party cat in the stars

this month's challenge at lost coast portal to creativity is "use a stenciled background."  i struggle to get good effects with stencils but i decided to give it a go anyway.

the stars stencil is from winnie and walter and the stamp is by lost coast designs "party hat cats".  i used a silver sharpie with the the stencil.  the gorgeous background paper is from the itKuPiLLi primavera paper pack.

love to all.

mini beasts

"mini beasts" is our prompt at tag tuesday this week.  leaving me wondering -- is this an invitation to create something involving tiny monsters or...?  i have this wonderful stamp of a frog from rubber stampede and in the end i opted to create something with this particular "mini beast."

i created the background with watercolor inks spritzed on a stencil.  then i stamped the frog multiple times.  so it is a simple tag, but i like it!

love to all.

rubber mooning

i'm in a rubber moon art group, sponsored by rubber moon art stamps. one of the members challenged herself to create new piece with rubber moon stamps every day this month.  that was more than i thought i could handle but i decided to strive to do something weekly.  i've done three art squares (twinchies) so far, am sharing them all today.

 

all stamps are by rubber moon.  the backgrounds are all watercolor inks spritzed over stencils.  i used colored pencils on the middle square.  also the squares themselves are all really fabulous pre-cut squares from inchie arts.

 

with 3 of these done now and today being the 7th i'm obviously ahead of the weekly challenge i gave myself.  but it was so much fun.

 

love to all.

tags and people

sometimes the simplest things can perplex -- our prompt at tag tuesday this week is "people" and i spent way too much time wondering if this meant plural people or the concept of people!  thus i made two tags, of course.

the background of this tag is stamped with an image from rogue redhead designs. i used these three faces from a collage sheet of unknown origins and a sentiment from a tim holtz sticker book.

 

 

the background paper and vintage image on this tag are both from gecko galz,  i also used a stencil and watercolor spray ink over the background paper for additional dimension.  the rest of the tag are stash bits.

 

enjoy; love to all.

furry friend

earlier this month we said goodbye to our sweet gilda, friend and companion for 18 years.  she was an orange tabby.  i still think of her and expect to see her around the house.  but her time had come.

the cat in this ATC, though she doesn't look like gilda, has had me thinking of her.  i made this ATC in response to the prompt at wicked wednesday "furry friends."

i used an image from a lunagirl collage sheet "yictorian cats," french newsprint background paper from my stash, a flower stencil and spray water color ink, lace and a butterfly brad to embellish this piece.

love to all, especially our dear animal companions.

moo plus inchie

i'm having fun with small canvases this month.  today i am sharing a "moo" (roughly 1.1 x 2.8 inches) and an inchie (1x1).

my moo is in response to the moo mania challenge blog current challenge to create in black and white.  i cannot recall the source of the black and white image of the woman.  i'll update the post when i can find the collage sheet on my computer!  the rest is simple -- white background and some decorative black border.

the inchie is for the 100 proof press inchie challenge (running until sept 15).  of all the 100 proof stamps i own i could not find anything that was smaller than an inch.  so i used just a portion of a clown stamp from the company.  i covered my inchie base with french script background paper from my stash, used a stencil and spray inks to create the polka dot background, stamped the clown and then bordered it in black ink.

enjoy.  love to all.

net

our new challenge prompt at tag tuesday blog is "net" for which we can do anything involving a "net."  kind of a challenging idea.  my mind turned to the thought of fisher-people and nets in the ocean.  both the fact that nets are a way that these folks make a living and feed our families but also in the way that sometimes these nets trap marine animals unintentionally which is bad for some species. i admit this tag didn't come out entirely as i'd hoped but here it is:

i started with spray inks in hues of blue and green.  i first tried to convey the idea of a net with a stencil but it didn't look "netty" enough for me.  so i then stamped all my images and used a piece of magic mesh to represent a net.  as you can see, the octopus is escaping the net!  by the way, a little trivia about my arty life -- this octopus stamp was one of the first stamps i ever bought!  it was years ago for a project my son was doing at school on marine life and i thought the stamp would make a nice accent to the poster he was doing.  interestingly, this was actually how i got started stamping!

stamps: octopus is by missing link stamp co., waves are by meer image and bubbles are by G-rated stamps.

enjoy; love to all.

contrariwise...

our prompt at tag tuesday is "arrows" and for some reason this made me think of tweedledee and tweedledum.  i am pretty sure there is no good reason for that.  actually i think my mind is fixing on all the times in the alice story that people give conflicting information on which way to go... anyway, here is the tag I made:

i used a checkerboard stencil and walnut ink for the background.  the arrows were die cuts in my stash.  all of the stamps (the phrase, the tweedles and the pointing hands) are from silver crow creations.  the sentiment says, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't -- tweedledee."  sadly i smudged it with my finger when finishing up the tag as i thought it was dry.  oh well.

enjoy; love to all.

trick or witchery...

"witchery" is the new challenge at lunagirl moonbeams so in the hallowe'en spirit you are invited to link up your artistic creations featuring witches whether they are sweet, spooky or comical.   i think the witches in this vintage photo provided by lunagirl are all three: "just one last cup of tea before we go off to trick or treat girls!"

you may recognize the background from another recently posted creation.  it is another piece of my cardboard which i'd covered in gesso, stamped with french script, then stenciled with a flower stencil.  i put a piece of that on some orange cardstock, added my distressed image of the witches and arranged some other embellishments to finish this piece.

please enjoy and consider joining our challenge!
love to all.