An Homage to Veterans - Better Late Than Never

Happy new week to everyone! I want to share a Veterans Day tag with you today. It's one of my seasonal home decorations for my little art corner, so it's a two-sided tag.

Here is the front side. I did a lot of stamping: the tag topper, the fireworks, the sentiment Honor The Heroes. All were heat embossed. I colored the tag topper with my Tombow Markers because the Turquoise blue and Crimson red were the shades I was looking for.

I used some pre-printed canvas ribbon I've had forever on the bottom. The poppies are a die cut, also colored with my Tombows. The ribbon and twine tied at the top are all from my stash.

I love how the silver embossing powder makes those fireworks shine. I sprayed a few different shades of my Smooch Spritz shimmer sprays over the fireworks, quickly soaking up the excess with a paper towel, then gently rubbing the spray ink off the embossing as it acted as a resist. I believe I used silver, gold and turquoise sprays.

On the back side of the tag, I also stamped several old flags and heat embossed them all. I also stamped the VET and all the smaller words as well as another tag topper. Again, I colored the topper and flags with Tombows.

I sprayed a little gold shimmer spray on this side, but I was afraid I'd get major running of the markers, so you can barely see it on camera. 

  

So here you can see both sides of my tag together. I know it's a week late, but I have just had one of those weeks and weeks! Late on everything. It was something I wanted to get done, though, and will have in my decorations box next year to honor our many family, friends and all who have served for Veterans Day.

I am sharing this tag with the following challenges:

1. TAG TUESDAY - POPPIES

2. THREE MUSES - SPLASH OF TURQUOISE AND RED

3. FASHIONABLE STAMPING #141 - RESIST IT

4. CRAFTER'S CASTLE #11 - ANYTHING GOES + OPT. HOLIDAY

5. TRY IT ON TUESDAY - FRIENDS AND FAMILY

That's it for me for now. Hope to see you soon. May we all find some time to get inky, arty, and happy! xoxo

Sketchy Birthday Birds

Happy November! Wow, it's been two weeks since I have posted. My muse took a vacay but I think she's back now, part time at least.

My long-time art friend and I exchange holiday and birthday cards and it's her day coming up so this is the card I've made her. 

I have used Sketch #478 at Tuesday Morning Sketches and am joining in the sketch challenge. 

I also used the colors in Sunday Stamps' Challenge SSC191 (left) and birds on my collage sheet and die cuts for HLS-Mixed Media's Birds challenge.

I began with the patterned paper, some very old 7Gypsies that looks a lot like wallpaper for a shabby vintage look:

Circa 2005, lol.

I ink-distressed edges of the paper with Memento Potted Clay and London Fog, direct to paper. Used a corner punch on it, too. Some layering with card stock using Spellbinders Labels dies, and Spellbinders Birds on a Wire die cutting two different colors of card stock I then layered slightly offset, like a shadow. Since my collage sheet image (a freebie given me long ago) has all the sentiments on it, I went with the birds as the banner and the sentiment line in the sketch. I used baker's twine and adhered the card mat to SU cranberry card stock base using it as my neutral color since I needed to pick up that color in the image.

The back, using the negative die cut from the front label and my Avery Elle siggie stamp. 

And inside, a Crafty Secrets sentiment in a stamped boxed frame...SeeDee's, I believe. 

One last view.

I'd also like to enter A Vintage Journey's Paper Stash challenge with my card. 

That's it for me, hope to be back tomorrow or Tuesday. 

Thanks so much for dropping by and I hope we all have a great week! 

Until next time, xoxo

Happy Monday, Y'all!

 Happy Monday, Y'all!

EIGHT more Mondays is Christmas Eve! 

EEK!

Somewhere last year I'd read about a challenge to use a Halloween stamp as a Christmas stamp, but I never got around to doing it. So when the Jingle Belles challenge I try to always do announced a critter-centric theme and wrote "okay we're even allowing Christmas Monsters if you're in a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme", I said, hey, I'm gonna try that! I used a very old Third Coast Rubber Stamp of a black cat peeking out from a witch's legs, but I used Christmas colors and added a Santa hat and bow tie, shimmer and bling. How'd I do? Does it pass for a Christmas card? I mean, I guess even witches and black cats celebrate Christmas, right? ;-)

I followed this sketch and as I am not naturally gifted at Clean And Simple, I followed this sketch religiously! I think I succeeded. Hope so. The image sits in a Lawn Fawn Polaroid frame die cut, stamped with Versafine Clair and heat-embossed, and colored with Promarkers.

I used a Lawn Fawn stamp for the Santa hat and an Avery Elle bow tie stamp. I wanted a rich red ink, so I went with my Memento Luxe Love Letter and heat-embossed. Then I took a Poppy Promarker and colored. Even colored over the embossed bow tie to make it a richer and redder before fussy-cutting. Now I have 4 more of these each to use on future cards. While it wasn't THAT hard to cut out the hat, I ended up buying the dies to the hats stamp set last night. It was a good price on Amazon. :-)

The sentiment on the front is by Papertrey Ink. The sentiments I used inside the card are by Sweet n Sassy and Hero Arts.

And the Avery Elle siggie stamp on the back. I used a sheet of Crafters Companion shimmering card stock for the card base and that stuff is thick and crisp. Took heat embossing well. Scores like butter, too. Good stuff. Two gold sequins, some clear Wink of Stella on my image and some tri-color glitter ric-rac ribbon finished it off.

So I hope you like my Halloween-for-Christmas Critter sketch card. Glad I got that out of my system ;-) 

I am linking this card up to the following 5 challenges (I am limited to only 5 this time - waaaaa!):

1. Jingle Belles - Use an Animal (I used a cat)

2. CAS Colours & Sketches #295 - Sketch (and no more than 5 challenges total)

3. Just Add Ink #432 - Choose Two: Button, Bows, Bling (I chose a bow and bling)

4. Happy Little Stampers October - Anything Christmas Goes + Opt. Twist Ribbon

5. Rudolf Days Challenge October - Anything Goes Christmas

Okay, that does it for me today. 

Thanks for allowing me to share my art with you!

As always, I hope you have a great artsy week!

Until next time,

xoxoxoxo

CELEBRATING POE

Hello Saturday and hope it was a good TGIF!

 Seems like I just blogged and that was on Monday! Where does my time go?

I have another spread in my Puns and Roses Glue Book to share with you today, so that's where my time has gone this week. This is the 2nd of 3 spreads that began as one idea. As I was creating this one celebrating The Master of Halloween Macabre Edgar Allan Poe, I was remembering back to my childhood when I was introduced to Poe at my local Saturday morning movie theater Kiddie Show, watching all of those 1960's Vincent Price movies based on Poe's stories. 

Years later when I took a graduate course in American literature reading Poe, I breezed through it because I'd absorbed so much from those movies that reading him was fun. I'm planning to do a spread about all that at a later date in my Wake Me When It's Over all-about-me-themed art journal. For my spread here, though, I dealt solely with Poe wordplay as a way to celebrate him at t(HIS) time of year. Because, really, who DOESN'T associate Halloween with Poe?

My spread began with a 12x12 piece of Karen Foster scrapbook paper from 2004, cut down to fit my book. I bordered it using some Tim Holtz Halloween washi tape.

I used a Sakura clear/white glaze pen to cover the spider. Here you can see it changes color when the light hits it just right. The image of Poe and his signature is a Free Vintage DigiStamp collage sheet image, and I've stamped "nevermore" with a Collage Stuff rubber stamp and then inked the edge around in black. The "Poetic Licenses of Humor" is wordplay akin to what they do on Wheel of Fortune where they mash up two phrases: mine combines Poetic License with Sense of Humor. (And, you get why I used POEtic, right? heehee.) The red blood is a Martha Stewart border punch and the gothic border under Poetic Licenses is a Fiskars border punch.

For this spread, I used only one "real" (rubber) stamp. I used digital stamps, collage sheet images and images I found on the internet, all printed out on my LaserJet in grey scale at 600dpi on coated presentation paper. I like how it takes alcohol markers and direct-to-paper inking. Here you can see one of the digital stamps (Poe Bust by Ike's Art) which I colored with my Promarkers. Next to it is a Teesha Moore collage sheet image. I created the background circles with a finger sponge dauber and dye inks from my use-it-up box. The green October Afternoon alpha stickers got a workout and I got a lot of them used. More wordplay: POEriginal for Original and POEtender for Pretender. Of course, when I'd finished these, I also thought of ImPOEster (Imposter) and CoPOEcat (Copycat). I may handprint those later on the image like the nonsense words that are already on there, so I can remember them.

Ok, this section makes me chuckle. I found a file on my computer hard drive labelled Poe Graphics...stuff I'd saved here and there, including the caricature on the left and the Avalon Ballroom poster for Country Joe and the Fish. There really is quite a bit of Poe-inspired art out there. Loved how inking the poster made the words stand out more legibly! 

I really like this Ike's Art digital stamp, Candle Poe. I colored and fussy-cut and paired him with quoted lines from The Raven (internet graphic) and a USPS Poe stamp from my stash. I wrote Celebrating Poe with Gold Shadow and Silver Sakura gel pens.

I hope you liked my glue book spread and my Poe wordplay. 

I'm joining in the following challenges:

1. Ike's Challenge #113: ANYTHING GOES for Oct-POE-ber

2. Colouring in Scrapland: ANYTHING GOES / OPTIONAL TWIST (HALLOWEEN)

3. Morgan's Artworld Open Challenge #10: Anything Goes

4. Moving Along with the Times #83: Halloween

5. Try it on Tuesday: Trick or Treat Its Halloween

6. Art Journal Journey: Creature Comforts

7. SSS Monday: Halloween / Spooky

8. SSS Wednesday: Halloween / Spooky

9. That's Crafty: Spookalicious

10. Cardz 4 Galz #83: Let's Go Digital

11. Colour Crazy Week 42: Anything Goes

12. Happy Little Stampers Mixed Media: Men - Masculine Theme

13. Scrapbook Stamp Society #152: AG + Opt. Halloween

14. LTCCB #27: OCTOBER ANYTHING GOES

15. Through The Craft Room Door: Anything Goes

16. A Bit More Time to Craft #78: Anything Goes

17. Crafts Galore Encore October Anything Goes Challenge #56 

18. Crafty Gals Corner #177: Halloween Colours

That does it for me today. Thanks for allowing me to share my art with you!

Have a wonderful weekend and I will be back as soon as the glue sets on my next piece of art!

Until then, xoxoxo

FULL MOON HALLOWEEN

Happy Monday!

Today, I am sharing a glue-booked art journal spread, using deli and scrapbook paper, washi tape, heat-embossed and fussy cut stamped images, a printed quote off the internetz and some die cuts.

The idea for this spread began as a play on the double meaning of "full moon", so that meant it would go in my Puns & Roses journal and I would glue book it...dry paper collage, basically. (This journal is for all kinds of wordplay. Click HERE if you want to read the blog post about the recover and see all my pages in it so far.) I also wanted to enter it in multiple challenges that had creatures, plants and book pages as themes, in addition to the normal Autumn/Halloween themes.

My spread began with cutting down a piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper and adhering it with glue stick. I bordered all edges with washi tape.

I found a great graphic quote on the internet and printed it out. I then took a piece of deli paper and used the book text stamp by Bo Bunny to stamp in Pumice Stone Distress Ink and heat emboss it with clear powder. Then I tore the paper by hand, edged it with some white pencil, adhered with glue stick,  then dusted it and the moon with Pearl Perfect Pearls and set it with water.

I also used a Glitz book page text stamp (the middle stamp in the set shown) on the background of a Spellbinders Fancy Tag 2 die cut, using the same ink, AFTER I 'd stamped the die cut with a Third Coast Rubber Stamps sentiment that I'd stamped with black VersaFine Clair pigment ink and heat-embossed. The flying witch is also by TCRS (as well as both mooning witches). The ghost is a QuicKutz 2x2 Squeeze die. I colored the flying witch with Promarkers.

Speaking of mooning witches, here's their close-up and they are a couple of wicked creatures! Both are colored with Promarkers after being stamped, heat-embossed, then fussy-cut. The Spellbinders and Tim Holtz die cut leaves might look familiar, as I had them left over from my recent Fall Fantasy spread. Since every Halloween sound of my childhood included foot-crunching fallen leaves as we trick-or-treated, I just had to include some! They are laying on top of some Tim Tissue Tape.

Here are the two sets of Tim Holtz tapes from which I used for this spread.

This is my favorite little scenario here, all stamped, heat-embossed, colored and fussy-cut. The expressions are priceless and all the more cool to me because I used only the stamps I had on hand. Tissue tape peeking out from under die cut leaves here as well.

The pumpkin creature on the ground is from the Pink Persimmon Vintage Pumpkins set and the little girl witch and her pumpkin creature cohorts are from the Crafty Secrets Halloween set. I don't think any of these stamp manufacturers are still in business. All stamps I used are either rubber or clear.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the Halloween Full Moon!

I am linking up with the following challenges:

1. Art Journal Journey: Creature Comforts - I'm focusing on the creatures!

2. Fashionable Stamping Challenge #140: Book Pages, Stamped or Real - see content above for stamps used

3. Country View Challenge October: Plant-tastic - I have trees, leaves, pumpkins

4. Eclectic Ellapu: Fall

5. Frilly and Funkie: Haunted Halloween

6. More Mixed Media: Anything Goes + Opt. Orange

7. Colouring in Scrapland: Anything Goes + Opt. Twist (Halloween)

8. Colour Crazy Challenge Week 42: Anything Goes

9. Stamps & Stencils: Spooky Fun with an Autumnal twist

10. Brown Sugar Challenge #283: October Spooky Halloween

That's it for me this time. 

Thanks for allowing me to share my art with you. 

Have a great week! 

Until next time, 

xoxo