Altered Playing Card Week 17

Claudine Criners Altered Playing Card Challenge (APC) is more than half way through now - yikes. I am really enjoying it and will be sad when its over. I find myself slowing down, to make it last longer. LOL At least that's my excuse because I am a few weeks behind ;)

Here are my Week 17 creations :

 For the first APC I used Scribbly Birds by Dina Wakley for Ranger. I stamped the bird onto old book paper in archival ink. I then added a layer of acrylic ground for pastels, which dries clear and creates a fantastic scratchy surface to add wet medium to. When it was dry, I used my inktense pencils to color him, then a layer of clear embossing powder. The sentiment is from a stamp set by Crafty Secrets called Bird Notes. I added the little heart x I used a lot of thick gloss gel medium on my background, you can see it a little bit in the pic, it adds a lot of yummy texture.

 For my second APC I used this near little bird from a Hero Arts set, colored with inktense pencils on water color paper. The bird has been altered slightly as I wanted her to walk proudly upright, she is, after all strutting her stuff in her peacock feather head dress :) The feathers and wording are from a Kraftin' Kimmie Stamp called Vivienne.

Another fun week of APC creations - feels so good to be making something for myself. Hugs, Nikki x

'Snowmen' ATC

The ATC challenge at Wicked Wednesday this week is Snowmen, and the sponsor is Sami Stamps. Here is my ATC using the digi image 'Frosty Stars', colored with copics and wink of stella pen :
One of the joys of digital images is that you can change the size to fit your project, but also the aspect ratios.












Here is a pic of the actual image you buy.  You can see how my snowman above has slimmed down, just by my changing the aspect ratio's.
But spring is coming, and as optimistic as my snowman is in his nice bright colors, he is starting to melt ...

Funny / Punny make

The 179th Stampotique Designers Challenge this week, set by Kathi Rerek is punny and/or funny projects. I thought I would join in as I had this gorgeous little monster, Unicorn's Cousin, all raring to go : 

 

  I thought I would couple this very thought provoking quote with this cute little monster, with those enlarged googly eyes pointing in opposite directions :) 

I got to play with my new Neocolor II crayons - gosh, gasp, fun, AWESOME !

Background is Dylusions, a star stencil and washi tape.

Thanks for stopping by x

'Words of Wisdom' ATC

'Words of Wisdom' was the title for this ATC trade. 

The famous Nike quote came to mind, 'Just Do It !' See the logo on his swim shorts ? LOL

This is an Art Impressions stamp called 'Jump In', colored with copics. His swim shorts are paper pieced and the image fussy cut. I added glossy accents to his goggles and a light application of versamark over his body, so that the clear embossing powder only stuck to certain areas, I wanted a wet look :) The background paper is stamped with some water drops by Designs by Ryn, so I thought I would enter this into Ryn's January challenge, something a little different with her stamps :)

Hope my swap partners like this motivational ATC :)

'Nursery Rhymes' ATC

For this months ATC title of 'Nursery Rhymes' at the Stampotique facebook page, I thought I would do a little recycling, of egg shells : Here is poor Humpty Dumpty : 

 The background is made with acrylic paints, then I stamped the cracked image (from a Stampers Anonymous Ultimate Grunge stamp set) at the back and on Humptys (aka Ignis from Stampotique) head in victorian velvet distress ink and clear embossed. The wall was from the same Stampers Anonymous set, and I used the bar code from France Papillon (Stampotique) for the top of the wall.  It was stamped in brown archival ink and clear embossed. The discombobulated (from Stampotique) was stamped onto tissue paper in permanent ink, then torn apart and added with gel medium.

Here is poor Humpty, a little distressed from his fall and I do believe that "All the Kings horses and all the Kings men couldn't put Humpty back together again" :) The egg white and yolk is made from colored thick gloss gel medium. Ignis is colored with copics :)

This ATC trade is so much fun, Stampotique images are so versatile. Its a monthly highlight to create for this trade and see what everyone else comes up with.

Pink, black & white ATC

The sponsor of Wicked Wednesday Challenge blog this week is Ppinky Dolls Art. This image is called Mermy, isn't she just gorgeous. I colored her and the background with inktense pencils, and added a sheet of  clear embossed cardstock  with a circle pattern. It was hard to photograph but the X's are staples and meant to be an XOXO type of things, hugs and kisses.

Here is a close up of her, and the wording before I added the layer of embossed clear cardstock. Are you familiar with the Smoke City song 'Underwater Love' ? This is the first thing that came to mind on seeing the image.

I was actually inspired to make a second ATC using this stunning image, this is Unicorn. Same coloring technique as above :

I have an ink jet printer and although printing digital images onto good quality cardstock, (I use Xpress It), is fine for copic coloring, if I want to use a wet medium or colored pencil, the printer ink will smear or bleed. So for this image I covered her in a thin layer of Golden acrylic ground for pastels. It makes a fantastic surface for coloring, and is very durable to a wet medium regardless of the paper used. Also, you can add texture, more clearly seen in the Unicorn atc with the black lines.

Why not pop over to Wicked Wednesday and join the fun :) You can win an image from Ppinky's Doll Art.

There is also a Valentines challenge over at the Ppinkydolls Official Group on facebook, I have entered my sweet girls x

Birds in the sky ....

I have had the Nina Simone song, Feeling Good, stuck in my head for a few days now, so thought I would celebrate it and create ... A little artistic licence in the words there :)

Here is a mixed media card using chipboard pieces from Southern Ridge Trading Company, NAT-295 and BOR-151

 The background is created with torn paper, gesso and blue and green acrylic paint. I then added some molding paste through a stencil and orange acrylic paint. The bird and heart was painted with brown and gold acrylic paints and clear embossed. They were adhered and then I doodled with a brown thin line marker : 

The sentiment is handwritten on a diecut from a Spellbinders set.

So fun, thanks for stopping by and I am happy to say this song is no longer playing in my head :)

Altered Playing Card Week 16

My makes for this weeks Altered Playing Card Challenge, week 16 :

 The first APC uses this gorgeous image from Viva Las Vegas Stamps, Boy in Cape. This is such a great sentiment to accompany this image. A whole world of opportunity awaits this little wanna-be superhero :)

 The second APC uses this digi image from Vera Lane Studios. She is colored with copics and coupled with the 'capture your dreams' sentiment. With her holding the heart so delicately, I thought maybe she would be finding lots of love x So sentimental aren't I ! LOL Wings and sentiment glittered with my Wink of Stella pen.

Thanks for stopping by, please leave me a comment so I know you were here :)

Girly Stuff ATC's

The sponsor of Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge Blog this week is none other than the wonderful Vera Lane Studies. The theme is 'Girly Stuff'. I made two ATC's :

 The first ATC is using one of the great images from the Quirky and Whimsical baby girl set, this cute little girl with her teddy. She is colored with copics and I have paper pieced her clothing. I have coupled her with a couple of the images from the Photographer set, the photo frame and wording - Capture Life.

As soon as I saw these images I wanted to work with this combination, a reminder to take photos of your kids as they grow. It seems to happen so quickly that they have grown up ! My little girl here is teething, see those rosy cheeks, in the close up especially :

 This second ATC uses the Teddy from the Quirky and Whimsical Baby Girl set and I coupled it with stars and the word 'Believe' from the Whimsical Fairy set. 

The background is done with a stencil and inks. Here is the bear looking longingly into the stars to make a wish, bear trusts and believes ...

The bear is colored with copics, then I went all over with the blender pen to get that fabric/pile look :

Thank you for stopping by, maybe come join us at Wicked Wednesday, you would be in with a chance to win some images from Vera Lane Studios :)

Also : Janet from Vera Lane Studios has generously offered a 10% coupon code to our challenge players - enter code TRYVERA10 at checkout. If you spend $25 or more, you'll receive a 15% discount code.

Don't worry. Be happy ....

I made this cute tag using Whisker Monster with Sign by Stampotique : 

 The background is painted with acrylics and I also used Lindys Stamp Gang Moon Shadow Ink. The blue spots are embossed. The gorgeous little monster is stamped in Stazon ink, painted with acrylic paint and then using a stamp-a-ma-jig, he is stamped again to add the detail back in :) I used a white gel pen for his eyes and teeth. Close up of him : 

The "Don't worry, be happy" is his New Years resolution, and as such am entering this into the Stampotique Designers challenge #177, set by the super talented and lovely Claudine. I am VERY happy, and honoured to be chosen amongst the top 3 for this challenge - Yay.

If you notice my little monster is standing on a washi tape. I used washi tape for grounding things quite a lot, stops the illusion of them floating in space. So I am also entering this into the Tag Along Challenge #71.

Thanks for stopping by x

Altered Playing Card Week 15

Week 15, this week was fun, out came my unusual, interesting and fun characters :)

The first APC uses one of the awesome gals from Doodles Dolls 1 Set :

Here is a close up of her and you can more clearly see the background :

The playing card was lightly gesso'd and I intentionally missed a few areas. Then I used crackle paste and a stencil, then dylusions inks in blue and spiced marmalade. The girl was stamped in mulberry momento ink and colored with copics, white and black gel pen. I used this cool new rotary stamp from Stampin' Up! for the words. I liked this APC, its groovy :)

For the second APC I used Tree Topper from Stampotique :

This background was fun, its gesso'd, then I used black gesso for the hearts. When that was dry I used pink dylusions, when it was dry I ghosted it with the heart stencil and a fine mist of water. Left it for a few seconds and removed the ink from the ghosted areas. Then I sprayed red. Let that dry and white over the top. Look how it all ran into each other - Loved that marbelled look.

I stamped and embossed the circles and swirl with pearl embossing powder and added the words, which are from a set by Waltzing Mouse Stamps (WMS), Frame It. WMS have awesome sentiment sets, I often find just what I am looking for there. Tree Topper is colored with copics and white gel pen. I added crystal effect to the heart.

And thats it, another week of APC's completed. Loving this weekly challenge, its so much fun. 

A final view of both of week 15's APC's :

ATC Color inspiration challenge

For this weeks Wicked Wednesday ATC #140, it is sponsored by All Dressed Up and inspired by this Color Palette : 

I have used the image Love my ipad : 

She is colored with copics and I used diamond glaze/crystal effects for her glasses and the ipad screen. The background paper is from a 12 x 12 paperpack by DCWV called The Generation Tech stack.

I wanted this atc to be a bit techy, with the computer signs and also use some texting lingo. I decided on XOXO (Hugs and kisses), but there were a few others I considered : ILY (I love you), BFF (Best friends forever), CUL8R (See you later). 

Awesome Dude

A Birthday soon, and I had the most wonderful things to use. This is a project for Not Just Cards Challenge blog and also for Southern Ridge Trading Blog post.

 I have used a digital image from Kenny K called Teen Idol and I colored him with copics. I also used a wonderful chipboard circular star frame from Southern Ridge Trading Co. Here is a close up : 

I actually only used part of the Teen Idol image because I wanted him to be in the middle of my circular star frame, here is a pic of the whole image : You have to admit he is a pretty awesome dude.

The background is made with dylusions sprays, then the stars are stenciled with nougat colored molding paste and a thin sprinkle of Shabby blue Stampendous embossing enamel added, and heated. For the frame I painted it with nougat chalk acrylic paint and added a little crackle glaze and the shabby blue embossing enamel which I heat set. I lightly sponged the edge with brown distress ink. The words 'Awesome Dude' are from a Waltzing Mouse stamps sentiment set.

I framed it in a black 5" x 7"  frame and added some painted and embossed star cut outs.

Hope the boy likes it and thanks for stopping by x

New Year Reveler

This weeks challenge, #8 over at the Lost Coasters Review is to create a tag and the Tag Along challenge #70 is Anything Goes. Here is a New Year reveler, still ringing in 2015 :

 For this tag I have used an image from Isle of Aud Creatures. Isn't he just wonderful, love this type of weird and wonderful image. I stamped him in black and embossed my reveler with clear embossing powder. I wanted it to act as a resist as I painted the non black bits of the image with pale pink and white acrylic paint to get some contrast from the background. I have also used a border stamp called Spiral Border. I added a little gold, silver and pink embossing powder to the ground.

The background is made by using various colors of acrylic paint (pink and green) to cover the tag, then when it's dry adding a layer of grey. When the paint was wet I splashed water onto it, which prevents the paint from drying in that section.  When the rest of the grey is dry, I used kitchen towel to remove the still wet paint to reveal the colors beneath.

I stamped the sentiment with an alpha stamp and added the ribbon.

I hope you will come and join us in our challenge, there is a chance to win $10 to spend  on Lost Coast Designs stamps.

Week 14 APC

Playing a little bit of catch up with the Altered Playing Card Challenge, and it does feel odd to be doing Christmas themed APC's in January .... LOL. 

Here are my week 14, deer themed APC's :

 For this APC I used a Tim Holtz Bigz die, which was too big for the playing card, so I had to stand him in deep snow. The background is done using a snowflake Spellbinders embossabilities. I embossed the white cardstock, then sponged through the metal design in pale blue and then added versamark and some iridescent ice embossing powder. I stamped believe then used my wink of stella pen to add some reflective snow to the ground, the deers nose and eye

For this APC I used the Stampin' Up! set 'Lovely as a Tree'. I stamped the trees, embossed them and cut them out. I wanted some contrast from the blue and green, so thats where the red came in, Rudolphs nose was the inspiration obviously ! LOL. The sentiment says O' Christmas tree. 

OK, so I better crack on, 2 more weeks to catch up on before Claudine releases the next set of guidelines.

Thanks for stopping by x