Cards for challenges

 I found some time to make a few cards for this weeks Grungy Monday and Simon Says challenges. For Grungy Monday we were challenged to use Ranger Alcohol Inks. Well to be fair that's really not a challenge. I hadn't had mine out for ages and thoroughly enjoyed it. As you can see on yesterdays post I started with my alcohol ink backgrounds and stamped some of my favourite images on them. I kind of got stuck there and left them for a day or so. This seems to be happening a lot lately but I guess I just have to go where the creative flow takes me, or at least that's what I keep telling myself. So when I got back to the card making I wasn't feeling very inspired by what I had so far but I just started pulling scraps of paper and what not out of drawers and put stuff together. I wasn't terribly thrilled with my first attempt which you can see above but I was a little more happy with attempt #2 which is below.

The textured background is one I made a while back for another Grungy Monday challenge but the card never got finished. So there it was ready to be used.
The Simon Says challenge was to use a word which is something that has a lot of appeal to me lately. We can convey so much in just a word. I have some necklaces with just one word on that I love to wear depending on how I'm feeling that day or what direction I need reminding of that I'm trying to go in.

If you have a chance head over to Grungy Monday or Simon Says to check our what everyone else has created this week.

My bliss is back.

I didn't really realize it but I've been in a bit of a creative rut lately. I've worked on a few creative things but just couldn't seem to get anything done. So this afternoon I decided to give myself some free time just to work at what ever came to mind first. It seemed to work I think my bliss is back and I'm feeling a lot better.

This tag was on my desk from earlier this week when I started it for Grungy Monday. It also works for Simon Says Stamp and Show so I'll link it to both of them. Go check them out, they're both a lot of fun to join in or just see what everyone else has done with this weeks challenges.

Have a wonderful weekend. I'm off to have a mysterious dinner with my parents and the Tin man.

Grungy Monday

I really enjoyed last weeks Grungy Monday. Thank you all for such lovely comments.

This weeks Technique is an easy one again but my choices of dye inks is very limited so I wasn't feeling very inspired. I'm afraid I didn't sway much from the sample. Check it out here.

http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/08/september-techn.html

I've done water colour stamping before but I have to say it's not one of my favourites. I find it hard to get just the right amount of water on the stamp so you don't loose your image completely. On this card I tried Glimmer mist instead of water and I really liked the results and it seemed to be easier to not over do the wetness. Unfortunately you can't really see the glimmer here though.

I'm curious to see how others have used this technique since I can't really think of a lot of uses for it. I think I prefer techniques that I can play with and change up a little more than this one.

So head over to Studio L3 and see what others are doing with this technique.

Happy Creating

Wendy

Wow guest designer for Grungy Monday.

Yes me a guest designer! I'm so excited I can hardly write. See this is my first time, yes I'm a virgin guest designer, so be patient with me if I stumble or fumble a bit and please help me if you see anything I should be doing differently.
So here's the juicy details. Linda over at Studio L3 host Grungy Monday each week in honor of his Craftiness Tim Holtz. Each week she chooses a Tim Holtz technique and asks 2 guest designers to make something with the technique and post about it. So this week it's my turn.

This weeks technique is Distress Ink colour blocking. It's an easy and versatile way to make a background.

As soon as I got the e-mail from Linda with the info I watched the video right away. And although it's a really easy one I was kinda stumped for ideas. I played with it on some scraps of plain paper to get the hang of it and try out different colour combos. Then I let it sink into my subconscious for a week or so(no I wasn't procrastinating...okay maybe a little) things started to form and once I started it the project grew from a small plaque to a whole book. LOL. That's just the way things work out sometimes. I actually didn't get all the pages done that I wanted to. I have 2 more on the go. Hopefully I'll get them done in the next day or so and can show you then.

I used the Colour Blocking technique for the background of each page. On this one I adhered some old book print on one side first and then did the colour blocking across the whole thing. It was interesting to see the different effects on the 2 surfaces. The inks reacts differently on the different surfaces creating different colour intensity.
Here I used a numbers Crafters Workshop stencil on the already colour blocked background. It just took a little Tea Dye DI to get the numbers to pop out over the blocking. I like the way it tones down the but doesn't completely cover them.
Again here I used some scrap paper to cover part of the background before doing colour blocking. This paper reacted differently from the old book print. I think the old book print absorbs some of the ink making it more muted that other surfaces.

This book was a lot of fun to create. Can't wait to get the last 2 pages finished. It's been a while since I've done this kind of project and I hadn't realized how much I missed it and really must find more time to do this kind of creating.

I hope you enjoyed my book today. You really must go over to Studio L3 to check out what everyone else has done with this technique.

Here are the supplies I used:
Crafters Workshop- stencils
Ranger- Distress Inks
Sizzix- Dies
Tattered Angels- Glimmer Mist, stamps
Studio 490- stamps
Tim Holtz- stamps
Hampton Art- stamps
Prima- flowers, leaves
BoBunny- Edgy Album

Thanks for stopping by have a creative week.