Kreativ-Blogger Award

Amy has honored me with this beautiful award, for which I am so grateful. My task is to find five other blogs to give this award to. There are so many wonderful blogs out there so it is difficult to decide who to send this on to. So here are my choices:

Marleen, who does wonderful digital art.

Doris, who has some gorgeous Christmas decorations on her blog.

Sue, who likes to work from sketches and uses lovely colors.

Gisela, who also does beautiful works from sketches. She has a tuxedo cat, Merlin.

Taluula, who paints and draws and does beautiful digital art. I think her name is Ann.

Please visit their blogs and make new internet friends, if you don't know these fine artists already.

Gothic Arches - Snow

Here is my entry for "SNOW" for the Gothic Arches challenge this week. I am short of time this morning so it is not very complex, just a collage on printed paper.

Sketch Saturday #27

The sketch for this Saturday's challenge had many different areas to fill. Here is my take on the challenge. I used some gorgeous green and pink double stamped paper from one of the Art Techniques swaps. The dry embossed rose was done with my brass template and stylus and colored with watercolor pencils. The text is handwritten. See the other interpretations of this challenge at Sketch Saturday.

SaWo Mosaic

Saturday's Workout's theme for the week is to do a mosaic in our art. I have used two kinds of background paper, which I cut into rectangles and pieced back together in a different order. The blue and brown paper is a dyed paper towel. The image is one that was supplied to us last week by Art Creations Friday. The pink and green (and orange streaks) is from a swap on Art Techniques.

Theme Thursday - Santa

Although today is a national holiday in America, Thanksgiving Day, I am displaying here on my blog a digital Christmas 4x4. This was made for the Theme Thursday challenge this week where the theme is Santa. My background is a pale green with a special effects, thanks to Photoshop Elements. I have added some freebie digital images, the Christmas tree and the Santa, that I got from Dover Publications.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all my fellow Americans. We have much to be thankful for.

Arty Girlz Favorite Color

Arty Girlz Challenge has us using our favorite color. This is a digital piece, using a background of lavender. I overlaid this with an altered photo of a petunia and the saying: When I grow old, I shall wear purple. This isn't the exact quote, but it's close enough for me. I think I'm old enough that I can wear purple, which at this moment, is my favorite color.

Today was such a busy day that I didn't have time to do any pasting or cutting. I did that this morning in my volunteer job at the nursing home. This afternoon we drove 90 minutes to pick up our college granddaughter to bring her home for the Thanksgiving holidays.

New Award from Paula

What an honor Paula has given me when she passed on this award to my blog. Here is the text that goes with the honor, the wording of which is not mine.

"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY -nearness in space, time  and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

There are so many blogs that I look forward to viewing and there are so many blogs that already have been awarded this honor. I am choosing the following eight for this time:

Hermine

Marie

Jaqi

Wil

Bev

Simone

Louise

Ginger

Gothic Arches - Celebration

Sunday Gothic Arches challenge this week is Celebration! I found this image of a little girl celebrating her first birthday. I can't quite decide if she's happy with her buggy cake or not.

The background is alcohol inks. The balloon stamp is PSX. The colors are Le Plume brush inks, embossed with Stamp-n-Stuff Stardust.

One Stop & SaWo Challenges

Saturday's Workout this week is using a split negative technique as its theme. I am combining my rendition of that technique described here in my One Stop Craft challenge entry.

Art Creations Friday Challenge

This is a new challenge, Art Creations Friday, where we are given an image or background to use in making a piece of art. The woman in this card was the image given this week. I had trouble keeping the image sharp, since it came from the internet as 72 pixels. Maybe someone can cue me in how they are getting a sharp image.

Cowboys/West

Theme Thursday's challenge this week is Cowboys or American West. I have chosen as my focal image a magazine picture of Teddy Roosevelt, whose 150th anniversary of his birth was October this year. The group of cowboys shown here are known as the "Rough Riders" led by Col. Roosevelt. An article on the Spanish American War Centennial Website refers to them as the "First United States Volunteer Cavalry, made up of an odd but effective assemblage of Western cowboys and Frontiersmen, and Eastern athletes and sons of prominent citizens."

My background is the bandana technique, where I stamped my design in Stazon over a Moon Shadow mist treated card stock, and outlined that design in white pen.

Sketch Challenge 38

A sketch challenge is following a set design and creating one's own piece of art using this pattern. This week's challenge for Tuesday Sketch was fairly simple but filled with wonderful possibilities. Here is my entry. The ivory background was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder. The dark background is misting of Moon Glow Shadow mists.

The photo is of my grandmother. It is ok to rotate the design.

Craftaway a Sunday - Heritage

Heritage is the theme for Craft-away-a-Sunday challenge. Here is my twinchie of my maternal great- grandmother, who died as a young woman. Her sister married the widower and raised my grandmother, my great aunt, and my great uncle as her own children.

I have included a thimble and some yarn since that generation of women did a lot of hand sewing, crocheting and knitting.

Gothic Arches - silhouettes

Sunday's gothic arches challenge has as its theme this week: silhouettes. For my arch's background I'm using some paper I made with bits and pieces of pictures from magazines, tissue paper, etc. I smeared on different colors and wiped most of it back off. The silhouette is made with StaZon and Purple Onion and Rubber Stampede stamps.

Sketch Saturday

Again I am trying one of the sketch challenges. I don't know why this is so hard for me. Already I have thrown out one whole card and bits and pieces from another unsuccessful attempt. Here is my entry for this week's Sketch Saturday challenge. Two kinds of embossing are on this card. I used the Cuttlebug folder and pasta machine to get the dry embossing. Everything that is gold was embossed using clear ink and fine gold embossing powder.

One Stop Craft Challenge - Pretty Petals

Last night I was just playing around in the art room with my inks and mists and created the background for this greetings card. I stamped my flowers in  clear embossing ink. The color of the pretty petals may be a bit unusual. When I have a small bit of embossing powder left over, I drop it into a tiny jar. This is the mixture that I have to date. It has some opaque ruby color, some clear, some fine gold, and some sapphire angel wings by Moon Glow.

My husband while cleaning out his fly-tying materials discovered some gold glitter he wasn't apt to use and he gave it to me. So I added some floor polish to the surface of my background and sprinkled in the glitter.  I finished off the card with some acrylic varnish, to make sure the glitter didn't migrate. I wish the shine showed up in the scan.

The theme for One Stop Craft Challenge  is Pretty Petals. Check out all the other beautiful entries and examples.

Saturday's Workout - String technique

Saturday's Workout 's theme for this week's challenge was a bit of real work. First I took my ATC size card stock and wrapped thread around and around in various directions. Then I took my brayer and rolled it over the threaded card. What happened was that the brayer actually coated the thread with ink and the ink lines stamped onto the white card. This was not the idea of the challenge.

So next I took a card and wrapped knitting yarn around in the same manner. This time I sprayed the card with sepia Moon Shadow mist. When I removed the yarn, I had nice, white lines like I was supposed to have. The ATC South Africa was made using this background.

Theme Thursday - Bird(s)

Thursday is the day of the week when I have the least number of daytime hours for art. I hope my entry in this challenge is ok with the artists who have poured hours into their work today.

This ATC consists of the inside of a security envelope glued to cardstock and stamped with 3 stamps in StaZon.

The theme for Theme Thursday challenge this week is Bird(s). Other entries can be seen here.

Created by Hand - Alcohol Inks

I love alcohol inks and have had fun with them for a couple of years now. Last year I got two different sets of Adirondack AI for Christmas. I also have made my own by using food and fabric dyes with isopropyl alcohol. Created by Hand challenge has alcohol inks as its theme this week.

My background started out as a satin finish photo paper which I ran through the pasta machine in a cuttlebug folder to get that lovely swirl design. I then sprayed the sheet with my green AI. It looked gaudy, so I sprayed some yellow AI on it. It still looked pretty loud, so I hit it again with some red AI. Then I took a piece of toweling and dabbed some of the ink back off. I am really excited by the brownish background. The little kids are my mother's first cousins, the Weir children.

Blog Inspiration - Blue and Red

Recently I saw a post on Patty''s blog where she used the inside of a security envelope in her background. I thought: what a super neat idea. I must try that.

Here is my Li'l Redhead used in a greetings card with the security envelope background. Thanks Patty. More about my creation, Li'l Redhead, in yesterday's post.

The theme for Arty Girlz this week is to use something in someone else's blog to inspire us. Other art creations for AG can be seen Here.

This also fits for the Crazy Amigo challenge whose theme is blue and red.

Li'l Redhead in the Snow

A few years ago I created this little girl image as a tribute to my beautiful red-headed granddaughter. I love to have her doing all sorts of normal, everyday things. This is the first wintertime activity I've done. All the other cards have her in a straw hat and Mary Jane shoes. 

I am entering this card that I made this afternoon in the Craftaway a Sunday challenge, whose theme is "Let it Snow!"

More on Li'l Redhead can be seen HERE . And HERE.

Saturday Challenges

Two Saturday challenges are shown in this card. Saturday's Workout theme is old paper. One Stop Craft theme is hidden message. 

The outside of the card was done in Moon Shadow mists.
The tree is stamped in green and embossed in clear powder.

Theme Thursday - Happy or Happiness

Happiness or Happy (something) is the theme for today's Theme Thursday. I have chosen to make a Happy Christmas card using a background of Moon Shadow mist of fuchsia color. I stamped some flourishes in white and brown with a Purple Onion stamp. Since I have yet to own any Christmas stamps I used my pine tree stamp.

Tuesday CBH - Black and Brown

Tuesday's Challenge for Created by Hand is to use black and brown in our art this week. This 3"x5" Skinny was made by misting some off-white card stock with fuchsia Moon Glow Shadow. The Moon Shadow products have walnut ink in them. I then did a Sheer Heaven® transfer of my ancestor Sallie Rhea on the lower half. The top text was handwritten in black ink and is a quote from Charlotte Bronte: "The human heart has hidden treasures..."

Gothic Arches - Vintage Children

Our challenge with Gothic Arches this week is to use Vintage Children. Here is an ATC I made from an advertising postcard I received in the mail. I get a lot of my clip art from Graphics Fairy and from Dover Publications. I'm not sure where this child came from but I love the image. Some of the flourishes are from a Purple Onion Designs stamp and some of them are hand-drawn.

Craft-a-way a Sunday Stripes

The theme for the Craft-a-way a Sunday this week is stripes. I have this lovely Miss Elizabeth's Leaves paper by Chartwell Inc that I wanted to use. It is color coordinated so all the papers in the packet go together. I thought this looked like autumn when the summer birds fly away and the winter birds begin to drift in. This is a 3x5" (Skinny) collage. The bird stamp is Hampton Art and was a gift from my friend Judy in Illinois.

One Stop Craft Challenge #2

The second One Stop Craft Challenge is to use anything with wings in our art today. My favorite stamp is my PSX angel stamp, which I have used here. The background is a failed attempt to use the waxed paper technique. I used glossy photo paper instead of card stock, and it did not work. The waxed image didn't show up so I took a baby wipe and spread the color of the distress inks (lavendar and rose) around on the surface. The angel was stamped in brick red, but I didn't like the look. I didn't want it solid black, either, so I just embossed parts of the angel in black. It may look weird to some of you, but I like the look. "Joy" and the flourish are hand drawn. The size of this piece is 2" x 2".

SaWo - Waxed Paper Technique

Today's challenge for Saturday's Workout was done by a fascinating resist technique using ordinary waxed paper. First I ran a piece of the waxed paper through my pasta machine with a cuttlebug folder for the background swirls. Then I took two glossy card stock pieces with the shiny sides towards the waxed paper, making a "sandwich". I dry ironed this leaving a wax impression on both the shiny sides of the glossy card stock. I applied Distress brick red ink with a brayer over the card stock.

The image is my grandmother.