November 12th Weekly Post

 Howdy-Ho, everyone!

Well, here I am posting late again. I got to feeling poorly over the weekend and finally got to feeling better yesterday. This coincided with a wonderful first of the year cold front (as opposed to cool front). It's been in the 40'sF at night! It's so hard on me but I do love the cold weather, lol.

Think I'm gonna switch to posting on Tuesdays or Wednesday through year-end.

I forget that this time of year the weather changes a lot and affects my Arthurs.

And it may turn out I can't follow a set day at all, but I'll try.

Mandy is hosting again this week at Sunday Postcard Art with a Moths theme.

I have always been fascinated by Luna moths and their unique life cycle.

Over the years I've collected a few stamps of these beauties.

This piece was started by taking a Clarity Clouds stencil set and some Distress Ink colors and stenciling a whimsical Autumn sky because in my general area of Texas, we can have 2-3 generations of Luna moths in one year, the third being at Autumn's beginning. They are still rare to sight, as their adult lifespan is but one week. In fact, they have no mouths. They exist only to procreate and lay eggs.

Wild, huh?

So then, I stamped a little ground scene and colored it with Promarkers.

Next, I stamped the moth and used watercolors to paint it, then added highlights, accents, outlines with various gel pens and glitter markers.

On each side I stenciled vines using a Crafters Companion stencil and my Faber Castell Pitt Artist Big Brush pens. Then I outlined it with a black Micron.

For the title at top, I used Stamp Magick Garden Alpha stamps and Shady Lane Versafine Clair ink to spell LUNA and outlined each letter with a darker green Micron.

I added a TH Chit Chat sticker "make today count", outlining and dotting around it with various pens.

Lastly, I scribbled along the edges of the piece with a green Big Brush and then edged with a brown one.

And done! I hope I did her justice.

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Yes, I still have 3 more Halloween cards to share.

I made them for next year while I had the supplies out.

I decided to use up some old black Bazzill shimmer card stock for my card bases, and also some black envelopes. I mean, when else am I going to use that color of envie?

I'm using only scraps and stash to make these, so it was like Hey, how can I combine these poor disparate, orphaned elements to make a halfway decent looking card?

This one uses up an already-cut piece of black felt bat border with a silver-embossed stamped Paper Artsy Dracula on some of the same Bazzill as the base, and some orange hexagons, along with stash paper scraps (some of which I die cut: the zigzag green strip and the zigzag circles and vampire frame). A tiny Art Impressions die cut bat was found and added to the scene. The striped paper was edged and ink-distressed using Black Soot DI.

 

I used this sketch, but I flipped it vertically and then rotated it. I had my elements, could see them on the sketch, and tried it every way before deciding.

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This turned out to be a big A9 half-sheet card because of the elements I had, which were a hollowed out HAPPY die cut (Avery Elle), a tiny Art Impressions black cat die cut, a large Sizzix black cat die cut, a large HALLOWEEN and spider sentiment, a couple of yellow TH Sizzix Townscape die cuts and an Art Impressions pumpkin die cut. I found the cobweb designer paper in my stash, inked it and edge-distressed it, layered it onto a slightly larger yellow card, edged and inked that, then put both onto the black tent card base. Then I added the other elements along with a strip of dots paper.

Now, the HALLOWEEN could originally barely be read, so out came my Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pens and that remedied that. I also layered it on a scrap of yellow card before adhering.

And here is the original sketch that I stretched out to an A9 size.

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This card has a little collage over a background per this sketch:

I again used a black Bazzill card stock base (A7) and cut two layers using my Carnation Crafts Pretty Shabby nested rectangle dies, one out of cream card stock and the other out of mystery stash designer paper of ghosts (which you can't even see, lol). I edged each layer with Wilted Violet DI before layering onto the card base. Then I cut 3 long pieces out of different mystery stash dp's, rounded the bottom corners with my Cropadile and layered on per the sketch. Next, I added a top edge of dripping blood cut with purple card and a Martha Stewart punch. I arranged and adhered a little collage of the Teesha Moore collage sheet witch's face/crow hat and several Gecko Galz collage sheet images, including the sentiment. The potions tag was in my stash, as was the Art Impressions black die cut cat and the Lawn Fawn die cut witch hat.

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Well, I hope that didn't bore or scare you too much.

I'll be back to Christmas and Birthday cards and miscellaneous art.

Thanks for the visit and I hope your week is loverly!

XXO