Tape It!

If you´re a stuff hoarder like me, you have a huge collection of tapes of all kinds: tissue tapes, washi tapes, masking tapes, you name it ... That´s why I´ve chosen Tapes for the challenge that I´m hosting this week, and these are the tapes I´ve chosen for my SPA card:

What do you do with yours? I like to use mine for mixed-media backgrounds like I did for the card above. I took a dyed paper from my stash and put down pieces of several tapes totally randomly. To unify the background as well as to fix the tapes (that would easily peel off otherwise) I brushed some gesso on and removed parts of it with a paper towel.

Then I stamped my images (stamps by VLVS and Madrat) ...

and coloured them with watercolour pencils. I decided to make the words stand out by using even more tape and coloured the hands on the tape, drawing over the tape borders to blend the strips into my design. As a last step I added shadows and highlights.

Now it´s up to you to show me how you like to use tapes in your designs! Hope you´ll have fun with this challenge!

Paper Traders´ First Blog Hop

This weekend, one of my favourite Yahoo Groups has its first Blog Hop - it´s Paper Traders! I´ve been a member from the beginning (in fact I joined the group on day three of their existence which was Nov 19, 2005), and you´ll find so many ATCs, book pages etc. on my blog that I´ve made for projects of this group. Former group members have even inspired me to start my own blog in 2006!

If you´re here for the first time, let me tell you that I´m Marion from Germany, and I´d call myself a mixed-media person. I love to combine collage, rubber stamping and other techniques and also like to make digital collages. I don´t really have one favourite technique, so you´ll see various techniques, media and formats on this blog constantly.
I don´t sell my work, but I´m a member of the creative teams for Tumble Fish Studio and Hidden Vintage Studios (both at DeviantScrap.com) right now.

I am excited to participate in the First Paper Traders Blog Hop. I hope it will be a way for you to get to know me and a few of the other group members better, see our art, and get a chance to win some nice prizes that are being offered along the way.  Maybe you'll even be inspired by what you see and want to join the group.

The Blog Hop will be open the entire weekend of April 19-21, 2013.  Be sure to start at the Paper Traders Art Blog here http://papertraders-art.blogspot.com/ and follow the blog hop list of participating members below:

Paper Traders Art Blog

Bockel24

Art and Soul

Sunshine,Lollipops and Butterflies

Creative Solace

Art Beckons

Scrap Panda

Creative Musings

A Surcee Life

Textile Delights

Stamp Gram’s

Glenda’s Art Escapes

Fairy Rocks

Each member will share a little bit about herself and offer either a handmade art piece or other quality prize that will be randomly awarded to blog readers who leave a warm, fuzzy comment.  Just comment below and provide a way for me to contact you and I will pick a randomly drawn name from those who leave a comment.  One entry per person, please.
I`ve decided to give away my card for last week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge as it´s quite typical for me:

The winner´s name will be drawn on Monday April 22. 

Have fun on your journey and I hope you'll come back to visit soon!

Do You Like Dalí?

Of course I had seen a lot of Salvador Dalí´s paintings before, and some of them in real life, but I´ve never been so very impressed by them before I saw more of Dalí´s work at the latest Documenta in Kassel. If you think you know a lot about him, I´d like to encourage you to take another look at his work - maybe you´ll discover some new facettes.
I´ve made these ATCs for a Dalí themed ATC swap and can´t wait to see the ideas the other participants will come up with ...

Swing into Spring!

Temperatures are rising now, yeah!, and Hidden Vintage Studios have come out with the appropriate kit for your Spring collages - Swing into Spring! I just love those birdies on my sample above and the colourful flowers in the one below. As always, jpg sheets are included within the kit for all your cut and paste projects.

Soar

This week´s SPA challenge theme is "Soar", and this theme fits the weather outside so well! Now that the sun begins to come out and the temperatures are rising, you can feel an energy that seemed to have been buried forever ... but no, it´s a little bird that has just been waiting for its time to come!

Flight of Fancy

Have you noticed that Hidden Vintage Studios and Holliewood Studios have come up with a new kit each called "Flight of Fancy"? My digital collage above shows how nice they go together. If you want to make some spring-inspired art, you should have a look at Tracey´s and Hollie´s kits at Deviant Scrap.

Back to the Roots

I think that the Cherry Pie Yahoo group was my first international one that I joined back in 2004 ... So stamping my ATCs for a Cherry Pie swap in a German ATC group felt like getting back to the roots.

Hello??

Pssssst, this message is confidential: Vintage Telephone is this week´s theme for the SPA challenge, so here´s my card using a Dover image and stamps from Cavallini and VLVS.

A Little Bird Told Me ...

You all know that I´m a bird lover, so it was obvious for me that I had to join the latest Red Lead swap "A Little Bird Told Me". We have to decorate three wooden birds in different sizes that should be dangling together in the end. I have used book pages dyed with leftovers from Easter egg dyes, several Red Lead stamps and Glossy Accents to make the eyes and wings pop. Can´t wait to see what the other participants come up with!

Happy Easter!

Here´s my Easter card for this week´s SPA challenge - hope you all have happy Easter days!

By the Sea

These ATCs have been inspired by Nellie van Leeuwen´s beautiful cards in the latest issue of Take Ten - thanks, Nellie!

Journey to the Moon

Do you know Georges Méliès (1861-1938)? You say no? But if you´ve seen Martin Scorsese´s film "Hugo (Cabret)", you´ve already heard a lot about this great illusionist and film maker. He´s called the inventor of narrative film and stop-motion technique, made his first film in 1896 and made 500 films before 1912 - but only half of them still exist, the most famous one being his Jules Verne adaption "Le Voyage dans la Lune" of 1902. Around 1930, he ran a toy shop in the metro station at Montparnasse, and it wasn´t before 1929 when he was rediscovered as a film artist. That´s what "Hugo" is all about ...
Now Marsha from Tumble Fish Studio has come out with a beautiful and inspiring image kit about Méliès and his visual world that I´ve used for all my samples here. As always, the kit comes with jpg images included, so it can be used for your cut and paste artwork as in my last two samples from my Moleskine journal.

She Sells Seashells

Shelly´s theme for her tip-in book is "Mermaids, Sea Shells, Crabs, Turtles, etc.", so I went with a fishy background and let some ARTchix mermaids collect seashells for the lady on the left who sells them at the beach. These pages will go to Florida tomorrow ...

Tell All

what is the one thing that you know now that you would have liked to have known when you first started to create art?
That´s the question Seth Apter has asked all the participants in the Tell All section of his last survey "The Pulse", and you´ll find my answer in today´s post on Seth´s blog here.

Butterflies

I´m sorry but I wasn´t able to scan my card for this week´s SPA challenge themed "Butterflies" - I had to take a photo of it because of the 3-D butterfly. I used a butterfly paper as the background, then Butterfly tissue tape and gesso, then a lovely background stamp from Red Lead (coloured with watercolour pencils), the word stamp "springtime" and a butterfly cut out from a Graphic 45 paper ... now only the weather outside has to catch up with my feelings!

Colour my World!

I´ve told you before that I´m fed up with all that winter grey and white - so our annual Zetti ATC swap was very welcome to use COLOURS again!

Time for Bunnies!

When I look out of my window, the sky is grey, and there´s still snow on the roofs and trees - is this really SPRING? Most of us are longing for bold colours now after all this pale winter stuff, and as Easter is near, I´d recommend having a look at Hidden Vintage Studios´ lovely "Bunny Bundle" - two kits bundled together that will make your heart sing!
The digital collage above combines the kit with elements from Crowabout Studio, Tangie Baxter and Paula Kesselring.

My new blogheader ...

derived from this photo I´ve taken at last year´s Documenta in Kassel, showing an installment by István Csákany. The quote is a Chinese proverb.

Steampunk Nofretete

I´m trading used postage stamps with Pam from Canada and thought I wanted to put a sample in her envelope to show her what I usually do with postage stamps - and as I´ve read in our group´s database that she likes Steampunk, I let Nofretete from Ancient Egypt visit the "Ruhrgebiet", the industrial area just around my corner ... doesn´t she look like an Industrial Queen? (this card is 4 x 6 inches)

Feeling Lucky?

March 17 is St. Patrick´s Day, the Irish National Holiday, and as a tribute Hidden Vintage Studios have come out with their "Feeling Lucky" kit today. Here I have combined it with last year´s giveaways from the Hidden Vintage Studios blog. As always, the kit comes with png images as well as printable collage sheets, so it´s your choice if you prefer to do digital or cut and paste art with it.

Little Sister

Well, I have to say I AM a little sister making her own mistakes and living her own life; some of them tasted like poison, but they didn´t kill me - what about you? (Well, at least my face didn´t turn green so far ;-))
This is my card for this week´s SPA challenge themed Mushrooms/Toadstools, can´t wait to see yours!
(all images from Hidden Vintage Studios)

Faeries

If you know me just a bit, you can imagine that I´ve had a hard time making a tip-in journal spread themed "Fairies" :-) But then I found some really interesting quotes (some lovely ones by John Lennon, Shakespeare, and W. B. Yeats) and started planning my page. Finally I decided to use these words by Charles de Lint and to use a very modern font for them instead of a romantic one. These pages will go to Canada tomorrow.

Touch of Nature

In my opinion, Silhouettes need a very simple design to be effective, so I kept my postcard for this week´s SPA challenge very pure. Hope you like it nevertheless!
(Silhouette is from Hidden Vintage Studios, additional elements from Pink Lotty, Finecrafted Designs, Carole Harden and Tina Chambers)

Dreaming of Spring

Did I ever tell you how much I love Red Lead swaps? Chris and Sharon always have such nice ideas and stuff, and this group´s members are so very talented! So I was really looking forward to my Red Lead order containing the Artisan Frames for the Dreaming of Spring swap, and I´ve been working on my entries for the last three days. Can´t wait to see what the other participants come up with! These will go out to St. Louis tomorrow ...

Time for a Break

If the world seems to turn upside down and you don´t know what to do first, it´s time to turn off your computer, radio, TV etc. and just sit down and enjoy the silence - then it´s time for a break.
I use this collage as a screen saver on my computer right now, and it reminds me to take time for myself every day. "Time" is this week´s theme for the Three Muses challenge, and this is my contribution.
(all images used are from Deviant Scrap´s collab kit "Somerset ColorSplash")

Time for Nesting!

Home
digital collage using HVS kit "Nesting Nymphs" plus elements from Tumble Fish Studio, Holliewood Studio, Beth Rimmer and Marta van Eck

"Nesting Nymphs" is the name of Hidden Vintage Studios´ lovely new and really big image kit at Deviant Scrap, and it´s just perfect for this time of the year. Go and have a look yourself!

At Home

digital collage, all images from Hidden Vintage Studios 

Two Birds

digital collage, all images from Hidden Vintage Studios

Shades of Green

Marsha aka Tumble Fish Studio has a new image kit out that´s called "Shades of Green". As green is my favourite colour (well, shades of it ;-)), I had much fun making two samples with it: Above you can see a cut and paste Moleskine journal page called "The Bird Whisperer", and below is a digital collage illustrating Peter Gabriel´s song "Kiss that Frog". If you also love green, don´t hesitate to check this kit out here; as always the kit includes jpg collage sheets so that you can use it just the way you like.
And the background for my frog collage is from Marsha´s new pack of Shades of Green Journal Cards that you can find here.

Blackbird

Now that spring is lurking behind the clouds, I´m waiting for the blackbirds to build their nest again on the balcony below mine like they did in previous years. So it´s just the perfect time for this week´s Take A Word challenge themed Blackbird!

Key to my Heart

For this week´s SPA challenge I have reworked a card I´ve made for one of Mary Green´s challenges. The rose, the lock and the key are dimensional, so please forgive me that the scan is a bit blurry ...

Longing for Spring

Whenever a tag swap is announced in my ARTchix Sisters Yahoo group, I hardly can resist ... unless it´s a Valentine theme ;-) Well, this time the swap is Spring themed, so here are my six tags for it! I´m sooooo longing for spring!

Cinderella

When I saw Marsha´s new images, this scene was one of the first that came to my mind - this prince will never cut down Cinderella´s fashion budget ...
(all images from Tumble Fish Studio at DeviantScrap.com)

Feeling Blue?

Blue Bingo

digital collage using elements from Hidden Vintage Studios and a background from Tumble Fish Studio

The new images from Hidden Vintage Studios´ kit "Blue and Broken Hearted" are quite different from their usual stuff - thus this sample is quite unusual for my own work. I hope you go and have a look at the new kit - as usual the images are also included as jpg collage sheets.

Once Upon A Time ...

Who doesn´t like to read or hear a fairytale from time to time? Me, I prefer literary fairytales, for example by H. C. Andersen and W. Hauff, but there are a few folk tales that I also like. However, as a specialist in German studies, I admire the brothers Grimm much more for their wonderful German dictionary (that they weren´t able to complete of course) but for collecting their "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" ...

If you´ve read my blog yesterday, I hope you´ve already discovered all the lovely new "Once Upon A Time" themed kits at Deviant Scrap - they make it so easy to tell your own tales now!

Today I show you a few samples using the new kits from Tumble Fish Studio (there´s a great new journal card kit here), two digital collages and one cut and paste moleskine journal page (as Marsha´s images as always come as jpg sheets with together with 

the png kit).