Catzncards

Two of my passions - cats and cards in one place. I adore creating cards, but also mixed media, pocket letters as well as other crafts and love meeting other like-minded crafters in the blogging community, and enter challenges online. I'm blessed to be part of four design teams that showcase wonderful work from their sponsors, and I love getting inspiration from You Tube and Pinterest, as well as seeing the talented works of those that enter the challenges on the challenge blogs I'm a DT member.

Showing posts with label blog challenge. Show all posts

Sunday, 21 August 2016

Left of Center #144

Hi there! Where's our beautiful sunshine gone? I do hope that that's not it now for the year and we are going straight in to Autumn so soon. Fingers crossed we get more sunshine, certainly before the kids got back to school early September.

For this week's Left of Center Challenge #144 we are lucky to have Sheepski Designs sponsor us. I chose Aisling and she came with Flutterby.

I created the background using a mixture of papers from Tim Holtz Idea-ology Lost and Found as well as Dark Grunge from Paper Lozzy and some inky background experiments I'd been doing. I ripped these papers up and layered them up on the background to add a bit of visual interest behind the main focal point. I inked the edges of the papers before sticking them on the Kraft card base.

Aisling and the butterflies were coloured with Polychromos pencils. I decided to stick with purple and blue tones throughout to keep it simple and cohesive. I'm particularly happy with how her hair came out - it's one of the hardest parts for me to get right and I'm starting to grasp it much better I feel. I enjoyed sculpting her face and upper body to show shadow and define bone structure.

Once I'd finished colouring, I fussy cut them all out and created the focal point I wanted. I first inked the edges to enable them to sit well on the background with minimal white showing. I used Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Wax on her wings and the butterflies. I added some gems from my stash on the larger blue butterfly and on Aisling's wings.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my make for this weeks' challenge. Don't forget, Sheepski Designs are sponsoring us this week for #144 - Friendship - you don't have to use a Sheepski Design digi to enter, all we ask is that you keep to the theme or go LOC (read challenge rules if uncertain what this means).

I will be entering this card into the following challenges:
Worldwide Open DT - #13 AG
Try Stampin' on Tuesday - #284 Paper Tearing/Sketch
Through the Purple Haze - #106 AG
SLS Lines - #23 Man vs Woman
Oddball Art Stamps - For you Blue (use blue)

Hannah and Friends - #255 Lieblingsfarbkomb i

Dream in Darkness - August Make it Crafty
Doodle Pantry - #20 Ants in my Pantry Digital AG
Dark n Daring - #04 AG
Craft Rocket Challenges - #22 Things with Wings Top 3
Crafty Friends - #38 AG
Crafting by Designs - August Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore - August Use a Digi or Stamp
Classic DT Open Challenge - #05 AG
Catch the Bug - August BINGO
Cardz 4 Galz - #29 Dragonflies or Butterflies
A Bit More Time to Craft - #26 AG
Addicted to Stamps - #207 Make Your Mark
A Gem of a Challenge - #176 Summer Fun
Alphabet Challenge - M for Mythical
Artbymiran - #65 AG

Thanks for joining me and see you soon!

Michelle xxx

Saturday, 9 July 2016

Left of Centre Challenge #138 - Animals

Here we are again - those 2 weeks flew by didn't they? I'm back with my next project for Left of Center Creative Challenges.

This week's challenge requires an animal to feature and our sponsor for this week is Delicious Doodles.

I chose the blue tit from the lovely digi stamps available. I have a big reason for choosing it. I had a family of blue tits with a huge batch of eggs in a nesting box on my front porch, and someone knocked the box down, destroying half and then came and stole the rest. So- upset and angry about that, I thought that I'd transfer that into my art, and came up with this. It's premise is that nature is never ending and perseveres regardless - whilst humanity is a small blip on the conscious of the world.

I found the perfect paper for a wonderful
background at Paper Lozzy on the gorgeous paper pack Mixed Media, it had the right colours that would coordinate with the coloured image.
I used Promarkers to colour the bird and branch, layering up colours from pale to bright yellow, cool grey, and three shades of blue plus black. The branch is a mix of cool grey and two different browns.

The MDF pieces for the nest and the skull with roses are from a wonderful lady called Jac and her company is called Things to Alter. I left the nest as it came, such wonderful detail. With the skull, covered it with Liquitex Heavy White Gesso and used my finger to rub it over the area, then a baby wipe to take off some of the thickness so the details still show. I added a bit more gesso on a baby wipe after it dried to whiten it up a bit more. Once dried, I used Promarkers to colour the skull, teeth, and the roses. I used my finger to blend the colours together on the roses, and added deeper colour to the cracks and crevices in the skull.

I ripped the A4 printed background around the edges to give it an aged look, and used a deep pink ink around the edge to take away any white. Once stuck down, I added some Liquitex Heavy White Gesso in places with an old credit card. Once dry, I used a brown Promarker to add a trunk along the left hand side of the page. I added the nest so it would be in the background for perspective and placed the coloured and fussy cut bird slightly staggered and down from it. To fill in the area between the trunk, bird and nest I used Petaloo Botanical Mini flowers in Pink. The skull was placed at the bottom and a shadow added with brown Promarker.

The two layered die cut pieces of card in deep orange canvas effect and plain white are from my stash, as is the stamp I used for the quote.

I hope you like my latest project. Don't forget to pop along from 8pm Saturday 9th July for challenge #138 - Animals. I look forward to seeing your makes.

I will also be submitting this project into the following challenges:

A Bit More Time to Craft - #23 - Anything Goes
Dream In Darkness -a July - Anything Goes
Art Journal Journey - In My Garden
Altered Eclectics - July Anything Goes
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge - #285 Anything Goes
SLS Lines Digital Stamps Challenge - Anything But A Card
Paperbabes Stamps- #37 Anything Goes

Thanks for coming by.

Michelle xxxx

Saturday, 25 June 2016

Challenge #1 - Anything Goes at A Inky Mess

Today is an exciting day here in the world of blogs, a brand new mixed media challenge blog starts today over at A Inky Mess. The very first challenge is sponsored by Ike's Art, designed by a fantastic lady and the DT at A Inky Mess had a wonderful array of digis to choose from to showcase her work.

I chose a fantastic image called Robot #1 from Ike's Art

I just had to do something a little futuristic and steampunk with this!

I adored working with this image!! First I printed it out on Daler Rowney Mixed Media paper twice, and once on a piece of Kanban Metallica paper. I then set about colouring it in with my Distress Markers and waterbrush. Once that had dried, I added the eyebrow with Distress Stickles in Pewter. I took a piece of leather, the type you get attached to the tag on leather shoes when you buy them (mine was from my son's new school shoes) and cut it to the shape of the eyepatch. Once stuck down, I covered it with Distress Stickles in Vintage Photo. I cut out the hands on the second printed image and coloured those in with silver and gold pens from my stash and added Distress Stickles in Vintage Photo to the gold areas to match the eyepatch colour.

I fussy cut the helmet and chin strap from the image printed onto the Kanban Metallica paper and used my bone folder and the palm of my hand to break the fibres and add a curve and dimension to them. I stuck them down onto the first printed coloured image, and then stuck the hands I had cut out and coloured from the second print. I finished the image with shading with a Distress Crayon and added some bling from my stash and a mini cog from Dusty Attic I had heat embossed with Debbi Moore UTEE embossing powder then stuck to the eye patch.

The background is a mix of papers from Kanban Metallica and from Tim Holtz Idea-ology Lost and Found. I tore the papers up and stuck them to my Daler Rowney mixed media A4 page and added Liquitext Heavy Gesso in white in patches with an old credit card, and some mini and large cogs and the word Dream chipboard pieces from Dusty Attic that I had heat embossed in pewter and gold Debbi Moore UTEE embossing powder. I fussy cut the completed image and adhered it to the background, and added some washi tape to the background top and bottom to complete the piece.

Here are the materials used to create this piece:

Distress Markers (see pic 2 below for colours), Distress Stickles (see pic 1 below for colours), Distress Watercolour Crayon, Waterbrush, Kanban Metallica papers, Tim Holtz Lost and Found papers, washi tape from stash, bling from stash, Liquitex Heavy White Gesso, old credit card, silver and gold pens from stash, chipboard pieces from Dusty Attic, Debbi Moore UTEE embossing powders, leather tag from shoes.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my art journal page and that you'll join us at A Inky Mess to see what the other DT members have produced, and join in with our mixed media Anything Goes challenge. A Inky Mess challenges run from 25th of every month.

I shall be entering this project into the following challenges:

Classic Design Team Open Challenge Blog - #03 Anything Goes
winner - Best Technique