Art Creations Friday Challenge

This beautiful image is from Art Creations Friday - it's their 1st birthday, and this image was used in their 1st challenge. This challenge was what intrigued me to start blogging and posting pictures from challenges starting last Dec. What could be better than to be given a vintage image as your starting point for a challenge? And they choose such wonderful ones! Because this has been a favorite challenge, I used favorite things in my collage - handwriting stamp from Paperbag Studios, a flower, feather and ribbon hat, a cool piece of 7 Gypsies bookboard, and a penny post stamp! Happy Birthday Art Creations Friday - and I hope you have many more!!!!

This must be my lucky week!!

I came home from work tonight and found the mail on the kitchen table and saw a copy of Somerset Studio Gallery. I can usually find it at my local Barnes and Noble, so I hadn't pre-ordered it...then I looked at the label and realized it was a complimentary copy. I was so excited to see my embossed metal pieces in a spotlight article!!! These are the very first pieces I was brave enough to submit in March of this year. I thought I'd share my pictures of them here on my blog. The main images are some of the fabulous photo stamps (my favorites!) from Oxford Impressions. I love how they look stamped on metal - kind of a daguerreotype-look.



To all my creative friends, thanks for letting me share my excitement, and for all the wonderful comments that have been left on my blog - I'm sure you know and can appreciate how encouraging they can be!

Dans ma maison il y a ...une lettre

I had such fun making this house for the challenge at Dans ma maison il y a ... I wish I could photograph it in a way so you could see that its base is an acrylic block that you use for stamping with unmounted stamps. On the top surface I used a transparency from Prima Hybrid - I chose the letter "H" for home - kind of obvious, I know! Then to the back I adhered a piece of a letter, a scrap of paper, and HOME in a typewriter key alphabet. The roof is gold metal, embossed in a cuttlebug folder, alcohol inked, and sanded - I'm having so much fun with that technique currently!

Ready-Steady-STAMP! Challenge 9

This is my banners for the 1st of the next 4 challenges at RSS. Ingredients list: 1:Stars, 2; Your colours, 3:Glitter or gems, 4:Heat embossing, and 5: A stamped and cut out Image. I'm excited to see how this all turns out after all 4 banners are made and connected. I chose a traditional colour scheme of red and green with a tan thrown in for vintage appeal, and black and silver. My stars are covered in glitter glass, the heat embossing is a scroll from Stampers Anonymous, and my cut out stamped piece is one of my favorite little girls from Oxford Impressions. Even though she's from the April in Paris sheet, I think in her coat she works perfectly for winter.

Sunday Postcard Art

A musical theme this week for Sunday Postcard Art. Mine is a stamped collage. Stamp credits: Club Scrap (violin), Hero Arts (background), Stampendous (musical text), and Purple Onion Designs and Technique Tuesday (alphabets).

Gothic Arches Challenge - stars

I wanted to play along with the Gothic Arches challenge again this week and the theme this time is stars. I played with a narrow style arch and sprayed a stencil with glimmer mist to create my woods background and added acetate punched stars adhered with tiara stickles (I haven't found any other type of stickles to be so twinkly and sparkly!!). My columns are pieces of foil tape on cardstock embossed with a cuttlebug folder, then alcohol inked and sanded. Hope it's ok to add columns to an arch.... I found this technique to be a fun way to add some metal to a project and a side benefit is that there are no sharp edges to cause any injuries!

Paper Whimsy challenge

Here is my collage made with the challenge image from Paper Whimsy. I just love the scrollwork and the fabulous patina of it! My husband and I recently visited Newport,RI and toured several of the beautiful Gilded Age mansions on Belleview Ave. that had ornate ironwork on their gates and fences. It really does make a beautiful element to add to a collage. The deadline for this challenge is Nov.15th so there's still time to submit your project! (details on the Paper Whimsy blog post HERE)