Monday, March 24, 2008

Evening in Paris

This is another card I did for the Paris themed lottery on the Persnickety Stampers group. I just love the colours in this photograph, the way the light plays on the trees and the bridge. Never having been to Paris though I can't take credit for the photo. I found it when I googled free Paris photos. Whoever took it did a wonderful job of capturing the lighting. I call it evening in Paris but it could just as easily be sunrise I suppose.

Monday Image Challenge

This is my take on the Monday Challenge Image which was a partial map of New York City. I went with the idea of new beginnings and following your dreams. So I used the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Immigration Building with an immigrant mother and child. The very faint background stamp and the Follow your Dreams stamp are both from Inka Stamps http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/altereddesigns/photos/view/f4a0?b=6 The images are from photos at the NY public library website

Paris - Eiffel Tower


The monthly card lottery theme on Persnickety Stampers happens to be Paris this month. So what do you do if you have absolutely no stamps that fit that theme (no, running out and buying some was not an option LOL). Well clip art and my computer to the rescue. It's plain and simple but I like it.
The Eiffel Tower image came from some Dover Publishing clip art that I tore off the paper, coloured the trees below with pencil crayon and highlighted the tower with some black and gray, mounted on some black paper and torn again. The wording is a font on my computer called Amore (kind of appropriate I thought) spaced on my paper and printed so that I could tape my cardstock over the words where I wanted them on the card and then run through the printer again. Had to do each line seperately as I needed to change the direction of the cardstock to get the placement. The leafy border is done using a Fiskars border punch but spaced instead of making it continuous. Mounted this to a piece of black cardstock so it would show through the leaves and then the whole was mounted to a white base card. The steel gray you see around the card is not part of it but just the sheet of cardstock I use in my scanner when I'm scanning white cards otherwise they don't show up very well.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Spring Renewal


I have just been playing around today and not getting much art done. I did manage to get this ATC done for the March ATC Lottery on Altered Designs. Who knew kleenex boxes could make such nice art. A little stamp here, a rub on there and a little colour and you're done. The box was headed for the trash until the old gray matter started to shift gears. LOL I now have enough blanks for four more ATC besides this one.

Monday, March 17, 2008

The Old West


On Altered Designs they are having an Old West themed Mingle. These are two ATCs that I did yesterday that are possibles for that mingle.

ATC for TGIF


The theme for TGIF at Altered Designs this last Friday was anything to do with hats. The image is a little blurry because it is hard to scan 3d on my scannner and I didn't have the digital camera handy. It wasa little fiddley to do but I'm happy with the finished results.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Free Image Countdown

Don't forget to check out the free image count down to St. Patrick's Day at Artist How To http://artist-how-to.com/Countdown.htm There are some really nice images there.

Monday Challenge


It has been a fairly productive day for me. This is my ATC for the Monday Challenge over at Altered Designs. The challenge was to make art using this image provided courtesy of http://outsidethemargins.com/ I added the wings from images provided by Dover Publishing by way of their free samples http://www.doverpublications.com/sampler3/ and the stamps used are words from Inka Stamps http://inkastamps.com/ and the flourish stamps are from Quietfire Designs http://www.quietfiredesign.ca/ . The background paper is some that came as a freebie in the last Somerset (not sure which one now)magazine I bought. I added a bit of Rangers Distress inks which can also be purchased from Quietfire Designs.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Spring Buttons


This ATC covers two different things this time. The buttons on the front are what the Created Byhand challenge http://createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com/ is all about. We were to create whatever we wanted using buttons, button stamps or clip art buttons whatever it had to have buttons. On the Persnickety yahoo group we were to do an ATC in a spring theme but it had to be stamped so I stamped flowers on the shirt with a background stamp and then coloured with markers and stamped spring on the bottom. If you notice there is a little note in the neck of the shirt. This says open here with an arrow pointing to the litttle tab at the top of the buttons. This shirt actually opens and on the inside is printed "Happy Spring, A time For Short Sleeves And Flowers"

Top O'The Morning to You

This is an ATC I made for the TGIF mingle over at Altered designs. The theme was to do a St. Patrick's day theme. Checkerboard stamps by Quietfire Designs www.quietfiredesigns.ca
and the Shamrocks are from Hero Arts. Collage image is from Lazy Day Creations www.lazydaycreations.com and the background is one I made up using green food colouring in a spray bottle mixed with rubbing alcohol and a seperate sprayer with just rubbing alcohol. Just kept spritzing and blending the two together until I liked the results.

Monday, March 10, 2008

St. Patrick's Day Birthday Card


We have a friend who was born on St. Patrick's day so I always do a themed birthday card for him. This year I used a green polka dot background as that is the colour challenge for the month of March over on the Persnickety Stamper's yahoo group. The image I used is from a Lazy Day Creations www.lazydaycreations.com collage sheet and the greeting is a combination of my computer and a Stampin Up Birthday Wishes stamp. I didn't have any green polka dot paper to do the challenge so I took a piece of Close To My Heart white core Garden Green c/s and run it through my Spellbinders Wizard with a Fiskars Texture plate and then just sanded off the tops of the dots to reveal the white core. The dark green c/s is Bazzill Textured.

First Class Traveller

Monday's Challenge over at Altered Designs was to make art with this image. I've done an ATC using a travel theme. Background is done using a napkin with wine labels all over layered to c/s . I then used some stickers (from NRN Designs) advertising different hotels. The carpetbag is a stamp from Sugarloaf/Inque stamps (Vintage Designs). The piece the bag is resting on is cut from some textured paintable wallpaper that I have inked up to look like a stone wall. At the bottom I have added a clear sticker with some black travel writting and the red First Class printed in the bottom right corner..

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Created Byhand Tuesday Challenge


I took the Spritz, Spray & or Spatter challenge over at the Created Byhand Blog http://createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com/ This is what I came up with. The background is a combination of two different distress re-inkers mixed with water (each in own spray bottle) The light layer of spray is Shabby Shutters and the Darker is Peeled Paint. Over that I spattered a mix of PearlEx powder, Rubbing Alcohol (it evaporates instead of making the c/s soggy) and Hairspray as the binder. I then stamped the verse from www.quietfiredesigns.ca in black Versafine and embossed with detail clear embossing powder. Stamped the butterflies (All Night Media) in top right using a rainbow ink pad. Cut the bottom left corner at an angel then mounted this layer to a black paper layer. This was then layered to another glossy layer that I had brayered with Distress Shabby Shutters ink and then stamped the catterpillars using Vivid Spring Green ink.

Heads Up - Free Images

Thought I would share this link with you all. Lisa Vollrath over at TenTwoStudios/GoMakeSomething is having a combination St Patricks and Easter countdown over on her site http://countdown.tentwostudios.com. check it out. I'm sure she has some lovely images in store for us.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

TGIF Stamped Background


The Altered Designs TGIF mingle for this week was stamped backgrounds so since it is close to St. Patricks day I chose to use that as my theme. The stamps are checkerboard corner from www.quietfiredesigns.ca and the shamrocks are from Hero Arts. The image and Happy St. Patricks Day is from www.lazydaycreations.com . The background cardstock is created the same way as the post just before this one. I like this one a lot because green is one of my favourite colours.

Art is not above the Ordinary


This is my ATC entry for the Altered Designs 200 Member ATC Contest. The image and saying is from www.PennywiseArts.com / www.SwingShiftDesigns.com and the flourish stamps are from www.quietfiredesigns.ca . The background is done on glossy cardstock using blue food colouring deluted in rubbing alcohol and spritzed on to the c/s and then rubbing alcohol (plain) spritzed to lighten the colour until I was happy with the results.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Altered Game Pieces


Here is the altered game piece that I did for our 200 Member Contest on Altered Designs. It is two Rimmi-O tiles glued together and then background colours applied using Sharpie markers and spritzing with rubbing alcohol until I was happy with the colour. I used a combination of Memories ink by Stewart Superior and Brilliance ink by Tsukineko. All stamps are from http://www.quietfiredesign.ca/ I then used a really sticky double sided tape (also available from Quietfire Designs) to edge the game piece, then dipped it into gold and green micro beads to cover the glued edges. A wood bead was glued to the top to put the cord through. Each side was then given a coat of JudiKins Diamond Glaze to protect it and give it a shine. On the front while the Diamond Glaze was still wet I attached a small blue flower gem from Heidi Swapp.