Some October Cards

That beautiful "starry nightlike" background stamp again became the water in the ocean for two starfish who celebrated their 5th anniversary earlier this month.  

These next two cards I made using a new technique to me - Acrylic Batik.  I stamped the large sentiment onto heavy white cardstock with VersaMark ink and clear embossed it.  Then I took 3 colors of acrylic craft ink and spilt them on the paper randomly.  The next step was to use a credit card to spread the paint and blend it, but before I did that, I had a stamped two panels so I smushed them together face-to-face first to "share" the paint and then used the credit card on both.  

The only thing I didn't like was the hard shapes that some of the paint drips had made.  I don't know whether the paint soaked in too quickly, was too thick or what.  I still like them enough to use them, and honestly, unless I told you that it wasn't supposed to look like that I'm not sure anyone would know.  Anyhoo, I added a Dunkin' Donuts gift card to each of these and gave them to the ladies that run our Before School program because they were nice enough to stay a little later and monitor the incoming students the morning that we had our staff picture taken.  (The money came from what was left of what we collected for our opening day luncheon, not out of my pocket.) And they were the reason we could all smile that morning without worry.

A birthday card with some gourds and foliage against the birch bark wrapping paper I've been saving. I'm going to show you a similar card with a "sticky" tip soon.

These aren't cards but rather tags that I quickly made to go along with some gifts that my daughter-in-law was going to give to our grandson's teachers as he moves to the next room at his preschool.  The little charms say "Thanks for helping me grow" as the little acorn continues to do.  

Sorry to say I did not make one Halloween card this year.  But I've loved using the fall elements in these.  

Inktober 2017 - Days 22-28

These first three were inspired by our dogwood tree and I still didn't get it right.  The colors are so intense much like what I see.  But the shape of the tree is wrong.  The branches are more layered  horizontally.   I didn't like seeing them in the first attempt, eliminated them from the second, and the third was just a concentration of the colors of the leaves and what was around it.

This combined the theme from Scribble Picnic - BOO.  I drew a bottle of BOOze.

I cheated with this one.  I had this drawing of the orchid in pencil and I inked it with a Micron Pigma intending to go back and add color, but I think I would rather color it with pencil instead of ink so that will wait until another time.

Not exactly pointillism - is there such a thing as dashism?

And this is just silliness - I found some new gel pens at the $Tree.  There are four of them in the set each with three different colored inks.  I think you can see the variegations in the colors in spirals.  The spaces were filled with black marker.  

Inktober will be over soon.

Scribble Picnic - BOO!

We are supposed to bring some BOO to the Picnic this week being so close to Halloween.  I wonder if a bottle of BOO's would quench our thirst or scare us.  I hope there's enough Spirits for all of us!

Want to see what everyone else has brought to the Picnic this week?  I do!  You can join me by clicking here.  And should you like to join along next week the theme is TOY.  

Jingle Belles - Pink Christmas II

For my second Jingle Belles Pink Christmas card I tried something new. I saw the Try a New Technique challenge at Splitcoast this Monday was "Spots of Color" and I wanted to give it a try.  I stamped the Amuse poinsettia in Strawberry Slush and then, using some daubers and Pretty in Pink and Pink Pirouette inks spot colored the image and the background.

I added some silver glitter gel pen highlights and used clear Wink of Stella on all the flowers.  Not sure you can see the sparkle in the picture below, but IRL it is quite sparkly.

Remember, the Jingle Belle Hostesses Stephanie and Lauren are each donating $2 a piece for each card created for this challenge.  Aren't they the greatest!  Click here to find out more.  

Inktober 2017 - Days 15-21

After a very mild beginning of fall they were predicting our first frost early last week so I picked what was still blooming of our zinnias.  Here you have it two ways, pointillistic and colored with ink markers. 

I saw a photo of this bird, which I believe is a member of the grosbeak family and I loved the speckled breast and red accents I just had to give it a try.    

This was combined with the weekly Scribble Picnic theme - Fill in the _.  I used the assigned shape to make some flowers for a Steampunk garden.  

Mummies and ghosts!

East Point Lighthouse.  

Jingle Belles - Pink Christmas for the Cure

Each October the Jingle Belles run their Pink Christmas challenge. The requirement - the color pink has to be prominent on the card.  The prize - they will donate $2 each for each card to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  How can you resist entering with a prize like that.  Having fun, getting ahead on your Christmas cards, and paying it forward to research.

Here's my first card for this week.  I experimented with a little bit of Fuchsia Colorburst on watercolor paper. The little scarf-wearing penguin is from Unity Stamps.  I usually avoid glitter, but the urge to give that oval some kind of frame pushed me into glittering it.  I know.  It's a bit of a mess, but it'll do.  

So all my card-making friends out there, and even those of you who don't normally, but would like to give it a try, why not give this challenge a go?  I know you've got it in you!

Check out the gallery so far by clicking here.  

 

Edited to add:  The total donation for each card is $4.  Love those Jingle Belles Hostesses!

LBI Kite Festival 2017

The kite festival was the second week of the month and I've forgotten to post these pictures.  It was a warm day for October.  Still shorts and t-shirt weather, but humid it sure was.  You can't help but be happy watching all those wonderful, colorful kites.  We sat and watched some of the competition too.  

Picture heavy.

Scribble Picnic - Fill in the Blank

We're back at the picnic this week with a "fill in the blank" challenge and these are the blanks.

I chose to create a little steampunk inspired garden and left it in black and white.  

I may decided to give it a little color in the future, but for now, you'll have to use your imagination.

Time to head over and see what all the other picknickers have filled in their blanks with.  You can join me by clicking here. 

Inktober 2017 - Days 8 - 14

So I started out the week with an ink drawing of one of the coolest kites that we saw last weekend.  I only wish I had video'd the movement of this one because it actually looked like it was crawling with all those folds and legs.  (Note to self to video if it and we are there next year!)

Looking for something in my photo files, or was it on my blog....., in any case this is inspired by a photo that I took several years back of a lonely swan sitting on the edge of the bay.  I wanted to add orange to the beak but I talked myself out of it.  What do you think?

I keep seeing these advertisements on Facebook for these name mandala necklaces and thought I would give it a try myself.  It took some measuring, but it was fun.  Hmmmm....... Christmas gifts??

So as I was getting my breakfast ready Wednesday morning there was a rather eerie pink glow outside that got my attention.  I glanced over the the east and the sky was streaked with oranges and pinks, lavendars and blues.  We have a lot of trees surrounding our house here so this is the best I could get of that colorful scene, but it served as my inspiration for my drawing that evening.

Although my trees are sans leaves, I like the way this came out using India inks for my sky.

Someone posted a photo of an osprey on Facebook.  The bird looked to me like a Halloween forebearer with his head dipped down and his right talons raised.  I really should have started this drawing higher to get all of the tail in also.  Lesson learned. 

And how was your Friday the 13th?  We had a pretty wacky one at school.  This background was made the other day with the leftover India inks from the sunrise picture.  I was looking up how to spell triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13 and found that there was a word that meant the fear of Friday the 13th which was all the more relevant to that day.  A little lettering practice in ink.

October means pumpkins and so let there be pumpkins in India ink.  Some problems with perspective here and a lesson learned to thoroughly clean my brush before changing colors so I won't get that orange hue in my aqua sky again.