The Nut

The April Challenge in The Dylusions Facebook Challenge  is to use the color Yellow and Trees. I used Lemon Zest ink spray for the background and drew the tree myself. I used several shades of brown to paint it. The tree is the only part of the piece that is not Dylusions. The leaves, heads, etc are Dylusions.

This was inspired by looking at all of my Dylusion Stamps and noticing all of the stamps that are basically just heads. The phrase popped into my head and I went with it.

Looking forward to May and a whole new crop of Challenges!

The Letter S.

When the  The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge  announced the next letter would be S, I was excited. I had picked out my words a long time ago for this so I sort of knew what I was going to do for this. They did add a twist; you had to have a shell in it.

Now my two words I wanted to use was Steampunk and Shoes. No sea shore pictures for me.  It took me a long time to figure out how to incorporate that into my page.

I had the steampunk shoe stamps from Stampendous! which I used watercolor pencils on. I inked the background with Distress inks and some stencils. I decide to use a dress dummy stamp by Tim Holtz and got the idea on how I was going to use shells. These are die cuts made by Jolee's and was the perfect size as cups for a bra. The wings are charms for jewelry which I used Alcohol inks on to color them. The head is a gear die cut which I used Perfect Pearls on it to give it the look of metal.

The dictionary definition is from the computer as the Webster's I am using is too old to have the word Steampunk in it.

I've been trying to comment on most peoples entries, but my landlord told us we have to move so he can move in so I've been a bit bummed out not to mention busy deciding what to get rid of and I haven't had the energy to do so. Sorry.

Waiting in anticipation for the next letter!

On the  Mission Inspiration Facebook Challenge we were given the April Mission. Every month we are given 10 prompts on how to create  our Art Journal page. I love these as it helps me to jump start my creativity.
As I read the prompts for this month I saw it as a travel page; probably due to the fact we had to add some travel ephemera on it.

As I was creating this, I first hated it! I ripped it out of my journal it was so ugly. I had to glue patterned paper cut into squares on my page and it was too heavy and would not stay down I has painted it a vile color and so painted blue over it, then used molding paste thru a stencil. When I came back to it I put orange in the cracks, and green on it. Both colors I pushed back with a wipe.  After adding washi tape I felt better about and starting adding the ephemera to it. The picture is my mother and my uncle when they were children with their mother and grandmother .

 The paper had raised gears on them so I sanded it and the paint down on them so they you can see them. Some of the stamps were stamped on tissue paper and then adhered to the page.

I'm happy with the way this came out and I already got a commission to make something like this for a friend!

D is Doll

The new letter for The Craft Barn Alpha/ Dictionary Challenge is D. Being a long time collector of Dolls, I had to go with that. At one point I made nice money selling clothes for the collector dolls and went to Doll Conventions, etc. I have a ton of magazines about dolls so I decided to go with more of a collage theme for this letter.

I used my distress inks for the background and actually used 2 pinks (the color is required) as well as some yellows and oranges. I probably could have done more but this has been one of those weeks where I'm surprised I can still talk and not sound like a blithering idiot! This is when something like this can really de-stress you and my joy of dolls and art really helped!

Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoyed!

The Letter G

The Letter this time for The Craft Alpha/Challenge is G. I picked the word Gnome. I love Gnomes! When I was a teenager my mother bought me this beautiful book about Gnomes. It has the most beautiful pictures in it. I spent many a happy day drawing  pictures of the Gnomes. I believe my birthday cards that I made that year had these happy creatures on it.

After 40 years I attempted to recreate a Gnome. I  had fun doing it and it brought back memories I had forgotten. I also included a Gnome home which is  in a tree. This was all freehand and  maybe not the best but who cares. I was a kid again for a while.

I used Spectrum Noir markers, acrylic paints through a stencil, watercolor pencils, and stamps with inks.  Also some pencil, pens, gel pen and a paint pen.  Sheesh, I think I wanted to use everything I had!!!!!!!!!

This has been fun and I can't wait to find out what the next letter is!

Being Unique

The March Challenge on The Dylusions Challenge Facebook page is to use blue and swirls.
This is what I came up with:

Almost everything I used is Dylusions. I used the ink sprays, London Blue and Midnight Blue as well as assorted colors on the stamped swirls and creature. I used a waterbrush to color with the ink sprays. I put molding spray through a Dylusion stencil. I used the ghosting technique through  another Dylusion stencil. I used a stamp with white Dylusion white ink, but had to go over it with a white gel pen. I can never find a white ink that shows! I did use some assorted Sizzex diecuts along with dylusion stamps to make up the turtle/lobster/octopus guy.

The phrase I got off the internet.

Had fun with this and so glad I got it done early.

R is for Ruff

New  Craft Barn Challenge this week...the letter R. 

I decided to use the word Ruff; for collar, not the bird. I've always been interested in historical clothing and have sewn for collector dolls as well as people so this was  a natural selection for me.

I used Distress inks, a lace doily stencil and a baroque style stamp. I also used a stamp with French text on it for the background. I included a picture of a 16th century ruff collar as well as an image from a painting. My favorite is the cat! The dictionary meaning is on top of some antique lace I had lying around and the dots are actually my masks from the L challenge. I thought they really worked on this. This is probably why I have such a hard time throwing stuff out!  The sticker is from an old sticker set I have.

 

Thanks for looking and I love reading all of your comments.

Recently I joined an Art Journaling Facebook Group called Mission Inspiration.  Every month we receive 10 constraints  on creating a  canvas or Art Journal page. I like things like that so I dove right into it. 
 As usual I had a totally different vision then what it ended up to be.  I was playing around with a different collage picture when I spotted this one on the cover of some free magazine that I brought home. As soon as I changed my plans everything seemed to fall into place. 

The new Letter on the The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge
 is L. I didn't want to do the obvious and after skimming through my dictionary I decided to do...Lattice! 

I decided with this challenge I would use some watercolor pencils I recently purchased. Although for the  lattice wall, and the ground I used Distress inks.  I did use a stencil to make the lattice on the wall. Everything else I drew and colored with the pencils.

I made the L and made the traditional lattice design on it. I colored this with traditional colored pencils.

I put the dictionary definition in the doorway as I thought it was a fun place to put it. With a Sharpie Pen I drew some birds as the sky looked too empty.

I had fun doing this and trying some new things. Can't wait to find out what the next letter will be!


The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge

For the past few months I've been trying to enter the Dylusions Facebook Challenge. I would miss the deadline although I still completed it. This month I got it done much earlier. This month's challenge required the color orange and arrows! You must use at least one Dylusion product on it as well as the required themes.

I used Dylusion ink sprays for the background as well as to color the  stamps and arrows.  I used Pure Sunshine and Lemon Zest. These 2 combined together to get me that more orange color. I used Fresh Lime as the accent color.

The stamped figure and corner arrows are also Dylusions. The arrows are die cuts and I used a Sharpie pen to give them designs. I put Molding Paste through the Dylusions  Staggered Bricks stencil to give it some nice texture.

Pondering Petunia's hair is made from some polyfil which I sprayed London Blue Dylusion ink on it. I sprayed that at least 4 times. It just didn't react well with the polyfil.

Finally I printed the quote out from my computer.

No challenges for me for at least a week so as its gotten really cold here and its snowing I think I'll knit me a hat.

Thanks for looking.

The new letter on the The Craft Barn: Alpha/ Dictionary Challenge is F with the twist of a heart some where in the piece.

 So many wonderful words went through my mind: Fearless, Future, Fantastic, Fabulous; as well as ways to portray it. I started going through my stamps and found Tim Holtz's Crazy Birds Stamps. These always make me smile and I abandoned the other words and decided to do Flock !

I used Distress inks and stencils to make the background. I stamped the birds and colored them with my Spectrum Noir Markers. I reversed the image of one of the birds on my computer so they could face each other and placed the hearts around them.  Cute, eh?

I stamped the other page in a light brown distress ink with some of the birds to give it more of a flock feeling. Then I placed the birds in different ways as they are crazy.

I'm looking forward to the next letter as I already have so many ideas on what to do. Of course as I've learned others ideas take their place!

Thanks for looking!

When I read the Craft Barn Challenge's  new letter is  Q; the first thing that popped in my head was Quilling! This is paper curling and I have been doing it for a couple of years although I'm still a bit of a beginner.

  I outlined a big Q and then filled it in with some scrolls but mostly rolls.

I looked up the meaning of quilling in the big old dictionary I'm using and the meaning in it only applied to sewing. I ended up getting the definition on the internet.  I decided to paint the background purple as I started making a butterfly and the colours were soft so I wanted to have a darker colour as the background to make the quilling jump out. It did come out a bit darker than I hoped.  I lost some of the pieces of the butterfly and so I changed it to a flower as I only had a few days to finish. I added a stamp bee and some stenciling to finish off  the page.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge

Dictionary Challenge. Letter B

Welcome to my Blog! I've been crafting most of my life. I started off in needle arts, turning to fabric Arts. I used to scrapbook the pictures of my boys. Now that they are older I have started stamping and have turned to Art Journals. Learning about ink and paint is now my passion and enjoy reading blogs and getting inspired by some of the challenges that are out there.

I have created this blog as my Resolution for 2016 is to be brave and enter these challenges as a way to share my creations.

I came  upon  The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge . It runs for 2 weeks per challenge and they give you a letter [not in order]  and  you need to make a creation with a word starting with that letter and include the dictionary definition in the artwork. You can choice any form of base, tags, journal, dictionary, postcard, etc.

The first week is B and I chose Butterfly.

I used Distressed inks and assorted stamps. The butterflies are die cut from Gelli Plate prints that I made. The B is from some old Alphabet stickers that I had.

This is my very first challenge entry.

  The Craft Barn

Thanks for dropping by. I'd love to know what you think, so please leave me a message!