2012 Calendar Challenge - Children or Cute

Great opportunity for me to use my cute little Maxwell stamp. Leaf and flower print papers torn and edged with green chalk ink, timber brown Stazon ink for Maxwell and his feet, contrasting paper torn and stamped with sentiment.

Challenge can be found HERE

Just had to show you my Apple Pie

Never had much luck making apple pie before, pastry always turned out soggy.  This is my Thanksgiving effort, and it was as delicious as it looks.  Thanks to King Arthur Flour for the pastry recipe and to Ina Garten for the contents.

2012 Calendar Challenge - Candles

Any form of candles are the challenge for this week's calendar over at The Craft Barn HERE.   I decided to use candle wax for an impression using a rubber stamp.  I had a lot of trouble with keeping the wax from sticking to the stamp and not the background but a little Versamark and patience in waiting for it to cool properly gave me impressions on the cage, background and bird.  I highlighted the raised areas with rub-ons.  My background is a single-ply paper napkin torn to pieces and glued to the cardstock.  I used a die cut bird in a gilded cage embellished with eyelets and beads and a charm, I thought it would be a temptation to the kittens on the calendar. 

Celestial - Black Gesso

The challenge this month over HERE at The Heart Journal is to use black gesso over a collaged heart and the challenge at Tag Tuesday HERE is "Celestial".  Due to time issues I am entering my heart in both challenges.  First the base is painted with black gesso and then attached the items.  I used some clay stars that I had previously made so were hard and when I ran them  through an embossing folder in the Cuttlebug sadly the imprint did not work very well.  Next time I will emboss them before firing.  Black lace, some wool threads, a chipboard plate with the word "Celestial" behind on copper paper and part of an old brass earring make up the rest of the pattern. The chipboard plate I covered with Distress Stickles to give it some texture.  After masking the word, I gave the whole heart another coat with black gesso then  took some blue, interference blue and aqua Lumiere paints and mixed them with water and sprayed over the whole thing.  When dry I highlighted the raised items with Rub-ons.

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments last month, I have enjoyed very much looking at everyone's work here on this challenge, you are a very talented group of artists.

2012 Calendar Challenge - Felt

This week's challenge over at The Craft Barn is "Felt".  I didn't have any pieces of felt material so I decided to make my own felt.  I used wool roving to needle felt in the center of some flower petals to attach them to a small piece of cream silk material.  I used several other colours of wool roving and tiny shreds of the silk material to make the background.  The colours of this are much richer than I can get in my photograph.

The top sheet of the notepad is decorated with a stamped flower and the word "notes" I formed from pink wire and attached with tiny brads.

Thank you for all the wonderful comments last week and for visiting my blog.  I look forward to seeing everyone's work.

Link to challenge HERE

2012 Calendar Challenge #5 - Paper Tape

The challenge over at The Craft Barn this week is to use paper tape, either bought or homemade.  For my easel calendar this week I chose to make some lace paper tape using my edge punches.  One has flowers and the other linked arches.  I cut strips of paper about 1/4" wider than the punches and then punched along both sides.  In the end I cut down the middle and used tape with only one side punched.  I sprayed dark copper paint over a stencil to create a pattern on the base card and the top sheet of the notepad.  The base of the upright panel is corrugated cardboard with one layer removed to expose the ribs and then painted with gesso and a light spray of copper paint over the same stencil.   Lace and pearls decorate the edges.

Thank you once again for all your wonderful comments about my calendar last week.  

The challenge can be found HERE