Compendium in Yellow, Orange, and Red

Hello crafters!  I got a little time to get inky today, so decided to combine two challenges.... Linda's Compendium of Curiosities Week 7 and Gingersnap Creations' Color Challenge - Yellow, Orange, and Red.  For Linda's challenge, we were to use Tim Holtz's Tinted Vision Fragments technique (shown on page 55 of his Compendium of Curiosities book).  The Gingersnap color challenge took me out of my box, 'cuz I rarely use orange outside of Hallowe'en, LOL!

Anyway, for this card, I used a beautiful fairy image from Oxford Impressions' Fairy Sweets plate, which I colored with Copics, and trapped her inside a round fragment, using Currant and Cranberry alcohol inks for the technique.  The flowers in the foreground are Magenta's Dogwood Bloom, and the clear embossed ones in the background are from Close to My Heart (the Treasure Life set, which was a special one month... don't know if it's still available).  The other background stamps I used are from the Glitz Design "Distressed" set.  I used lots of Distress Inks (scattered straw, mustard seed, wild honey, spiced marmalade, and fired brick).  A touch of Diamond Stickles went in the middle of the dogwoods for a little fairy sparkle.  Hmmmm.. I guess that's it.  I gotta tell ya, I had tons of fun using these warm, bright colors - way outside my box, but I had fun out there, tee hee!

Hope you're having a crafty weekend!

Christmas Colors in July....

......that's the challenge Louise has given us over at Kard Krazy for this week's Tag Tuesday challenge.  We are to use red and green - with a theme of anything *but* Christmas!  I pulled out the beautiful Soul of the Rose plate from Oxford Impressions, and took a little artistic license with this image by reddening her roses.  I stamped the lovely Waterhouse lady on matte coated cardstock, then colored her with Copics.  I added some cool diecut paper to the bottom, and did some distressing and stamping and adding of rub-ons.  I thought this charm from T!m's collection was the perfect sentiment.

Hope you'll have a chance to play along this week!

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!

PDCC #38 with Artistic Outpost

It's been ages since I've had a chance to play in the Play Date Cafe Challenge, but this one was simply too fun to miss!  This week, Play Date Cafe has challenged us to use this gorgeous color inspiration, *and* they are sponsored by one of my very favorite stamp companies, Artistic Outpost.

The images are from two Artistic Outpost sets that work beautifully together - Bluebird and Birds of a Feather.  I got out lots of inks - alcohol, distress, dye, Brilliance - and simply got inky, trying out different techniques and color combos. The green background is alcohol inks on glossy paper, run through one of Tim's new Alterations texture plates. I stamped the egg text in a dark dye ink, then went over the top of it with some distress inks and a little of the light purple Brilliance ink, to give it a shimmer.  The strip with the text and birdies was stamped in Brilliance ink (text) and dye ink (Memento).  Finally, for the main image, I stamped in the dark purple dye ink, then went over it with distress inks.  My fingers are purple and likely to stay that way for a while!

The little music charm is actually one of Tim's typewriter charms with a little punched out piece of vintage sheet music in it (a 1/2 inch hole punch does the trick).  A little twine ties it together.

Hope you get a chance to get inky today!

Tag Tuesday Challenge #59 - Hearts

The challenge this past week at Tag Tuesday was to make a tag with hearts.  Aaaahh, a heart challenge, turns one's thoughts to love, romance, passion, beheading, Hallowe'en.... No?  Then you haven't gotten your hands on the Graphic 45 Hallowe'en in Wonderland papers, LOL!  I've been sooo itching to use these, and I've done it just by chance.  You see, I had every intention of joining in on Linda's Compendium of Curiosities challenge last week, which was to use distress embossing powders, but it went horribly wrong.  You can see a bit of it in the form of the scrolls around the outside of this tag, but the dirty secret lies beneath the images.... scary, I tell ya.  So instead, I decided to salvage what I could of my Compendium of Curiosities disaster and go the Curiouser and Curiouser route instead! (......oh, shhh, I can hear you groaning from here!!! ROFL! Yes, somewhat bonkers today ;))  Thus a heart-filled Alice Hallowe'en tag with a little distress emboss stamping, a coupla bats, some distressing, some inking... you get the picture.  This will go on some treats for the kids come October if I don't lose it before then.

Will try to stop neglecting the blog so badly!!  My daughter is now required to be at school at 7:20, my son at 9:15, then I get in line to pick up my daughter at 2:00, my son at 3:30 - back and forth, and it's making me totally zonk out by 10:00 pm, which is when I used to start crafting.  Gotta get a new rhythm going ;).  Plus I've been neglecting all of your beautiful blogs - I'm determined to visit soon.  Hope your Monday has been sweet - back again tomorrow hopefully.