Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : N

Here is my offering for the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary challenge. The letter this time is N so I chose Nautical, another one of my favourite themes - oh, I know, I have loads of favourites.

Stamps used : Kanban
Watercoloured with Inktense pencils.

There are other nautical theme words beginning with N, like navigate and navy but I chose nautical because it is more generic and for practical reasons, it appears in a good position on the dictionary page.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
Sea Fever : John Masefield

Butterflies

The Craft Barn Fortnightly Challenge theme is Butterflies (plural), an opportunity to play with my butterfly stamps is always a pleasing pastime.
Here is a Thank You card from me.

The stamps are by Altenew from a set called Painted Butterflies.
I used Memento dye ink dew drops in Lulu Lavender, Lilac Posies, Canteloupe and Peanut Brittle and the sketchy outlines are stamped in black archival.

Thank You for dropping by x

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : W

I am feeling quite pleased with myself for managing to keep up with my Alpha/Dictionary project, "W" got finished this morning just in time. I've also now realised that it would have been better to stick to one style for the whole project but having never done this before, it's a learning curve. I reckon stamped images and watercolour pencils work for me on these flimsy pages so that is what I have used for this one.

My entry for the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge : W

I chose Wizard because I have a lovely set of Artistic Outpost stamps with Wizard of Oz images and hadn't used them, not until now.

I have some catching up to do so see what everyone else has picked for "W" and what amazing art is on the Craft Barn blog so signing off and wishing you all a great weekend.

Weird Science

I got some time to play with my new IndigoBlu Chemistry Lab stamps today. I love the science stamps and stencils in the Weird Science series designed by Kay Halliwell-Sutton. A couple of weeks back I saw one of Kay's demos on Hochanda using this set so had a go. I don't have the IndigoBlu paints so I have used Deco Art Mixed Media paint and made a small canvas.

This was great fun and I am pretty pleased with the result. The design is not original, it is inspired by Kay's demo.

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : K

I had loads of ideas for the letter K but opted for Kimono. I have to admit that this was mainly because the position of the word on my dictionary page was in the right place and the definition not too long and wordy.

This is my entry for the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary challenge : K -

All images are from an old set of wooden stamps called Japanese by All Night Media and coloured with distress markers. The geisha was stamped on tissue paper and stuck to the page with matt Mod Podge (magic stuff, love it).

Enjoy what's left of your Sundays and thank you so much to all of you who comment on my dictionary pages, I really do appreciate it. x

Stars

The theme for the Craft Barn two weekly challenge is stars. All I could think of was stencilled stars as a background, that was what I wanted to do and I really have no idea what came into my head but I ended up with this card.

I stamped the focal image (JOFY JM30) and masked it out then add the stars with a Tim Holtz star stencil using Abandoned Coral TH Distress ink trying to fade the stars out in the middle around the pile of gifts. The edges are highlighted with Black Soot distress ink and to finish off the background I doodled around some of the stars. The gifts are coloured with distress pens.

I am not very happy with it, I think it is missing something but am not sure what. Maybe it should have a sentiment? Maybe it would have been better as a star background with a quote or sentiment as the focal image. I'll post it anyway, I have run out of steam with this one.

Alpha/Dictionary Challenge 2016 : T

When browsing my dictionary for a good "T" word, I came across the perfect word, or words - Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Delightful, I get to do an Alice themed page! I couldn't believe they are actually in the pocket Oxford dictionary.

Definition : Pair of things or persons neither easy to distinguish nor worth distinguishing from each other.

So, there we go, learned another new thing today. Here is my page for the Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge:

I stamped Alice and the twins in black archival ink and masked them out before stamping the trees in Potting Soil archival. I think that works, I wanted the trees to fade into the background and not detract from the characters. The tree stamp is from Kanban, the Alice stamps were from a very old set of mine that I no longer have the details for. The images were coloured with watercolour pencils. I used water on the characters but left the pencil shading on the trees so they looked more sketchy.

What a coincidence, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film is on TV tonight, I might watch that again. I've seen it a few times but just love Helena Bonham Carter as the red queen and Johnny Depp is a perfect Mad Hatter.

“Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.”