Art Squares. 

If you are in the Colorado Springs area be sure and stop by Simple Pleasures and perhaps you will see some of the samples we have sent Cathy to illustrate a few of the different ways for using Art Squares.  

  The card above was created by stamping a Fred Mullett Big Scallop stamp on a white 3" Art Square with Versamark clear ink. Dredge the Art Square in clear embossing powder and heat set. Then overpaint with watercolor paints (we used Koi) and use a damp paper towel to wipe away any excess paint from the stamped image.  

 

Ever a favorite technique with white ATC size Art Squares, this die masked card was created using the new Playful Posies die from Penny Black. (step by step directions for this technique can be found on an early blog posting HERE) 

 

 

Need a quick and easy birthday 'card' that's not a card?! Line up 4 white 2" Art Squares on your work surface with a light removable adhesive so they are fitting tightly together. Stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment first and then stamp the floral Centerpiece stamp across the other 3 squares with black die based ink. Color with markers and assemble using a coordinating Washi tape. (both the sentiment and floral stamp are from Penny Black)  

 

Photo mosaic cards are still our most favorite way to use black 1" Inchie Squares! You can either hand cut these 7/8" photos, use a single hand punch or if you want to stamp out 16 photo squares at once look for the new Garden Patch die from the Susan's Garden collection from Elizabeth Craft that was created to work with our 1" Art Squares!

 

Day 5 - Four, three, two and....one and a half!

All the different sizes of black squares were lying blank on the desk waiting for an inspirational lightening bolt to strike about which one to post about next...but rather than choose, why not do more than one!  

 

Since the various sizes of Art Squares would be stacked, it seemed a good idea to make each layer a slightly different color along with a different image. From left to right; 4", 3"and 2" black Art Squares.

 

Paint each square quickly with Silks Acrylic Glazes using a wet brush. Since they will be stacked, you don't have to paint the middle. Just a light coating that will absorb slightly into the Art Square and leave a subtle color shimmer. Here you can see the striking contrast of how the same color looks when painted on a white Art Square.

 

After painting and drying all three squares go ahead and stamp around the border of each square using Brilliance Starlite Silver pigment ink and heat set after stamping.

 

Add a soft color coordinating accent color to stamped images with Prismacolor pencils.

 

Assemble by stacking one on top of another using dimensional foam tape.

 

 
   
This project has so many opportunities at this point ... using Lindsay Ostrom's idea from yesterday you could punch holes and add a 'hanger'... you could mount it as a box top on a square jewelry size box lid (like yesterday's project) ... or simply use it on a very special card!  

The stamps for this project were all from RubberMoon and were the perfect scale for this type of layering, including So Much, Heart Fly, Itty Bitty Heart and Wee Bird.  

Tomorrow is our last day of celebrating the launch of our new 4" black Art Squares and showing lots of different ideas for all of the sizes in black. Be sure and stop by the RubberMoon BLOG today and tomorrow to see what their artists and designers have created with the new 4" black Art Squares! 

Day 4 of ideas for black Art Squares...a sweet little posie 'mosaic' box top

Ever have that special gift that needs an equally special wrap or box? Make your own by decorating a jewelry size box top using 4 black 1.5" Art Squares and this Posie stamp from Savvy!

 

 

Prepare the 'mosaic' by adhering 4 - 1.5" black Art Squares to a small worksheet with a non permanent adhesive - just enough tack to hold the squares in place while you stamp and color them. Fit the squares tightly together on the work sheet and stamp the Posie repeatedly over the squares with white pigment ink. 

 

While the ink is still wet, cover with white embossing powder and shake off excess.

 

After heat setting and letting cool, begin coloring the first layer of Prismacolor pencils using the Sky Blue all over flower components.

 

Next, color over the first layer with Blue Slate, but only from the outside edge about 2/3 of the way towards the center of the flower. Blend using Sky Blue. 

 

Finish color layering with the darker shade of Blue Denim at the outside edges, a bit of Imperial Violet at the inside edges and Lemon Yellow directly over the white 'center' of the flowers. 

 

Apply a color coordinated square of paper on the box top, slightly separate the 4 squares of your 'mosaic' before you paste them down and then tie a decorative ribbon around the edge of the box top!

Be sure and visit the Rubbermoon blog today...and through Saturday to see the wonderful projects their artists and designers have created using our newest 4" black Art Squares!. 

Twelve Days of Trees - Day 10

 

Bet if we hadn't mentioned it, you would never know that the forest of trees in this card was created with a leaf stamp...love being able to multi-purpose a stamp!

We have assembled quite a collection of RubberMoon Art Stamps over the years and couldn't resist testing this concept with one from the archives called Elm Leaf. 

The design of this card was directly inspired by the Woodland Trees card created yesterday by Cindi Nelson from Savvy Stamps. Remember how she used watercolor paints to create a gradually shaded background? We used that same concept but with Pan Pastels on two completely different Art Squares

The background was created by blending 5 different colors on a white 4" Art Square. Using a blending sponge apply the first (and lightest) color like a stripe across the top of the square. Repeat this process overlapping and blending each 'color stripe' into one another with the sponge. Don't be timid when applying the colors - in fact you can go back over them and fine tune quite a bit. We used the following colors...in this order...turquoise tint, turquoise, ultramarine blue, phthalo blue and violet. Use a spray fixative when finished so pastels don't smudge when assembling card. 

Next, using the very same Pan Pastel colors, in the same order, repeat the application on a dark gray ATC size Art Square. Because the ATC is a dark color to begin with, the colors will be very muted in a rich grayed sort of way. Use a light spray of fixative when finished on this piece also.

Postion the ATC so the darkest color is at the 'top' to represent the sky. Stamp the first RubberMoon Elm Leaf in the foreground with VersaMark ink and cover with White Diamond embossing powder, tap off excess and heat set. Create a mask by stamping a leaf with black ink on a masking paper or post it note and cut out. (make sure and clean the stamp after the black ink!) Now use the mask to cover the first tree, repeating the entire process until you have the desired number of trees that look as if they are receeding into the background. 

Assemble the ATC on top of the 4" piece so the background colors are opposite.....the dark is the sky on the ATC....but the dark is the foreground on the 4". Finish with small dots and a grounding line drawn with white pen.

If you want to try your hand at using leaf stamps as trees there is quite a collection of them available in the RubberMoon Retirement Sale now at 50% off through December 31!

"For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver." - Martin Luther