Mixed Media Monday's Vintage Ads/Labels Challange

I have been doing a little soldering and I made this one for Mixed Media Monday. I finished it with a little lady bug and leaf bead and it is the same on both sides. The theme this week is Vintage Ads/Labels so I used the Hoyt's German Cologne trade card.

Steampunk Gothic Arch Necklace

 

This is for the open theme at Gothic Arches again I am a little slow this week. I am still having trouble with my teeth... it has been an ordeal because I have TMJ from a car accident so badly that is slows the amount of time the dentist can work in my mouth.... anyway enough excuses :)) This was hard for me because I have always been such a neat and clean solderer. For this I needed to muddy that up :)) I also aged it by adding a layer of mica for the top layer instead of glass. The back is glass and it has a layer of antique newspaper. I suppose it could be worn backwards but the rhinestone would be upside down. The little side oval pieces have antique tatted lace between glass. I used the free printable that I offered a while back so if you scroll down to past posts you can grab it.

Just a bit squirrely ...

I made these little fabric flowers some time back but since I was feeling a little under the weather I thought I would take a new picture and use them for this weeks Mixed Media Monday. The theme is floral tributes so I decided to make mine "Ode To The Squirrel"

Ode To The Squirrel
Small fluffy one who scampers in the sun to frolic in the open breeze,
In the fields of flower blooms or high up in the old oak trees.
In this lovely, flowery place of acorns, nuts you scamper.
Or would you rather stop for tea, a posy a hat won't hamper.

Ok it is a bit corny ... can you tell I am board?

If you check the quick links on the sidebar there is a tutorial for making these fun little flowers.

Once upon a time .... Wedded Bliss

 

 In the land of Gothic Arches there lived a little fairy princess. She longed to one day wed but in the land of her birth there were only girl fairies. One day her fairy god mother stopped by and saw that the little fairy princess was so sad. "Let us go on a glorious vacation" she said. "This will cheer you up" So with a flick of her magic wand they were off, whirling across the sky. Looking down fairy godmother saw a beautiful green island and knew instantly this was where they were to vacation. They landed in a beautiful circle of trees and it looked as though it had been made just for them.... hmmm... I wonder..... anyway as the day wore on they became sleepy and fell into a deep sleep. Suddenly they were awaken to the sound of a beautiful harp and and yes ...it was a male voice singing softly in a deep Irish brogue. The little fairy princess could not believe her eyes! There before her was the most hunky guy and he had wings!!! "Are you a boy fairy?" she asked "Certainly not" he replied... I am a he ... which could loosely be described as a ...er...a boy fairy...but in the most masculine of ways" . The little fairy princess fell into giggles and into love. Long story short they were soon married and lived happily ever after.

Our Reigning Family King

I just had to share this darling picture of my grandson. Taken at Norwich castle on a recent trip my son and his family made to England. This goes to prove that my little grand baby is the King!! .. in our family anyway :))

   

They have really taken some awesome pictures of medieval doors and gothic windows. I am going to share some for background images soon.

Eyes Wide Open...

 

 This week the theme at Gothic Arches is Openings. I think this theme could go in so many directions and I can't wait to blog surf the list and see what everyone has come up with. For mine, I think my title says it all ... I started with the large face stamp from Scroll Works but I only stamped the eyes. Then I chalked the skin tone and added feathers at the top. A piece of a broken necklace made the headdress and a heart shaped gold paper doily for the collar. Some ribbon and beaded trim finished it off.

These are a few of my favorite things »-(¯`v´¯)-»

This week over at Mixed Media Monday the theme is Personal Symbols and Myths. Wow does that leave it wide open. Your suppose use a theme or symbol that you use a lot in your art. It did not take me long to figure out what symbols and them was. First of all I use a swirl stamp from Scroll Works on just about everything... you can see it in the background and then I love fairies so they are in about 80% of everything I do :))

anyway here is my entry

Marie At the Theater

 

This week at Mixed Monday Monday the challenge is Marie Antoinette... I love Marie Antoinette. Another thing I love is that to play over at Mixed Monday Monday you can do a card or you can do an assemblage or maybe a fabric collage or... or... a... THEATER :)) and you all know how I love theaters. So this week I did Marie and her court at the theater. I really only did the little puppets for it because I already had the little theater done but I mounted them on some chip board and then glitzed them up with some glitters, feathers and some tiny rhinestones.

Home Sweet Home Gothic Arch Free Printable

I did this for this weeks Gothic Arches Challenge I just love the shape of a gothic arch and a long time back I use to participate in there challenge. Then they went to there own website and my Google reader would not pick it up. I had a hard time following so I kinda fell away...but they are back on a blog and I was thrilled to find them again. I have decided to limit myself to two challenges so that I don't get overwhelmed trying to keep up ...lol Anyway I am going to be keeping it to Mixed Media Monday and Gothic Arches. So this is a week of new/old beginnings for me :))

   Oh yes .... here is the image I used

Feel free to pin the thumb above but please do not pin the actual download. I would like everyone to stop by here to download it so they don't miss all my other fun free downloads

Download Family Tea Here 

Artic Souls with Carolyn

The local group of Artistic Souls meet once a month and we take turns hosting projects. This month it was Carolyn's turn. Recently she had been fortunate to be able to attend one of Michelle Zindorf's brayering classes so she shared what she had learned. These are the cards I did but I really did not do so well. I think my brayer had a flat spot on it because I had so much trouble with lines showing up where I did not want lines :)) But at least I know how the technique is done so when I get a new roller my cards should come out better. If you go take a peek at Carolyn's blog you can see what they really should look like ...lol

Thank you so much Carolyn! your an awesome teacher!!!

Art Alchemist's New Shop

I had mentioned the other day that I would post when Janice and Michelle got there dolls finished and there little etsy store open. These are the first of there "for sale" items. For a better look please visit there little store and if you are an etsy member please leave them a heart by adding her to your favorite shops :)
Thanks!
Inka

 

Marie Antoinette

 

Here is my heart

Joy

Sky Castles

 

Today is the local meeting of Artistic Souls. Every few months we all bring a stamp and then we swap it around until we have each had a turn with each stamp. This is the end of this round and my turn to use the stamp I brought. I brought the castle from Scrolls Work and this is the card I made. It was really hard to get a picture of because the center of the card folds like little steps then you put your images and words on each little step. I really love how it came out :)

Childs Play for Mixed Media Monday & Free Vintage Printable Graphic Baby's Bath

I use to love participating in several fun challenges. Then I got busy in several online clubs and running my business that I kinda fell away. Now that I am no longer running a business and have a little more time, I decided to let myself just have fun. One of the challenge sites I really enjoyed was Mixed Media Monday. Although I have not participated in a long time I kept them on my Google reader thinking next week, next week. Well next week is here :))

This card was really simple but I love the way it came out. I cut down an actual vintage card and layered it onto cardstock. Then embossed a swirly floral image around the edges, glitzed it up with some stickels a touch of ribbon and a couple of charms.

Before I cut it up, I scanned the vintage original of course :))

Feel free to pin the thumb above but please do not pin the actual download. I would like everyone to stop by here to download it so they don't miss all my other fun free downloads

Enjoy!

Oh you beautiful dolls!

I think I mentioned that recently I had been doing a little private tutoring. When Janice and her granddaughter Michelle decided to start a little enterprise creating art together, they approached me and asked if I could give them a little private tutoring. I was so honored that they felt a few lessons from me would give them that edge to be successful. So I brainstormed for a few days writing down my most used and favorite techniques. For the past few weeks they have been over several times. We have had so much fun creating some wonderful projects. They will be available soon in there little etsy store.

So here is a sneak peek at Michelle and one of her projects
 

...and Janice with one of her projects.

I know these pictures really don't do them justice but I will post more of them and there projects when they get there little store open.

Free Printable Steampunk Ladies Vintage Cab Card

I wish I could show you what I have been working on but is being submitted to a magazine so I can only show you this little teaser. I will blog it later when I find out if it gets published or not. ... and yes it is a steampunk ...uhhhh..... thingie

However I can offer you this fun little image I used on it! I just love these two and they fit the theme perfectly!

Feel free to pin the thumb above but please do not pin the actual download. I would like everyone to stop by here to download it so they don't miss all my other fun free downloads

Download Steampunk Ladies Here 

Alice In Wonderland Theater

First of all I have to apologies for not posting this week but I was just so obsessed with the making of Wonderland.

I have wanted to make this one for some time and I am celebrating its completion 

 The graphic's for the facade front and all the puppets are entirely from John Tenniel illustrations, who illustrated the Lewis Carrol books. There is one exception... I did use scans of the book spines too. The columns are taken from an illustration in "Threw The Looking Glass". I overlaid the column over the book spines from the image where Alice and the frog stand before the door that says "Queen Alice". The rest of the theater graphic's are from various images from both books. In the making of the puppets, I tried to stay true to the artist but did make some necessary line changes by combining two or more original images so that I could articulate them. The graphic's for this is available in my etsy store. This is a little larger than you would think. I saved the images to my camera disk (but you could use a flash drive) and took it to my local printer and had the theater facade printed on a large format printer 11 X 14. I did not enlarge the puppets, they are just printed on standard paper the size they come. I left them large in case you wanted to use them as paper dolls. If your going to make a smaller theater you will need to size them down 50 %

I used an old jewelry box found at my local thrift shop for the base. After cutting slots in the top for the puppets to dangle through, I covered it with scrapbooking papers and added some model railroad turf on the top.

I made wire wands to manipulate the puppets with (you can see them laying in front of the theater in the last of the theater photos) However since I wanted to display it like a diorama when it was not show time, I also made little stands for each puppet. The little tea table is available to print below!I have indented to do a tutorial on how I do the theaters and there puppets but life just keeps getting in the way and I still don’t have it done.
Here is a quick synopsis of how I do it... I use spray glue to attach the graphics to a light weight matte board...like the gift boxes you would find at the dollar store. Then I cut them out and sand the edges with a emery board. I then use a marker or paint pen to color the edges of the cardboard ( I use a skin tone for the dolls but for the theater I would use a matching color ) ... angle the marker or pen from the back side so you do not accidentally mark the front of the image and color the edges. On the theater facade, I covered the backside with scrapbooking paper so that the edges that extended past the “theater box” would still look nice from the backside of the theater. I did the little table much the same only I spray glued it to a light weight tin. I just bought a large tin at the thrift shop and used the lid from it. Then I cut it out with kitchen shears and sanded the edges smooth with a metal fingernail file. This way it will support the weight of the tea set.

I had two copies of the facade printed on photo paper then laminated them to chip board. The I cut out elements from the second copy and glued them on top of the first layer. Like the frog and fish. This popped them out of the background and gave it a little dimension.

The little flower faces were made last year at an art retreat I went to with Artistic Souls. I knew I would use them someday :)) The tree was purchased at hobby lobby's floral department. Then I untwisted the bottom and re-twisted it to look like tree roots.

Now for the goodies! Below is the Tea Table I used ... be sure to click on the image for the larger printable version.

Enjoy!

OMGosh OMGosh ... Check out the goodies I got in the mail!!!!!

It was pretty late last night when my son came in with my mail and I was pretty tired so this is an awful picture of me :] However I just had to take a picture and show off the goodies that Lisa from CobwebPlace sent me. Check out her blog ...she is an amazing artist! ... and OMGosh ...this scarf is soooo me! but that was not all...she also sent me one of her "First Ladies". The paper doll is from my "Rose Berlin" digital paper doll but Lisa dressed her up with feathers, ribbons and German glass glitters... I hardly recognize her so fancied up! ...and the scarf is made from hand died silk, antique bobbin lace and luscious velvet. I can not even begin to tell you how yummy it feels around my neck! I really feel I came out on the better end of this art exchange! The art I did for her was digital, nothing you can touch and experience the thrill of the feel :))

Thank you Lisa! I can not tell you how much I appreciate all the time and thought you put into this!

Dustin off my ATC's

Recently a friend told me I needed to get my ATC's out of the binder I kept them in and out where I could see them everyday and be inspired. So I had this little wire thing sitting on the shelf for years holding little baubles I had received and made. I had hubby mount it on the wall and hung some of my favorite ATC's on it. The little curlies on the bottom use to be the stand but now I can hang more stuff on them. I think I am going to make one more and dedicate it just to ATC's

 

Still that was just not enough display space so I wound wire around a paint bottle then flattened it and stretched it out. The I attached some wire leafs that I had received as a bow on a Christmas gift to the top.

It just makes me feel so good to sit at my desk and see them. Do you see one you made? :) This really makes me want to get into trading some ATC's again ... Want to do a One for One just email me :)

Over The Roof

I missed "The wearing of the green" :{ I am soooo bad and it really makes it worse since hubby and I were engaged upteen years ago on Saint Patrick's day :/ Things just got so busy with our little holiday and club meetings... But I did get this weeks card done for the Created Byhand Challenge The theme is "My Heart Dances" I had seen a similar card a while back and I had it stuck in my head. I figured I just could not get it out of my head until I made one ...lol

 

 

Oh almost forgot to say ... all the stamps are from

Scrolls Work. As many of you know I use to own Inka Stamps so these are the stamps I have also since my Daughter in law now owns Scrolls Work I get all her new stamps too... lol

Artistic Souls Scarf

I am a member of two local art clubs and yesterday was the meeting of the souls ..... Artistic Souls that is :)) The wonderful Judy Johnson hosted and she presented this fabulous project. We started with a plain white silk scarf then we put texture sheets under it and then used a stippling brush to lightly brush across the surface with Fabrico ink. I used two textures and two colors. Once the background was done we stamped them. I use a stamp from hero arts and again the Fabrico ink. I just love it!

Here is a close up so you can see how the background looks