More Challenges!

Good morning you all. It's another lovely day here, cold but sunny. I need to make the most of it today, as the weather frogs have promised us rain later.

The first tag I made is for a challenge that I saw on *Pieces of Whimsy*. Traci had made a lovely creation for her PIT group, and there was a lovely image of antique playing cards to use. I used a manila tag, and distressed the edges and printed the image with adirondack espresso.
I cut out the cards, distressed them and fixed them into a stack with a brad, and they can be fanned out to show as a hand of cards. I added a felt heart and some hand doodling.

The second tag has been made for Tag Tuesday - I hope I am not too late there! It has to be a card with a surprise. I used a manila tag, which has been distressed with Th inks in gradient colours, which show up rather muted because of the manila background, an effect that I like. The door has been stamped with a *Dark Room Door* image is archival black, and lightly coloured with green pencil. I cut round part of the door, so it can be opened. I added bird and flower rub ons around the door for some colour.

Now for the surprise. When the door is opened, there is an image of a laughing garden gnome inside. I'm sorry, but I can't remember where I downloaded the image!

And the the third piece is for the Gingersnaps Yahoo Group Recipe Challenge - 3 papers, 3 words and 3 buttons. I have used one paper for the background, two for the alphas, and 3 rosettes made from the three papers, with the three buttons on top.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

One More for Less is More and Something Brown for ...

Good morning everyone from sunny and spring like Rhineland. Nice to be woken up by sunshine and bird song again!

The card I have made for the *Less is More, Off the Edge* challenge was inspired by the view out of my window. The sun rises in the East, which is over to my right, and I see it through the branches of the silver birch in the garden. And the wild geese often fly past. For my card the sun has been stamped using a round stamp from Hein Design, Belgium and 2 shades of Color Box pigment ink. The leafy flourishes have been stamped using a floral stamp from LaBlanche and brown Color Box, as have the flying geese (Lavinia Stamps). The Sentiment is from LaBlanche and means *Everyone wants to get back to nature, just not on foot*. I distressed the edges and did a few *sun* streaks with TH wild honey. I think I am beginning to enjoy making cards with less clutter on them, and will def. keep on trying!

The theme over at Sunday Stampers is something brown. I made a double mini-shadow box from a manila tag and 2 matchboxes. The tag has been stamped and distressed with Adirondack Espresso. I fixed the match boxes behind the tag after cutting the openings. The boxes have been painted with gold-brown acrylic paint, and then I used some scraps of brown embossed and inked paper for the bakground. The images are from *Crafty Individuals*, the metal corners from LaBlanche, the rose from Netty (thanks again), the heart from my stash and the brown ribbon was from a chocolate Easter Bunny that got eaten last year.

Both pieces were fun to make, as always. Now I'm afraid I must do a little h*******k before getting crafty again, sometimes it can't be avoided. Have a great day you all, and thanks for looking!

Less is more....

I have made these cards for the *Less is More* challenge blog. The theme is *Off the Edge*. The card also has to have little or no embelishments, lots of white space, just one layer, must be clean and simple etc. This is not usually my cup of tea, I prefer to put more on than less. But I wanted to try it, so here are my 2 cards. They have both been stamped with TH forest moss and bundled sage, lightly distressed around the edges, the image is partly off the page, and there are no extra embellishments. And I decided to keep them just one colour, as that is something I do like.
The first one has been stamped with a hedgehog from LaBlanche, and the sentiment means *Paths are created by walking along them*. The seond one is also from LaBlanche, and the sentiment from Dark Room Door.

I suppose it does us good to do something different once in a while, and at least I can now say that I tried.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Stamping and Embossing on Metal

Good morning you all. Well, it's nearly midday here, and I only crawled out of bed half an hour ago, I NEVER sleep this late, so must be a wonder. I was so groggy that I went through my place looking at all the clocks to see if it was really so late! Hope you all slept well and are enjoying your Sunday, too. I still have blue fingers from last night, I was working with indigo ink, and as hard as I scrubbed, it just did not come off completely, looks like a make-up artist got me ready for the morgue in CSI! But I am happy to say that I feel very alive after 2 large frothy coffees!
Yesterday evening I started working on some metal for the *Simon Says stamp and show some metal* challenge. I made a note book and a tag, but I'm only entering the tag today. I cut a strip of silver metal foil, folded all the edges to give it a tag form and get the sharp parts away from my fingers, and then stamped the long haired lady onto it. I don't know who the stamp is from, but I stamped it using Stazon *indigo*. Then I embossed the rest of the tag using a sizzix embossing plate. I could not do it in the machine, as I wanted to keep the lady smooth and wrinkle-free, so I used a koh-i-noor paper stump to get the pattern where I needed it. I embossed from the back, so that the raised pattern would be at the front to ink over. When the embossing was done, I rubbed over the image part using a tea-spoon to make the image balloon out a bit and stand out from the embossed background. I swiped over it with archival black and indigo, and that was it. Decided not to use any other charms or ribbons, as I think it looks good as it is. Was great fun to make, and the blue fingers aren't that bad....I know I could have used rubber gloves, but do not like working with them. And a thank you to Yvonne, who used this stamped image recently on one of her lovely creations, and reminded me that I had it....

Have a great day, and thanks for looking!
I am also entering this into *Try it on Tuesday* - Women's Day Challenge
and *Let's Ink it Up - Embossing*

Large Family Tree

Got this large, wooden tree and the matching oval pieces for the pictures for a birthday present last year,

and have since been wondering what to do with it. Last week I decided to start, as I already have all my brushes and paints out, thought it might be a good time. First I painted it all with gesso, and then applied paint in green, beige, gold and some blobs of crackle paint here and there. I wanted it to look old and worn, which it now does, but it would have been easier to have painted it nice and new! The tree is from Kaiserkraft. I used the wooden ovals to cut the appropriate number of photos, using pics of my Great Grandma, Grandparents, Great Aunts and Uncles, My Mum and brothers and sisters and me when I was small, too. There were a lot more people in the family, but as I have no contact to them, I can't get any other photos. Anyway, the pics have been stuck down with mod podge, and then glazed with crackle varnish. I hung them onto the tree using some gold ball-chain.

Well, if any of my family should happen to see this and feel bad that they have not been included, they can send some photos over and they will be hung, too!
I had fun making this, as usual! Thanks for looking and have a great day!

An altered box

While I was out shopping this week I saw some large, flat boxes containing little ornaments for Easter.

I don't ususally do much in the way of Easter, but these ones were rather special. Why? Because they were packed in a wooden box with 9 compartments, and in my mind's eye I visualised what I could make out of them. So, I bought 2 packets, and have lots of nice Easter ornaments that I can give to others as presents....and 2 nice boxes for altering. I forgot to buy most of the things that I should have bought at the supermarket, but never mind!! I got started on the first one straightaway. I painted it with white gesso, inside and out, and after it was dry, added some pieces of one of my old Ladies' Mags from 1899 - a lot of them are so damaged that I can only use parts of them - using mod-podge to stick them down, and then gave it a coat of diluted gesso to finish it off. I added a few strips of TH Tissue tape, and the box was ready to be filled.

Before I started filling it, I glued a string handle to the back using a hot glue gun so that it can be hung on the wall.
Then I added a few things I found in one of my many over filled drawers - a little glass bottle, an old dragon fly brooch from my Mum, a commemorative medal from the centenary of the Gas, Light and Coke Comapny from 1912, a medallion with some unknown relations pictured in it, 2 molded heads, some family photos put into fragments and a few mini photos & other bits that were just flying around.
I haven't filled all of the compartments so that the background can still be seen.

It was great fun to make, and next week I will start thinking about what to do with the other one.... Thanks for looking and have a great day!

The Postie Called Again....

Yesterday the Postie brought me a letter from England. Inside I found some pretty things from Dawn .
Some days ago I saw a beautiful ATC folder with ATCs on her blog, and she was kindly offering to give them away to the first person who asked - and I was the first one!

The ATC folder is beautifully made, with three gorgeous Paris ATCs, and tied with a matching ribbon, and I am very happy to have it for my collection of art-work made by friends I have made here on the net.

Dawn sent a beautiful card, too:

And although it is lovely to receive things, and have things *for real* that I have seen on a Blog, the best thing is to meet nice people, get to know more about them, to find new friends. Thanks a lot Dawn, nice to get to know you!

And I have been playing here, experimenting with bits and pieces. I hate to throw nice boxes away; on the other hand, if I leave them on my workspace they magically fill up with miscellaneous objects. So I just have to use them. I had another little box in which one of my 1€ clocks was packed. So this time, I decided to turn the box into a clock. I just don't know if this is thinking outside the box or inside the box....Is it a bock or a clox?

I covered the box with torn strips of one of my old magazines, using mod-podge, and then painted it with some diluted white gesso. I added a bit of TH tissue tape here and there, made a hole in the base, and fixed the clock to it. And I am proud to say that it works. This was a fun project, and I am entering it as a second take on the theme *Time* over at *Alter it Monthly*



Thanks for looking, and have a great day.