ICAD 2016 - #50-#56

We're coming down the stretch with less than a week to go with the ICAD challenge.  Here are my next set of cards.

July 20 - Paisley.  So I tangled some black paisley shapes and then colored in the background with black marker.  Then I added a few white paisley's with a gel pen.  This can be very addictive and meditative too and I probably could fill pages with this pattern alone.  Don't be surprised if I return to this sometime in the future.

July 21 - Purple or Violet.  I went through my scrap box and pulled out everything that was purple or violet and decided on these to make a one staple collage.  

July 22 - Staircase. I'm sure that I could have used this last week for the Wordplay prompt but I didn't think of it until this week.  Keeping it simple.

July 24 - Fortune.  As luck would have it, our office is getting a face lift and in order to do this, we had to move out to another room in the school.  While putting away things on my desk I ran across this fortune.  I had to laugh when I read the fortune. Fastidious - not!  Washi Tape and cardstock in addition to the fortune.

July 25 - Aquarium - I lightly drew the form of the octopus and then I used some Stabilo markers to do the rings.  When that was done I erased the pencil and covered the tentacles with a VersaMarker and then clear embossing powder, several times.  The VersaMark ink on this grade of paper was not the greatest.  It seemed to absorb into the paper even though it did hold onto the powder to allow embossing.  I'm not quite happy with the ends of the tentacles where it shows up the most.  But overall, I like the way this came out.  

July 26 - Olympics - I used an SU die for the rings out of card stock and inks in the same color for the waves behind them adding some dashes with markers of the same color.   

July 27 - Text or Texture - Well there are both here, but out of all my cards (even the unfinished superhero one) I think I like this least.  There is text from a dictionary page that I folded over on itself for texture, but that didn't really fly so I added a strip of cork.  The flag is an ice cream cone wrapper and the baseball and logo are from the packaging on a key we had made.  These things were in my scrap bucket and I guess I'm glad that I got to use them.  

ICAD 2016 - #43-#49

This was a hard week.  Not because of the prompts, well, yes there were a couple that I perseverated over, but I wasn't quite feeling myself after falling off my bike last Saturday and I was trying to get some things ready for our Merry Fishmas party coming up so bear with me on some of these.

July 13 - Mint - Talk about frustrating!  I asked Siri (my phone search app) to find me pictures of mint and she kept finding me the definition of the word "meant".  When I say the two words I clearly hear a difference but apparently Siri does not.  After several tries she finally did give me three pictures to choose from and I chose this overhead view.  I used some Brushos and my new KOI watercolors and a white gel pen.

July 14 - Rainbow-making Machine - I thought about and thought about this one.  I tried something with my new POSCA pens but I didn't really like either of them.

Then I thought some more and came up with this.  I gave the sun a kind of steampunk look and smashed the cloud into the center to have the rainbow burst forth.  Again - the Koi watercolors and a Micron pen.

July 15 - Play on words - I meant to show my original thought and try at this but I think it got destroyed somehow, or I used it as a brush cleaner or something.  I had drawn some cubes that I intended to paint to look like ice cubes and that almost worked, until I tried to added the "P's" - it was supposed to be a play on "frozen peas".  So instead I painted some flowers in shades of blue that I thought I might use for the upcoming monochromatic prompt, but the flowers needed some greenery so this card was used for an off prompt for the day.

July 16 - Lighthouse - spending Saturday in Barnegat one would think that the Barnegat Lighthouse would be my subject matter, but I've drawn/painted that one before and as much as I love it, this lighthouse is one of my favorites.  The East Point Light in Heislerville - which I drew based on a photo I had taken and colored it with Prismacolors.  

July 17 - Monochromatic - I used my Peerless watercolors to do this.  If you're not familiar with Peerless watercolors they are pigments on a card just a little bit longer and a tad narrower than an index card.  You just touch your brush to the card to pick up the pigment.  I used an aquapainter and pulled out all the blue cards.  When I was done it reminded me of a stormy sky over the ocean, especially since they were reporting an unusual water condition at our Jersey beaches making them look like tropical waters.  

July 18 - Aurora Borealis or Australis - This card was a brush-cleaning card that I thought I might be able to pass off as an aurora borealis, but looking at it, it was too splotchy and not enough like the smooth ripples that one would see in an aurora.  But as I looked at it desperately wanting to see something "magically" appear the only things that I could see were heart shapes.  So I outlined them with a Micron marker and somehow they now were balloons or bubbles and I got lucky and found a quote that would fit with it.

July 19 - Super Hero - Alas, this is unfinished and I don't know that I will finish it so let's just say that it's a pencil drawing of Wonder Woman's headgear and a meme about her.  

So.......... let me get on with the party preparation and maybe I'll find a few minutes to work on today's prompt!

ICAD 2016 - #36-#42

I found some of these a little hard this week, and some of them a little thought provoking, and really, I've also found that doing this has been a little bit of an escape from reality - just a focus on doing.

July 6 - Crystal or Prism - I had just received these new Gansi Tambi Starry Colors in the mail and decided that although they weren't crystal or prism-like, that they were shiny like crystals or prisms. Honestly, the photograph makes them look so much better and the reflection gives them so much more dimension.

July 7 - Meditation - So........when I do my tangles I feel sometimes like I'm in a meditative state so I went with tangling for this one.  I had picked up some new gel pens at the Dollar Spot at Target and I wanted to try them out.  I also used a Micron pen and lightly shaded with a Prismacolor pencil.

July 8 - Folk Art - This has nothing to do with the prompt.  I was drawing a blank and right now I don't even remember what did prompt me to write down this school story and illustrate it.  Go figure. It's a pencil drawing colored lightly with Prismacolors.  

July 9 - Lens - I woke up on July 8th to the horrible news from Dallas and found it very upsetting.  I don't understand all the hate.  These last few weeks there have been a number of news reports/coverages that have really been depressing.  I feel that I want to speak out about certain things but I know that people only hear what they want to hear.  I just have to know that in my heart I carry no hatred and I've tried to bring up my children the same way.  So in thinking ahead about the prompts for the weekend since we were to be away, I was pondering lens and imagined that someone could invent a lens to wear, or to be implanted at birth that would make all skin colors look purple.  That we would all be physically the same so that we could love each other.  Just a thought.

July 10 - Surfboard - Another recent purchase was a small set of KOI watercolors that came with an aquapainter, or as they called it, a water brush.  I had this little beach scene in my head and it translated pretty good.  I asked HWNSNBP if he could describe it to me and he got it all right except for the beach towel.  He had no idea what that was.  

July 11 - Latitude and Longitude.  I swiped some ink pads over the card and then used the globe stamp and the wings stamp.  The stamped latitudes and longitudes are the places where my immediate loved ones live.  

July 12 - Yellow - I kind of feel that I failed at this one, or that I cheated, because I wound up doing it twice.  The first time I didn't pay close enough attention to the placement of the wording and then I tried to white it out and move it only to have the white out clump up on the index card and cause my pen to clog up and not be able to get smooth lettering.  I had plenty more torn pieces of the paint chips so I started over.  (Why did I have yellow paint chips you ask - well they're going to paint our office and we were looking for a cheery color and I thought as long as it was school bus yellow that yellow would be cheery.  I think the bright yellow scared my boss because he requested the palest of yellows - which I'm hoping will be noticeably different than the cream color in the hallways outside the office. It currently is a gray-toned white.)

Someone said that we needed color in the office to perk it up and then they turned to the beiges in the swatch booklet, which were okay, but to me beige is a neutral and not a color so I pushed for the yellow even though I'm not really a yellow lover.

I'm really happy that I'm actually using a variety of my art supplies.  Some of them have been sadly neglected.  

Christmas in July (Hopefully Part I of II) - Jingle Belles Catch Up

SO...............if you are a regular visitor here you might have wondered what has happened to all my Jingle Belles cards for the last couple few , well for many months?  I could regale you with excuses, some of them good, some of them sketchy, but I won't.  Just let me share with you now what I've been working on this past, what I am calling "Christmas in July" weekend.  I figured if the Hallmark channel can celebrate Christmas in July, and QVC and the Home Shopping Network can also, why not do the same.  And since Saturday was a yucky weather day and we came home early, what better way to use my time than to do some catching up on my Christmas cards while watching a various selection of Christmas movies on, yes I did.... the Hallmark Channel.

I actually did this card last, but it's the current challenge at the Jingle Belles blog so I will start with it. It's an inspiration photo challenge.  (I know, you might have mistaken it for the annual use pink in your Christmas cards challenge, but no, that's not usually until October.)  

Look at this lovely hombre tree in the scene provided by the JB girls below.  Isn't it beautiful!  My original idea was to use sticky jewels as my ornaments for my card, but in the process of searching and reorganizing my craft room, I found these stickers that I purchased at the $Tree not too long ago.  I got a set each of the small and the large glittery circles.  And even after doing this card I have a lot leftover of each.

I know my tree colors don't match exactly the order of the inspiration photo, but I felt this was the way to go.  I used some Brushos for my background and loosely as a tree underneath the ornaments. I found a slice of the colorful gingham paper and used that behind the tree panel with some MS punch added to soften the transition.  With those colors, I really felt it needed a solid pink as the card base and grabbed some retired pink SU paper for that.  The sentiment was die cut from some white glitter paper using word dies from Ellen Hutson.  Wouldn't it be great to send this card to the most conservative person on our Christmas card list!

I actually started my cardmaking that day with the prompt from one of my favorites challenges - recycling.  I managed two cards for this challenge.  The one below reuses that pretty red tag with the gold foil design on it.  I found some red metallic paper and contrasted that with a sliver of red suede paper. The flower was plain red so I added some gold paint to the edges and layered the flower at the top of the tag with some gold twine.  The sentiment is a die from Ellen Hutson (it actually says enjoy and I trimmed off the "en") cut from some gold glitter paper and it's all on a kraft card base.

The owls on the card below were cut from some of those wrapping paper sample sheets that I kept from a school fundraiser booklet.  I fussy cut them and added some real ponpoms to their hats.  

Another challenge I had missed was the washi tape one.  I made the ornaments below by lining up up some Christmas-theme washi on slice of white CS and then punching out the ornaments.  The hangers are also washi as is the sentiment.  The bows on the ornaments are pink cotton twine.

I looked through my stash of washi and pulled out those with red designs.  Adding the swirly die cut as a wreath gave it a pop of another color.

And the last card I'm showing is from the "USE NO BLUE" challenge.  Don't be tempted to cry foul with the sky behind the birds. I can assure you that it is gray and I'm so sorry that I didn't think to used a pale yellow instead.  I watercolored the image with my new KOI watercolors and an aquapainter. Then I layered it with 3 coats of clear embossing powder making it very glossy and almost looking like they're on the other side of the window.  I love cardinals, but after I got done I kind of think they're kind of angry looking.  I framed them with some cork paper and added the ribbon with the pinecones which afforded me the opportuity to add the die cut pine cones and branches in the corner.  

We'll see in the weeks to come if I can get another "Christmas in July" day!

June Tangles

I'm late, I know.  I had a lot of catching up to do.  Yikes!  So without further ado......

June 1 - Sundy/Barbara Burgess

June 2 - Batumber/Kelley Kelly

June 3 - Ingwi/Silke Diefenbach

June 4 - Hexastar/Rosemary Turpin

June 5 - Loopy Blossom/TinaRia Kirchhubel

June 6 - Paravan/Ria Mattheussen

June 7 - Erutats/Elaine Hudson

June 8 - 96X - Mina Hsaio

June 9 - Rainking/Leona Shih

June 10 - Veezy/Margaret McKerihan

June 11 - Andromeda/Lily Moon

June 12 - Dalmations Dogbones/Nicole Dreyer

June 13 - Jess/Anja Meeter

June 14 - Keystone/Dennie York

June 15 - Venetian/Elaine Benfatto

June 16 - Auwacka TOO/Dorte Seupel-Kor

June 17 - Operation/Yu Ru Chen

June 18 - X-Perope/Agneta Landegren

June 19 - Trills/Jenna Black

June 20 - Flux (Maria Thomas)/Official Zentangle

June 21 - Flux (Rick Roberts)/Official Zentangle

June 22 - Pax/Christine Reyes

June 23 - Slate/Schiefer/Simone Bischoff

June 24 - Gogglez/Terry Scardaville Johnson

June 25 - Blooming Butter/Michelle Beauchamp

June 26 - Barney/Sadelle Wiltshire

June 27 - Join/Helena Hadzijaneva

June 28 - C-Six/Damy Teng

June 29 - 8sam/Simone Bischoff

June 30 - Eightflow/Anja Meeter

The last few weeks of June were like a blur.  The end of the school year is often like that.  That and we've been traveling more and of course the ICAD challenge have taken up a lot of time.  But I am determined to fill this book this year.  

Weekend Wonders

Last weekend was full of wonders........

A stunning sunset that I almost missed.  

I was sitting out front listening to the concert across the street at the dock.  I had made a couple of trips to the back of the condo to check things out but it didn't look like much was going on so I resigned myself to just enjoy the music and some people watching.

A little while later HWNSNBP came up and said to me "you know I'm color blind, but I think you might want to see this".  

Oh how right he was!  The pink morphed into such an intense red as though the sky itself was on fire.

We spent July 4th wondering if the weather would hold out for the fireworks that were planned for that evening.  Late in the afternoon, with the threat of approaching storms, the start time of the fireworks was moved up so they actually started before complete darkness, however the stormy sky was dark enough a background to enjoy them.

Many people left before the finale as it did begin to rain towards the end.  

Watching through the window as the crowd left became a light show of a different kind.

Especially when the rain intensified.  All those headlights causing the raindrops on the window to sparkle like stars.

Speaking of stars, I've been meaning to share this picture of the origami stars, boxes, and cranes that my daughter shared with me.  She had a student this year that was very much into origami and would gift them to her.  

Aren't they cool!

The theme of the week over at Our Beautiful World is Bits 'n' Pieces so I'm going to share these little bits and pieces of folded paper there.  Won't you join me in a trip around the world to see more bits and pieces?