Enchanted

I liked that little girl in pink so much that I have used her again. This time she is the focus of my "enchanted" entry for Mixed Media challenge.

The girl and her background are from Dover Publications. The background is a Monet painting.
The quote is from Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985), author of "A Southern Garden."

Optimistically Pink

I hope this has enough pink in it to qualify for the theme that One Stop has set: Optimistically Pink. My images came from Dover Publications freebies.

Art Cards Challenge - Wax

I hope this qualifies for Art Cards Challenge: Wax. I crumpled up some waxed paper onto a card stock and pressed it with a hot iron. Then I sprayed with purple, rose, and blue home made mica mists. The bird is a See D's clear stamp.

4x4 Friday - Mantra

Mantra: originally from Buddhism and Hinduism, but now is also used as a statement or slogan repeated frequently.

Being Christian, rather than Buddhist or Hindu, I have to go with the second idea, that of a slogan repeated frequently. I can't think of any other word that would do better as a slogan than "love".

Click here for other entries into 4x4 Friday challenge.

The background is one that I created using home made glimmer sprays and mists. The image is part of "The Soul of a Rose" by John William Waterhouse and is taken from Dover Publications freebies collection.

Rainbow Lady - Unusual Materials

Rainbow Lady's Challenge this week is to produce art by stamping on unusual materials. I just this week picked up a couple of paint chips from the home improvement store. These were two colors on each card and were showing paint colors for cedar shakes or shingles. Here is one of the cards that I stamped and embossed in white using See D's clear stamps.

Theme Thursday - Flourish

For my entry to Theme Thursday's challenge of Flourish, I used one of the resist backgrounds I made this week. I had scanned it to the computer so the rest of the ATC was made digitally. The fashionable lady and the newspaper came from DezinaWorld. The butterflies are from a digital stamp I had made from a picture of a monarch butterfly.

Insects - Things with Wings

This looked like a perfect opportunity to create a 2-in-1 entry to challenges.

Crazy Amigo Challenge's theme is Insects; Created by Hand Challenge's theme is Things that Fly.

My background is a shirt board that I sprayed with some homemade mica mists and some of the Moon Glow mists. 

Mixed Media Monday - Giggles

My lovely sister is laughing at her giggling granddaughter in the super-sized mortar board at the gd's graduation party. My background is one I made from my glimmer mists and a little gesso. I used two photos for this plus some digital brushes to finish it off. Mixed Media Monday has as its theme: giggles/laughter.

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries - So Artful

Life is just a bowl of cherries is the theme for the So Artful Challenge. My entry has "anachronism" written all over it. First this background was a Dover freebie of a Monet painting. Second the cherry tree story in George Washington's life happened supposedly when he was a boy. Therefore, the picture of Martha Washington is certainly out of place and time sequences. But there you are. I had this drawing someone did of Martha (Dover freebie) that I wanted to use.

The lyrics are to the song Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries as sung by Rudy Vallee.

4x4 Friday - Princess Raven

Princess Raven's background is one that I finished today after starting it a few days ago. I had laid down some acrylic paints and sprayed with various mists. Then I put the card stock face down onto the puddles. After it dried I didn't like all the gaudy red and yellow so I rubbed white gesso over some of it to tone it down. Then I sprayed with various Moon Glow colors.

My castle and blue basket of flowers are thanks to Dover. The girl is one of Nan's freebies. The crown is a freebie from Graphics Fairy. The raven was the result of googling.

Other entries can be seen at 4x4 Friday.

Art Creations Friday - Wil's Background

Wil at Art Creations Friday has produced for us a really gorgeous background that looks like stone. I decided to make it into a digital pattern and form a wall for this Dover geisha. The greenery is a digital brush. The character (Beauty - Beautiful) is the result of googling.

Theme Thursday - Girls

When I was a little girl my mother used to say this rhyme to me:

What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails.
That's what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice.
That's what little girls are made of.

This digital piece is the merging of two of Nan's freebies. I think it may be the same girl in two different pictures. This is my entry to the Theme Thursday challenge: Girls.

Tag Tuesday - Cute

Louise at Tag Tuesday has us trying to do a "cutesie" tag this week. This is most certainly a challenge for many of us. I have very few cute stamps and my first love is making backgrounds, so this was a head-scratcher. This is one of the backgrounds I made about a week ago. I have used some new clear stamps I got today at Michaels. The bunny and the my heart belongs to you are used stamps my son got for me on eBay.

TMTA - Exotic

My entry for the Think Monday Think ATCs challenge is this digital piece using the Taj Mahal image from Dover Publications.

SoArtful Challenge

This gorgeous background was given us by Soartful Challenges this week. Here is how I used it.

ACF and 4x4 Friday

Spirit of Love

The challenge for 4x4 Friday is to create a 4x4 art piece using the theme: Spirit.

I took the image provided by Art Creations Friday, removed the wings so that she is a real girl, not an angel, and used one of the cards I made earlier in the week for a background.

Rainbow Lady and Colour Create

Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog and Colour Create Challenge Blog inspired this card.

I used a background I had made a while back. It has the right colors for Colour Create (red, pink, chocolate, white, off white). I ran across this antique postcard that also has the right colors in it, so I have made my card with these elements and some red ribbon and pink heart and rose. In small letters at the upper right hand corner of the postcard are the words: St. Valentine's Day.

Theme Thursday - Flowers

Flowers, the theme for Theme Thursday's challenge this week, is one of my favorite things.

My background is one I made with acrylic paints and glimmer mists as I described in the post a couple of days ago. I scanned it to the computer and changed the colors a little. Next I took a digital stamp I had made of some stargazer lilies and stamped a huge white lily over the whole area. Next I stamped the Dover lilies in wine color. Lastly I chose one of Belinda's freebies, this adorable girl and put another lily in her hair.

Wednesday Stamper - Spoil Me

My ATC expresses several ways to "Spoil Me": flowers, love notes, and gemstones. Wednesday Stamper's theme is spoil me.

My background was created by placing on my craft sheet some acrylic paints and acrylic varnish misted with a hand-made glimmer mist. My stamps are clear See D's and are stamped with archival ink. The lace and bauble come from my stash.

Valentine and Arrow

My entry to Created by Hand (Valentines) and Crazy Amigos (Arrows) is shown here. Today with all the snow outside, I decided to just mess around in my art room. I put some acrylic paints and acrylic varnish down on freezer paper and dropped various pieces of paper and card stocks onto it. When the paints began to dry out I sprayed them with some home-made glimmer mists and kept making backgrounds. This is one of the backgrounds that resulted.

The stamps in the background are See D's Hearts and Love #50203. The stamp of the couple is from Hearts in Touch's Lovely Couples set.

Eternity ATC

Here is my simple digiATC made using one of my snow pictures and a Dover angel. I guess being in the last quarter of life gives me a different perspective of what the word "eternity" means.

Check out other eternity entries to the Think Monday Think ATCs challenge.

Gothic Arches - Crackle

I remembered that I had UTEE and could do the cracked glass technique so the top arch is not digital,  and is made with that technique and glazed with Omni-gel to hold all the cracked pieces together. The background was one of those papers used to protect the desk from sprays and mists of various alcohol inks, glimmer mists, etc. I stamped it with the feather and the bird stamps and embossed them in detail white EB.  It was at this point that I used the cracked glass technique.

The lower arch is one of my watercolors that I "crackled" via Photoshop Elements. The girl is one from ACF, I believe. See other crackle works at Gothic Arches.

Apple Green, Chocolate, Clotted Cream - One Stop Craft Challenge

Apple green, chocolate, and clotted cream sound so good together. As a food. And as a color combination. Here is my entry to One Stop Craft Challenge, which has these colors as its challenge this week.

My background was made by stamping my hand-carved leaf stamp with a variety of stamp inks. The rabbit stamp was given to me by my son and has no markings on it.  The bunnies were colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Art Creations Friday

I decided to give the image from Art Creations Friday more hair and another hat. She has just been to kiss the Blarney Stone and found a garden filled with beautiful Dahlias. She stopped to pick one of the blossoms and that's where I found her. The new hat came from Nan's freebies. The dahlia came from Dover freebies. The background is from Graphics Fairy. The original image comes from Rein's freebies.

Rainbow Lady's Challenge - Four Seasons

Here is my entry for Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog this week. The theme is the four seasons. We can either do a season or all seasons. I chose to represent by color the four seasons. Clockwise: starting in the upper left is spring, summer, winter, fall.

This technique is called Tamp-a-Tile and the tutorial can be found  on Anja's blog. 

Pink and Black - Theme Thursday

Jennifer is so tickled to find this gorgeous pink hat because it just exactly fits over her beehive hair style and doesn't muss up a single lock of hair.

I was browsing through my collected Dover images for something that said poodle skirt era and I came across a number of images called: fashions. True this young woman sported white where the pink is now, but it does seem that back in those days we did see pink and black together a lot.

The background started off as a photo of some flowers in a bouquet that I was given. I took the photo and made it into a tiled pattern, via Photoshop Elements. Then to conform to the theme of Theme Thursday which is pink and black, I converted the photo to black and white

The Three Muses Challenge - Birds of a Feather

My background for this piece was a wax resist that I made some time ago and scanned to the computer. The birds are from Dover freebies. The Three Muses Challenge this week is to use the theme of "birds of a feather."

Gingersnap Creations - embossing powder

My entry for Gingersnap Creations using embossing powder started with a glossy card stock. I used the fantastic brayer technique as shown in the newsletter from Technique Junkie. The white swirls are embossed in white ep and the text is stamped in a cranberry color ink and embossed with clear ep.

Tag Tuesday - A Touch of Red

Tag Tuesday's theme this week is "A Touch of Red." I'm not sure that I don't have more than a "touch". I hope this is ok for the challenge. I've been wanting to use the little mouse stamp someone gave me. (I don't do "cute" very well.) It looks to me like he's singing his little heart out to some lady mouse.

Paper Minutes & Created by Hand

With all this snow on the ground, I am ready for spring to come. So I decided to do a springlike entry for Paper Minutes (triangle) and Created by Hand Challenge (anything but square or rectangle). 

I started with a dark green Bazzill card stock and randomly placed two-sided green floral foil over the surface. I placed 3 ribbons on that. Next I colored with watercolor pencils a bunch of tulips I had stamped. I finished the tulips by clear embossing them.