Ten Two = Four!!

Ten Two Studios is celebrating its 4th Anniversary on 5th July…. and you have the chance to win:

$400 worth of collage goodies if you leave a little comment love on the daily eye-candy posts between now and the 5th.

Click HERE to go check this incredible giveaway out…

On the wings of love…

Such a haunting song… it’s driven me mad this morning as I created my Gothic Arch ATC for Nancy’s challenge! I had already cut up one of my Layer Love paintings to make a twinchy-sized book/pendant yesterday, so I cut this ATC from the remains of the same painting.

I used the Gothic Plate of stamps from Home Impressions (which are sold by The Stamp Attic in the UK now – yay!) for the images and had a near disaster with the words!!

I did actually leave the watercolour paper edge on the left as it is, untrimmed, to complete the “tattered” effect! The heart at the top is from a set of mini-stamps that I bought 3 years ago, and when I stamped onto the old, very fragile, dictionary page, by sheer coincidence, I have managed to capture the word ‘arch’ at the midpoint of the heart! How cool is that???!

NOTE: Today is your last chance to put your name in the hat for the $400 worth of collage goodies at Ten Two Studios!! Hurry!!

I have washing on the line, though sporadic showers are forecast…

I am going to write to the Mobile Phone Ombudsman about Orange and their deplorable service…

But first, a cup of tea and some toast!!

Just Peachy!

TGIF this week – Sandy’s challenge was very unusual (for me!) and involves “apples, pears and/or peaches”. As I had some website maintenance to get done, I stayed in digi-mode and created this collage, using 20 different layers. I know, that’s a whole lot of layers, even for me!! I also cut images from one of Gaby’s freebies… thanks Gaby!

I had fun altering the peaches and “drawing” faces on them… then I got the giggles and the mayhem began!! The original background is from Gaby Cajubrasil too – although it’s practically unrecognisable!

I’m going to watch Criminal Minds now and rejoice in the fact that I’m at home all day tomorrow!!

Art Creations Friday

Yet another gorgeous image to inspire our art this week in challenge #33 from the girls at ACF. I had fun practising my digi-art again, creating this piece. The lyrics are from a 1960s song by Simon & Garfunkel…

Red and Black…

For Theme Thursday this week, that’s the challenge… I made these three altered domino pins a while back when my new stamps from Third Coast RS arrived. They were in the summer sale and I fell in love with these Asian Beauties – had to have them! I thought they’d be perfect for Feng Shui pins, which is why the backgrounds are all red with a touch of copper mixatives!

All 3 are highly glazed with tiny beads added to the glaze before it dried. The middle one was stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink and the other 2 with black Stazon. The archival ink is much wetter…  There’s something almost decadent about these ladies for me!

Up, up and awaaaaayyyyy…

I combined 2 of my fave challenges this evening – The Three Muses and Wednesday Stamper. “Up, up and away” was chosen by Taluula and Patty chose the theme for WS - ”Use the colours of your country’s flag”… Here’s a quirky hanging collage made mainly using recycled materials and Ria’s Funny People stamps (Home Impressions):

The red card is last year’s easter egg box, the handmade paper I’ve had for at least 3 years and the netting is waste from a factory. The ‘balloons’ are painted and stamped chipboard circles. The Union Jack – flag of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – is red, white and blue.

I struggled this week to get creative because it’s just so hot and humid here – we’re not accustomed to temperatures in the 70s and 80s, combined with high humidity and my area upstairs where I create, being part of the roof conversion, is pretty much unbearable. I’m not saying bring on the rain, but… cooler evenings would be nice!!

Never happy with our weather, we Brits!

Duchess Doll!

MMM’s chosen theme this week is “Dolls” and Guest Host is Diana. I recently made this Duchess Doll variation of a Ribbon Fairy, very irreverently calling her “Marie-on-a-stick”!! I had the idea that these fun Dolls could be used as plant-sticks, or mounted on plant stakes/garden stakes for kids, and waved like windmills. All the ribbons fly about when they’re twirled – you get the idea?

Anyway, as in my previous post, here’s the link to the original Ribbon Fairies Project in the “Project Ideas” section at Ten Two Studios…

And here’s my Marie (on a stick/coffee stirrer!):

Sweet Marie!

Here’s a Gothic Arch I created this morning, fitting the GA challenge “Wings” this week and also TGIF - “alphabet”. The central image (Duchess Doll) is from sheets created by Lisa Vollrath at Ten Two Studios, originally designed for the creation of Ribbon Fairies, which are totally charming. Here’s a link to the complete tutorial on Ten Two Studios, in the Project Ideas section, so you can make them yourself… 

The Marie/Duchess I chose is printed out in black and white and I paired her with coloured wings. She’s tinted with Blue Jeans distress ink, applied randomly with a small brush. I have also used stickers for her name, sticky-backed fabric borders and rub-ons. The mini block alphabet stamp is from MaVinci.

If you are a Marie Antoinette fan(atic!), there’s a whole section of digital and paper products for you at Ten Two Studios HERE.

Rock n Roll!

The Script are my inspiration for this page… for Wednesday Stamper’s challenge this week. I’ve read about them and watched them on TV recently and then I found this pic of the lead singer, Danny O’Donoghue, in a back issue of Marie Claire mag… and the page was born! It’s another one for my Alphabet Discovery Workshop… the letter “R” for Rock n Roll!

The tattered angel, crow and barbed wire are all from the Gothic Plate by Ria at Home Impressions. There’s a lot of Heavy grunge going on here and I’m obviously in “edgy” mode this evening! If you can’t read my writing, I wrote, “The Script”. Not exactly Birdsong, more Rock n Roll! Yeah!”

Quelle surprise!

Created by Hand’s theme this week is ‘French’! Funnily enough, my Graduation Piece for Layer Love has a french flavour… so here’s the last “official” painting – or Lesson #9, as we know it! Images from Ten Two Studios Little Blue Things, french text too.

Here’s a close-up of the central part, with the framed “belle dame”. The slide mount frame is very faffy… covered in paint-splashed kitchen roll, then adorned with more paint, microbeads, gel medium, etc., etc.!

I don’t think the photos do it justice… it’s hard to show all the tones of the paint in a mere pic or two. I’m so happy to have taken this class though – I even learned to paint on wood!

Julie’s teaching another class in September - The Mother of Art Journalling and I reckon I shall be taking that one too. She’s a really great teacher – very supportive, caring and obviously very talented. It has been such a pleasure learning with Julie – roll on September!! =)