textural tag

our latest tag tuesday challenge (started last week, goes until next monday) is TEXTURE, thank you DT member Wendy for the great idea! here is what i've made.

central female image is from gecko galz "brilliant photos". the texture here comes from a chipboard "doily" from gina's designs precison laser cuts (store appears to be closed), magic mesh (repositionable mesh product available at craft stores everywhere!), clock stickers, and the painted background.

enjoy; love to all.

altered cards, set 5

i'm continuing with the altered card deck challenge, slowly but surely.  this is a challenge to alter an entire deck of cards with weekly tutorials over at claudine's art corner.  here is my 5th set:

as always both cards started with a gessoed background.  on the "create" card i painted the background with acrylic paints.  claudine used a circles stencil.  i didn't ave one so i made my own stencil with cardboard and scissors.  i didn't have the wonderful little winged boy stamp that claudine had but i had this little star guy from "stamp in the hand" and i gave him wings from a lunagirl collage sheet.  i did the doodling with a black ink pen and some with a white poster paint pen.  the "create" was from a word stamp set i have and the little dragonfly bard came from eyelet outlet.

the second card is covered with a variety of designer paper scraps and then i distressed it with a couple different distress inks. the lovely photo portrait is from the lunagirl african american vintage images CD.  claudine stamped her numbers but i used stickers and then finished with a butterfly brad and my dream stamp.

the rest of the group is a coupled weeks ahead but i am making my way forward with this.  i'd always wanted to altered card deck and it is wonderful to get inspiration and new ideas and techniques each week from claudine.

have a wonderful weekend!  love to all.

australia

a land i've never visited is the theme for tag tuesday this week: australia.  i think it is a wonderful place, i know it is beautiful.  i know it is in danger with extreme drought and fires occurring with increasing frequency. there is a rich aboriginal culture there which i would love to learn more about.  ultimately for my tag i decided to attempt a version of aboriginal dot painting.

i cut a large tag base from sturdy cardboard and then painted it with acrylics.  i don't have the highest quality of paints or brushes but i did my best.  i did the dots with a white poster paint pen.  i wanted to include a snake which is often a subject of aboriginal art but i was also attracted to the idea of a lizard and found this salamander amongst images i'd downloaded for free from dover publications.  i printed the salamander on olive kraft paper and outlined a bit with black pen and enhanced the spots and eye with a silver sharpie.  the sun stamp is from uptown rubber stamps.  i stamped it, colored it with metallic gold and red gold colored pro markers and cut it out to add to the tag.  the tag is a little blurry on the right top edge which is due to the scan and not to the quality of the original.  i enjoyed experimenting with this.  but hopefully i'll be forgiven my weak effort at such a beautiful art form.  

love to all.