By the Light of the Moon

This year, my friends from Red Lead came out with some wonderful new Halloween stamps and stencils for Halloween that I combined with some older Red Lead stamps and my beloved bistre backgrounds. These first two cards were made that way.

The last card is very large (5,6 x 8,2 inches) and is a collage from Red Lead papers, collage sheets, stamps, stencils, and embellishments - I´ve had so much fun assembling it!

Spooky

It´s October, so Sunday Postcard Art has started with their Halloween challenges, yippieh! This week´s theme is "Spooky", and I´ve made a mixed media piece (above) as well as a digital card.
(Credits for the cut and paste card: images from Hidden Vintage Studios and Courtney´s Designs, rubber stamp from Deep Red, background paper from Tim Holtz; credits for the digital card: all images from Courtney´s Designs)

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

I´ve been playing with one of my own photos today, using Photoshop actions from Brandy Murry and a frame from Amanda Sok, plus words from Gertrude Stein - here´s the original photo for you to see the difference:

Apprehension

This digital collage was made using five of Hidden Vintage Studios´ Halloweeen kits that are ON SALE now at Mischief Circus (other elements are from Holliewood Studios and Altered Emporium) - save 50 % on them and have fun with the wonderful images!

Take a Walk

Here´s a card made with two torn backgrounds made with bister and rubber stamps from Carabelle and StempelBar.

Owl = Eule = Chouette

Here´s my card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Dictionary": I´ve used a dictionary page with the French word "Chouette" for owl in English and Eule in German; the stamps are from Hampton Arts (Dictionary Alpha), Cavallini (Hand), and A Capella (Steampunk Owl),

Framed

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Use a Frame", I´ve framed the German author Thomas Mann (1875-1955) who emigrated to Switzerland in 1933 and to the U. S. in 1939 and who got the Nobel prize for literature in 1929 (but for his "Buddenbrooks" he had written in 1901!) I´ll visit his hometown Lübeck next week and will visit the famous Buddenbrooks House of course ... If you haven´t read anything from Mann or did it only in your school days long ago, I´d like to encourage you to do so again because his elegant style is so full of wit and surprises = sentences you wouldn´t expect from an author of his decades - in my opinion he really liked to step out of his frame from time to time and to think outside the box!

School Days

This week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme is "School Days", and my card includes two very personal elements: the building is my own school that I attended for 9 years at the age of 10 to 19 in the 70s and early 80s, and the pupil on the right is my father on his first school day about 1931. All other elements are from Manuela Zimmermann and the ColorSplash kit from Mischief Circus.

Proudly Presented

I´ve had fun today combining the new Halloween @ Mischief Circus kits from Cryztal Rain and Holliewood Studios with all those lovely images that come with the free add-on - I´ve mixed in images from Hidden Vintage Studios, Itkupilli, Tumble Fish Studios, Krysty Scrap and Mr Whiskers - look how well they all go together!

Magic Oddities

Maybe you´ve already missed my sample for Marsha´s great new kit "Halloween @ Mischief Circus" - I´ve been late becauce of my vacation, but here it is! Isn´t that lady´s face wonderful?

Witchy Women

This month´s theme for the Red Lead ATC swap is Witchy Women, and of course I´ve used rubber stamps and collage sheets from Red Lead for these - they´ve been so much fun to make!

Welcome to Mischief Circus!

Welcome to Mischief Circus!

I´ve been on vacation for the last 9 days but returned home just in time for today´s big news: Deviant Scrap, the home of so many fabulous digital designers, has changed its name to Mischief Circus, and they´ve come out with a lovely new store wide collab themed "Halloween @ Mischief Circus". And as always with their Collect your own Collab events, there´s a great addon kit to grab for free:

As I´ve been away, I haven´t had much time to play with the new kits from Tracey and Marsha, but I´ve made a cut and paste postcard with both their kits (at Hidden Vintage Studios and Tumble Fish Studio) that you can see on top of my post - welcome to Mischief Circus!

Smell the Roses

It´s a pity that you can´t smell the "Charles Austin" rose on my balcony right now, because that smell is what makes a good day even better and brings a moment of beauty and luxury even to a bad day. This week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme is "Roses", and I´ve tried to illustrate the smell of roses with my card.
I´ve used papers from Stampington and Graphic 45 and rubber stamps from Red Lead and Stampendous.

Frida´s Self Portraits

I´ve made this Frida Kahlo themed postcard for a monthly postcard exchange at Creative Souls. The circles at the bottom left are a reproduction from Frida´s own diary/art journal. My card will be in the mail to Michigan on Saturday!

143 Collage Sheets

Tracey from Hidden Vintage Studios came up with a wonderful deal for all you cut and paste artists - she´s selling the collage sheets from ALL her kits (even the retired ones) together for a special price. You should have a look at this great deal here. I´m using her images in my own cut and paste artwork all the time and love them, so if you´re not like me and already have them all, you shouldn´t miss this great offer!

There are no Rules

This week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme is "Children´s books". Well, what my mom read to me when I was too little to read myself was "Pippi Longstocking", and she usually fell asleep while reading, whereas I lay in my bed waiting for her to read on ...  That story by Astrid Lindgren was first published in 1944, and for my card I played with the idea what may have happened to a well-behaved girl after having read this book. Just have a look at Wikipedia and you´ll find out that Pippi is called the first punk girl! Little did I know in the late 60s ...

Try to be Pink!

This week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge is animal themed, and I´ve chosen a quote by Albert Einstein about sheep/ people that I´ve always liked: In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself ... that´s so true, but well, you could at least try to be a pink sheep!

Old People

 ... is one of the challenge themes in the brand new "Just Stamps" magazine, and you´ll find my three ATCs above and the card below on pages 31 and 32. I like the fact that the new issue has come out in printed form again, but you´re able to download it as well if this is what you prefer. I especially recommend the article about bistre (p. 54-65), a product that I´ve had much fun with lately and that makes beautiful backgrounds.

Lady Liberty

My two ATCs for this week´s TMTA challenge "Cities" both show Lady Liberty - the first one has a cityscape stamp from Tim Holtz on a Rothko painting (from the MoMa in New York), the second one shows her mourning (stamp from Viva Las Vegas) on a background from Rucola Designs, additional stamps on each card are from Stampington and Tim Holtz.

Oriental

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art themed "Oriental" I´ve made a digital postcard that looked really great after I had printed it on watercolour paper. All elements used here are from Tumble Fish Studio at Deviant Scrap.