SPRING INSPIRED

Hi and welcome! What a glorious autumn weekend we have had in this part of the world... clear blue skies, sunny days and a wealth of autumn flowers bursting out. I must say, the temperatures, although cooling in the evenings, are still quite warm during the day... more reminiscent of our springs. Our tawny frogmouth visitors have been back and it has been such a pleasure seeing them again.
Over on Anything But A Card Spring has certainly sprung, with fabulous ideas to tantalise the creativity in you.
This time, I used the Sizzix 3D  Accordioin Flip Album die to create a little piece to display some spring inspired verses and affirmations. This die is fast becoming a firm favourite and it is certainly going to be having quite a workout in the next couple of weeks leading up to Mother's Day here.
Some of my backgrounds were experimental pieces, gessoed, sprayed, smooshed, just to see what the effects would be like. Others were papers  from  various bits and pieces I had left over. All have been mounted onto a cream card stock.

 

 

This is a little photo heavy, but I wanted to show you the project at various stages. So far  I've only fully completed one side, but the reverse has been prepared waiting some more inspirational verses which can be easily placed.

 

Front

 

 

Reverse

 

                                                                       

While the panels were still flat I added stamping and the embellishments I wanted to use. The first time I made one,  I made the mistake of not putting on all of the embellishments before final construction. This turned it into quite a challenging project to complete.. so, lesson learnt!

 

 

Panels with embellishments, stamping and inspirational verses and affirmations

 

                    



First panel

                                                                                                                

Inside panels

As you can see I took the title SPRING to form a separate panel for each of the letters in the title. The thickers were fabric ones that I coloured with permanent ink (Sharpies) and then completed with glossy accents. This gave them a faux porcelain look. Other finishing touches included lace flowers, bling and a touch of Kindyglitz for a bit of extra sparkle.
You still have a week to play with us, so come on over to:http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/ to see the inspiration on offer. We'd love to see your art here.
Thanks for stopping by and for your very much appreciated comments.
Cheers, Di.

Created for: Anything But A Card DT

WASHING BASKET ROCK AND ROLL!!!

Hi and welcome.
ARTastic has been running a fun-filled challenge this month, celebrating those memorable, candid and sometimes silly moments.
 Pop on over to the site at:http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/  to see the art inspiration and what the rest of the DT has been up to... you're in for a treat!
Usually when the silly, spontaneous moments happen, a camera isn't in sight, but sometimes you strike it lucky, as I did when I took these photos of my son.

These were taken when he was about 13 months old and confidently walking/running. One of his favourite activities was to climb into my washing basket and rock himself around the yard. There were often the WHOOPS!!! moments, but he always came up laughing and very pleased with himself.
The background started life out as a wipe-off sheet and underlay sheet for sprays. The result of this was a very bright and not totally covered piece of card stock. To tone the colours down and to complete the background under layer, I sprayed sections over with Dylusions Ink.. Chocolate, and smooshed in Distress Inks... brown tones, bundled sage and wild honey.

To create the texture of the basket, out came a favourite medium of mine at the moment.. gesso. The stencil used kind of gave this look, so gesso was applied to the base colours, while they were still slightly damp. I like the interesting effects this gives when the colours combine.

Some sections were still too bright so an additional layer was added on top of the gesso with Dylusions ink.. White linen... love this loo on paper! The stencil was placed roughly in a circular pattern to give the idea of motion.

To complete the layout I added a border of random stamping as well as sections around the photos. A Sn@p - Simple Stories piece and other bits and pieces were added..including a film strip design washi tape.
Thank you for visiting and for leaving your lovely comments. These are always truly appreciated.
You still have time to enter this fun challenge and to show off the silly moments in your life. Come on over.. we'd love to see your art  here.
Cheers, Di.

THOSE HATS!!!

Hi and welcome. This month, Pixels and Papers have a delightful inspirational photo of more formal times, to share with you.

Pop on over to: http://pixelsandpaperchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/  to also see what the rest of the team members have done to also inspire you.
I decided to combine the Easter theme with the show theme (Sydney's Royal Easter Show is such a major event on the show calendar).

 

The photo I've used shows myself (on the left) and two sisters, granddaughters of my mum's best friend.  My mum and I used to go for morning teas to either their Nana's house or to their mum's house once a week.This was a ritual which lasted for many, many years. Since I didn't have a grandmother, I adopted theirs and she became Nana to me as well, and that's what I always called her.
While we weren't dressed in our Sunday best, we certainly were dressed in the height of fashion for the show. What were our mum's thinking of!... those hats. I remember them being made of straw with very bright raffia flowers. At least they kept the sun off our faces.
Easter meant going to church services, meeting up with friends and family and of course... the eggs.  Mostly these were candy eggs, with their pastel colours. Occasionally I had the luxury of a chocolate egg with gorgeous rich, foiled paper on the outside.

I've replicated the feel of these by using a pastel-coloured background. The photo is popping out of an opened egg. This started off with a gelli plate print using metallic acrylics and glimmer  mist sprays. For the creased foil look I added gesso through a stencil. The doily was sprayed with glimmer mist and crinkle foil placed under it.
To complete the layout I scribbled around the letters of the title as well as the edges of the page. I quilled flowers to make them look like the raffia flowers on the hats and added some lace. Journalling has been done on tags. Some sticker strips I've had for years were finally used on this piece as well.

I hope you will come and play with us.We'd love to see your art creations.
Thank you for visiting and for leaving your comments.
Cheers, Di.