let's hear it for the boys!

karen at lunagirl moonbeams blog has started us on a new two week challenge in which we are featuring little boys.  so often we feature little girls in our artwork so it is  refreshing (and sometimes challenging) change of pace to make things featuring boys.  but as the mom of a young man who was once a little boy i warm to this topic quickly!  i made a bookmark on the theme of back to school since i realize that this time is right around the corner for those with little ones at home.

my little boy is from the african american images CD sold by lunagirl.  i gave him wings from the rainbow wings collage sheet also by lunagirl.  i often give wings to little girls in my art and decided that little boys should be able to fly too of course!  furthermore nothing gives you wings like education!  the rest of the tems are from my overflowing stash of designer papers and embellies and such.

i hope you will play along!  i'm also linking this up to the week 31 anything goes challenge at scraps of color.

love to all.

use a stencil!

i used to be kind of afraid of stencils, as I was not sure how to use them effectively.  but i had to shake off my reticence because the new two-week challenge at the cheerful stamp pad is "use a stencil!"  our challenge sponsor is stencil girl products and wow do they have a lot of stencils! a randomly selected winner of this challenge will get some goodies from the sponsor.

through practice i'm finding that stencils can be used in many different ways.  here i inked a stencil girl flower stencil with red ink over a piece of sheet music from "ode to joy."  the original plan was to make a bookmark but when the squared top seemed to boring i ended up turning this into an arch.  of course it can still be used as a bookmark. the cardboard base is partially covered with some designer paper and then i added the torn piece of sheet music with the stenciled flowers.  i used a circle die cut (technically i used a coaster but i was trying to sound fancy) to round the top and embellished with some washi tape, the title of the song, a butterfly brad and some vintage images from a lunagirl collage sheet called "fly away home."

so that was fun after all.  if you like stencils or are willing to give them a try i hope you'll consider linking up to this new challenge -- we're open for linking through october 27.

love to all.

inspired by a picture

vicki at the cheerful stamp pad selected a fun picture from pinterest and asked us to use it as inspiration for a creation.  so for the next two weeks you are also challenged to use this picture as inspiration for a creation of your own!  here is the picture:

cake makes me think birthdays and so i decided to make a bookmark with a child all dressed up for a birthday party!

i combined designer papers with tissue tape, vintage lace, and other goodies to frame the vintage image of a precious little girl all dressed up for a special occasion.  this challenge is a bit more abstract than usual but that makes it a bit more fun, eh?

enjoy; love to all.