Journals & Collaborative Projects

Below you will find a sampling our members' work from previous collaborative projects.  Click on images to view them larger. We hope this will inspire you to come and play with us! If you are interested in joining our group, please visit us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/

Tutorials & Techniques

Below are some of our favorite tricks for adding depth and dimension to your art.  We hope you have fun giving these a try!

Current Group Swaps & Projects

Below is a list of current swaps and projects available to group members. If you are interested in joining our group and participating in these projects, please visit us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/.  

For existing group members, you can sign up to participate  in these projects here: Swaps & Current Projects.  

We look forward to swapping with you.  Happy Arting!

Member Gallery for Group Swaps
 
Below you will find a sampling our members' work from previous group swaps and projects.  Click on images to view them larger. We hope this will inspire you to come and play with us! If you are interested in joining our group, please visit us at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/.
 
Come play with us... Join today!

Paper Traders is a friendly online community of artists from around the world. We nurture and value creativity, embrace new ideas, products, and techniques yet also value tried and true methods of artistic expression. Our projects consist primarily of paper arts, mixed media collage, artist trading cards, altered art, assemblages, collaborative journals, mail art, and more.

We are interested in creative individuals of varied skill levels who wish to challenge themselves artistically and help build a supportive community. We are at our best when we can share our creative efforts as well as techniques, resources, feedback, and insights. We encourage conversation about art, the art process, and what it means to be an artist.

Paper Traders is hosted on Yahoo Groups at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paper_Traders/.
We hope you will consider joining us on an artistic journey!

In order to prevent spammers and to insure that all applicants are actual persons interested in creating art, a questionnaire will be sent to all potential members. When applying, please submit digital examples of your work or direct us to a website where we can view your art. The intent of the questionnaire is not to judge the merits of your art but to safeguard the integrity of our community.

Free Images for Download

Below you will find images that are owned by our group members and offered for your personal use as well as images found in the public domain. Images may be freely used in your personal artwork but may not be used for commercial purposes of any kind without written permission of the owner. No images may be used to create collage sheets or image collections for resale.

To download, follow the link provided. In some cases, you may be able to just click on the image to enlarge it, then right-click and select "save image as". Content changes frequently and many images are available for a limited time.  Please check back often for newly posted images to use in your art journey.

Open Art Challenges !

We're changing things up here at Paper Traders. Instead of the monthly challenges of the past, we'll now be hosting special challenges that might feature a specific technique or product and will be rewarded with actual prizes sponsored by our group members.

Our new challenge for 2013 is a year long word prompt journaling project/challenge. Each specific challenge will be open for one month and all art bloggers can participate, whether you are a Paper Traders member or not. Each artist will comment with a link to their blog post that features the artwork for that particular challenge. For each challenge, a winner will be selected whose art best exemplifies the challenge. The winning artist will be featured here and get a "Trader Treasure" blog button to display on their own blog. They also will receive one chance for each entry for the end of the year prize drawing. Watch this page for more details and challenge announcements.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Gallery: 4th Anniversary Project - Matchbox Shrines

Aimeslee W

Beckie H

Cathee S

Connie H

Liz F

Lorna S

Melanie H

Patricia B

Peggy G

Friday, October 16, 2009

Halloween Moo Cards

by Connie Holso

by Marion Bockelmann

by Quincy Richardson
by Beckie Holso

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Fabric ATCs

by Cathy Calamas

by Connie Holso
by Beckie Holso

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Fun With Maps

by Beckie Holso
by Cathy Calamas
by Connie Holso
by Edith Marshall
by Keron Lee
by Marion Bockelmann
by Lorna Sommer
by Abby Lazar
by Tami Roth

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Happy Accident Tutorial

I do love happy accidents. This tutorial was originally inspired by Dani Rogall aka Stampingwitch. You can watch the video here:
Step 1 and 2 are from the video.
Step 1:
Take some aluminum foil, crumble it and glue it on some cardstock.
Step 2:
Take a applicator and put some alcohol inks on it and colour the transparent sheet. The colours I have used are Denim, Eggplant and Red Pepper. Then put some blending solution on the applicator and go over it again.
Step 3:
Put some Diamond Glaze on the cardstock with the aluminum foil on top.
Step 4:
This is how it looks when you put the transparent sheet onto the aluminum foiled cardstock.
Step 5:
This is when I came back after one hour. It already started to separate the colours.
Step 6:
And after a few hours more it already looked liked this. I really love the effect and every time you try this it will be completely different. Before finishing off your card or ATC you will have to wait a day before it is thoroughly dry. Oh boy, waiting is not my strongest quality LOL.
The first time I did this I was completely surprised. I made an ATC for a personal swap and we had to work in purple, so I made a perfect purple background, and did all the steps above.
The next day I went to my art room to check up and oh my gosh, all the colours had changed. My first reaction was to start all over because it wasn’t that purple anymore but when I looked at the ATC again I really saw what happened I was very excited because I really liked the effect.
So now I tried if I could do it again and make a tutorial out of it and YES!! It worked out, so now my happy accident is no accident anymore is now a technique HAHAHA!
Here the ATC I was talking about, it was as purple as the right upper corner.

Have fun playing around.
Warm regards Hermine Koster augustus 2009 ©

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Emotive Faces

by Abby Lazar

by Aimeslee Winans

by Beckie Holso

by Connie Holso

by Keron Lee

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Get Stripey Tutorial

Starting by taking a piece of cardstock and make folds every 2 cm (1/2”- 3/4”). There are lots of possibilities to do so I have used the mini scor-board, but you can use other ways to make the scores and, when your cardstock is not that heavy, you even can fold it by hand.
Fold the cardstock and colour the edges direct-to-paper with distress inks; you can use one colour and more, whatever you fancy.

Unfold it and pleat the other way and colour the edges again. When you unfold for the second time, your cardstock should look like the photo above.
Spray water on your cardstock, the inks will start to bleed immediately.

Iron your cardstock. And this is how it looks like when the cardstock is completely dry.
Mask off some areas and put a stamp into the stripes you have created this way; do that every other stripe.
Pleat the top half and punch a hole.
Decorate the bottom half and thread some ribbon through the holes, re-arrange the pleats a bit. This will make awesome gift tags. It’s simple but effective.

This is how it looks when you use mulberryor handmade papers, the bleeding looks even more beautiful on these papers.

This is a gift tag I made with the mulberry paper.
Have fun playing around with different colours and papers.
Warmly, Hermine Koster © July 2009