Gothic Arches "Snow"

My snow arch

Saturday's workout "Mosaic Technique"

The new technique at SaWo is to create something using mosaics, either stamped or with paper.

I decided to use paper and made a Christmas card

ATC album and inside page

TMTA "Cloth and paper"

The challenge at TMTA is to create an ATC using cloth and paper.
My background is a piece of batiked cotton. I added stamps, gold detail and an image. Unfortunatelt the scan does not do justice to the background at all which is actually much warmer in colour and golden shimmery.

Art Challenge on Friday 1

There is a new challenge blog on a Friday, run by a group of very creative Dutch ladies. Every Friday they will post a new image for anyone to create with. This weeks image is this lovely dreamy lady.

Saturdays Workout "Split negatives technique"

The theme at SaWo is Split Negatives, something I had never done before, but good fun to do something totally different for once. Mine is a quite traditional sort of card, that may get in handy one of these days as a gift card to someone...

TGIF "Vintage"

The theme at Thank God It's Friday is Vintage today. Most people seem to like Vintage. I suppose it brings warm fussy feelings of the past and supposedly better times. This seems to come up particularly around Christmas time.... As I am still busy doing Christmas cards, I made another vintage card.

Mixed Media Monday "ornamental Christmas

The theme at MMM is "Ornamental Christmas".
My contribution is a Gothic Arch which I made for a contest over at Gothic Arches. The frame is made of Polymer Clay, stamped and coloured with mica powders. The background is collaged, coloured with dye inks and overstamped and embossed. The image I had in my collection and I cannot remember where it came from.

Gothic Arches "Silhouette"

Silhouette is the theme at Gothic Arches. Really liked the idea of that, it gave me the chance to use a little silhouette stamp I got not that long ago. Mine has a wintery Christmas theme (as most of my things do at the moment. Background was done with Adirondack dye inks and a brayer.

Saturday's workout "Thread Technique"

The theme at SaWo is to create a background by using the thread technique. Great fun to do and dead easy. Unfortunately my background has almost disappeared, but right at the top you can just see it still.

TGIF "hats"

The theme at TGIF is "Hats" or headgear. Mine is a Christmas ATC. The image is from Digital Collage's ATC collection.

TMTA "Lilac"

The theme at Think Monday Think ATC is colour of the week and this week it's lilac. I love monochromes, and lilac always suggests something slightly dreamy to me. The image is from Digital Collage.

Gothic Arches "Buttons"

The theme at Gothic Arches is "Buttons". Buttons are not actually my thing, I never can quite see the point of them (no offence Dawne, your card is amazing!!) Anyway, as Gothic Arches is probably my favourite challenge site, I decided to use it as a real challenge. So I have used lots of little buttons, but kind of disguised them in my ladies hair band and as the centre of the flowers I used as embellishment.

Saturday's workout "Antique Paper"

The theme at SaWo is to antique paper. Really liked the idea of this theme, Sandy is so clever to think of something new every week.

Anything I do at the moment seems to eventually turn into a Christmas card. I made an antique heart, using mount board and sticking a little transferred image (using Golden gel medium) behind the aperture that I cut out. I used distress inks and then varnished everything with tea dye varnish to give it the antique look.Then like I said , I could not help myself and turned it into a Christmas card.

TGIF "Doors"

The theme at Thank God it's Friday is "Doors". I love doors as they can be so symbolic, being like a threshold between two worlds. Anyway, it's really too early for philosophy, so here is my door card. The rusty looking key is just grungeboard treated with some mica and embossing powders.

Wednesday Stamper - Angels

The theme at Wednesday stamper is angels. It's always hard for me to produce soemthing midweek, so all I managed was a little ATC. I have quite a few angel cards lying around, but i felt I wanted to create something new, so here's my modest contribution to the challenge

Mixed media Monday "Colours of Autumn"

The theme at MMM is Colours of Autumn". Decided to do a stamps only piece for a change using a brayer Ranger dye inks and stamps from clarity stamps.

Think Monday Think ATC "Angels"

The theme at TMTA is angels this week, to get us into Christmas mood. As Halloween really isn't my thing, I've started on Christmas cards and ATCs a while back already. I decided to make an angel triptych. The backgrounds are done with a mixture of acrylic pains, gesso and stamps. The images are collections I have gathered over the years

Gothic Arches "Vintage Children"

The theme at Gothic Arches is vinatge children.

Here is mine, the images are from Lisa's altered art.

Saturday's workout "Waxpaper or beeswax"

The theme at SaWo this week is to make something with either wax paper or to use beeswax. As I have neither wax paper nor a cuttlebug, the other thing necessary for the particular technique described in the "technique zone", I decided to use beeswax. I created a background using a resist technique involving clear embossing powder, as the effect is actually quite similar to the wax paper technique in some respects. You stamp a background using versamark and then emboss with clear embossing powder. You then colour your piece in whatever way, I sponged with adirondack inks from Ranger. The embossed images resist the colouring. Using some kitchen paper you then iron your piece, this melts the clear embossing, so that your stamp background now appears as a lightcoloured "resist". After that I collaged with melted beeswax from the melting pot. Collage images are from "Digital Collage".