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..

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.

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.

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.