Big Hair

Today I was inspired by big hair. Really big hair.

Old playing cards, French ladies, some music and golden instruments. I am quite in love with transfer technique, the ladies are transferred with gel medium from printed images.
Golden instruments are very noble German scrap, found on my last visit to Vienna, Austria.

entering these into:
Three Muses: Music
Wicked Wednesday: Hair-Do
Moo-mania: Anything goes

Important messages - from bees

I am busy preparing for end exams - so I won't be here often this month.
But of course I can still create, in the odd moments between the day's work and going to bed. Or early in the morning, sneaking in half an hour of precious me-time.

Viewed in that light, what else should my cards be than about work.

During this month I'll be working hard.

Achieving something, hopefully...,

but after it's over I'll be free. What a gorgeous feeling to look forward to!

Stamping, gold spray, paints, papers...

entering into:
Simon Says Monday: Monochrome
Wicked Wednesday: Something in the Sky 
Frilly & Funkie: Let the Words do the Talking

Fruity language

When challenged to use fruit on a card I came to realize the many ways they have entered the English language:

- Life is good. - Yes, isn't it just peachy! (great)

Just plummy!
- She sings beautifully. - Yes, she has a plummy voice (rich and mellow).
- She's got a plummy job (highly desirable).

- Let's have some fun and hit the sales.
- Nah. With you it's no fun.
- Are you accusing me of cherry-picking the best deals so others get the dregs?
- Yup.

entering into:
Wicked Wednesday: #208 Fruit and veggies

A little bird told me...

... that there are three wonderful challenge themes - Nature, Birds and Put a Bow on it. This is how I combined them:

entering this into:
Stampotique: SDC239 Nature
Three Muses: Birdy birdy
Wicked Wednesday: #207 Put a bow on it

Last days of October / Lokakuu on pitkä

It's been such a long October, like Halloween would never come and end the month with an aplomb.
Soon, very soon now...  In expectation of it I made some new Halloween themed atc's.

Lokakuu on ollut todella pitkä kuukausi eikä se vieläkään ole lopussa. Onneksi ehkä, niin sainpa tehtyä vielä muutaman atc-kortin.

There are only a few days in year when everything is different

Now those days are here

entering these into :
Wicked Wednesday: #182 Happy Halloween
Traumfabrik: #25 Happy Halloween
TJK- haasteeseen BÖÖ

October / Lokakuun tunnelmissa

October is sneakily here. Rain and golden sunshine, crisp mornings and early sunsets. I really like this time of year.

A gentle low wind was coming up

With my crow and pumpkin I participate in:
ATC around the World: #10 Halloween
Wicked Wednesday: #179 Trick or Treat
Anything but Cute: #6 31 Days of October

Monen viikon blogihiljaisuus on nyt vissin ohi, vaikka päivitykset eivät varmasti jatku yhtä runsaina kuin kesällä. Lähdin opiskelemaan aikuisiällä, ja luennot kotitehtävineen vievät nyt enimmät mehut. En silti valita. Opiskelen historiaa, keskittyen keskiaikaan. Luentojen valinnan edessä olin kuin lapsi karkkikaupassa: kaupungit keskiajalla, keskiajan maalaisväestö, matkustaminen 1800-luvulla, työn historia, tilastotiedettä, arkistotiedettä... jee!
Minulle voi silti ehdottaa vaihtoa - postimaksu on sama kuin ykkösluokka kotimaassa. Mieluiten vaikka sellainen vaihto, jossa tehdään kortteja vastaanottajalle, valmiit kortit kun ei mahtuneet mukaan.

Ylläoleva kortti on tehty lokakuun tunnelmissa. Sateet ja kultaisen auringon päivät vuorottelevat, iltahämärä tulee aikaisemmin ja aamut myöhemmin. Jotenkin tämä on vuoden parasta aikaa.

A Trio

These three ladies begged to have their story told.

But only after I had finished the backgrounds... You will recognize them from my post yesterday. There was a serendipitous conglomeration of challenges: use sprays, use three colors by the same brand, make something you've not made before.
Here it comes:

I took some newsprint and went over it with gesso, but did not do full coverage. I like the way the text shows through. Then I sprayed the papers through stencils with three colors of Tattered Angels mists (ice blue, brown and red apple). I used plastic cake paper as a stencil. One sheet was sprayed with ice blue and brown, the other with red.

Brown-and-blue became the backround, red was torn in stripes. I had decided to try out sewing papers together with a machine - something I have long admired but never tried.

 It was tricky, I found out that there are two crucial things to pay attention to, the tension and the stitch length.

After that came the ladies:

The Princess

The Dreamer

The Determinate One

entering these into:
Simon Says Monday: Use a trio of colors
Try it on Tuesday: try something new
Wicked Wednesday: #174 Splatters or sprays

Thanks for looking!

I spy - - -

I spy a fairy in my garden! She seems to be hurrying somewhere, there must be a meeting point close by...

entering this into:
Die Traumfabrik:  A Midsummer Night's Dream
Wicked Wednesday: Summer and Sunhine
Frilly and Funkie: Things with Wings


Mixed papers and some stamping. Wings were colored in chalks. I made the raised dots or halfpearls  by punching out white cardstock. I then colored them and put dimensional glaze on top. Voila! No need to buy. (I know, I can be such a cheapskate sometimes.)

Thanks for looking!

What happened to Dorothy?

After the Red Brick Road - did you ever wonder what happened to Dorothy when she grew up?

There are some interesting challenges going on now, they made me ask the question - and then answer it.
Let's see... I say when Dorothy grew up she got tired of Kansas and moved to Paris. She still likes red shoes though, but wears them the grown-up way, with high heels.

Out of Kansas

I am entering this into:
Wicked Wednesday: Not in Kansas anymore
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Sparkle and Shine
Crafty Individuals: Face value
The Mirror Crack1d: Canvas

I used canvas on the background. I once salvaged a strip of prepared canvas, no idea where I might have gotten it from but it has been traveling with me for ages. Now I finally found a place for it. I used ink on the background, and once it was dry (two days!!) I stamped it with a map of Paris. Then came the picture of the couple (CI) and a shoe (from a magazine) that I glued heavily with shiny glitzy rhinestones.

Both pictures click for larger. Thanks for looking!

Look Ma, no hands... / Pelkkää roskaa

...meant to say, stamps. No stamps! I may have said it a couple of times already, but I really really love participating in challenges. And not least for the reason that it feels good to be taken out of one's comfort zone.
This is my second time participating in UnstampaBelles challenge - strictly no stamps, not even digital. When I first started doing atc's I had no stamps and everything was hunky dory. Now I have stamps, quite a few of them, and can't imagine a life without.

So there, create a bunch of flowers with no stamps. Not the worst of assignments.
I wanted to combine it with two others, TJK asking for memories, and Wicked Wednesdays ATC challenge with Stitching (fake or real). (Again, this is not very wicked, but there are so few ATC challenges around that I will post it there anyway. And Simon SaysStamp on Monday calls for "anything". I wonder whether it needs to be stamped?)

So I created bunches (and bunches) of flowers.

This is what I started with, lots of mismatched backgrounds that I had made ages ago. I painted white gesso through the stencils of naive flower shapes (from a children's board game).

Then I tinted the  stark white with some light purple:

I cut the flowers out of an smeared desk protecting paper:

I planned to do real stitching, but the cardboard background was too heavy. So I just drew the stitching lines: all centers and stems, and some leaves.
The flower pots were cut out of a Swedish song. The words form an interesting sequence and give you and idea of the song:

In the morning -

- I wake up missing you

- when I dream -

 my happiness grows

- night and day -

- he cannot leave.

TJK - todellakin, nämä "roskat" ja silput joutivat kortteihin. TJK:n aiheena on muistot, ja nämä kortit ovat täynnä muistoja. Ensinnäkin korttipohjat, vuosikausia sitten tehdyt. Värit eivät ole oikein minua, joten aina on muut korttipohjat ajaneet näiden ohi. Hienoa, pakotin itseni käyttämään nämä ja onnistuin! Kukat on leikattu vanhasta askartelun aluspaperista, se on täynnä roiskeita ja korteista ylimennyttä maalia, eli muistoja siinäkin.

A red, white and blue summer

Red, white and navy are fresh summer colors. Add polka dots to the mix, stir in a bit of summer feel and vacation mood and you've got yourself some fresh looking cards.

Simon Says Wednesday challenge wants to see polka dots. No, actually they say "going dotty", a word that I took firstly for dots and secondly for being dotty, that made me add some delightful nonsense:

"Hi! Are you looking for something?"

"How weird. I seem to have my shoes on."

I was influenced by a few other challenges as well:

Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge asks for red, blue and white. I think my atc's are not very wicked, but I'll enter them anyway, just because there are so few ATC challenges around.
PaperArtsy #12 calls for stencils. They have a lot of inspirational technique videos for us. I was very inspired by stencil bumping.
 Simon says Monday wants to see how we interpret summer,  Stamps & Stencils calls for vacation mood.

Background was first stenciled with red acrylics, then with navy chalk. The retro ladies are from a 1950's sewing pattern sheet for beach shorts, found text from a novel, and flowers were stamped onto a paper napkin and colored.
Thanks for looking!

Seeing red

Seeing red - here's my answer for a Scorpio: "Don't blame others"

Entering this into Wicked Wednesdays ATC Challenge

Red shoes are not only for dancing...

... but they'll make any day extraordinary. Wear red shoes one day and see what happens. You'll feel different and surprising things will happen to you.

An extraordinary night

Punaiset kengät ovat tanssimista varten. Tai jos ei tanssimista, niin ainakin ne jalassa kokee erilaisia asioita kuin muutoin.
Kollaasi ja maalaus valokuvan päälle, Kengissä glitterimaalia ja "timangi". Vapaana vaihtoon.

Wicked Wednesdays ATC-challenge asks us to use words. Entering this also into Collage Obsession with their open challenge this week.

Cakes and Promises

The Three Muses challenge this week is about weddings. What is a wedding? A lot of cake, some promises made - we are all playing lottery with our fate! If all goes well you'll grow together. If not - well, there is always the luck of the (next) draw...

Background is fittingly a lottery ticket for Eurojackpot (no, I didn't win). It was treated with some chalky acrylic paint that I stamped while still wet.  hand decorated cake, a ring, a silvery ribbon get you in the mood.
Why such a gloomy take on such a happy occasion you may ask? I don't much like to go with the flow and I never understood giant and lavish weddings (but yes, I am happily married myself).
Also participating in Wicked Wednesdays ATC Challenge with this one.

Soft Pinks and an old Favorite

I was feeling quite exhausted after my bold yellow-purple-pink challenge (two previous posts) so this pink color scheme feels very soothing.
Exhausted artist needs to take a breather:

Just Breathe

Background is shiny cardstock. It was finger-painted (okay, smeared is the word) with translucent Keepsake Colors gel paint (Basil green). When it was dry I stamped it with a Paperartsy background stamp (pink Color Box ink). This stamp was my favorite for a few years until it fell out of favor. The diamonds have old writing on them. It is a great way to add a patterned background, delicate and not too overpowering.
The face is a cutout, words / sentiments come from a newly purchased sticker sheet, and there is also a torn edge from an old calender, suitably pink.
Having gotten that vivid yellow out of my system with this breather I can now move on to other colors. Or who knows, maybe back to it...?

 Entering this in:
Collage Obsession asks for soft pinks this week.
Fashionable Stamping Challenge that asks us to show an old favorite stamp and Wicked Wednesday challenges to use a diamond pattern.