Heartfelt thanks

Wow, what a creative week it’s been: this is my 5th blog post! I’d like to share with you a card using the techniques explained by Kate Crane in her dvd ‘Art journaling: right from a blank page’. It’s my first attempt at using gesso and acrylic paints and adding texture in several ways.

It’s my entry for the following challenges:

• Pile it on: Heartfelt thanks
• Crazy Amigo: Hearts
• The Stamp Man: Texture
• Drunken Stampers: Texture
• Creavil: Hats and bonnets
• Crafts and me: Distressed
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Anything Goes

Stamps used

• Weasel by Stampotique
• Texture stamps by Tim Holtz

Glorious green garden atc

The weather has been dreary the last couple of days, so I’m sure you don’t mind me sharing this glorious green garden ATC. As I live in the city, I don’t actually have a garden, but I’m sure if I had one it would not only be populated with insects, snails, butterflies or hedgehogs…

The resist background was made with wax paper.

This is my entry for the following challenges:

• Gingersnap creations: Glorious Greens
• Stampalot challenge: In the garden (I hope they don’t mind me entering an ATC!).

Stamps used

• Fairies and butterfly: Lavinia
• Flowers: Katzelkraft

Clean and simple

One of the ladies of the yahoo-group ‘Creatief met Stempels‘ challenged us to create a clean and simple (CAS) card focusing on music. I combined this challenge with the CAS-challenge ‘Less is more‘, who wants to see a one layer card featuring stripes.

This card also fits the challenge ‘Music’s in in the air’ set by Irish Teddy’s.

Stamps used

• Stripes: Tim Holtz
• Girl: Art Journey
• Sentiment, G clef: Darkroom door

Stampotique Designers challenge CASE

This fortnight we are challenged to CASE one of the Stampotique Designer’s. This means we should copy one of their projects and steal everything. I chose to copy two candle projects by Nelly Van Leeuwen. Here’s the result:

 

Here are Nellie’s projects that inspired me: http://dutchstamptramp.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/stampotique-candles/ and http://dutchstamptramp.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/stampotique-trio-2/.

I’m so happy I finally tried this technique of transferring stamped images on candles! I really have been wanting to try this for ages. You can find a tutorial here.

 

A heart that hurts…

Well, I know, I’ve been rather quiet the last couple of weeks. Maybe that’s because I’m not a big fan of  Valentine, and of course this theme is omnipresent at this time of the year.  We often tend to forget that it might be a difficult period for those who have no one by their side or who’ve lost a loved one.  Only two weeks ago my best friend lost her loving husband, and so for the first time in 17 years he won’t be by her side on Valentine’s day.

So this ATC is my tribute to all people who lost a loved one.

 

This was meant to be my entry for the Haunted Design House ‘Shot through the heart’ challenge, but I didn’t finish it in time. Fortunately, I still can enter it into this week’s challenge, which is ‘Freaker’s free for all‘.

It’s also my entry for Studio L3′s Holtz-ian ATC challenge. I used a Stampers Anonymous heart stamp, an Idea-ology game spinner and Ranger’s Glossy Accents. The computer generated sentiment is an extract of the song ‘Bright lights’ by Placebo (I already shared it with you in this post).

Thanks for looking!

 

Favourite designer paper

Gingersnap Creations challenges us to use our favourite designer paper. Here’s my take on the theme:

Actually, I was a bit out of my comfort zone, for I hardly ever use any designer paper to create cards or atcs. I feel more comfortable designing my own backgrounds, using several inks, stamps and techniques. But then again, sometimes I just can’t resist buying gorgeous scrapbook papers, so this challenge was the perfect opportunity to get them out!  I also used a Stampotique stamp that I’ve never used before. Therefore, I’d also like to enter this card into this week’s Drunken Stampers challenge: something new. Thanks for looking!

Stamps used

• Stampotique: Glimmering Hope
• Stampers Anonymous: splatters, scratches
• Fiskars: sentiment

 

Chic freak

I needed a birthday card for a friend, so here’s my chic Stampotique birthday freak, just in time for this week’s challenge at Haunted Design House:

I’s also like to enter this card in the Gingersnap Creations’ ‘use a set’ challenge.

 

Live seconds as a lifetime

Some time ago, I made this gothic arch ATC tryptich for a personal swap:

Inside

Outside

I used several techniques: stamping with water, antique wallpaper technique featured in the Technique Junkie’s June/July 2010 newsletter, collage, …

I’d like to enter this ATC triptych to the following challenges:

• Rainbow Lady ‘Travel through time’
• Sunday Stamper ‘Time’
• The Artistic Stamper ‘Vintage’
• Three Muses ‘Song lyric’

I often find inspiration in song lyrics for my creations, and this particular one was inspired by ‘Endless skies’, a song by VNV Nation. I didn’t find an official video for this song, so I included the following one featuring the lyrics:

Winter scenery

Hello there, happy New Year to all you crafty people out there! I’d like to share a new card with you.

The background was created by smudging broken glass distress stains, evergreen bough distress ink and pearl paint dabbers on my craft sheet. I used a Tim Holtz folder to emboss the trees, which I then cut out. I covered them with  a layer of crackle paint and and added a layer of pearl paint dabbers. The icicles and flourish were heat embossed.

This winter scenery is my entry for the following challenges:

• Try it on Tuesday: all your own work
• Sunday Postcard: Swirls, twirls and curls
• Irish Teddy’s: Eiszeit

Stamps used

• Crafty individuals: flourish
• Lavinia: icicles
• Tim Holtz: snowflakes, sentiment

Clean and simple embossed stars

Here’s a clean and simple Christmas card that I’d like to share with you:

The stars have been punched out using a die cut. After decorating them using stamps, I covered them with Versamark and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.

Here’s a more detailed picture:

I hope I’m still in time to enter my card into the following challenges:

• Created by hand: light/star die cuts
• Crazy Amigo: embossing
• Paperminutes: clean and simple.