Take a Word - Vintage

I just put this on my non-challenge blog so I think it is new enough to use for the Take a Word challenge.

Aino posted a canvas background she had made as a freebie for us to use. I loved the colors she used. They looked so vintage to me. I took a photo from my vintage relatives folder and changed the color to match the background. I used some of my own digital brushes as well as one of Annika von Holdt's. The gorgeous lace in the corner is a freebie from Junibears.

Art Cards and One Stop

Art Cards' theme is colorful background.
One Stop's theme is ATCs.

My background is gold metallic gift wrap that I sprinkled with 4 colors of alcohol ink and let dry. I then embossed it in a cuttlebug folder. The flowers are from some designer paper. The 8 petal punched flower is also from gold wrapping paper. The dragonfly was stamped in StaZon onto gold wrapping paper and cut out. Only his body is glued down.

Edit: I have added this to the Catch the Bug challenge.

Art Creations Friday

Here is my art for Art Creations Friday.

Tag it On - Make a Statement

Dragon Lady's Tag it On Challenge has "Make a Statement" as its theme this week. I have use a music background stamp and a quote from Shakespeare. The background paper is some designer paper from a pad I got at Christmas.

Rainbow Lady - Beary Good

Beary Good is the theme for Rainbow Lady's Challenge for this week. This is a tag made using some stick-ons from K&Co. The bear is my stamp. I have paper pieced the bear and the frame.

Dezinaworld - Hues of Blues

Dezinaworld Spot Prize challenge's theme is Hues of Blues. The first one is a tag I made tonight using a piece of curtain cloth (penguins) glued to a background of blue cardstock. The chipboard corners were heat embossed in Stampendous blue/gold. The part of the tag that has Live was part of a watercolor.

The second entry is a card I made some time ago but haven't sent yet. These penguins are from a magazine, not curtain cloth.

Tag Tuesday - Valentine

Louise at Kard Krazy has set the theme for Tag Tuesday this week as Valentines. This has punched out hearts, a scrap of shiny Christmas paper, and a new stamp from Michaels. The background is made from spraying through some sequin waste with mica mists.

Crazy Amigo - tag

This is my entry for Crazy Amigo (tag). Earlier today,  Blogspot would not work for me so I have posted this on my non-challenge blog too.

Take a Word - Botanical

I took a course in Botanical Illustration at the local botanical garden and produced this one basil leaf painting after a full week's course. The layers of very thin watercolor had to be built up to produce the color you see here. Some of the areas have as many as 15 layers applied with a brush of about 3 hairs, well, maybe 4 or 5 hairs.

I decided at that point that botanical illustration, as lovely as it is, was not my cup of tea. So I present my basil leaf here for Take a Word challenge in pride, not for the end result but for the enormous effort it took.

I used a drawing of an iris to make a digital brush, which I have printed all over the background of this painting.

The watermark was produced by me using one of the flourishes I saw on Dover Publications.

Gothic Arches - Queen

OK, maybe this is cheating. I just stuck the "crown" atop one of the Dover freebie images. The arch is one of the beautiful arches that Nicecrane Designs has in their store.

Gothic Arches - Queen

Edwardian Era - So Artful Challenges

This woman was given as an inspiration for the So Artful Challenges this week. She is of the Edwardian era. This oil painting is one I did several years ago of the "old home place." The house was built in 1908 for my grandmother by her loving husband. I was born there as well as my mother, who is represented by the little girl by the wagon.

Art Cards - Wipes Background

Art Cards' theme this week is using wipes as backgrounds. Here are my two examples.

Highland Fling - Rainbow Lady's Challenge

SCOTLAND -  The very word sets my heart to beating faster. I'm quite sure I will never get back there, but the memories of the two trips I have made there are very dear to me.

Highland Fling is the theme for Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog this week.

My digital card is a composite of three photos we made. The top one is of the beautiful highlands; the second one is something we found amusing. Two vehicles were passing each other on a road built for one. The lower picture is me in front of Culzean Castle, where we were fortunate enough to stay for a short visit.

The plaid shown is MACNAUGHTEN, the clan with which my family sept, WEIR, was allied. We were shown the WEIR tartan while we were in Scotland, but I haven't found where I have stored that information. :-( Another side of the family was REID, associated with the ROBERTSON clan.

Fabric Tag

These trees were stamped and heat embossed onto an alcohol inked glossy cardstock. I cut them out and adhered them to this scrap of fabric.

This began as a Christmas card to someone in Croatia I used to swap ATCs with. Apparently she had moved because my card came back to me. I found her Facebook and left a message but I didn't hear back. So, I have disassembled the card to make this tag for Wednesday Stamper (tags) and Tag it On (fabricate it, use words).

Tag Tuesday - Created by Hand

This tag is for Created by Hand - Stencils/Inventions and for Tag Tuesday -  Winter. I used the a brass stencil to dry emboss the snowflake design. The 3 small snowflakes were punched out from the background paper and glued to the foreground.

Take a Word - Butterflies

This is the first time I've entered the Take-a-Word challenge. I'm trying to use my paintings in my mixed media entries, and this watercolor iris is one of mine. The two butterflies are png images I made from photos of my glass suncatchers. My beautiful custom watermark was designed by Doodle Pantry.

Wednesday Stamper - Music

Wednesday Stamper's theme is Music.

Thank you, Doris

I have just received this delightful award from my friend Doris in Germany. I always appreciate other artists, who like my work and who leave comments to let me know. Doris  has passed this award on to me. She received it from another artist who liked her work. I am to send it to 3 - 5 other artists whose work I like. These should be new bloggers (although Doris and I are not new bloggers!) or artists with not a huge following. I am sending mine on to the following because I want others to see the great work that they do, not that they don't have followers or that they are new to blogging:
Sue
Miria
Jeannie

Artekarten - Play Date Cafe

Artekarten - faux wood
Play Date Cafe - given colors

Background made using method shown on this blog.
Doors thanks to Deb.
Cherub thanks to Patty.

Winter Scene Card

This card is for two challenges for Thursday:
Rainbow Lady's Challenge - winter sketch
Colour Create _ pink, blue, grey, and white.
I am reminded again as I look at this pitiful entry just why I do not do sketches. That is just not my style. The scene is a watercolor pencil sketch.
The pink scallops are a strip of lace.
The snowflakes are punched out from white paper.

I got this delightful scene from Dezinaworld's Freebies. I have used Photoshop Elements to adjust the colors to mainly pink, blue, grey, and white.

Tag it On - Face the Music

Tag it On's theme this time is: Face the Music. I guess this is open to interpretation so I just chose to do music and a face.

My background is golden color cardstock that I ran through the music cuttlebug folder. I then treated it to some smears of brown distress ink and then some buffing gold. I decided to do a new rendition of my Li'l Redhead for this tag, using Prismacolor watercolor pencils as well as some Derwent pencils.

You can see it enlarged by clicking on the image.

The music stamp in the upper right side is from a background stamp with no identifying marks on it.

The 3 Muses - Nature's Creatures

The 3 Muses challenge for this week is Nature's Creatures. This is a pastel painting I made a few years ago. The custom watermark is from Doodle Pantry.

Tag Tuesday - Created by Hand

This tag is for two challenges:
      Tag Tuesday - a bit of fabric
      Created by Hand - glitter/snow

The background is alcohol inks on a piece of shirt box cardboard.
The snowflakes are stamped in clear ink and embossed with white powder, and then they were embossed with angel wings e.p.
The penguin is a snippet from leftover fabric from some curtains I made for my granddaughter.

So Artful

So Artful challenge today uses this gorgeous woman image in mauve and pink. I extended the background and added some of the Annika von Holdt brushes..

Art Creations Friday

For the Art Creations Friday challenge we were given the very lovely painting by William Bouguereau above to use as our inspiration. I have taken the painting along with a lace background that June has let me use and made them into a greetings card. These were done digitally, but I plan to print it out to use.

Rainbow Lady - It's All New to Me

The something new that I did for the Rainbow Lady's challenge is faux tile. I just got the tutorial from Splitcoast Stampers today for creating this. It worked out pretty well, I think. The instructions can be found here.

Theme Thursday - Vintage Children

My entry for Theme Thursday's challenge "Vintage Children" has a background made using the magazine technique. I learned of this technique from Silvia. It is quite similar to one I saw on Art Techniques, a Yahoo group, done by Sherre.

The lovely vintage miss is from Dezinaworld. The butterfly is a png image I made from a photo of mine.

The 3 Muses - Old Fashioned

Here is the email birthday card I sent to my brother-in-law yesterday. This is a picture of the old homestead where I was born. It was built around 1908 for my grandparents. My mother, the oldest child, was born here in 1909. These two gentlemen are my oldest uncle and my youngest uncle, both born here too. Uncle Robert lived into his late 60s. Leslie unfortunately was killed in a car accident when he was in the 8th grade.

The Three Muses has as its theme his week: Old Fashioned. Uncle Robert's cap and his wonderful new car behind him are both pretty old fashioned, indeed.

I love this picture. The room on the far right was part of the wrap-around porch till the sons put up clapboard, no insulation, to form a room for the growing family. That was my room when I was a teenager. In winter it was often below freezing in temperature, but we had lots of homemade quilts to pile on the bed.

Tag Tuesday - Mosaic

Here is my mosaic tag for Tag Tuesday this week. All the snippets are from magazines and catalogs. I did it Louise's way with the packing tape.

Fun with ATCs - ATC Dolls

My ATC was made using a photo of my daughter's favorite dolls. The ones with hair have strange "do's" because she carried her dolls caveman style. Left to right are Tabitha, Buttercup, and Bitsy Baby.

The topic for Fun with ATCs is ATC dolls, and I thought immediately of this photo. The background is one I made using some Photoshop Elements, printed out and then put back onto the computer to combine with the babies' photo. I really think the ATC is supposed to BE a doll, not use a doll. Sorry if I am too far off the topic.

So this is a digital ATC using real photos and paper art I have on my computer.

The second photo is one I have now added, hopefully conforming more to the spirit of the challenge. The green cardstock is 2.5x3.5".

So Artful - Celebrate!

Celebrate! is the theme for this week's So Artful challenge.

I had made some prayer cards for my Sunday school class members, but the ink smeared on some of them. Not being one to waste glossy cardstock I decided to dab on alcohol inks and blender fluid. I liked the effect even though the colors didn't turn out very celebratory.

We have so much to celebrate. Especially life itself. The dragonfly in my card represents freedom. The flower represents beauty, which is all around us.

Truthfully, I'm not in a mood for celebrating. On Thursday I lost another of my buddies from my adult Sunday school class. That's 2 in 2 months. However, we will celebrate Robert's life tomorrow at the memorial  service and be happy that we were fortunate to have known him.

The text underneath the alcohol inks is from Isaiah 43, my favorite (at this time)  chapter in the Old Textament