FMS744

 A new card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge #744. Here is the sketch:

And here is my card:

It has an alcohol ink background behind the butterfly that I did during the Alcohol Ink Techniques with Tiffany Solorio class from Mary Polanco Designs. 

FMS743

I made this card for the current Freshly Made Sketches card challenge. I used a background that I made in Tiffany Solorio's Distress Spray Techniques class (here). The sketch I followed is here:

And here is my card:

The flowers are from Simon Says Stamp and the sentiment is from Altenew.

FMS 741

 I’m entering the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week with this card. 

And here is the sketch for this week. 

FMS733

 I really enjoyed creating a card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #733. It is also one of three cards I made using the same stamp set for a challenge from Nicki Baxley (NickiHeartsCards). Below is my card and the sketch I followed.

FMS732

 I made this card for the current sketch challenge over at Freshly Made Sketches. The large flower and sentiment are from Queen and Co. The butterflies are from Altenew. The embossed leaves along the left edge used a discontinued embossing folder from Sizzix, highlighted with Mayan Gold Shimmer Relief Paste from Altenew. 

FMS731 Card 2

I've done two cards for the current sketch challenge on Freshly Made Sketches again. Here is my second card, along with the sketch.

I used a new-to-me die set from Spellbinders for the flowers: Be Bold Blooms. The sentiment is from Altenew's Birthday Builder stamp set, embossed on vellum. The backgrounds were watercolored, cut with rectangle dies from Michael's, embossed, and corner rounded. (I learned with my first card to die cut first and then emboss if I didn't want the embossing to be flattened when I die cut my shapes.)

FMS731 Card 1

I've done two cards for the current sketch challenge on Freshly Made Sketches again. Here is my first card, along with the sketch.

I used a new-to-me die set from Spellbinders for the flowers: Be Bold Blooms. The sentiment is from Altenew's Birthday Builder stamp set, embossed on vellum. The backgrounds were watercolored, embossed, cut with rectangle dies from Michael's, and corner rounded.

Two Cards for Two Challenges

I used a "two for one" technique to make two cards (this is the second card): I made the patterned paper using a technique I learned from a you-tube video by Ardyth. I die cut the circle with a die from Altenew and used both the positive and negative to make two cards.

I am entering them in two card challenges: The Paper Players PP779 and Freshly Made Sketches FMS729. 

Here is my second card with close up to hopefully see the sparkle:

The challenge for The Paper Players is a Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge:

I used the left-most vertical column: die cut, sparkle, and circle. My card also fits the bottom row: circle, patterned paper (that I made myself with watercolor and stencil), and layers.

And here is the sketch for the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge:

I used a circle instead of the oval in the sketch.

Two Cards for Two Challenges

I used a "two for one" technique to make two cards (this is the first card): I made the patterned paper using a technique I learned from a you-tube video by Ardyth. I die cut the circle with a die from Altenew and used both the positive and negative to make two cards.

I am entering them in two card challenges: The Paper Players PP779 and Freshly Made Sketches FMS729. 

Here is my first card with close up to hopefully see the sparkle:

The challenge for The Paper Players is a Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge:

I used the left-most vertical column: die cut, sparkle, and circle. My card also fits the bottom row: circle, patterned paper (that I made myself with watercolor and stencil), and layers.

And here is the sketch for the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge:

I used a circle instead of the oval in the sketch.

Update on Challenges

I am participating in two challenges this year:  the Back to the Classics reading challenge, and the Documented Life Project (an art journaling challenge).

I'm doing well with my reading challenge; today, I finished my 7th of 12 books. I'm feeling really good about this challenge, both because I'm on schedule and because I'm reading books I'm enjoying.

The Documented Life Project, however, not so much. I completed 8 out of the first 9 challenges, but since we're up to challenge number 22 this week, you can see that I'm really far behind.

This is what I wrote on my blog when I decided to participate in the challenge:  "I probably won't be able to participate every week because I'll be doing some traveling this year.  I imagine that other things will probably get in the way as well, but I plan to do what I can."

I really thought I would be further along than this by now. Oh well, I'm not giving up; I'm going to try to work on a page spread today.

Documented Life Project 2015 and My Word for the Year

I've decided to participate in the Documented Life Project this year.  I probably won't be able to participate every week because I'll be doing some traveling this year.  I imagine that other things will probably get in the way as well, but I plan to do what I can.  I don't have my journal yet; I've ordered it and it should arrive early next week.  Each month will have a theme, and each week there will be an art related challenge as well as a journal prompt.  January's theme is "the blank page and how to face it."  The first art challenge is book paper and the first journal prompt is "be your own goal keeper."  I already have an idea of what I want to do for my first challenge, so I am anxious to get my journal!

I've also chosen my word for this year:  ORIGINAL.  I want to do more original design in my fiber arts, so I am hoping that by choosing original for my word this year, it will focus my intention.  And since that is one of my goals, I will incorporate my word into my journal page.  I've only chosen a word once before, and it didn't really do much for me, but I'm going to try it again.  I have high hopes for the year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy New Year!

We had a very nice new year's eve with friends last night - dinner, conversation, laughs, and a movie.  It's been a tradition for us since new year's eve 1999.  Hope you all had as nice a time as we did.

I don't make resolutions - I never have.  But I have decided to participate in a variety of challenges this year.  Some of them are reading challenges, most of which I've already mentioned in earlier posts.  The one I haven't written up yet is the New Author Challenge 2011.

Here are the guidelines:

1. The challenge will run from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011.
2. Since this is an author challenge, there is no restriction on choosing your novels. They can definitely be from other challenges. However, the authors must be new to you and, preferably from novels.  Anthologies are a great way to try someone new, but only a third of your new authors can be from anthologies.
3. I want this to be an easy challenge, so you can pick to do either 15, 25 or 50 new authors.  It all depends on how fast you read and how adventurous you want to be. 

I'm signing up for 15 new authors.  I did the New Author Challenge 2010 and really enjoyed it, so I thought I would do it again this year.  I have created pages for each of my reading challenges, which you can see above the posts.  I will be updating those throughout the year.  I have also included pages for the challenges I have done in the past, but Blogger only allows 10 pages, so I may delete the older ones.  I'll have to decide what to do with the older ones, since I don't want to lose the information.

I am also participating in a couple of art challenges this year.  One I've already written up is the Sketchbook Challenge.  Another one I signed up for yesterday is Project52: The Weekly Art Challenge over at ATCsForAll (which I joined a couple of weeks ago).  Here is part of the write up about it:

The goal is be to be creative a minimum of once a week and create something. Your piece of art doesn't necessarily need to be an ATC, it can be a postcard too, a scrapbook page, chunky, inchie, twinchie, a quilt, work on an ongoing project, photography - anything that tickles your creativity!! 

SO - all of that should keep me busy this year!  What about you?  Do you have any great plans for the new year?

Flower Wagon Challenge

Ellen Lindner issued this challenge on her blog on 5/17/10. She provided several photos she took in Savannah. I chose to paint it.

I didn't get the wheels right, but I'm happy with my painting anyway. You can see Ellen's post here. She is doing a quilt; I'll be anxious to see how it turns out.