Color Wheel Play: Complementary Colors

ATC trades are starting to take more of my time again.  I joined a swap over at ATCsForAll with a complementary color theme.  These are the ATCs I came up with:

The background for the above ATC is one I received in a background swap.  I believe it was made using Perfect Pearls and gloss gel medium.  To finish it, I glued on torn scraps of a gelli print, outlined them with a fine nib pen and charcoal pencil, then covered the strips with gloss gel followed by heart sequins.  The color scheme I went for was blue-green and red-orange.

The main ATC background was cut from a mailing envelope that a friend sent.  The envelope was so gorgeous I couldn't just throw it away!  I added a torn gelli print strip on the side (purple) and a torn book page on the bottom.  The main image and sentiment were stamped, colored with Copics and glued on.  I finished with some fine nib pen detail and charcoal pencil around the edges of the image.

This last ATC started with a background that I made years ago.  I used a canvas blank then dripped bits of candle wax over it.  I painted over it with acrylic ink, removed the wax, and glued on torn bits of an old sewing pattern.  Following that, I brushed on another thin coat of paint. The red dots are from a gelli print.  I decided to go outside the box by coloring my bee image green, too.

One of the things I enjoy about ATCs is that they are a perfectly small canvas for trying new things.  Have you ever dabbled in ATC making?

Some Things Are Better Strong...

I have had this stamp set FOREVER.  When I saw the challenges at the Fusion Card Challenge (Coffee and a Book) and CASual Fridays (CFC #191: More Coffee Please) blogs, well...it was a no-brainer!

Ha ha!  Isn't that quote great?  Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  Happy Weekend!

Hello Honey Card

It's a card-making extravaganza!  For the longest time - years really - I set my card-making aside to work on other things like art journaling and ATCs. I have my design team stint last year to thank for getting back into card-making and I'm having FUN!

Paper Smooches has an great, free-for-all 'Anything Goes' challenge on their blog this month.  I love their cute, whimsical stamps and dies.  I've been on a bit of bee buying spree lately and whipped out some cuteness to make this shaker card.

After I stamped and die cut the little bee I colored her up with Copics and added some Wink of Stella to her wings.  In addition to my cute little bee, inside the shaker box are yellow and warm gold seqiuns as well as some pale yellow, shiny stars - lots of sparkly, happy goodness.

I think shaker cards are really fun.  Since all of my honeys live with me I'm not sure who will get this, but I'm sure I'll find someone. ha ha!

Thanks for coming by today!

Fishing You The Best Card

Cheesy pun...I know. 😉 The challenge at the Less Is More blog is cute and one layer. As much as I wanted to, I resisted the urge to pull out my Copics; it drives me nuts when they bleed through the back side.  Instead I used Distress inks and watercolor pencils.

On the iceberg I thought I needed something icy so added a bit of Wink of Stella.  Can you see it?

Happy Creating!

Circles & Dots SDC 290

Let's have a little fun, shall we?  For the SDC "Circles & Dots" challenge I have an interactive ATC.  Woo hoo!  Poor Jillian is going to get a bit dizzy, I fear.

Her head rolls from the top left to the bottom right.

Yikes!

Challenging Myself

I need challenges to get my muse going these days.  I can't remember if I shared my (seemingly annual) goal of using more of my stash and buying less.  I have SO MUCH STUFF in my creative space.  It's ridiculous...like really.  I can barely squeeze my bod in there to get creative which is certainly a wee bit counter productive.

Anyway, back to the challenges part. MFT has three challenges going on right now - use the word 'celebrate', a color challenge and a sketch challenge. In the spirit of  "Yippee, what the hell!" I decided to take on all three PLUS use some stash for one card.

I have LOADS of patterned paper packs that I've bought over the years.  (This isn't even all of it.  I was afraid the pile was getting too heavy and have another stash over in a corner.)

I hardly ever reach for them as I originally purchased them for scrapbooking and I don't really do that any more.  Plus I just think it's tricky to use patterned paper - I'm a solid paper kinda girl, I guess.  But I did it!  Feeling very impressed with myself that I dipped into the stash, managed to sneak in all three challenges, and completed them on time.  Ha ha.

I hope I can keep this up!

Purple Cacti Card

In my previous post I mentioned my sometime-difficulties with creative challenges.  I went out on a limb (for me) with this next one which is hosted at Less Is More.  Their goal is the creation of CAS (clean and simple) cards.  I struggle with CAS styles. I lean towards lots of layers and bits of embellishments and the like.  I'm not even sure this card will qualify, but for me it's CAS and it definitely uses the color purple which is the challenge theme. ;)

I pulled out my watercolor paper and stamped the cacti in Archival ink.  I loved the idea of using cool tones with the cactus since typically one associates warm colors with the desert.  The purples and blues are all done with watercolor crayons.  I added a touch of glimmer with purple and blue gel pens too.

Wishing you a peaceful day. 

You're Fascinating - Mail Art

Inspiration is a strange and funny thing.  I love to participate in artsy challenges and more often than not I have to work at it to come up with a project that fits the theme since it hasn't happened organically.  Not so for this month's VLVS challenge.  As soon as I saw it I knew it would be easy breezy for me.  Not sure why; maybe it was the yummy green background or possibly the quirky image (I love me some quirky!), but regardless, my project came together super fast.  Love it when that happens!

I was going through my stamps a few days ago (in an attempt to organize them a bit) and came across this sentiment.  I had totally forgotten that it was in my stash.  It's been haunting me ever since and I knew I needed to find a way to use it.  I just like this weird bird, too.  :)

I covered my envie with Distress inks (Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron), sprinkled water, did a little background stamping and stenciling and was done.  The bird is colored with Copics and highlighted with white gel pen.  I also used the gel pen on some of the water splotches to brighten up the background a bit.

And here's the inspiration pic that started it all:

Now the trick will be to find somebody to send this to who won't be offended.  Ha ha!!

Forever My Always Card

Love is in the air...

I made this card for the MFT Sketch Challenge #367 (wow, that's a lot of sketches!).  I was able to pull out my alcohol inks to make the background (Yay!  Haven't used those in ages) and also used my new stitched rectangle STAX dies, fishtail sentiment strips and Love You More stamp set.  

I rarely use patterned paper, but dug around in my stash to mix things up.  The heart panel is raised off the base with foam tape and then the sentiment strip is raised off that again with foam tape.

Thanks for visiting today!

Repurposed Christmas ATCs

One of the ATC groups I trade in decided that repurposed Christmas packaging was a good theme for our trade this month. Sadly, in a fit of highly unusual (for me) organization and promptness, I had all of my Christmas stuff tossed or stashed BEFORE New Years' Eve.  I know...I'm a little shocked myself.  Lucky for me, one of my boys had a gift bag in his room full of nice, white filler. 

Snow immediately came to mind of course.  I also, as I do every year, have pledged to use my stash more. 

I've had this reindeer die for a bazillion years and it mostly collects dust.  Out it came. 

I love gel bead medium, but it's stashed in a drawer so it also rarely gets used.  Out it came.

A tray of acrylic inks is sitting on a shelf, but it's away from my working area and often gets overlooked.  Out came the blue ink.

Strolling through the aisles of JoAnn's last month I found myself standing in front of paper packs ON SALE.  There was a pack of cork paper - cool!  Not sure what I was going to do with it, I landed a pad in my basket.

I love how this has a bunch of texture on it.  I stamped over the cork reindeer with one of my fave Stampotique stamps and as I looked at it, it occurred to me that the swirls looked a bit like targets.  Oops!  Not what I had intended, but fortunately I had stamped with Distress inks so I just dabbed them a bit with a water brush.  A few gel pen highlights later and we were good to go.

The cards sat on my desk for a few days because something was bothering me about them; they felt unfinished.  This morning I realized it was the blank space in the corner and a little fir branch was just the thing.  Now they're packaged up and ready to be mailed.  Yay!

Wishing you a fab weekend!

BeeHave ATC

I know I should just get over this bee set,  but it's new and I'm just having too much fun with it.  I'm in an interactive ATC swap and I thought this little bee was misbehaving by constantly 'zooming' back and forth across my card.  ha ha!

Have a wonderful day!

Bee-Lieve ATC

I'm going to be more artistically productive this year.  That's one of my goals at least.  ;)  In the spirit of getting back into my ATC trading I signed up for a wood shapes swap.  When I found this bee in my stash I knew exactly where this ATC was going.

I have a large stash of ATC backs that I've made over time.  That made it super quick to put this together.  I painted my wood bee and then blinged him up with some yellow Stickles under the body and Perfect Pearls gold mist on the wings - kinda hard to see it in the pic.

Happy Trails and thanks for stopping by!