Spring is in the Air

Nappikappa's 10-day challenge has come to an end. Last theme is Spring. Here is my take on it, a smart lady all dressed up in her spring coat and hat, ready for taking a walk.

A Walk Before Dinner
But what kind of a walk? There's a lottery ticket peeking out from her pocket. And what, pray, is with the key?

PS. I have called in the first Finnish ATC Forum with a live trade session. Everyone interested is welcome, whether a seasoned maker or an absolute rookie, Finnish, English, it does not matter. Please email me for details, you'll find my mail in the profile. It will be held in Turku this coming Sunday.

Monday challenges

Today I made an ATC with effects for TMTA. It had a picture of a family for Nappikappa's 10-day challenge. I don't often try to kill two birds with one stone, as you know, but today is an exception. I did plenty of textured backgrounds, but this was the only one I felt was nice enough for using.

Help me, mommy.Story of the picture is told in my flickr entry.

My favorite texture is achieved this way: Take a slick catalog page and sand it down. It will get a rough texture and the edges will start to look worn. Now it's time to smear any liquid but thick color on it, acrylic, gel paint, colored glue, whatever. While it's still liquid, move the paint around with a credit card, a vial, a pen - again, it doesn't matter. You will get nice textural pattern. As the top layer here was glue paint, I stuck a piece of mesh on top.

Day 8: Birds

Birds, yay! Nappikappa's 10-day challenge is calling for birds today.

Birds and nests seem to lend themselves well for life affirmations.

Luota itseesi (Be confident about yourself.)

Elämä kantaa. (Life will take care of you.)

Brown background here is the utmost, paper-like bark of pine tree. It's lying on the ground after winter. I glued it down with decoupage glue, and weighted the piece heavily. That was the only way to bring the curly bark into submission.

Both are available for trade. Thanks for looking!

Challenge on Men

Kollaasimania's challenge this week is Men. Meet Axel von Knorring, engineer.

Scrapped a wonderful robin's egg's blue envelope from 1931, sent by Axel's office. (Of course this is not the real Axel, but rather a dapper man from an old cabinet card!)

This card is for live trade.

WS / First letter

Haven't seen this challenge before: make a card using the first letter of your name as an inspiration. Go over to Wednesday Stampers to participate!
My first letter is A, and the word that came to mind was Award.

A is for Award.

But no-one is saying what kind of an award! For all we know it may be an award for the worst dresser.

Fashion and Torso

What do these two thing have in common? Why, glad you should ask, it's two challenges wrapped into one.
I had wanted to make a torso for Theme Thursday for the longest time - yes, it's a full week coming! And the Day 4 challenge for Nappikappa calls for Clothing.
This was a happy marriage.

Absolument naturel.
On the torso you see a corset coming along. In days past, underwear was called foundation garment. They were the foundation of everything, and ensured a proper fit of regular clothing (something to be considered even today).
Were those foundation pieces rigid and downright deforming? Bet they were! But what doesn't a woman do for her beauty?

Day 3: Love

Only by sheer chance did I find Nappikappa's 10-day-challenge. I'm glad I did!
Every day there is a new theme, and you have time till midnight to make your ATC.
This is mine, today's theme being Love.

Poetry by Hannu Mäkelä, 1974, book: Syksy tuli kutsumatta.

On technique:
A catalog picture, sanded down and aged with red acrylics and a brown ink pad.
Red swirl is one of those "daily tattoos" sold almost in every store that caters to the pre-teen and teen crowd. A piece of gold printed natural paper.

TMTA / Transparent

I have never understood transparencies. Why use them? Why not stamp directly onto the picture? Could someone please explain!
Anyway, I found myself extremely challenged when TMTA was prodding to use them on this week's art.
This is the result:

Enter in Paris.
On technique:
Black stamping on white paper, blue stamping on a transparency, both glued on top of each other and then on gold (some of it peeking as sky), a 50's lady and a piece of foil (from a dog food package, peeled off real easy!) - voila!

I'm so happy to be challenged! Otherwise I would just stick in my old rut. A huge Thank-You to the folks at TMTA!

Tea Party

Tea Party is the theme over on Saturday Surprise. I can't help but being a tad bizarre. Here's my "magical" tea party (see the pixie dust?):

No sugar for me, please.
clicks for bigger. Thanks for looking!

WS / In My Garden

In my Garden is Wednesday Stamper's challenge this week. Here's my entry:

Stamping, gel paints, German scraps, musical notes... My garden is a happy place!

Inspire me Thursday: Kitchen

Looking around my kitchen, I found plenty to inspire me. I was drawn to the most colorful items on the shelves, rice bags and noodles packs. Here is what I made for Inspire me Thursday's challenge this week:



Kitchen Fairy 1 (Fragrant Jasmine Rice)
Kitchen Fairy 2 (Quick-cooking Noodles)
I just love those whimsical little clouds, don't you? Just one line, and you have a puffy happy little cloud.
A short note on technique. The rice bag is heavy duty kind of cellophane, and my Uhu stick just wouldn't glue it to ordinary paper. I found out that if you first glue it to tissue paper it will make a permanent bond with it. Then the plastic has a paper backing and will stick to all other surfaces. Well, at least to normal and slick papers.

A short note

WS / Stars

How nice! Cheers from Wednesday Stamper for returning week after week. This week we should put some sparkle on our creations. I love sequins for their almost decadent sparkle, and added some. In pink, of course. (Of course!)

A little bird said... (you can never have enough hats, pink or sparkle)
Stamped background, collage of vintage photo, German scraps and a magazine cutting, aged with cream acrylic paint, then highlighted with sparkle gel pens, sequins.

Fragile

The theme this week on Saturday Surprise is Fragile. Which lead me to think of a bird's song. And spring, the most fragile season, alternating between snow and sunshine, warm and cold.

Tulip Song
On technique:
Tulips were stamped onto tissue, and attached with copious amounts of decoupage glue. This makes the surface slightly slippery. I then stamped dark green dots all over and smudged them. The tulips were colored in with cream colored acrylics, and, when dry, chalked in with pink pastel.
After glueing on the bird and the musical notes, and stamping the flourishes, I covered the whole picture with decoupage glue. It dries on colorless, protects the chalks and gives the piece a nice satin finish.

Alice in Wonderland

4x4 Friday's theme this week is Alice in Wonderland. First off, I'm not a fan. I find the book hard to read. It is too bizarre and breathless to my taste. Oh well, challenges are all about breaking your boundaries, so I decided to give it a try. It helped, of course, that I had just received a stamped Alice in a trade, which I now could put to good use.

Why then, you may ask, is this an ATC, not a 4x4? Oops, my mistake! I usually jot down the challenges on a piece of paper, and then promptly forgot which challenge Alice was due for.
I'll post my link, anyway, don't be too mad! There is no chance to make another Alice, I have no more pics of her.
The technique is explained in my flickr.

Thanks for looking!