Thriving Art

The end of the week has once again rolled around, have you had a creative week?  From what I've been reading, on Blogland, it is pretty cold in most parts of the northern hemisphere.  After a solid week of rain the sun finally came out and the days have been bright and sunny........but just barely making "warm" on the thermometer.  I have woke up to frost on the roof tops every morning, since the rain stopped.......but I'm not complaining, I prefer the cold to the extreme hot weather that will be here in no time.  Over last weekend, when it was raining and the wind was blowing bitter cold, I made this card.  I would have liked to have her long coat and muff, it would have made leaving the house a bit warmer....LOL!  The image is an OLD stamp from Frantic Stamper and colored with marker ink.  I used a "new" edge die to make it even feel colder.  The sentiment is also an OLD stamp, but I don't remember where I got it. A closer look.......

It is a cold, wet and blustery morning here in our part of California......what better time to have some play time!  This is just a real quick and simple card using two of the stamps from my new set of Stampendous Stamps.  I just love whimsical houses, so I chose this one, and the sentiment , and placed it on a die cut.  It was quickly colored with my favorite water coloring technique. Mounted onto a white card base and that was it......easy....peasy! I am entering this quick card in the following challenges: challenge 312: New Beginnings Challenge 123: New Beginnings Short and quick for this Sunday morning, hope you are save and warm......or cool and comfy where ever you are.

Have you joined  The Flower Challenge?  there is still a wee bit of time for the Blue and yellow flower challenge. After all the holiday bustle I was ready to dig out some flower stamps and have a "play".   Here is the card I ended up with, and am quite pleased with it.  It took me a time to figure out the arrangement after stamping and die cutting the pieces.  I prefer to use 110 lb. card stock because it is a heavy weight, and I can use watercolor techniques on it without too much trouble. I inked the stamps, then spritzed with water, then stamped the images.....and before they were dry I die cut the pieces.  Amazing thing happened, the damp die cuts looked more like they were much thicker, as the edges seemed more bent than a very sharp cut edge......if that makes any sense???  It really doesn't show in the photo though....bummer!  Of course the cs did want to curl a little when it dried........all the more I liked it.........that...

Here we go with the start of a new week!  I still feel like I'm a little behind, but the Christmas decorations are up..........what I decided to use anyway.  I think I left about 50% of them in the storage containers this year. It is pretty bad when you have enough Christmas decorations to decorate 5 or 6 trees and 3 or 4 houses...LOL!! I DO LOVE Christmas and Christmas decorations!! Poinsettias are just beautiful at this time of year, hard to believe that they are NOT cold weather flowers.  I still have to pick up a few real ones for the holidays....yep, more decorations...LOL!   This card has a hand made background paper made with tin foil over card stock, inked, ran through the embosser, then heat embossed.  This is such a fun technique, and every one turns out so different! The floral image is an OLD red rubber stamp I have had for many years, but I still love it.   This is the second print of the same poinsettia stamp but placed on som...

This year I decided to use a lot of my dies to make Christmas cards.....it started that way over a month ago when I created the following two cards......(ssssh! I just finished the insides this morning ) So stating early really hasn't helped me much as I am dashing to the finish line today, so I can start sending them out this afternoon.   I love this framed tree die from Gina Marie Designs.  For this first card I did remove the center trees so I could insert my reindeer standing in the snow.  Background and snow drifts are made from a very fine glittered paper and then I added some extra snow with Pearl Pen.  The snowflake is a left-over from last year. My Time to Craft is having a challenge of Christmas Animals and I think my reindeer will fit right in.     Challenge 335 Christmas Animals      Here is the same framed tree die cut, with all the trees left in place, and an other left-over snowflake. This card I am going...

I have a friend.....much younger than me.....in fact I knew her through her childhood, ( her girls even call me Grandma) and her birthday is this coming Saturday.  Aren't birthdays fun....when they happen to someone else?       So, with a wink and a nod I created this card for her.  The image is an AI image and quick to add a little watercolor to.  She is definitely a "glitter" girl so the balloons were stamped on glitter paper, then trimmed to fit the card. I chose the fuchsia, turquoise, and purple glitter as they are the colors  for the Rubber Dance Challenge for November  .  Such a quick and easy card to create, and I love using a black card base.   Here is the inside.   Thanks for stopping by and taking a look......I do hope you'll leave a comment. Hugs Krisha    

  I'm not positive THIS card is the LAST of the FALL colors, but I'm pretty sure it will be...LOL! It was made with a stamp and die set I picked up for a song......well close to it.  It was regularly $15.00 but I found it on the sale wall at Hobby Lobby for $5.00!!  There is a die for all the shapes but I just used the small flower die and popped it up with a pop dot.  I mixed the orange and brown ink right on the stamp for the sentiment.   I am entering it in this challenge:   Challenge 274: Fall Colors I know this is a short post.....for me (grin) but I am doing some catch up blogging this morning BEFORE starting anything else.....LOL!

If you wait long enough, or in my case, just get things half made (grin) the challenges roll around that fit your project....LOL!   I have started making a few Christmas cards......or at least getting some of the components made. This little gold embossed tree has been sitting on Betsy for almost two weeks!  I finally mounted it on some gold glitter paper, added a few rhinestones and got it onto a card base, with a simple sentiment. The black background paper is a glossy cardstock, but getting it photoed was a challenge in it's self.   I adore how this card turned out, and hope to make a few more, but the black glossy cardstock is getting harder to find these days.   Here are the challenges that came along to fit my card...LOL!   PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO VISIT THSES CHALLENGES AND SEE THE MAGNIFECENT DT WORK!   Challenge 272: Any Holiday   Challenge 120     Week 386: Sparkle and Shine   Cha...

  I have a friend who is an extreme cat lover and she bought this stamp because she also owns a red Vespa.  Her and I got together this past week, bringing our Art Impression Stamps together and stamped each other's images......so this card is for Patty....LOL! The image is Mad Rider  and it makes me smile, Patty and her cat are a "pair" for sure! One more entry for: Art Impressions     Inky Hugs Krisha

Ever have that ONE friend that just compliments you to a T?   Today I'm sharing a card that depicts the type of friendship that lasts through the ages.  It is an Art Impressions Chocolate Therapy  image with ink watercolor technique.  I'm also going to enter this card in their challenge enter challenge HERE There are only a few days left in this challenge, so I'm skidding under the wire....but check out all the fantastic DT work....................lots of inspiration over there. Inky Hugs Krisha

Here we are smack in the middle of the week....and it's a great day to be alive!    I am taking a little break from all the fall and Halloween themed cards today, not that I'm tired of making them.....*grin*     I have had this card on the back burner....so to speak, waiting for a new challenge blog to start up.....more about that later. This hydrangea image is from a stamp and die set made by Stampendous.  I chose to just use the stamp for this card. To stamp the image I used a light Lilac marker to color the stamp then went back and used the marker inks for water colors....applied with a brush. Green inks were used for the background wash.......but the flowers didn't stand out very well, so I took a black marker and sketched around the flowers.  Mounting it on the black cs really made them pop and I fell in love with it! Doesn't it feel good when that happens??   Now about that new challenge blog.  It is called  The Flowe...

  I've only done a few Halloween cards this year ( so far).  I don't really send out very many, but this one is going to a friend of mine.  The inside reads "chocolate does the rest" and I'll glue in a chocolate candy. The die cuts came from a stamp and die set I bought on clearance last year.   The background is a fun technique that I learned from visiting Karen's Kreative Kards .  She is one of my new followers and is a DIE CUT QUEEN!  OMGosh, she has some fabulous cards on her blog.   The background is created by wrapping foil over card stock, rubbing with ink.....I used Stazon...placing in embossing folder and embossing.  A quick swipe with and embossing pad, then embossing power and heat!  I must warn you....this can quickly become addictive as each one turns out different!! Here is a closer look. Trying to photograph tin foil is tricky to say the least.....it loves to flash back at you!  So I filtered the flash ...

Spring is a beautiful time of the year, all the flowers beginning to bloom, everything so green............errrrech! Wait!..... lets fast forward to the glory of all the fall colors.....the rich golds, royal reds and beaming oranges........what a delight to the eyes. Truly one of my favorite times of the year.   So I'm kicking off this week with this card full of fall colors (even says so right on the card LOL)  Bits and pieces of things laying on my desk came together here.  The pumpkins are part of one of the color "tests" I shared HERE,  I just die cut a section of one of them.  The leaf was an extra one from yesterdays post......die cut, dusted with ink and embossed.  The sentiment was inked with three Memento inks and then die cut.  I chose a black card base to make the colors pop a little more.   One, two, three......easy as can be!  Sometimes these "easy" cards rattle me as to why some just seem to fall into place and others...

Take a couple of days away from any form of art and the PC, and Mr. MOJO comes back with his happy dance and we can't seem to make enough fast enough. Or so it seems this morning,as I was catching up on what I missed  in Blogland......honest, I was only "away" for 48 hours!!!  But more about that in a different post.     One of the products of this mornings flurries is this card.  It was one I really enjoyed making, as I dug out my embossing folders....and blew the dust off them.......it has been awhile..*grin* and had a "play" with them.  It is all pretty straight forward, used TH distressed leaves die, dusted the leaves with some ink, ran through embosser. The sentiment was just an extra that was laying on my desk, it got a little dusting too.  The background cs I found, already cut and embossed, waiting in my stash....LOL!  It all got plopped onto a brown card base.....easy peasy!!   The inspiration for this card came from all...

Holy smokes! It's Thursday again!  I truly love all the autumn colors, my favorite time of the year, even though autumn "colors" really don't happen around here until mid-late November............but one can dream!    I have had this stamp, and two more like it, for many years and dig them out form time to time and have a play with them.  I swished the edges with Antique Photo, then stamped the image with Memento black and colored the leaf with Spectrum Noir pens............they blend so beautifully.  I layered the image on a black cs and trim to 1/16 of an inch.    From here I really didn't know where I was headed, until I saw a scrap of kraft card stock, but still needed a little pazazz.  I had this die cut laying on my desk that I had been playing around with, inking and blending, then covered it with Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen.....and then just put it aside.  Am I the only one that does this???  Well, it was just what I need...

It is harvest time in my area of the world.  They are shaking and sweeping the almonds........such a dusty time of year!  Allergies run crazy and when they shake the nuts out of the trees all may family have to find an other place to live LOL!!!! Here is one of the "test" panels I posted HERE.   This one has black Stazon ink and the distressed inks were dabbed onto a piece of plastic and then picked up with a damp brush and applied to the image. The sentiment was inked with two colors of Memento inks.  The panel was then adhered to a Gina Marie die cut.  I made sure that just the loops were showing to set off the image. Now there are only 4 more pumpkin panel to deal with.....LOL! Once again linking to this challenge: Autumn challenge

Autumn colors are popping up all over Blogland, now that fall is right around the corner.  The end of summer is the 21st and the 22nd is the first day of fall...........and it is supposed to be 105' here today..the first triple digits we have seen in about 3 weeks.... I guess summer wants THAT last word! A couple new dies finally made it to my doorstep, on being this tree die from Gina Marie Designs........I just LOVE it! Grabbing a scrap of black cs and cutting, I simply placed it over a scrap of designer paper, added it to the card base and then a die cut sentiment that had been laying around my desk.....waaaalaaa! I can see many uses for this die in my future. I am going to enter this card in the following challenges, and I hope you take a little time and check out the DT works on these three challenges......you will not be disappointed ! Challenge #173-Autumn Challenge: cut and paste.....no stamps Color challenge HERE Thanks for stopping by, ho...