word play - F

Hi friends.  Another spread in my word play journal.  I told my daughter that this was my 'F' word, and she just snickered.  But no bad language here.  My word for the letter F is friends.  You can find all the completed pages here. 

I wanted to make something for the weekly challenge on the OWSE facebook page, I decided to to make another spread for this journal.  There were some choices for colors, and I chose green and yellow.  This is really not one of my favorite color combinations, but I guess I need to step out of my box once in awhile.

Although the background of the pages was done previously, I added more color with both paint and ink.  Then I did a bunch of stamping and added some texture with modeling paste and a butterfly stencil (Red Lead).  In a couple of places, the ink underneath bled through the modeling paste, so I went over that with white acrylic paint.  It didn't completely cover, but I thought it wasn't too noticeable, since the background is pretty busy anyway, and I was going to cover up a lot of it with the dolls and the words. 

I used two of my new Prima mixed media dolls by Julie Nutting.  I have a hard time remembering the names.  I first glued a page from an old encyclopedia onto a piece of this card stock and then stamped the dolls on that and cut them out.  I paper pieced the clothes and the hair on one. 

Behind the dolls are die cuts of a French pastry doily die (Cheery Lynn Designs) and a Sizzix scalloped circle. 

The words were printed on my computer and cut out.  The edges on everything are sponged with vintage photo distress ink.  The letter F is done with zentangles or zendoodles, whichever you want to call it.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

word play - D

Good morning, my friends.  Well, I'm moving along slowly with this alpha journal.  I made this spread for an art journal challenge at OWSE Yahoo Group.  The challenge was to use swirls and circles.  I love things that are round.  I have a bunch of different types of decorative spheres.  But using circles on my spread was not all that simple.  There are quite a few layers of paint on this - the need to cover over and redo.  I'm not entirely thrilled with this one, but I think that's OK, because it's all part of the journey.

As with all the pages in this journal, there are partial pages from an old book somewhere in there down underneath all the paint.  I used paint on stencils.  The scalloped circles were a kind of mustard color, which I really didn't like, so I sponged over them with purely pomegranate ink.  I like the color combination, but the whole thing is a little wild for me.

The letter 'D' is zentangle/doodling.  The words are computer generated.

The butterflies were stamped on a tag which I had used to wipe up some extra ink from my craft sheet.

I used a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die for the flourishes and the doily is a die from Cheery Lynn Designs.

To see more pages from this journal, click the word play tag.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Now I need to run.  I have a class in an hour & need to get myself ready.  Have a great day.

and the winner is...

Happy Sunday, everyone.  I stayed up way too late last night.  I was at a virtual slumber party at OWSE Yahoo group.  What fun.  Although I entered the chat room late & totally missed the first challenge, I had a great time.  I still have time to make something for the challenge that I missed.  We played bingo and had a couple of other challenges and just spent some time chatting.  One challenge was a drawer box.  I made the basic shell, but still need to decorate it. 

The third challenge was a bit crazy.  We were given a list of things we needed to include in our project and one hour to complete it.  The first one done, with a picture uploaded to the gallery and having everything on the list won a prize.  And guess what.  I won.  I finished in 30 minutes.  Since I have a tendency to play with techniques, or make something and then decide it doesn't work for my current project, I always have a lot of bits and pieces that are all ready to put on a project. 

So for this challenge, that is exactly what I did.  I grabbed a pre-made journal page background and scraps and bits of things on the list - dry embossing, wet embossing, an image, buttons, circles, die cuts, lace, handmade flower, trim, a key.  There were only a couple of things that I had to actually create.  I needed to punch out a heart, because I couldn't find one.  I needed a banner, so I cut one and wrote on it.  And I needed to add some bling.  I can't believe how quickly it all went together and actually didn't look too bad. 

I will use it in an art journal.  I did, however, add a little bit of doodling before taking the picture for this post.  I think that adds a lot.

I appreciate you stopping by.  Have a great week.

and DONE!

Hi my friends.  I can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday.  I guess I got so busy making the cards for the fan club fun on SCS, time just whooooshed by.  I'd be so tired when I finished for the night, that I had a hard time keeping awake long enough to upload my cards on SCS, nodding off in front of the computer and finding something like this -> dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd on my screen.  And now here it is after midnight early Sunday morning.  So here are a few more cards I made in the last few days.  There were 37 challenges total and I combined a number of them in different cards, but still made 22 I think.  I won't put them all in one post, but will spread them out over the next few days. 

But first, I'll show you the one I made for the inspiration challenge today, which was inspired by these utterly scrumptious doilies. 

I used a doily die (French pastry by Cheery Lynn Designs) and cut three, one white, one tangerine, and one pink passion.  The colored ones I cut in half and used on the outer edges of the card.  The white one I stamped with Hero Arts lace background, which I colored select portions of with markers.  I used several punches and dies to layer, with a crochet flower and button on the top.

And then here are some of the Dare to Get Dirty challenge cards. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today. 

you've got style

Hi, my friends.  I seem to have my days mixed up this week.  I guess that  usually happens when there is a holiday.  It actually feels like Friday today. 

Today's ways to use it challenge on SCS is to use doilies, so I pulled out my French pastry doily die from Cheery Lynn Designs and die cut a couple of doilies from white card stock.  I also cut a couple of dress forms with my Tim Holtz sewing room die.  I had this idea to make a dress using the doilies and hang it on the dress form.  There was a lot of figuring and manipulating involved, so this ended up taking me all morning to do, but I'm really happy with how the dress turned out.  I can see where I should have added some other dark accents to balance the sentiment, but otherwise I really like it. 

The background paper is really old and was pulled out to match the bashful blue ink sponged on the dress.  I also embossed it with Swiss dots embossing folder. 

The top and base of the dress form is colored with gold metallic rub-on cream and then shaded with vintage photo distress ink.  I added a double layer of card stock behind the dress to pull it away from the dress form a tiny bit. 

All the paper started out white, except for the blue dp.  The frame, which is die cut with fancy ovals from Spellbinders, was sponged with tea dye and vintage photo. 

I added some pearls to the dress to fancy it up a bit. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Your comments are always welcome and appreciated. 

double inspiration

Hello my friends. I do have to tell you that my daughter loved the card I made her (see my last post).

Today I made two cards for the inspiration challenge on SCS. I found a couple of things on the selected sight that I just loved and knew that I'd be able to use a couple of new dies that I just got from cheery lynn designs.

The first card was inspired by this wonderful lacy shoe. The lacy leather reminded me of doilies, and one of the dies called French Pastry looks just like a doily, so it was perfect. I pulled out some chocolate cardstock and die cut the doily. These dies are just gorgeous, but they are very, very detailed and require a lot of work punching out all the tiny little holes. But to me it's worth the effort.

To accent the chocolate, I decided to use a card base of groovy guava, sponged with cherry cobbler. Then I die cut a lacey circle from ivory cardstock and stamped filigree (SU) in groovy guava on it. I sponged the edges with the same ink.

The flowers are a digital image called Flowers Set from squigglyfly, which I colored with copic markers and cut out. I wanted a little more color on the flowers, so I sponged the edges with cherry cobbler ink. The leaves are from all natural (SU), stamped on certainly celery and then I pretty much changed the color with some copic markers and sponged the edges with always artichoke. Then I tucked them in behind the flowers.

The sentiment is from A Muse, stamped in cherry cobbler.

My second card is based on this beautiful butterfly bracelet. I started with some very old textured gold wrapping paper. Since it curls rather stubbornly and is really difficult to straighten out, I glued it to some cardstock with tacky glue to make it easier to work with. I then die cut it with my Oriental Butterfly doily die. I also took a strip of the gold and scored it using my Scor-Pal to imitate the bracelet band. I wanted to make the gold look more vintage, so I painted over it with black acrylic paint and then lightly wiped over it with a paper towel to remove the paint from the surface, but not the grooves or the texture.

Using a black card base, I added a red oval behind the butterfly, some red ribbon and a red jewel for accents.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.