Craft Barn Q&L :Art or Road

The Craft Barn Challenge and all other entries can be checked out HERE.  Its well worth a good old nosey, as always, there are some great quotes and art work to check out.  

"What ART offers is a space, a certain breathing room for the Spirit."  

I went with a light airy feel to compliment the quote.

The collaged background has been coloured with pale blue and lilac chalk pastels.  

The quote was stamped onto another collaged piece and birds die cut from some scraps.

TFL  Lou x

Journal52 Week10 Art for a Cause

Journal52 week 10 is all about using your art to bring a charity/cause you are passionate about to the forefront.  Just over 10 years ago I had a malignant melanoma removed.  I was lucky, it was treated before the disease had spread.  Simple sun safe practices help prevent this cancer.

As I only stumbled across this great challenge, I'm playing catchup.  

Week 1 was titled Up, Up & AWAY, and for me the KITE is a perfect representation.  

The freedom to fly and dance in the wind with the security of being grounded.

TFL Lou x

Journal52 week 9

While checking out some of the other entries for the Craft Barn Q&L challenge, I stumbled across this challenge: Journal 52.  It looks right up my street, so I decided to have a go with this weeks challenge : Colour Swatch Inspiration: the prompt is to choose something for colour inspiration.  What better than colours from nature.  I love the warm colours of sunset and I love trees, for me that's a winning combination.

I used old book pages etc for the background then used chalk pastels to create my layers of colour.  The tree is hand drawn, painted black and I used a Hero Arts stamp to create the wood grain effect. 

Looking forward to playing catchup and taking part in future prompts.

TFL  Lou x

Craft Barn Q&L Challenge: Marriage and/or Age

Thanks to everyone who left comments on my last entry, it is always fun to read through.  The Craft Barn Challenge and all other entries can be checked out HERE.  Lots of exciting fun quotes for Marriage and/or Age.  I had to pick one that was suitable for an Affirmation Card.

"Live Your Life and Forget Your Age"  

With my Mum taking up ballet classes for the first time at 69yrs young and my Mother-in-law who started to play the clarinet in her early 70's,  how could I not use this quote!!

The background is a collage of book/music pages, coloured with my favourite chalk pastels.  

The image was stamped onto tissue paper and then applied to the base with Modge Podge.

TFL

Lou x

Merly Impressions Scrapbook Challenge Feb 2014

The challenge on the Merly Impressions blog this month is to use stamps & stamping.  You can check out the challenge for yourself HERE.  The blog is full of inspiration.

I found this old photo of my nana, Elsie with her sisters.  I don't know their names or when this was taken, I'll be checking with my Mum later to see if she can shed any light on this.

I started with a white piece of 12 x 12 card stock, then applied pink and cream paint, in my usual random messy style.  It was a bit too 'fresh' for the photograph, so I slapped on some bronze, but that made the paper too dark for my liking, so out came the gesso and sponges/swiped that over the background till I was happy.  I'm very impatient so all the layers of paint were still wet while I was playing around with colour.  

Its all about the stamping and I think I went a bit stamp mad!!  Using bronze ink, I stamped the lace border for the base of the photo and then I went mad with some gold ink and my old favourite a crackle stamp, its so well used its split in places.  I've no idea where I got it from.  Back to the bronze ink and a swirly stamp for the rest of the border around the photo and the edges of the card stock.  I've used a kind of scribble stamp to further edge the card stock border.  

  For the final touch of stamping, I cut out some stamped and heat embossed butterflies onto old music paper, then smooched them over with a distress ink before stamping the butterflies onto the layout and overlaying with the cut outs.  I think the butterfly at the top should be a bit higher but its stuck down now!!

TFL  Lou x

The Craft Barn Q&L Challenge

Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave me a comment, very much appreciated.  This fortnight the Craft Barn challenge words are "Miss" and/or "Strong".  You can check out the challenge  HERE.

Sticking with my Affirmation Cards, I picked the quote:

"Love is Life, if you miss love then you miss life."

Dictionary pages have been used for the background, I've painted the background with cream and lilac paint, then  used chalk pastels to add pink and white highlights.  The heart was stencilled on using chalk pastels and the heart beat stencilled using ink.  

TFL  Lou x

Silence & Dazzle The Craft Barn Q&L challenge.

Firstly, I'd like to thanks those who take the time to leave a comment, its appreciated.

Silence and/or Dazzle are the words this fortnight.  Dazzle is such a fabulous word but I  couldn't find an appropriate dazzle quote or lyric for my affirmation card.  Check out the challenge and other fabulous entries HERE.

"In the silence I rediscover who I am" 

by John Francis, an American Environmentalist

Paint, tissue and stamping.

TFL  Lou x