doodled fish

still playing around with doodling for the oodles of doodles challenge at lost coast portal to creativity...

on this ATC, the fish head is from lost coast "up close and personal" stamp set, stamped on designer paper and fussy cut; bubbles stamp from G-rated stamps; the star is a digital stamp from gecko galz and the background paper is also from gecko galz.  fish body doodling is by me with a pro marker pen.

love to all.

down the street, my little row of houses

this week for tag tuesday our prompt is "down the street/a row of houses."  here is my tag:

i free drew houses on a variety of pretty papers by gecko galz (the most colorful ones are from the new summer picnic paper pack) and then cut them out.  there are a couple rubber stamps i used as well.  on 3 of the hand drawn houses i used a door and windows from a stamp by rubber moon art stamps.  the sun is by uptown rubber stamps (no longer in business as far as i can tell).  i colored in the yellow with a pro marker.  i added some wispy clouds with a white gel marker and finished this with a paper flower and enamel dot.

a happy little scene i think!
may you have some happy little scenes in your world.
love to all.

altered card deck week 9 (+alphastamps again!)

here are my week 9 altered cards for the card deck challenge at claudine's art corner -- if i get another pair finished this weekend i think i'll only be 5 weeks behind (lol!).

for the flowers and owl card i started with a background of spray inks.  i then used flower stamps from a "gela-tins" set and enhanced them with promarkers and molotow pens.  the stems are washi tape.  the owl stamp is by rubber soul, i stamped it on primavera paper by itKuPiLLi and fussy cut it to add to the card.  i hand wrote the sentiment on the same primavera paper and finished this one with some matching ric rac.

i did a light coat of watercolor paint on the background for the second card and then used a stencil and ink applied with a sponge.  i added torn tissue tape, a rose die cut which i'd outlined with white pen.  the vintage image is from one of the goddess collage sheets by lunagirl. the lace border is from alphastamps.  the "memories" sticker is from a tim holtz set.

speaking of alphastamps, this is day three of:

please visit the alphastamps blog and comment on today's post for a chance to win a glorious giveaway of alphastamps goodies!

i've decided to link this to the doodle artifacts blog recycle/re-purpose challenge as well.

love to all.

altered card deck week 8 (+alphastamps giveaway)

week 8 at the altered card deck challenge at claudine's art corner was love.  in my effort to get caught up (i think the main group is at about week 15!) i made these two cards,  as with all of them i started with a card deck and a liberal dose of gesso.  on both of these i then used daniel smith watercolor sticks for the backgrounds.  on the first all the rest is done with promarkers except the stamped "je t'aime" which is a rogue redhead designs stamp stamped on tissue paper, and also my silver molotow pen.  for the second card i used die cuts, more pro markers, a butterfly brad and black beads, both from eyelet outlet.

now, please pop over to the alphastamps blog and comment on the blog post today for a chance to win fabulous prizes at the alphastamps annual after christmas giveaway!

love to all.

altered tin

i found myself in another situation where i was meeting with a group and we were all asked to bring gifts to exchange.  i decided to alter an altoids tin.  the papers and images i used are from gecko galz.

i used papers inside and on the bottom of the tin as well but i only took a picture of the top.  i did some doodling on the sides also with a red promarker.  as you can see i also included a lacy die cut and buttons.  inside the tin i put a fun size m&m's packet as well!

like my altered composition book from a week or so ago, this gift also got stolen once and "i do believe" the final recipient was quite happy with it.

linking up to the "anything goes but must recycle" challenge at doodle artifacts blog.
linking up to the "ring in the new, recycle the old" challenge on the gecko galz facebook group

enjoy; love to all.

deck the halls!

for week two of the "signs of christmas" challenge at the cheerful stamp pad i've used a digital image by designer kaz krafts at our sponsor stitchy bear.  a randomly selected winner of our challenge will win a shopping credit at stitchy bear.

i started with red cardstock and added some pretty green designer paper from my stash.  i used the digital stamp of a candle and colored it digitally, print it out, fussy cut it and did some outlining with a black pro marker.  i added a sentiment from my stash,

i'm linking to the scraps of color #48 anything goes challenge.

i hope you will play along with our challenge.
love to all.

signs of christmas

our new two week challenge at the cheerful stamp pad is "signs of christmas.  your creation should display some "signs of christmas" for a chance to win shopping credit at our challenge sponsor stitchy bear stamps. i used a digital image called "head first" designed by ginger loft for my week one creation.

i started with red cardstock and added a bit of designer paper from my stash that i thought looked a bit like a house.  i colored the digital stamp with pro markers, fussy cut it and added it to the card. the little round santa and the "ho ho ho" are sentiments from my stash.

linking up to the 12 days of christmas at unruly paper arts!
enjoy; love to all.

sweet love goddess and bird

birds birds birds how i love these birds!  it is week two for the lunagirl moonbeams challenge.  we are asking everyone to "put a bird on it"  by adding birds to your art.  the randomly chosen winner will get some shopping $$ for the lunagirl store. i have another tag for DT inspiration this week,

i really enjoyed making this tag.  i started with some wonderful designer paper from my stash which i lightly stamped in brown ink with a "crackle" background stamp from sonlight impressions.  i added a torn strip of some additional designer paper at the bottom.  on the left side i doodled some spirals with my red-gold metallic pro-marker.  i also added the moth, torn from some other designer paper and lots of washi tape.

the beautiful lady is from the lunagirl "goddess" collage sheet and the bird is from one of the many "birds" collage sheets at lunagirl.  the stamped "je t'aime" is a stamp by rogue redhead designs.  i stamped it on tissue paper and tore that as well.

i hope you will join our fun!  there is a nice lunagirl vintage bird image freebie here and more here if you are interested as well!
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.

love time

just in time for my favorite holiday we are celebrating "love" at the cheerful stamp pad for the next two weeks.  our challenge sponsor is stitchy bear stamps and as usual the randomly selected challenge winner will get to shop at our sponsor's online store.

the digital image featured here is from stitchy bear and it is "flirty frog" by pookie designs.  i colored the frog with pro markers and then played with designer paper, ric rac, a heart doily and additional goodies to make this little valentine card.

enjoy; and link up a valentine of any sort that you've made for a chance at a win.
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.

happy birthday to rogue redhead designs!

rebel challenge 29 at rogue redhead designs is "happy birthday or unbirthday" in celebration of the november birthday of the stamp company.  i used one of my favorite RRD stamps from the milliner misses stamp plate for my birthday card.  she is colored with pro markers.

this card also uses the "washi weave" technique which is one of my favorite techniques from technique junkies.  the happy birthday stamp is from memory box stamps.
i'm linking up to "anything goes" challenge #48 at scraps of color.

love to all.

curiouser indeed!

for week two of the "secrets and hidden things" challenge at lunagirl moonbeams i wanted to do something kind of whimsical.  i was thinking that the alice in wonderland story includes secrets and hidden things so i turned to one of the alice collage sheets from lunagirl.  i colored the image of alice pulling aside the curtain with promarkers and cut it out. but i wanted her to find something a little more surprising than the queen's garden. so while the mysteriously smiling cheshire cat looks on, here is what happened in my alice scene...

whoa, what is rudolph the red-nosed reindeer doing behind that curtain? i guess he is telling me i'd better get going on making some christmas cards.

the alice, cheshire cat and "curiouser" all came from the lunagirl sheet.  the background was a freebie karen at lunagirl provided on her blog a month or so ago.  the rest are little things i had laying around.  i decided to link this card up to the "humour" challenge at dream valley challenges  and also to the "animal antics" challenge at the squirrel and the fox challenge blog.

happy week!  love to all.

shoes at tag tuesday

i'm a contributor at tag tuesday  and the theme this week is "shoes."  i wanted to stamp something so i pulled out some stamps from character constructions.  this little scene came to me during a half sleeping state when i was pondering the theme while dozing.  i know it is a little odd and rather simple but i decided to honor the dream state and share this little parade.  the swirly stamp is from past time stamps, the rest are character constructions, enhanced with promarkers.  i made the tag base out of some pretty green card stock.

love to all.

artist's choice at cheerful stamp pad...

the new challenge at the cheerful stamp pad is "your choice" but our challenge sponsor is the fabulous bombshell stamps so i made my first DT creation using several digital images from our sponsor. bombshell has digis and rubber stamps in all kinds of fun, classy and humorous styles.

by signing up for the bombshell stamps newsletter i got access to a lot of freebies and one was the "wanted poster" frame.  the frame was a perfect match for the cowgirl riding a pig which is sold in the digital images section. i figured she is in big trouble for rustling up a pig instead of riding a horse to rustle up some cattle!

the cowgirl (pig girl?) and the sheriff stars were all from the same sheet of images and i colored those as well as the wanted frame with promarkers.  i had some DP that made me think of a a wooden saloon wall where this poster might be displayed so i covered my tag with that paper.  i really hope she doesn't get caught.  why not ride a pig?  she's just an unconventional thinker!

make something new and fun and ink it up to the challenge!

love to all.

zodiac ATC

i love love love collage but my first love is stamping and i have drawers and drawers of stamps going unused lately.  literally hundreds of stamps....  thus i decided i should use stamping for the next challenge i enter.

so here's a little something i'll be linking up as follows:
wicked wednesday ATC challenge #95 "zodiac" and
scraps of color  #30 "black, white and pop of color" challenge.

this ATC honors sagittarius (my son's sign!) with its symbol "the archer."  the archer stamp is from "marks of distinction."  i stamped it in black, masked it, and then stamped the crackle background (from "sonlight impressions").  i went over everything with a black ink pen to make it pop a bit more and then outlined the borders and added some color with promarkers.

what shall i stamp next?

love to all.