childhood memories challenge at crafting by design; altered deck update

this must be my guest designer week, lol!  so i'm happy to be a guest designer at crafting by design for their latest challenge which is "childhood memories."  the challenge sponsor is lunagirl moonbeams and the challenge winner will get some shopping credit at the lunagirl store.  you are challenged to evoke childhood memories in your creation for this challenge.  i made a valentine ATC using the lunagirl "retro children" collage sheet. 

i used some pretty background designer paper and punched a heart out of some additional designer paper.  i placed my fussy cut girl with puppies and valentine then added some white picket fence and an additional heart. 

do you have happy memories of sharing valentines as a child?  I still love to share them and make gobs of them every year.  hooray, now i have one valentine ready to go for next year!

join the challenge at crafting by design for a great chance at a lunagirl prize!

in other news have you been wondering whether i am still playing along with claudine's altered card deck challenge? each week claudine gives a tutorial to walk you through making two cards.  we are on week 2.  during week 1 i was unable to play due to some work travel and therefore no art play time.  i was finally able to do the backgrounds for 4 cards, for weeks 1 and 2.

so here are my 4 backgrounds.  the top 2 are spray inks, the bottom left is done with alcohol inks and the 4th is distress inks. if all goes well i will get caught up this weekend to finish the 1st 4 cards.  and then be ready for cards 5 and 6 which she will give a tutorial for next monday.  sometime next week i should be sharing the 1st 4 finished cards!

love to all.

how to train a seahorse...?

what is this lady doing underwater with seahorses?  does she think they are her pets?

challenge #94 at the cheerful stamp pad is "anything goes" and we were given some fun digital images designed by "lil diva" to play with by our challenge sponsor stitchy bear stamps.  i noticed the adorable seahorses right away and colored two of them with pencils and gel pens, not sure what i wanted to do with them but knowing i wanted to do something.

meanwhile i was doing a bit of a clean up of digital images i had printed and not used and found this very cute and mischievous looking bathing beauty i'd cut out from a lunagirl collage sheet earlier this summer. both the beauty and the seahorse had a slightly cartoon-ish quality to them and it got me thinking.  i used some paper i'd treated with alcohol inks and began to build my scene with with the digital images, the vintage image and some underwater-themed stash items.

since this lady thinks the seahorses are her dear little underwater pets i finished the piece by handwriting a cartoon balloon on some designer paper.  i wonder whether she will have any success training them?

since this is an anything goes challenge please feel free to link up anything nice you are working on.

i'm linking up to "anything goes" challenges at creative corner challenges, sister act card challenge and brown sugar challenge (#BSCB-109).

love to all.

myths and legends

our latest prompt at tag tuesday is myths and legends.  i've always been fascinated by mermaids and i have a quite a collection of mermaid stamps.  according to wikipedia, a mermaid is a legendary aquatic creature with the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish.  mermaids appear in the folklore of cultures all over the world including the near east, europe, africa and asia.

for this tag i used my one and only merman, a stamp from meer image.

i started by creating a background on a large tag using alcohol inks and a polished stone technique. my end result was very dark but i was delighted with the backside of the tag which had more variety and subtlety than the front so that is what i used as the backdrop for my creation.  i stamped two different wave stamps (both from meer image) on the background.  i stamped the merman, dolphin (PSX) and sea star (PSX) on blue card stock, cut them out and glued them on the tag.  i also went over the sea star with an orange pro marker.  i stamped the bubbles stamp (G-rated stamps) last.  i love this fiber-ribbon i got at a garage sale next door last summer.

it is a nice fantasy scene i think.
love to all.

more valentine love

here are a couple more valentines for you, just for fun.  both of these feature a central vintage image from twisted papers.  on the "to greet you" valentine, the pinkish layer is from a background page i did with alcohol inks (my new joy!).  it has a rhinestone sticker and and an "i heart you" sticker as well.


the sugar bowl valentine also has some other die cuts from my collection, some stickers and some tiny cupids from a cupid punch.  enjoy!  love to all.