In Germany, toadstools are considered as lucky charms though they can be fatal. In my contribution for this week´s TMTA challenge, the lucky charm is the little girl warning you that this mushroom is uneatable. I hope you´ll always have someone by your side in 2012 to say no-no at the right moment ...
Happy Holidays to all my visitors! Here are two tags I´ve made today inspired by the wonderful examples from Kim Dellow - please go and have a look at her blog to see how beautiful hers are!
... is this week´s theme for the SPA challenge, so here´s my traditional postcard with a little bling.
... so here´s my December page for our monthly bird journal page exchange. I´m SO glad that at least we don´t have any snow yet!
Even my Zetti page for our monthly journal page exchange is quite christmassy this month ...
Today you´ll find me featured on Seth Apter´s blog answering his survey about favourite art techniques and tools. You won´t be surprised that it´s stamping in my case ... yes, I could have answered gesso, scissors, or glue stick, but I´m in love with stamps for 12 years now, and it´s a love that continues to make me happy. Even when creating digital art with Photoshop, you´re able to use brushes as digital stamps, so you´ll hardly find any artwork of mine that doesn´t have some kind of stamping.
Christmas Fairy is this week´s theme for the SPA challenge. If you know me a bit, you know that I´m not into fairies, elves and such, so my fairy is a bit different ... maybe you recognize the same deer that I´ve used for my SPA card a few weeks ago, and yes: I´ve had the same junk mail in my mailbox today and immediately cut out this lovely deer again!
It´s that time of the year again when a well-heated living room with a comfortable armchair or sofa becomes more and more enticing ... and if you´re like me, the pile of books on the floor makes it even more attractive! (I´ve been surprised to find out that the English language knows the German word "gemuetlich" - what about you? do you know it?) For me, being outside in the cold dark hours is only acceptable if I can relax in a cozy atmosphere afterwards, and a comfortable chair is just what I need to feel at home. So here´s my ATC for this week´s TMTA challenge themed "furniture".
I´ve made this digital collage for this week´s Take a Word challenge themed "Umbrella".
For Nancy´s Texture challenge I´ve chosen this photo this week, rotated it, changed brightness and contrast, added her bottle texture, her wp texture, a copy of that one, her bench texture, and her 2b texture from the last challenge, using several blending modes . In the end the result was similar to an abstract painting, and the whole process has been a fun experience.
The November theme for our monthly 4 x 6 Zetti page exchange is "Flower", so I tried to let one grow in a Zetti way ...
The theme for our monthly bird page exchange is Artist´s choice in November, so I just played with what came to my mind tonight.
For this week´s Grungy Monday challenge Linda has chosen another sparkling Tim Holtz technique, so I decided to make another Christmas card using one of Tim´s masks, Grungeboard and two colours of Perfect Pearls with Distress reinkers.
I´ve just been playing around tonight making my first digital shrine ... 
Here´s my entry for this week´s Three Muses challenge themed "Window".
Shabby Chic is this week´s theme for the SPA challenge, and as I´ve had this nice deer head in the (junk) mail today, I just had to use it for my second Christmas card, together with some ephemera, tissue tape, gesso, and stamps ... and a pair of chic antlers of course!
I´ve been away for a few days but not THAT far away ... enough though to be able to make some Nick Bantock inspired ATCs about traveling to exotic places.
Last week I´ve shown you how one of Nancy Donaldson´s textures completely changed the expression of one of my own photos (the one you find as a background of my blogheader right now). Well, this week I´d like to show how 8 layers and even 4 different textures from Nancy´s challenge can be used to alter a photo just slightly. I´ve used the blackbird photo I´ve taken in spring, added texture 2a, made a copy of the background with opacity of 67 %, changed brightness and contrast, added texture 2 with a layer mask for the bird, changed brightness and contrast, added texture 2 b with a layer mask for the bird and finished adding texture 2 c with a layer mask for the nest.
Well, no, it really is a bit early to make my Christmas cards, I think. But as this week´s Grungy Monday challenge is Tim Holtz´ Perfect Distress technique I thought that a little shimmer would be perfect for my first Christmas card ... Other than usual I haven´t used Tim´s stamps here but have chosen Crafty Individuals´ lovely Rudolph, a text from Magnolia, and a snowflake border from Flamingo Art. Of course the scan above doesn´t show the shimmer, so I´ve made a few additional photos for you.
... has been a difficult challenge for me because I usually prefer contrast - but when I saw the other participants´ bird pages for our monthly exchange, I knew I could use a few other colours, phew!
I´m sure you know Bates´ house ... it´s my entry for this week´s SPA challenge. All stamps by Cherry Pie, only the text is by Oxford Impressions.
... is the theme for Grungy Monday No. 22, so I´ve made this Halloween tag using the following Tim Holtz products: Kraft Resist paper, Seasonal Distress Inks set (wiped on a sanded black tag), Halloween tissue tape, Distress Stain picket fence, and cat die cut. The spider net is an IndigoBlu stamp, so this tag also qualifies for the new Creavil challenge themed Halloween.
The good news is that Nancy will have a texture challenge on her blog from now on, so keep youre eyes open on Tuesdays if you like a digital challenge.
I´ve had fun playing with elements from TumbleFish Studio, Tangie Baxter and Kim Klassen here - please click on the picture to see the details.
Did you ever wonder where this saying comes from? It´s a Scottish prayer saying:
Today I received my new stamps from IndigoBlu, a brand new English stamp company, and I had to play with them immediately. This is a tag made for a good online art friend.
My first thought when I read the October theme for our Zetti 4 x 6 journal page swap was that I had to skip this month ... but then I really had fun playing with a zettified "pumpkin".
The theme for our 4 x 6 Zetti page exchange this month is Artist´s choice, so I just played around a bit ...
This month´s theme for our bird journal page exchange is Owl, so here´s my 3,5 x 5 " page.
When I made my digital postcard for this week´s SPA challenge "Autumn Leaves", I had Andy Irvine´s lovely song "Autumn Gold" in my head that starts with these words:
... but I hope that the first frost isn´t near! Here´s my entry for today´s Texture Tuesday using a photo I´ve taken last year.
Red Lead has a new swap up themed "Not Too Spooky Halloween ATCs"- here are mine.
When I saw the swap theme "Dance", I didn´t think I had enough appropriate stamps and ideas for it. But looking through my stuff for a second time made me decide that I should take the challenge, and I had a fun night yesterday making my swap ATCs.
Some of you asked me to take some photos at the Stempelmekka - as always, I completely forgot about them on Saturday, so if you wonder why there aren´t that many people on my pics, it´s because both were taken on Sunday when less visitors have been there. You can also see that there have been workshops at almost every booth this year which made this stamping convention much more interesting. There have been 37 booths this year, some of them being in Hagen for the first time (like Katzelkraft and Reprint).
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