Aurora Easter Egg Hunt ~ TEW Challenge # 4

I'm so excited...could burst into that song but I like you so I won't...lol. I am participating in my first blog challenge as a DT member for The East Wind. The first of the month, subscribers to Unky's newsletter receive a free image which the DT also play with. This month's freebie is called Aurora Easter Egg Hunt and she is adorable! I decided to feature her in my E pages in my altered dictionary (E is for eggs).

I coloured Aurora with Prismacolor pencils, cut her out with a narrow white border, and then matted her in black so she would stand out against the background as well as have more strength when I popped her up with foam dots.

The dictionary pages were glued to the ones adjacent to them using Matte Medium. Then the e pages were gessoed except fot the definition and the letter heading. A border was drawn around the outside edge of the two pages and the pattern was filled in with Black Big Brush pen or white paint. The inside of that frame was coloured with Neocolor II watercolour crayons and a wet brush. Once dry, pink crayon was added to the outside in a wavy pattern. Once that was dry, it was deepened with gelato next to the black and white frame. The yellow inside was also deepened with gelato next to the pink. Black Big Brush pen emphasized the border. Stencilling was done with Dylusions Number Jumble stencil and Sepia Archival ink. Memento Bamboo Leaves ink was used on Unity's Reversed Punchinella stamp to create a subtle texture.White gesso was watered down slightly and brushed over the top of the stencilling and stamping to knock the colour back a bit. White paint was pounced through another halftone stencil to create the circles you see. This was done twice for a more solid look.

Many eggs from Tumblefish Studio's Dozens collection were sized differently and fussy cut. Some came patterned and some were plain and decorated to complement the page. I absolutely love the purple egg with the added feet and wings, as well as the cracked one with the feet sticking out. They make me smile!

The egg over the letters at the top was cut to leave the piece missing, and then backed with striped paper which was cut to reveal the letters.Little details like that make me so happy. Some eggs were glued flat, some popped up on foam, all shaded around with either Copic marker or coloured pencil. Lines were doodled to suspend some from the frame.

The sentiments, both from Create With TLC, were printed on white cardstock and matted in black. The right hand one is popped up on foam tape. The left has some colouring done with Prisma pencils. My dictionary is nearing completion and, as you can imagine, it's getting very fat. In order to reinforce the seam, washi tape was applied to it and also as a tab on the one sentiment. TH Remnant Rubs were applied randomly with words or phrases that suited the scene.

There's even an air mail one on the pink egg as well as the row of tiny stars at the top. A TH Zigzag stitch stamp was used to frame the definition and was repeated around the pages. And, of course, I had to add my TH spotty stamp with a little Jet Black Archival ink just to make the spread a little messier :)

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your support and interest mean so much to me. When you get a minute, pop by The East Wind Challenge blog to see the amazing creations from my oh-so-talented teamies. What a fabulous group! Then sign up on the blog for Unky's newsletter so you can get this adorable freebie and join the fun. if you haven't already, check out The East Wind shop on Etsy...amazing images. We have a wonderful and very active FB group, too. Hope to see you there.

I am entering this project in the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations ~ Anything Goes/Easter Colours
Crafting From the Heart ~ #12 Anything Goes/Cute & Cuddly
Crafty Boots Challenge ~ Easter
Incy Wincy Designs ~ Tic Tac Toe Diagonal yellow free black
Kaboodle Doodles ~ 3217 Spring is Coming
Lexi's Creations ~ #113 Easter
613 Avenue Create ~ #65 Anything Goes
Sentimental Sundays ~ Add a doodle to it

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

You Can Bug Me Anytime ~ CYP Challenge 207

Big happy hellos to everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. It's Monday and that means that it's time for a new challenge at Craft Your Passion Challenges. Our theme this week is Any Shaped Project but Square which I love because I fall into the rut of making the traditional square or rectangular shape all the time and it's good to shake it up every now and again. Our wonderful sponsor is Doodle Pantry and when I chose my image, of course, I came away with a BIG wishlist as usual. I chose to play with Ant Masquerade, colouring it with my Prismacolor pencils. I love that the ants are in disguise as other bugs...so cute. I chose bright colours to remind me that although it snowed again on the weekend, spring will eventually arrive (fingers crossed).

To create the shape of the card, I traced around the image using a kitchen plate as a template...very high tech and complicated! Then I cut a black folded piece of cardstock as a mat. Before layering the image onto the background, I applied Broken China Distress ink to the sky and Vintage Photo DI to the ground area using a blending tool. Faux stitching was doodled around the edges.

The fun sentiment also came with the image...love how Doodle Pantry does that and also gives you several choices. I punched an arch above and below the words and matted it with black before popping it up with foam squares. Some dotty ribbon was adhered to the top left of the card and a stacked flower with a button center to the right side. Three little gem flowers with white half pearl centers were added to the ground both to bring some purple down to the base and to add some sparkle.

And that's it for this simple but whimsical card. Love these ants...not the real ones because I am allergic to their bites. These don't bite so we get along fine :) Actually, I overheard them saying the same about me..lol. Thanks for visiting today. I appreciate your fine company. If you get a chance, pop by the Craft Your Passion Challenges blog to gather more inspiration from my talented teamies. I'm hoping you'll join us this week in our Any Shaped Project but Square challenge.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
613 Avenue Create ~ #65 Anything Goes
Come & Get It ~ In the Garden
Dragonfly Dreams ~ #3 Up in the Air
Lacy Sunshine ~ #30 Add flowers
One Stitch at a Time ~ #200 Anything Goes
Sentimental Sundays ~ #200 Add a doodle to it
Di's Digi Designs ~ Welcome Spring
The Doodle Garden ~ March Anything Goes


Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Magic in Everything and Exciting News

Oh my word, I am so excited! I have been invited to join the DT for The East Wind, those fabulous images by Unky (aka Kyra Eunkyo Kim). I love her images...they inspire me so much and all seem to have so many stories to tell and to unfold in mixed media art as well as in cards and tags. The team is so talented and creative that I feel so lucky to be included. There are two challenges each month on the Challenge blog as well as a Facebook contest. In order to kick off joining this team, I decided to create an art journal spread following the Facebook theme of Magical Creatures.

I layered black gesso over the journal pages using a gift card to get lots of texture and lines. When that was dry, I applied Treasure Silver with my finger to highlight the high spots as well as add a little sheen to the lower areas. It broke up the black and made the texture very visible. Next I applied white gesso through Dylusions Diamond of a Border stencil. I found some old sheet music at the thrift store and the one song was Haunting Me which was perfect for this spread. I tore a section out and adhered it to the page with Matte Medium. More stencilling was done by applying Golden's Iridescent Copper through TCW's Mosaic Tile stencil.

This gorgeous image, Lucy Loo Love Letters II, from The East Wind shop was coloured with Prismacolor pencils and fussy cut before matting it with black cardstock. Her hair was so fun to colour and I love her pretty face. I popped her up on foam tape to achieve greater dimension and shadow and layered tiny strokes for her cat's fur.

To continue the silver theme, I applied silver metallic tape (from the garage) to black cardstock and die cut the Memory Box star banner. The extra stars were scattered around the piece and one of the punched circles became her earring. Two other pieces of the tape were put through a TH diamond plate embossing folder. One section was layered behind the sentiment and another was torn and added to the top of both pages.

The sentiments came from Create With TLC. Paulette has so many awesome sentiments. The Hold on to the Magic one was crumpled, grunged up with Vintage Photo Distress ink, and distressed around the edges. The word Magic was scuffed with Clear Wink of Stella to create shimmer.

The other sentiment was punched out with a scallop circle punch. Tiny playing cards were placed over the cards on the image. The dice, hat lining, and scarf were coloured with Prismacolor pencils. The butterfly was fussy cut and Stickled before a miniature spoon was added as its body. It was adhered over the tiny butterfly in the image because I needed to bring her hair colour to the other page. The circle was aged with Antique Linen Distress ink as well as Black Soot around the edges and doodling was added as a border. The little silhouette cats were cut from an Impression Obsession die. Once they were set loose, they just went everywhere on the pages :)

Two scraps of cheesecloth were adhered to the pages and two Idea-ology pen nibs were Glossy Accented to the cheesecloth to continue the writing theme from the image. A clock button and some tiny dice finished off the lower vignette. A skull was printed from a TFS file and punched in a circle to repeat the skull in  Lucy's hair. Bits of washi tape, and a torn piece of filmstrip border were added to underline the words "are you haunting me".White pen dots, scuffs of white gesso, and outlining the edges in Black Big Brush pen and I called it "Done".

I thank you for visiting today and allowing me to share my exciting news with you.There's still lots of time left on The East Wind Facebook contest for Magical Creatures. Our other challenge begins on The East Wind blog on April 1. Hope to see you there, too.

I am entering this journal spread in the following challenges:
As You Like It ~ Favourite Animal (Cat) ...I love their beauty, their independence, and how they always remember the importance of play)
Creative Knockouts  ~#30 Texturize it  (gesso, dry embossing, cheesecloth)
Delightful Challenges ~ Out Like a Lamb (animal)
Dream It Up ~ March Madness #4 Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Journey ~ Anything Goes
The Sisterhood of Crafters ~ Animals
Robyn's Fetish ~ Anything But a Card

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Gardenias and Pearls ~ CYP Challenge 206

Our challenge theme for this week at Craft Your Passion Challenges is Mother's Day/For the Ladies. In Canada, our Mother's Day is celebrated in May so I'll be ahead of the game...for once :) We have the privilege of having Aurora Wings as our sponsor this week. I absolutely adore Mitzi Sato- Wiuff's beautiful images...you know how I love to colour faces and hers make me sigh! I coloured Woman With Gardenias and Pearls with my Prismacolor pencils, adding Cotton Candy Stickles to the pearls in the image. She was a dream to colour. Her earrings are flat white pearls. The shape was cut using a Spellbinders Labels One die and the edges were inked with Spun Sugar Distress ink. A second slightly larger mat was cut from green patterned paper inked around the edges with Pine Needles Distress ink. The two layers were offset and popped up on foam.

The background paper was cut on the one end with an MFT scallop border die before being adhered to the white card base. A strip of companion paper to the image mat was inked with Pine Needles DI and then adhered near the bottom of the background DP. A double row of pearls was layered over the strip and the image was placed over that. To soften the background and add more texture and whimsy, two small pieces of cheesecloth were tucked under opposite corners of the green mat. Flat pearls were added. Love the shine of the pearls and the loose weave of the cheesecloth together.

A pale pink mulberry and two smaller creamy paper flowers were added to the upper right corner as well as an odd number of the white pearls. This scatters the pearls throughout the card and repeats the pearls from the dreamy image. This is an unusual card design for me as I often go for vibrant colours both in my colouring and in the background. I listened to the image who was very clear on how she wished to be coloured...softly and delicately. And she was right!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. When you get a chance, pop by the Craft Your Passion blog to see the lovely creations by the rest of our talented DT. And if you haven't already, stop by the Aurora Wings shop to check out more of Mitzi's gorgeous images.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
Aurora Wings ~ First challenge (Yay!) Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create ~ #64 Anything Goes
One Stitch at a Time ~ #205 For a Woman in Your Life (my mom)
Pile It On ~ #12 Pretty Hair
Stamping Sensations ~ All in the Pink
ABC Challenge ~ H is for Hair

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Brittany, a sweet flapper

One of our Craftitude DT members was unable to complete her card for this challenge so I seized the opportunity to play with another artbymiran image for our current challenge, Anything Goes or Add a brad/eyelet. This little sweetie is called Brittany 1920s Flapper and, of course, I coloured her with Prismacolor pencils. I fussy cut her leaving a narrow white border and then matted her in black.. A black gem was placed in the center of her headband flower and Black Diamond Stickles were added to her sash. A Clear Star Jelly Roll was used to dot around the flower and outline the sash. Her pearls were dotted with white Scribbles paint.

The card is a step card and the panels were layered with scraps of black and white paper. A double row of gems was adhered across the top edge over a scallop border cut with an MFT die. Tiny star sequins were glued to the scallops. To me, this became the curtain of a stage and the gems, the lights.

The sentiment from Create With TLC refers to Brittany's dreams to make it big in the theatre :) A pretty paper flower was used to embellish the one side of the sentiment and two heart brads decorated the other.

That's it for Brittany and me today. We thank you for visiting and hope you are having a wonderful weekend.
I am entering this card in the following challenges:
artbymiran ~ Anything goes
2 Sisters ~ #174 Black and White and one other colour (red)
Sweet Stamps ~ #161 Anything Goes
Feeling Crafty ~ #26 Use a Digi and Bling

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Craftitude Challenge #61 ~ Add a Brad or an Eyelet

Woohoo! It's time for our new challenge at Craftitude Challenges and this fortnight we are honoured to be sponsored by artbymiran. Love her images and was amazed to discover that Mi Ran Jung, the artist, lives only about an hour away from me. We're practically neighbours...lol. The image that I chose to play with for my ATC is called Bashful Belinda and is available in artbymiran's Etsy shop here. I coloured Belinda with Prismacolor pencils, fussy cut her, and popped her up on foam tape.

The background is triple layered: gold patterned paper (MME), brown cardstock, and Lady Couture glossy embossed paper (DCWV). The edges of the two patterned papers were inked with Vintage Photo Distress ink, and the bottom layer was faux stitched. Tiny butterflies were cut from vellum and patterned paper using a Recollections punch. The vellum wings were folded up and edged with Vintage Photo and then Icicle Stickles. Tiny amber gems were added to the bodies once the two layers were attached in the center and also to Belinda's hair ornament. The pocket watch is a brad, and those teeny tiny flowers were cut with a Punch Bunch punch which my buddy, Paulette, sent me...thanks, Paulette.The flowers were sculpted slightly with a stylus and then half pearls were added to the centers and tiny green triangles for leaves.

Belinda and I thank you for visiting today. She would tell you herself but she's...bashful. If you get a chance, pop over to our Craftitude Challenges blog to see the gorgeous creations by the rest of our talented team. Stay tuned over there for a DT call which will be posted next week. We'd love to have you join our team.

I am entering this ATC in the following challenges:
artbymiran ~ #2 Anything Goes
Brown Sugar ~  #86 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz ~ #223 Bling it up
Digi Haven ~ Things with wings
Creative Knockouts ~ #29 Things with wings
MilkCoffee Challenge ~ At least 2 flowers
Divas By Design ~ Flower Power

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Uniquely Me ~ eP Mixed Media Tag

Hi everyone! Last week I showed you the first altered tag I made with one of the multiplication flash cards I scored at the thrift shop. Today, I am showing you her friend, UM. I started the background at the same time as the first one because I had enough ink on my craft mat to sop up that I could do two more tags. The background was gessoed and then the tag was dragged through puddles of Scattered Straw and Picked Raspberry Distress ink which was smushed onto the mat and spritzed with water. I kept the ink to the inside of the tag and dried it. Peacock Feathers DI was applied to the edges with an ink blending tool.

Scraps of yellow patterned paper were torn and adhered to the background with Matte Medium and then my favourite TH text stamp was randomly stamped with Picked Raspberry DI. Gesso was applied through TCW's Well Rounded stencil using two of the 9 patterns. That is such a versatile stencil...it often shows up in my mixed media art. I doodled spirals on some of the circles and shaded around others with my Stabilo pencil. A chunk of border from a Deviant Scrap collage sheet was added to the left side. Strips of black cardstock were adhered near the base to give my funky lady a place to stand and over one of the yellow scraps to bring some black to the midway point on the tag. A black circle was punched and dotted with white pen. A star was punched from old text paper and added to the circle.

UM (Uniquely Me...remember when Alice told the queen her name was UM in the Wonderland movie) is a melange of various elements from collage sheets, many from Deviant Scrap. There are bits from at least 5 different collections, all cadged together to create this unique image. So fun doing that! Doodling was added to further embellish her, as well as Prismacolor shading, and a tiny feather (stuck a feather in her cap) added to her stylin' hat. She was lined with a Pitt pen, shaded around with Prismacolor pencils and the Stabilo pencil. Once she was adhered to the tag. a cloud cut with an MFT die and left over from another project was inked with Salty Ocean Distress ink, doodled on, and added to the top with a soaring bird image for company. The top letters for I am are glittery puffy stickers. Uniquely Me was computer generated and printed on an Idea-ology vial label which I then smeared with my finger (on purpose) while the ink was still wet. The entire tag (flash card) was inked around with Black Big Brush pen to frame it. The tag topper is Vintage Tape Measure from Maya Road.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I always appreciate your visits and lovely comments. They make my day...and UM's day, too.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

Here are links to the eclectic Paperie store for some of the products used today:

Maya Road - Vintage Tape Measure Trim Pack	Distress Ink Pad - Peacock Feathers	Distress Ink Pad - Scattered Straw	Distress Ink Pad - Picked Raspberry
Distress Ink Pad - Salty Ocean	Faber Castell - Big Brush Pen - Black	Uni-Ball White Gel Pen	TCW - 6x6 Well Rounded Stencil
Liquitex Acrylic Gesso	Inksessentials - Mini Mister 3-Pack	Claudine Hellmuth Studio-Multi-Medium Matte