Mini Canvas Swap

Yikes! A week since my last post.  Life happens, in a good way, though. :)  I had to make nine 4x4 canvases for our ATC/Mixed Media group this week, and it was definitely a creative adventure, since I'd never made a canvas before.  The theme was "Nature", so I dug out some seriously ancient vellum paper with butterflies on it, some genuinely old sheet music, and my new favorite Stampin' Up! stamp from the Elements of Style set.  (BTW, sorry for the horrible picture... it's been dark and stormy here for the last 2 days, and I had to take these pics with a flash - yuck!) 

First, I painted all of the canvases a gold-ish color, then set to work with my gel medium.  The first layer was the sheet music, then the flowers, which I stamped on white tissue paper and colored with colored pencils before applying them to the canvas.  Next came those devilish vellum butterflies, which really wanted to warp and wrinkle (duh... it's been a while since I've worked with vellum).  Luckily they are smoothing out on their own.  The last addition was Tim's fragments with Graphic 45 tag elements behind them.  I still need to wrap the sides in twine (since they are rather thick canvases, I think they need some textural interest around the sides).  Can't wait to see what the other gals have come up with!

One other little card project..... this incorporated last week's Compendium of Curiosities challenge, but I never posted it (yes, lame... I'll try to be better next time!).  It's a birthday card for my hubby, using a Crafty Individuals stamp, some glimmer mists, some embossing, some of Tim's new papers (lovin' the calendar paper, oh yes!), and the "43" numbers (also Tim's) covered in vintage text - that was the challenge part.

A coupla challenges you may want to check out..... Gingersnap Creations has posted a new color challenge - Yellow, Orange, and Red (celebrating the relentless summer sun, perhaps?).  Louise has the new Tag Tuesday challenge up, which is "Christmas Colors in July" - to use red and green, but NOT in a Christmas-themed way.  And finally, the lovely Linda Ledbetter has the Week 7 Compendium of Curiosities challenge up... and you won't believe the prize!!  I'm hoping to play along in all of these..... after having been such a bad, bad blogger, LOL!!  Happy Craftying, Peeps!