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.

Mixed Up World

Better late than never - here´s my entry for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge! Of course I didn´t want to miss this one as it´s themed "Bird People"!
For all you Bird People swap participants here´s some good news: Last week the last return envelope arrived in South Africa, and this week I finally received the missing ATCs from Malaysia, so none of all those envelopes back and forth did get lost, phew!

Misfit Dollhouse

What a great theme for a storewide designer collab this is, "Misfit Dollhouse"! You´ll find a great variety of kits for making your own dollhouses at DeviantScrap now.
My first two samples are digital, and they´ve been made with the Tumble Fish Studio kits "Misfit Dollhouse 1" and "Misfit Dollhouse 2".

The following cut and paste Moleskine journal pages have backgrounds made with bistre and images from Tumble Fish Studio´s "Misfit Dollhouse 1".

As this is a storewide collab, of course Hidden Vintage Studios also have some new kits for it - my first sample uses girls from the new "Misfit Dollhouse" kit (plus a background from Tumble Fish Studio´s kit no. 1), and the second one features another girl from that kit plus a baby from "Misfit Dollhouse DollBabies" (all other elements from both new Tumble Fish Studio kits).

Shine For Me Only

This week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge is Aliens - sounds difficult first, but as there has been a lovely store collab at Deviant Scrap a few months ago, I had all that I needed to send my little Alien on his journey - I printed a background from Holliewood Studios on watercolour paper and then added elements from Tumble Fish Studio and the little Alien from Hidden Vintage Studios.

Just Another Pretty Face

... is the name of Hidden Vintage Studios´ brand new kit at Deviant Scrap, and it has some lovely girl images for you to use in your digital as well as cut and paste artwork - check it out here.
I´ve made three cut and paste postcards with it, using stenciled or dyed backgrounds and a resist paper from LaBlanche plus rubber stamps from Cavallini, Darkroom Door, Stampers Anonymous, Art Impressions and Stempelmine.

Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 12

As you all know, I´ve been waiting for the last two envelopes to arrive - but they didn´t. Who knows if they´re still at the customs or if these two envelopes from the U. S. and Malaysia got lost. However, I won´t let the five participants whose returns haven´t been sent yet wait any longer, so I´ll replace the missing ATCs with my own or with extra ATCs sent to me, and send out the returns for Ann, Sirkkis, Martina, Dagmar and Ulrike on Monday. I´m sorry that you´d have to wait for your returns so long!
With so many envelopes being held up in the customs nowadays, I´m not sure if it´s possible to have international swaps like this in the future. I´ll have to think about it before I decide if I´ll have another blog swap next year.
And I´ll send out another newsletter to the other participants because I haven´t heard from 7 of you, and I think that are too many after two weeks. If you´ve received your returns and haven´t sent me an email yet, please let me know NOW.

More Street Art

I´ve made some more Street Art ATCs tonight using backgrounds from Paula Kesselring and rubber stamps from VivaLasVegaStamps, Stempelbar, Paperbag Studios and Catslife Press.

Posers!

Marsha from Tumble Fish Studio came out with a very versatile kit today called "Posers". I´ve made one digital ATC for you as well as three cut and paste ATCs and two postcards - as you can see the possibilities for using these images are endless!

Under the Boardwalk

I just realized that I forgot to post my ATCs for the June ATC swap at Red Lead themed "Under the Boardwalk" - don´t know why I forgot about them ... but I sure hope they´ll bring you some summer feelings!

Dress Sampler

These are my ATCs for this month´s ATC swap at Red Lead themed "Dress Sampler" - so of course all images, stencils and stamps are from Red Lead.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, and I´ve used one of her most famous quotes here. You know that her body was damaged by several accidents and that it was one of the reasons why she loved the Mexican dressing with long skirts that she wears on most pictures.
I have used an image from Xquizart at Deviant Scrap, combined with a Frida face stamp, pattern and name from Invoke Arts, plus additional wings and feet stamps from Sunday International.

Men Only

... is the theme for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge. I´ve made a digital postcard this week, using images from Pixel Music, Tangie Baxter, Melissa Renfro and Tumble Fish Studio as well as a cabinet card from my own stash.

Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 11 - swapped!

Yesterday, I took all ATCs to the office to swap them out there (because I don´t have enough space at home) - take a look at the photo below and you´ll get an idea of how long it took me to sort these out, especially as I tried to follow my lists with your comments on your favourites ...

Well, 1 1/2 hours later it was done, and when I returned home, I checked every envelope again and put a note in, then weighed them and put stamps on them. Today 29 envelopes were dropped in the mailbox, and if you´re from Germany, you should watch your own mailbox on Monday!
I´ve had to keep 5 envelopes (those for Dagmar, Ulrike, Martina, Ann, and Sirkkis) because their returns need to be completed with the ATCs from Michele and Lay Hoon that are still on their way ... however, you won´t have to wait forever - if it looks like one of these envelopes got lost in the mail, I´ll fill the gaps with my own ATCs (that´s why I always make so many, and to illustrate my updates of course) and send them out!

I´m asking you all to
- notify me when you received your returns,
- send a short thank you email to the three artists whose ATCs you received.
(And please keep in mind that not everyone likes to see her own artwork on someone else´s blog, so before you post a picture of your returns, you should ask those artists whose work you´d like to show for their permission!)

Please don´t forget about the notification as it´s necessary for me to keep track of the swap!! It´s really a lot of unnecessary work for me to ask everyone if your returns arrived or not, and you know that I need that information because I usually replace envelopes that have been lost ...
If you need an email address of one of the artists to send your thank you note and you can´t find it on the card or it´s illegible, just ask me, and I´ll help you. And if you´d like to know who received your ATCs, I´ll be able to answer that, too.

So - let´s hope that the postal services will work quickly and that your mailboxes will be filled soon!
Thanks to each and everyone of you for making this another great swap with wonderful artwork!

Bird People Blog Swap Update No. 10

Maybe you´ve been wondering what happened to our swap that ended about two weeks ago!? In my last update, I´ve told you that I was waiting for the last four envelopes, and two of them have arrived in the meantime, and I hope that Michele´s and Lay Hoon´s ATCs will show up in my mailbox soon.
However, I´ve decided that I´ll swap out all the card this weekend using place holders for those that are missing, and will only hold back those envelopes that can´t be completed yet.

If you´d like to see some interesting bird people, you should have a look here - thanks to my BIL for the link!

My own ATC for this week was made with images from Itkupilli and Tumble Fish Studio and a stamped text from Magenta - as you see, Bird People rule!