A Knight in Shiny Armor

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Glimmer, Shimmer´n Shine" I´ve made a card with a Knight in Shining Armor. As always, the silver embossed parts of the armor don´t show well in the scan, so I took some detail photos that help to see the embossed parts.

Most of the stamps I´ve used are from Hampton Art/ Graphic 45, but I´m not sure where the knight is from.

 

Your Heritage or Culture

For my bi-monthly journal pages tip-in swap, Stephanie´s theme for my October pages was "Your Heritage or Culture". Her book measures 5,5 x 8,5 inches, so a whole spread is 11 x 8,5 inches.

Well, if you´re German, you may have the same mixed feelings about this theme that I had ... But though I´m very aware of the deadly militaristic Germany of the 19th and 20th century, I see myself in the following of old traditions that have also been here forever, which is mainly German philosophy and literature. And as I was born in a city with a history going back to the year AD 50, I also wanted to show how much history and beauty Germany has that not everybody is aware of.
My Cologne spread shows just a few glimps of this city´s history: the foundation of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in AD 50, the invasion by the Vikings in 862 and 882, the bones of the Three Wise Men coming to town in 1164, the building of the cathedral from 1248 to 1880, and some info about the city today. A separate bookmark explains the Coat of Arms of Cologne with the three crowns symbolizing the Three Wise Men, and the 11 flames symbolizing the 11.000 virgin companions of St. Ursula.

My second spread concentrates on some highlights of German literature: the Minnesang period, the Arthurian Legend (found in Heinrich von Veldeke´s, Gottfried von Straßburg´s and Wolfram von Eschenbach´s works for instance), Goethe and Schiller, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann. Below is the bookmark I´ve made to accompany this spread.

Skulls

For this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Skulls" I´ve made a digital postcard using elements from several Itkupilli kits plus a few cobweb brushes.

A Family Gathering

Yes, some kind of Family Gathering it was on my blog last week when some of my blog readers came by to celebrate my blogaversary with me - thanks for stopping by and leaving me a note!
I´ve drawn two winners today, and Johanna and Tamara are the lucky winners who will find a handmade card in their mailboxes very soon. I´ll contact you to make sure that I have your correct addresses.

For my digital collage above, I´ve used the wonderful Falloween kits from Itkupilli and Mary Bailey (Miles Beyond the Moon).

Want Mail? Come Celebrate!

On October 8, 2006, I started this blog with a couple of posts, and yes, that was 10 years ago! In the meantime, I have changed, and that is why my blog has changed - I´ve learned new techniques and learned getting better in those techniques I already used back then - but all in all, the journey just continued. My blog never changed its name or place, and it has always been there for me to post whatever I wanted to share, to come back to older posts for reference, to use it as a gallery for photos, ATCs, cards, collages and other projects, and last but not least, to stay in contact with my art friends all over the world with my annual blog swaps.
So today it´s time to say thank you to my blog readers with a little giveaway! I will send the two postcards above to two winners that I´ll draw next weekend. Just leave a comment here and tell me if you´d like to win the Halloween card or the Zetti card, and maybe something that you´ve always wanted to tell me (but that´s not necessary at all). I´ll draw a winner on Saturday, Oct 15, and will contact you if you´re a winner. Good luck and thanks to all of you!

Fail Better

DSD is over now, but I´ve got far behind with posting my challenge layouts here - this one was made for the "Words to Live By" challenge over at MischiefCircus, and I´ve used elements from Holliewood Studios and Finecrafted Designs for it.

The Sea of Wonders

Every new month, I´m looking forward to Jen Maddocks´ Bricolage Society challenges. She always provides a small freebie kit with a few elements, a colour swatch, two or three quotes and an idea behind it. You just have to take one element from each category and just go your own way with the theme. My collage above is for her October challenge, and all elements are from Jen Maddocks Designs.

The Wizard

This week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge is "Wizard", and I decided to go with the Wizard of Oz, using elements from Marta van Eck and Altered Emporium.

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.