From Above

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, we have an open theme, "Anything Goes".
Last week, I stumbled upon a leaflet with a photo of a wooden angel from a church and knew immediately that I wanted to use it. I cut the angel out, sanded and scratched him, used gesso on him, then scanned the image and printed it.
Here are two of the cards I´ve made with the image, both coloured with crayons and watercolour pencils and fnished with an embossed sentiment (rubber stamp from Red Lead). I couldn´t decide on one version - which one do you prefer?

Merry Christmas from an Angel

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers - hope you´ve had or are having some peaceful days with your family!
As always, I´m with my sister Sabine for the holidays, and we´ve been playing with our chunky ATCs again, trying to make our own Christmas angels. Here is mine - a wooden block that I´ve painted with white acrylic paint and decorated with a doily, some Dresden scrap, a bottlecap, an image from Retro Café Art, pearl ribbon and three golden stars.
You can have a look at Sabine´s very different angel on her blog here.

You Can Fly

Nancy Baumiller from Crowabout StudioB has a new mini kit out today, called "You Can Fly". I´ve made two digital collages for you that combine these images with backgrounds and words from other kits Nancy has made (Textured Collage Papers, Bit by Bit, Drity Words).

And even more Holiday Cards (the German batch)

Today´s batch of Holiday Cards was made with text stamps in German (from Klartext). The one above says "Christmas 2.0 - I thought we wouldn´t make gifts."
And did you ever wonder what jokes the Germans laugh about? Then you should watch Loriot´s Christmas video from 1978 here. You´ll hardly find a German person who doesn´t know it, and what the grandfather says at about 2:34, "Früher war mehr Lametta" (which means something like "There used to me more tinsel formerly"), has become a fixed phrase everyone knows here ... For my two sample cards below, I´ve combined it with tissue tape and vintage photos.

Her Hollyness

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Holly and/or Ivy" I´ve made two digital cards because I couldn´t decide on one of them ... they´re just too different, one more elegant, the other one pure fun. Which one do you prefer?

For card no. 1 above I used elements from Jen Maddocks, LynneMarie, Tangie Baxter, Rebecca Mcmeen and Tina Chambers.

For card no. 2 below I give credits to Holliewood Studios, Miles Beyond the Moon, Tumble Fish Studio, and Rucola Designs, all at MischiefCircus.com.

More Holiday Cards

My second batch of Holiday Cards to show here is more diverse than the first -
the first card was made with seven different washi tapes and a rubber stamp from Lynne Perrella.

This second card was made with a sheet music scrap and several rubber stamps in black and green (Inkadinkado, Poppystamps, Red Lead).

My third card has a sheet music scrap again and an image of Sir Rowland Hill (but you could use any other male image) with a santa´s hat from Tim Holtz´ Crazy Birds set. The text stamps are from Kaisercraft and Hero Arts, the cancellation from Pink Paislee.

And my last card was completely made with rubber stamps from Red Lead, combined with sheet music and stickles.
Stay tuned to see my last batch of Holiday Cards here soon!

Deer Cards

Do you already have finished all your Holiday cards? If not, I have a few ideas for you (because I´ve had a busy weekend making my cards ...).
Maybe you own one of those deer die cuts or stencils that have been around for a while now? The card above shows a paper where the deer has been cut out of and that has been used to stencil the two cards below, using a sponge with white Pan Pastel for the black card and brown Distress Ink for the kraft card. For the first card, I´ve added a face, a piece of tissue tape, and three rubber stamps from Red Lead.

For the two stenciled cards, I´ve added pieces of sheet music, tissue tape, rubber stamps, word bits from Tim Holtz, and faces from Retro Art Café.

If you need more card ideas, please come back - I´ll post more finished cards in the next days.

Wings Unfurled

Nancy Baumiller from Crowabout StudioB came out with a new kit today at Mischief Circus, called "Wings Unfurled". I´ve made two digital collages for you this time, "She Flew" above (with a background from "Ascension") and "With all my Heart" below (with background help from "Artist Papers"). Hope they´ll inspire you to play with this funky Zetti style kit yourself! As always, it comes with png images as well as printable collage sheets for your cut and paste collages.

So Many Books

I´m hosting this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and I´ve picked Books/Reading as my theme. When the evenings get longer, it´s a good idea to make a cup of tea, put a blanket on your knees and take a book you can really dive in ... I´m always reading three or four books at a time, a lightweight one for the way to work, a thick novel for leisure time at home, an art book for getting inspiration, a nonfiction book about anything that´s going around in my head, and so on ... So I´m reading about 35 books each year (I´m only counting the novels, not the art books and nonfiction books).
What about you? How many books do you read per year? If you´re an avid reader, please illustrate your hobby and play with us this week!
For my sample card, I´ve used rubber stamps from VivaLasVegaStamps, Zettiology, and Darkroom Door, plus a book and a clock that I don´t remember where they are from.

Christmas Portraits

I have a new favourite Christmas kit, and it´s "Christmas Portraits" from Tumble Fish Studio!
I´ve made two digital holiday cards with it for you, but this huge kit also has loads of printable collage sheets to make the loveliest cut and paste holiday cards - just follow the link and have a look at the fabulous other samples Marsha´s creative team has made for you!

Ice Angels and more

Only 4 weeks left before it´s Christmas, and even in the city it´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas with the Christmas markets open and occasional snowflakes coming from above ...
So it´s time to make some Christmas inspired artwork, and Marsha´s new Fish Flake kits in her Tumble Fish Studio come in very handy for this purpose.
I´ve used her new Winter & Holiday Journal Words kit for all three samples, combined with some older Tumble Fish Christmas images, and the last sample also uses the new Holiday Journaling Borders kit. There are sooooo many words in this kit that enable you to really tell a story with them on your card, layout or journal page, and as they all come as printable collage sheets as well as png images, you can also easily cut them out and use them for your real Christmas cards. Have fun!

Funky Couture

Outside, it´s still very grey and rainy, so it´s necessary to make some colourful art! What could come handier than a new image kit from Nancy Baumiller´s Crowabout Studio? As all images come as printable collage sheets with the kit, they are great for your cut and paste collages (though you could definitely use them digitally, too!). With her brand new kit "Funky Couture", I´ve made a cut and paste page in my Moleskine journal and a giant tag. Hope these will inspire you to get out your images and colours and start having fun!

November Rain

When I picked November Rain as the theme for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, I couldn´t know how true it would be; after some sunny and warm weeks, we now have rain every day, and the next week won´t be any better. The quote is from the Guns´n Roses song of course, but I´ve only used it as the inspiration for my design, using rubber stamps from LaBlanche, Kaisercraft and Carabelle Studio.

Funny Farm

I´ve made this version of American Gothic for the current challenge in the Mischief Circus forum - don´t you want to join us there? I´ve used elements from Beth Rimmer, Marta van Eck, Holliewood Studios, Mr Whiskers, Itkupilli, Crowabout StudioB, Art by January, and Rucola Designs, all available at Mischief Circus.

Fish Flakes

Marsha from Tumble Fish Studios has come out with three new "Fish Flakes kits" today - a new line with fabulous collage elements that are very versatile. When I first saw her Foliums kit, I only saw petals, but then I ended using them as tears in my collage above - that´s what I meant with "versatile" ... (I added elements from Marsha´s kits Whatnot 2 and 3 for this collage.)

This second piece was made with her new Fish Flake kit "Crooked Little Houses", combined with a face from the new "Facelifts" and elements from Everland, My Picks and Wild Things.

My third collage combines all three new kits - in fact I´ve layered several Facelifts faces here - to illustrate a quote from Albert Camus.
Three great kits for your digital stash, but as they all come with the images on printable collage sheets, they´re very useful for your cut and paste collages, too.

Ooooh, to be in Paris ...

Paris is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and this is the digital postcard I´ve made for it. I haven´t been to Paris since the 80s, so maybe it´s my Alter Ego who´s posing here ...
All images used here are from Tumble Fish Studios.

Welcome to Italy

I wish I could travel to Italy again soon, but for now taking part in an Italy themed ATC swap must be enough ...

Undead

This week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge is simply themed "Halloween", and this time I´ve made a digital postcard using elements from Rucola Designs, Eenas Creations and Altered Emporium, all available at Mischief Circus.

Smell My Feet

Have you already noticed Nancy Baumiller´s new Crowabout StudioB Halloween kits? There´s a background paper kit called Sleepy Hallows Papers and an element kit called Smell My Feet. I´ve used them both for my giant cut and paste tags. The one above also has a word die cut from Tim Holtz, the one below uses rubber stamps from Flamingo Art.

Arachnophobia

I´ve heard that there are people who like spiders and even have them at their homes as pets. Hmmm ...
Well, for me, a fat spider sitting on my head is a nightmare, so here´s my card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed Spiders´ Webs.
I´ve used rubber stamps from Stempelmine, Flamingo Art, Indigo Blu, Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz and Stampendous, but I don´t remember where the big web is from.

This Little Moment

Marsha from Tumble Fish Studio also has a new kit out today - it´s called "This Little Moment", and I love the muted colours that led me to somehow melancholic samples for you: "Autumn Nights" above and "Artificial Autumn" below. The one below was inspired by paintings from René Magritte of course (you probably know his sentences Ceci n´est pas un pomme and Ceci n´est pas une pipe).
As Marsha´s kit comes with printable collage sheets, you can also use it for any cut and paste artwork.

Tree Lovers and Something About Trees

Nancy from Crowabout StudioB has come out with three new kits today, all with lots of colourful jpg and png images for your cut and paste as well as your digital projects. 

I´ve made two cut and paste postcards for you, both using the new kits "Tree Lovers & Things" and "Something About Trees", both available at MischiefCircus.com. 

But wait, there´s also a third new kit with great borders called "Funky Borders" - and that´s what they are!

Darkness

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed Dark, I didn´t make a Halloween card. Instead, I used part of the lyrics of the Peter Gabriel song "Darkness" that I like a lot. If you don´t know it, maybe you´d like to listen to it here.
I used elements from Jen Maddocks and Eena´s Creations for my digital postcard this week.

Mischief is Brewing

How could I resist taking part in this year´s Paper Traders Halloween swap? These three ATCs came together very quickly on Saturday, and they´re already on their way to Oregon.
I´ve used images and stamps from Stempelbar, Red Lead, Character Constructions, and VivaLasVegas and word die cuts from Tim Holtz.

In the pale Moonlight

Pale is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and I think that nothing can be more pale than a skeleton in the moonlight. I´ve used rubber stamps from Stampendous, De Stempelwinkel, and VivaLasVegaStamps for my card as well as tape and a moon image from Tim Holtz.

Witch and Wizard Block

Recently, I´ve spent a week at my sister´s home for a short vacation. As always, we had much fun crafting and stamping together. This time, she surprised me with a project idea for Chunky ATCs - ATC sized wooden blocks (ours measure 2,5 x 3,5 x 1,7 inches). Some years ago, we had planned to take part in a Chunky ATC swap, but we didn´t have the time for it or stepped out because of the expensive shipping costs, I don´t remember. However, we had our wooden blocks as leftovers, and Sabine now proposed to decorate them for Halloween.

So here´s mine: there´s a wizard on the front (collage image from Red Lead, stamps and word die cut from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous/Sizzix, and I love his bat bow tie made of ribbon!)

The back has a witch: a rubber stamp from Stempelbar, a skirt made from a spider web die cut, and numbers and word die cuts from Tim Holtz/Sizzix.

On top, there´s a spider web ribbon with a plastic spider. 

Both sides are decorated with Tim Holtz rubber stamps and die cuts. 

We´ve had much fun with our Chunky ATCs, and I really like our results. You can have a look at my sister Sabine´s Halloween block on her blog here.