My Rogue ATC Garden

Over at the Rogue Redhead Designs blog, there is a challenge this month to create ATC's, but to also "think outside the ATC". For my pair of ATC's, I used images from Relish Reading and Floriculture. I also had some fun playing with distress stains, which I haven't had a lot of time to play with yet. My colored background is a Jennifer McGuire technique she calls pearlized distress - you use distress stains on watercolor paper (in my case I clear embossed my images first so I would also get a cool resist effect), then spritz the whole thing with Perfect Pearl spray blending the colors and giving them a shimmer. I also flicked droplets of the pearl spray onto the background. On the left I used a strip of that paper over a base created with tone-on-tone distress ink stamping and rubbing with a blending tool all using the tea dye color. On the right, I reversed the paper combination. Then I added my garden of buds that were also stamped onto watercolor paper and colored with distress stains. The buds are arranged so that some go "outside" the margins of the ATC and they're also elevated using foam squares - I wonder if "above the ATC" counts in the challenge....hmmmmm.

Check out the RRD blog post HERE to join in the challenge which runs until Oct. 9th - you could be the winner of a $15 GC to the Rogue Redhead Etsy store!

Follow the path

This is another canvas collage that has a background using paint stamping with leaves. My photo is a TAP transfer onto muslin of a part of one of the trails located in Acadia National Park at the coast. However, my memory when I see this photo is a little different. This trail is close to the Jordan Pond House Restaurant where after hiking, we had a lunch of lobster stew and warm popovers with jam - mmmmmmmm. Every hike should end that way :-)

I'm looking for a few good friends....

....well, actually 4 friends (or multiples of 4) for an ATC swap idea of mine! You may remember this ATC concertina book I posted last fall. The picture above is how it looks unfolded,and the pictures below show it folded up on the left while the right picture shows it with just the cover open.

So my idea comes from thinking about all my creative friends throughout the world and how inspired I am by your artwork and how fun it would be to have a tangible piece of that artwork - a true celebration of the creative friendships we've formed in blogland. I thought it would be fun to collect ATC's from friends, add them to ones I've made, and assemble a set of them into concertina books similar to the pictures above and then send one book back to each of you. So are you interested? (Oh, I so hope that you are!!!!) What you would do is to make 5 ATC's (2 1/2" wide by 3 1/2" tall - portrait orientation) that represent "you" - your style, your favorite technique, your favorite image, or a word that means a lot to you right now - and to make it easy, feel free to make 5 that are the same - and then mail them to me. For instance, I'm sure mine would have some crayon glassine, maybe a vintage image, and probably some wonky sewing :-) After I've collected them all, I will mail back to you a set of the group's 5 ATC's in a concertina book! If you'd like to participate, leave a comment with a way to contact you by email (unless of course I already know it or if you have an email link on your about me area of your blog) and I'll give you my mailing address. Leave any questions as well, and I'll answer those, of course. Once we have our group of people, I'll set a date for you to send the ATC's to me. Hope you'll join me!

******Sign-ups now closed - thank you SO MUCH for joining in. Stay tuned next month for pictures of the completed books******

Curiouser and Curiouser

Two current challenges had themes that I loved : "Metal" at Inspiration Emporium monthly challenge for September and "Steampunk" at Simon Says Stamp and Show, and I finally had some free time which means play time! I love the Steampunk style and have made projects from an inventor point of view, but this time I wanted to make a Steampunk creature and created my bird. She is constructed using metal foil tape on a chipboard diecut which I then embossed, alcohol inked, and sanded. I added gears, eyelets, brads and wire springs to her tail feathers. She's layered on top of stacked cabinet card diecuts - the smaller one is covered with paper that I first clear embossed with a blue print design and then inked with chipped sapphire Distress Stain. The type charms dangling from the bottom just seemed to be a good fit - and more metal!

Stamp credits: Oxford Impressions and Stampers Anonymous

GC#118 Spicy Supply Challenge - Crimpers

This week it's the Gingersnap Creations Spicy Supply Challenge where the tool to use is a crimper. Wow, has it been a long time since I used one! I found mine in a drawer and after dusting it off :-) I ran through watercolor paper colored with Glimmer Mists in turquoise, trunk bay, and puerto rico. I cut it into 1 1/4" squares and arranged 6 of them in alternating fashion over a text stamped piece of kraft cardstock. Going with September's friendship theme I had to use the Hero Arts friend definition text! Then I added bits of stamped text to half of the squares and added a ribbon colored with the same colors of mists. In placing the ribbon on top, I think it gives the card the look of a present - after all, friends are some of the best gifts to have!

This challenge (see the GC post HERE) will run until Oct. 9th so you have plenty of time to locate your crimper and join in!

Stamp Credits: Hero Arts and Katie Pertiet for Autumn Leaves

Crayon Glassine with Rogue Redhead Designs stamps

I thought I'd see how the newest Rogue Redhead Design stamps, Beach Babes, looked stamped on my crayon glassine paper, and I really liked the effect! I melted crayons in the blues and greens family onto the glassine and achieved a really nice watery texture. The boat image was a perfect fit. I also found that I could color in the sail and add highlights with a white gel pen.

Here is the same idea with the heron stamp, again with the white highlights. Check out the RRD blog for many more ideas using their newest stamp set.

Gingersnap Creations Chestnut Challenge #117 - Gal Pals

All through September at Gingersnap Creations we're celebrating International Women's Friendship Month and this week's challenge has a theme of gal pals. Also this month the featured technique is spotlighting which I tried in my card. It really is a simple yet effective technique. I chose to experiment with the straightforward version of stamping your image twice and coloring in one (mine is done with distress inks), then punching out a portion of the colored image and placing it in its appropriate location on the uncolored image.

Here's a close-up to show the spotlighting:

I also chose to mount my main image on a background stamp that contained many words related to friendship and even spotlighted the word "friendship".

So join us in celebrating your girlfriends by creating a piece for the challenge post at the GC blog HERE by Oct. 2nd.

Stamp Credits: Melanie Sage and Stampin' Up

Summer canvas collage

Labor Day always feels like the end of summer, so I thought I'd share a collage done on a piece of canvas for an online class I took that is very summery. The background is painted by using leaves and flowers with paint on them to essentially monoprint. I used tansy and columbine leaves and to add the painted flowers, I used individual tansy flowers. They are about the size of a pencil eraser and very dense allowing me to create dots and combine them into a flower shape. I was glad to put that horrible flower/herb/weed to some good use! It's an invasive plant that grows about 4 feet tall, and the flowers start out as a bright yellow, but change to a dark brown pretty quickly. The photos are TAP transfers of the lilies that grow in our yard and I've embellished the canvas with fabric, lace, buttons, machine stitching and inked rolled muslin roses. Of course I had to keep practicing with my dip pen and india ink, too - slowly getting better ;-) Hope you're enjoying your end of summer!

Miss Pauline has bought her ticket to..........

The photo of Pauline Frederick I used in creating my fabric heart for the giveaway is one from an Enchanted Mercantile connection that I enjoy using. She has such a beautiful and regal look, and even though I could imagine a life for her as I would use her image in a project, I didn't know much about her. According to Wikipedia she was an American actress, first on the stage and then in films. She "specialized in playing commanding and authoritative women" - sounds like Pauline could be a little bit fiesty - gotta love that! I found this photo of her at the Library of Congress site.

So on to the giveaway! Sorry for announcing my winner a little late today - the path of hurricane Irene made it all the way to New England and fortunately where we are in Maine, we had just rain followed by wind, but we did lose our power for a day, then got it back for a day only to lose it for another day, and then after almost two days with it, it went out again today!!! Hence my access to the internet this week has been sporadic to say the least! Now that I'm connected again I'm happy to say that there is a winner.....

......and Miss Pauline will be traveling to Florida to work on her tan! Congratulations Connie! I'll be sending you an email. Thank you to everyone who left a comment - you all are so sweet with all your encouraging words and compliments - it's great to have creative friends! - and I truly appreciate that you take the time to comment on my projects.