give me five!

the tag tuesday prompt this week is "give me five" and the day before seeing this prompt i got my rubbermoon art stamps stamp of the month and it was -- a HAND!

this is a tiny tag, about an inch and a half long.  i colored the background with watercolor inks from stamp zia (company no longer in business so far as i can tell), stamped the hand and drew around it stamp and added some lines on the tag with black marker.

enjoy!   love to all.

on the ocean wave; and, the dancer(s)

2 pieces today and 3 challenges!  first, for tag tuesday, our prompt is "on the ocean wave." for this tag i did some stamping.

this is a tiny tag, measuring about 1x2 inches.  i spritzed the tag base with water color inks from stamp zia (a company which sadly seems to have gone out of business) in blue topaz and emerald green.  I stamped the mermaid first, a stamp by "good stamps stamp goods) and then masked the mermaid (watch out i'm getting fancy...).  next i stamped the waves (meer image stamps) and the bubbles (G-rated stamps).final step was adding this lovely black ribbon.

next up is another tag, which is for the take a word challenge, "dancer," and the gecko galz paper crafting challenge group on facebook's june color challenge "yellow and orange."  i don't usually decorate both sides of a tag but i did that here so i'm showing you both sides of the one tag here..

the background designer papers as well as the foreground vintage images are all by gecko galz.  i used a stencil on top of the designer paper on the second side -- "splotches" by tim holtz, i used a marker and just outlined the splotches rather than completely coloring through the holes.  other than that i used washi tape (by cavallini and co) and distress inks to finish the piece, and ribbon of course.

enjoy!  love to all.

snow day bird

seattle has an abundance of snow and i've been gratefully home the past couple days.  it is cold and beautiful and white out; very inspiring.  i'm also inspired by the "birds of a feather" challenge at the cheerful stamp pad.  bird images are wonderful to work with.  so there will be lots of bird posting the rest of this week.  here's another one of the postage images from stamp zia.

enjoy; more to come.
check out the challenge HERE.
love to all.

cheerful stamp pad birds of a feather!

for the next two weeks the challenge at the cheerful stamp pad features one of my favorite themes and the sponsors is one of my favorite companies.  the theme is "birds of a feather."

and the sponsor is alpha stamps.

even though i have gobs of goodies from alpha stamps i didn't have any birds handy for my first DT creation (but stay tined for next week...) so i used this bird postage stamp from stamp zia.  the other papers, stickers and borders are from the stash.

i find that i use birds in my valentine cards quite a bit and its moving into valentine making season.  however you'd like to use a bird please join our challenge this week.

i'm also including this card in the "wings and things" weekly bloggers challenge at lisa somerville's blog splendiferous creations.

love to all.

tag tuesday and pink saturday

i haven't played tag tuesday for a long time but this week the challenge is to work with hearts, making the heart a focal point.  i kept finding papers with pinks and that was fitting since it is also pink saturday time.  so tonight i was randomly fooling around with my supplies and here is the result. 

i started with a tag i'd previously colored with stamp zia color wash jewels. i layered some decorative papers (all heart themed) and stamped my lady (from ducks in a row) over the layered papers.  the three hearts she is kissing were cut out free hand from various papers i had laying around, the top one i colored with alcohol inks, the others with regular dye inks.

the heart is supposed to be a focal image and i'm not sure the three hearts really are.  perhaps i should have sought a atronger contrast with the the paper underneath it.  but i enjoyed making it anyway.

happy pink saturday and happy tag tuesday!
love to all.

things with wings tags

 the current challenge at cheerful stamp pad is "things with wings."  everyone is encouraged to submit a creation with wings, whether a card, tag, ATC, art journal page, mixed media piece -- whatever gets your juices flowing!  thee is one week left -- the challenge closes june 25.  one randomly selected winner will get a treat from moonlight journey.  i have many wonderful collage sheets from this company and they are really lovely.

my tags here are just stamping though.  the party cat hat is from lost coast designs and the princess tag stamps are all from clear art stamps.  backgrounds are with watercolor jewels by stamp zia.

enjoy; love to all

pink saturday tag

here is a little something for pink saturday.  the background on the tag is a variety of pretty pink colored watercolor jewels from stamp zia.  these faery stamps are ones i have had for many years.  they are so old they fell off their wooden blocks and i re-mounted them with ez mount so i no longer know the company they came from.

this is also one of my DT tags for "things with wings" -- the latest challenge at the cheerful stamp pad.  check it out and include one of your winged creations!  the challenge is open for one more week.

i hope you are having a happy weekend.  love to all.

stamped goodies

hello friends.  a busy schedule has not permitted me the creative time i'd wish for.  so i was looking for a card to send to a friend and found a couple stamped goodies i'd made awhile back and set aside.  i'll share a couple over the next few days.  today i'll share this lovely rabbit from sue coccia/earth art international.  sue has a bunch of amazing animal stamps like this, based on her original artwork.  i've had the pleasure of meeting her at stamp shows and craft festivals and i believe she is based in washington state.  as you can see there are multiple other animals and nature images inside the body of the rabbit.  my background was spritzed with stamp zia water color jewels and then the rabbit was colored in with colored pencils.  i actually did not try to pick up all of the images in the body -- i just highlighted a few.  it is a little challenging but also fun.  this card is stamped only, no other embellishments.  there was a time when i only stamped and this is from that time.  i hope you enjoy.
love to all!

a special reason

challenge # 19 at the cheerful stamppad is "a special reason."  for this challenge everyone is asked to link up a special occasion card such as wedding, graduation, sympathy, etc., but not birthday cards which will be saved for another time. the challenge sponsor is our daily bread designs, i had never purchased from this company before but i checked them out in preparation for my DT duties and i found a lovely stamp set with quotes by mother teresa.  i ordered the set and was delighted to find my stamps were on purple rubber!  i find mother teresa both encouraging and inspiring.  her life of faith in action really speaks to me.  this card i made will go to my cousin. unfortunately she was diagnosed with breast cancer recently.  i think this quote is spot on for her.  surgery will be june 6.  all good thoughts are welcome.

the background for this card was done by spritzing watercolor jewels from stampzia then laying a paper towel over the wet surface to get a more muted and textured feel.  i inked the stamps with markers.  i lightly inked around the edges with some distress ink and then i put the stamped image on some textured cardstock.  in the scanned image of this card the textured cardstock appears to be almost an electric purple but the real card is much more muted in appearance, a pale-ish color.  i tried out lots of ribbons and beads for further embellishment but nothing was right.  this card wanted to stay simple.

i hope you'll try out the challenge!  love to all.

more coloring joy

for this creation i was interested in the idea of coloring on some already colored paper.  i had some card stock i had colored in deep blues with watercolor jewels by zia stamps.  i stamped a mermaid image by ching-chou kuik from sweetpea stamps.  i used every colored pencil in the box to color my mermaid (i'm especially fond of her hair!).  next step was to put my mermaid in her watery blue world on to some beautiful yellow parchment paper by the paper temptress.  finally all of that went on to another bit of card stock that i'd previously saturated with color, this time with colors by starburst stains.  i had some greenish ribbon that made me think of seaweed so i placed that in the corners.  perhaps this will be additional inspiration for you to join the "color my world" challenge at the cheerful stamppad!

love to all.

drunken stampers #63

the latest challenge (#63) at drunken stampers is "technology sucks."  i don't think technology sucks but i do believe we sometimes need a break from it.  the point was not to use any technology in the challenge creations.  i don't really have much technology in my crafting -- the most high tech thing i've got is a heat gun.  so i didn't use it here!  to me the antidote to technology is spending time in nature or spending time with art.  so my ATC is nature-themed.  the native american style eagle stamp is from sunday international and the sun is from uptown rubber.  i used regular markers on the stamps and masked the eagle.  before stamping the background was spritzed with watercolors by stamp zia.  i used a sharpie around the edges.  and that's all.

love to all.