Greetings from Wonderland

Here´s another challenge entry for the DSD celebrations at Mischief Circus - this one is for the "Where in the World Postcard Challenge" and was made with elements from MizzD, Rucola Designs, Krysty Scrap, Miles Beyond the Moon, Art by January, Finecrafted Designs and Tumble Fish Studio.

DSD Challenges

Did you notice that DSD = Digital Scrapbooking Day has moved from November to October for the first time this year? This means sales in all digital scrapbooking shops plus tons of games and challenges. Most of the shops have already started their celebrations.
In the Mischief Circus forum, you can find five games and six challenges right now, with prices to win of course. Here are my contributions for the first two challenges, "Reinvent This Classic" above, and "Stranger in a Strange Land Poster" below.
Dr Mona was made with elements from the September Monthly Mischief kits, and for my Stranger collage I´ve used elements from (sadly retired) Art by January.
Won´t you come and play with us in the Mischief Circus DSD forum?

Blackbird

For hosting this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge, I´ve chosen "The Beatles" as our theme as their music was the soundtrack of my childhood. They had published their first single in 1962, reached world-wide success in 1963 and sailed on its peak when I was born and for the next four years or so. They split when I was schooled, but I remember their portraits in my brother´s room and their songs being everywhere. When I was about 11 years old, I had a phase in my life when I didn´t listen to any other music than theirs. I knew the lyrics of almost all their songs back then, and one of my favourites has always been "Blackbird" (today it´s probably "Come Together"). It has such a simple (but not at all boring) melody that you´ll never forget, and the lyrics invite you to think about them - it was discussed a lot whether McCartney´s later interpretation that his song is about the racial tensions in the U. S. in Spring 1968 and the blackbird is a symbol for a black lady has really been in his thoughts when he wrote the song in 1968 or not.

For my card above, I used a hand-dyed background, stenciled the Beatles´ faces, coloured them, and added the blackbird and the lyrics with stamps. (The stencil is from Stamp Attack, the stamps are from Visible Images and Green Pepper Press.)

What´s your favourite Beatles song and why? If you´re interested in other Beatles inspired art, you´re invited to click on the label "Beatles Blog Swap" in the sidebar on the right - but be aware that the title of the swap back then was Beatles or Stones, so there might be some Stones songs illustrated as well ...

Health

Here´s my entry for this month´s Bricolage Society challenge by Jen Maddocks; all elements are from Jen Maddocks Designs of course.

Tombstone ATCs

Autumn is here, and Halloween is at our doorsteps, so it´s time to post these tombstone shaped ATCs that I´ve made for a swap in one of my Yahoo groups. The shapes were inspired by masonite board ATCs from Retro Café Art, and I´ve used rubber stamps from Red Lead, Paper Artsy and Flamingo Art Stamps here.

Harvest Moon

This week´s theme for the  Sunday Postcard Art challenge is "Harvest Moon". Well, I´ve tried to take a photo of the full moon yesterday, but ... 

So I went on with elements from Eeena´s Creations, Downunder Studios and Itkupilli for my entry.

Truth and Error

For this month´s Monthly Mischief challenge at MischiefCircus.com, we´re asked to illustrate a quote about knowledge with this month´s Monthly Mischief kits. Here´s my entry with a C. G. Jung quote - won´t you come and play with us?

Life is a Circus

This week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge is Circus, and here´s my card for this week, made with rubber stamps and washi tape.

New ATCs

I´ve been on a one week vacation at my sister´s house, and as always, we´ve had some great stamping hours together. I needed a few new ATCs for my trading album because we´ll be going to a stamping convention this weekend and I hope to meet some ATC artists there.
For the first batch of cards above, I´ve used my new Tim Holtz Halloween stamps and other stuff, just having fun playing without a theme.

I also finished three more Postage People ATCs.

And finally I made two Cats & Dogs ATCs.

Knowledge

As I´ve told you before, Marsha from Tumble Fish Studio retires from creating digital kits, but before all things come to an end, she has made one last mini kit for us for Mischief Circus´ Monthly Mischief. "Knowledge" - and how I love this one! Just look at the great colour combination of yellow, grey and black and white, and then all those images talking about science and knowledge, great!
I just couldn´t stop playing with this kit, so I´ve made two cut and paste collages for you plus one digital collage.
The picture above, "Beautiful Mind", shows one more page in my Moleskine journal. The background was made with brushos and bistre powders in yellow and black that match perfectly with that kit.
The cut and paste collage below, "Lots of Ideas", was made on a piece of scrapbooking paper (from the brand new Back to School series), featuring a quote from Linus Pauling.

And finally, here´s a digital collage that was inspired by the saying that there´s a woman behind every great man ... well, why behind?

If you like non-cute stuff, sciences and a special kind of humour, this is your kit. As always, it comes with png as well as jpg images, so you can use it for both your digital and physical artwork. And of course this kit is easy to mix and match with the other Monthly Mischief kits for September ... and last but not least you can combine it with any other images you already have in your stash, like I did in my last piece (the other elements are from Finecrafted Designs retired kit "It´s all relative").

Mother Nature

My card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Mother Nature" is a digital one, and I´ve made it with images from Holliewood Studios, Jen Maddocks, and a StudioGirls collab from Scrapbookgraphics.

Good or Bad News?

Though I´m really sad to see Marsha´s retirement as a kit designer, her sale could be good news for YOU! If you have some of her wonderful kits on your wish list, you have 3 1/2 weeks from now to shop them with a great discount before they´ll be gone forever.
Marsha will stay as a member at MischiefCircus of course, and if you´re interested in her future artwork and images, you could watch her blog and etsy shop soon.

Postage People Again

You know that I love to make Postage People ATCs from time to time ... these two ("The Royal Catch" on the left and "Book Lover" on the right) are for a personal trade with one of the participants of my Postage People Revisited Blog Swap, Gina. Hope she´ll like them!

Conquer Fear

I really like Jen Maddocks´ monthly Bricolage Society challenges over at Digital Scrapbooking Studio - she always gives away a free little challenge kit to play with and a few rules for the challenge. This is what I´ve made for her August challenge, all elements are from Jen Maddocks.

Famous Fictional Detectives

What a difficult challenge this was! Sheila from Canada has chosen "Famous Fictional Detectives" as the theme for her tip-in journal pages (each single page measures 4 3/4 x 7 inches). Maybe you think, "why difficult? think of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and so many others!" Well - yes, but ... this is an international tip-in pages swap, and as I´m not the only one who has to make pages for this theme, and the other participants are from the United States, England and Australia, I decided to go with fictional detectives from German literature. Sheila probably will have to google Nick Knatterton and Emil Tischbein, but I think that most German people have heard of them: Nick Knatterton is a detective from a graphic novel by Manfred Schmidt that was published in a German magazine between 1950 and 1959, And Emil und die Detektive is a childrens book by Erich Kästner published in 1929. I know that Sheila taught Canadian literature, so I hope that she´s interested in finding out more about German literature, too.
The pictures don´t show that the strip of criminals in the Nick Knatterton spread above can be pulled horizontally in order to change the face shown on the "Wanted" poster.

Roll On!

About two weeks ago, I´ve been on a short vacation in beautiful Prague, and every evening my feet needed special care - so what about you: did you ever wish you had wheels instead of your feet?
Here´s my card for this week´s  Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Wheels", made with elements from Mr Whiskers, Itkupilli and Tumble Fish Studio, all from MischiefCircus.com.

Pets

Today I´ve read in the newspaper that Germany´s No. 1 pet is the cat - so when I was thinking about this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme "Pets", I heard a loud barking in my stamps stash, and here they are, asking you to give them shelter.

Perhaps I should explain that I´ve never had a dog nor a cat but only canaries in my childhood ...

(The rubber stamps I´ve used here are from Carabelle, VivaLasVegaStamps, Catslife Press, 100 Proof Press and Stampers Anonymous.)

The Raven Shirt

For a T-Shirt stamping contest over at Heindesign, I´ve made this shirt illustrating Edgar Allan Poe´s famous poem "The Raven". The shirt itself was sold by Heindesign and already had the red Stempelmekka logo printed on (the Stempelmekka is the biggest German stamping convention).
I decided to go with black and red only, not only because that colour scheme went well with the logo, but these colours also fit the poem´s atmosphere. I´ve used fabric stamping paint (also sold by Heindesign) and a foam brush to put the paint on the rubber stamps. For my design, I´ve used rubber stamps from Carmen´s Veranda, LaBlanche, Lost Coast Designs, Green Pepper Press, Cherry Pie, and Red Lead. I think it´s amazing how well stamps from 6 different companies work together here to form the final design.

Spirit Art

I´ve made two digital samples for you with Nancy Baumiller´s new Crowabout StudioB kit "Spirit Art Element Pack" - but as always, you can also print out the collage sheets that come with the kit and use them for your cut and paste artwork.

Eggs

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Eggs", I´ve made a digital card with images from several older Tumble Fish Studio kits (Dozens, Dreams - Yonder, Nitty Gritty 2, Etcetera, and Journaling Pieces 2).