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.