Last ATC Swap ...

... with Dawn. Yes, our 6 month ATC swap is already completed. I cannot believe it! It was really great fun and I will miss it ... Dawn is such a lovely and talented lady, her challenges took me not only right out of my comfortzone but they also allowed me to experiment and to explore new techniques ... thank you so much for giving me the chance to swap with you. This month's theme was: Wedding

Always & Forever

I absolutely love this vintage image from Magic Moonlight Free Images. It is so sweet .... I simply printed it on white slightly textured card. The words and little hearts are stamped with Elzybells stamps and VersaColor ink. Around the edges I used velvet and decorative ribbons which were embellished with pearls.
The little fan in the corner is crepe paper which I inked up with Ancient Page ink, and then stamped the same words onto the crepe paper as are on the image.

Celebrations

I first stamped the background with stamps from Heindesign and Elzybells Hybrid ink ... and then layered it with a serviette using Decopatch glue. You cannot quite see it in the photo ... the background is very shiny. To complement the scene a wedding cake was needed (stamped, cut and coloured) and a little bit of ribbon. The edges are covered with Stickles Old Gold.

Honeymoon

I am not so sure what the man in the moon is up to but he is definitely not allowed to disturb the young couple (lol) ... The image from the Graphics Fairy is printed on Basic Grey paper which I slightly distressed around the edges using Ranger Distress and Ancient Page ink. Door (Lavinia) and lock are stamped whereby the little sign has been cut and mounted. The little stars give some pinky bling. Have a wonderful long weekend, Petra.

Georgia O'Keeffe and a Lovely Surprise

While researching the life and work of Georgia O'Keeffe for the Gingersnap Creations challenge 'Red & Black', I was not only taken by Georgia's work but also by her story and by herself. Especially her face captured in so many photos taken by Alfred Stieglitz is impressive, at times full of melancholie ... it seems to speak.
When starting to work on my challenge card, at first I created a digital collage using one of Stieglitz' photos combining it with one of Georgia's quotations and a couple of my poppy photos .... and I just thought I share this collage with you


Now to the very lovely surprise I got today. I received a very lovely award from Jane my friend and colleague. She is such a talented lady and so lovely and helpful. Without her encouragement and help I would not enjoy my crafting as much as I do, thank you so much Jane
And not only this but Jane has also a Celebration Blog Candy on her blog, you might want to hop over! Petra.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe a woman artist par excellence created the most amazing paintings of flowers especially poppies ... I love poppies, lost of them are growing in my garden. And I never remove the seedheads so that they spread quite freely ... Based on her art the new Gingersnap Creations Color Challenge is: red and black ... I love this colour combination but it was still a difficult challenge for me. I decided to make a card with a more modern look and feel ... something which really got me out of my comfortzone (lol)
The back and front of the card is acetate which is folded. The front part is adorned with poppy images, photos taken in my garden and then printed onto photo paper. As soon as I had attached them to the acetate I knew I am in trouble ... of course, you see the foam pads and white back of the images through the acetate! Could I not have thought about this beforehand?
I repeated the little photo squares on the inside of the acetate ... whilst the image on the main card inside is a portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe by Philippe Halsman mounted on black card. The text is one of Georgia's quotes ... and I found this is so true
For the back of the card I layered white and grey slightly textured card. The poppy image is part of the digital poppy stamp from Sweet'n Sassy which I coloured with Copics.
This is my last piece as August Visiting Artist for Gingersnap Creations ... I loved every minute of it, thank you so much for giving me the chance!
This card was a real challenge for me because of the not so usual style ... but using the colours black and red, my favourites, and having the inspiration from Georgia's paintings made it also great fun. Have a look at all the other wonderful art from the Gingersnap Creations team and Linda. The creations are truly amazing and inspirational. Petra.

It's done!

Most of the week I worked on a wedding cake (excluding the cake topper) ... 3tier stacked on pillars. Whatever could go wrong did including the sugarpaste not hardening because of the weather ... an absolute nightmare!!! But it is done, the cake has been delivered and I am very happy that it is over (lol). Have a great weekend, Petra.

Stamp a Scene

Recently I got a very nice stamp from Germany (Heindesign) showing a landscape which reminds me so much of Southern Germany .... when I saw Susan's new OLW challenge: Stamp a Scene, it seemd to fit perfectly
As soon as I had stamped the scene onto a little white card with speckled edges, I realized that this is a wonderful stamp for Christmas .... so here we are ... bringing my total for this year's Christmas cards to 2 ... (lol). Have a great weekend, Petra.

The Circus is coming to town

.... for the Gingersnaps Creations Random Redhead Challenge: 3D project. It was a bit difficult to decide what to make, there are just too many possibilities (lol) ... in the end it had to be a match box!
I love boxes especially match boxes and the smaller they are the better. Having August and lots of people being on holiday I thought it might be a nice idea to provide some entertainment for the ones who stayed at home ... a little circus on wheels going around town
It all started with a little matchbox which I covered in K&Company paper. I deliberately did not do any stamping apart from distressing the edges and 'stamping' the inside part of the match box with Ranger Distress ink. With the circus theme in mind I went through trillions of free vintage images before choosing images from Karen, the Graphics Fairy and Kathy from Vintage Catnip ... thank you so much for all the graphics. I first created the background with scenery and theatre layout. The theatre looked a bit empty at first but very soon the audience started to take their seats with lots of fuzzy cutting (lol) ... The entertainment is guaranteed by elephants and a girl clown with a cute little dog.
The big question was how to attach the wheels underneath the matchbox and make them turn at the same time. The solution was: corrugated card, the one you get with bigger parcels because the loops are slightly wider than the one on the craft card. The axis are wooden skewers, the wheels little toy wheels which are painted with acrylic paint.
In this photo you can also see the various layers used for the scenery layered on foam pads to give it some depth.

The inside of the little box is also lined with K& Company paper. The string to pull the circus vehicle is secured with a wooden pearl inside the box.

To attract visitors the advertising campaign is run from the back of the little circus van .... enjoy your summer .... and don't forget to check out all the other fabulous creations over at Gingersnaps Creations for this challenge ... they are amazing ... Petra.

Unexpected Colours

Having just started to make a 3-tier wedding cake time at the moment is a bit sparse but I couldn't resist to do a little bit of stamping for Susan's real fun challenge ... OLW15: use unexpected colours for holidays and occasions which are normally linked to certain colour schemes like red or pink for Valentine's day. I recently bought some stamps for halloween amongst them some really sweet bats ..... and once I had started I could not really stop myself using sky blue, lime green, spring green, bubbly pink lemonade, purple and sunshine yellow ...
aren't they sweet? Petra.x

Supplies: stamps from Elzybells, ink - Elzybells, Heyda

Peridot ...

... the Birthstone of August and the challenge theme at the Daring Cardmakers. The colour of the peridot can range from lime, yellowish green, olive green to medium dark green.
I must admit this is just a quick make ... nothing sophisticated, no stamping just some pretty papers, stickers and die cuts from K&Company and an image from the Graphics Fairy. The blings are from Kanban and the flowers from my stash.
Now there are only 4 months to go before the birthstone challenge will finish. I am really looking forward to bind all the birthstone cards into a little book, a wall hanging, .....
Happy crafting, Petra.

Paint

Unlike all the very talented artists out there I am not a painter ... I can draw a little bit and normally do some painting in my house (lol). When it came to creating a piece for the Gingersnaps Creations Supply Challenge: Paint, I decided rather to promote paint and painting than doing some painting myself ...
It all started with a label 'Concerning Paint and Paintings' which I came across at the Graphics Fairy ... it seemed to be so suitable for this project.
The card canvas I used is made of coloured textured card from Elzybells. I layered it with various patterned papers from K&Company which I distressed along the edges using VersaColor ink.
As paint supplies I promoted: paint tubes from Creative Expressions (ink: Brilliance ink) stamped onto one of the paper strips. The airbrush and art brush advertising cards are from Antiques Images.
And you can see that this is all vividly used by the Lady sitting on the seaside capturing the scenery. This image also comes from the huge collection of vintage images from the Graphics Fairy.

Once I had finished the outside the inside really looked a bit plain and I was unsure what to do with it (LOL). Then I remembered that literally years ago I had played with my old school water colours creating some sort of background. I went on an extensive search and ... found it! (it shows you should never throw anything away, you might need it!). I used part of the painted background, stamped a sentiment onto it from Darkroom Door and mounted it on patterned paper from K&Company.
Hope you feel inspired having a play yourself ... go on hop over to Gingersnap Creations, have a look at all the fabulous creations and start painting! Petra.

A British-English Birthday

A few days ago somebody very close to my heart had birthday. Being very english in some ways I wanted to honour this (lol) ... and felt a card would maybe not quite be big enough to hold all quintessential items like tea, the Queen, Cricket, lots of roses, the old Mini, ......
It had to be a canvas whiick I painted with acrylic paint around the edges and on the back (my first ever encounter with acrylic paint, it is quite an interesting medium to work with). The background paper is from October Afternoon an old map of Central London. Once the background was prepared I arranged and layered all paper pieces ... nothing digital this time but a pure paper collage ... most graphics are from the Graphics Fairy ... Karen's collection is just so amazing .... the mini image one of the Kanban car clear stamp set, the cricketer from Arthur's clip art ... oh, and the tea bag from a box of Twinings English Afternoon Tea (LOL), happy Monday Petra.

NB I also link this up to Cindy's new monthly challenge: the Creative Spirit Challenge. You are encouraged to post something on your blog, whether it is artwork, photography, a recipe--whatever it is that exemplifies your creative spirit. Just go and have a look!

Look-a-Like Cake

Well, at least I hope it looks sort of like ......

Yojojo!
When I received the request for the cake, I didn't even know about it ... I think I am not quite up-to-date anymore with the world of the little ones (LOL)

Hope Yojojo is recognisable maybe apart from the colour but I was asked to use Tartrazine-free colouring for the outer sugarpaste layer of the cake. Unfortunately the colour range for such colouring pastes is still limited so Yojojo looks rather creamy than brownish ......
Cake:
Vanilla Sponge
filled with raspberry jam and Vanilla buttercream

Enjoy your weekend, Petra.

Things with Wings

... was the theme for the July ATC swap at Addicted to ATCs .... a wonderful theme as it fits so well into the summer season. I decided to go with Fairies because I adore fairies and I had never used any of my fairy stamps (LOL)

All background are free images from Cemerony ... the edges are distressed with Elzybells Hybrid ink. All Fairy images were first stamped on white card and coloured and then cut out and mounted on small foam pads to give the images some depth. I used stamps from Lavinia, Little-Z, Heindesign, Invoke and a digital fairy from Jenni (Cardmadfairy's Creations). Oh, and not to forget some bling and glitter .....

Addicted to ATCs celebrates its first birthday with something a bit special and a real fun theme: Make a splash. Why not join in and have some fun! Petra.

Gingersnap Creations - Famous Painters

A couple of weeks ago Ali asked me if I would like to be a Visiting Artist for the month of August at Gingersnap Creations. I was in shock ... still am ... and I feel absolutely delighted and honoured having been asked. Thank you so much.

The first challenge this month is a theme challenge: Famous Painters. I love going to galleries, looking at paintings but I don't have a favourite painter as such ... I normally just look at the composition, the colours, the craftmanship to decide whether I like it or not (LOL) ... but I am quite often drawn to art which portraits women and women in their environment. This is one of the reasons why I chose Leonardo da Vinci as my famous painter ...
Immediately when I saw the drawing of the head of the woman, I felt fascinated and intrigued by it. I love every single detail of it ... the colours are so warm and welcoming. Being a piece about a painter it had to be a wall hanging. I cut some very thick cardboard slightly bigger than a postcard and covered it with graphics 45, crafty individuals and 7gypsies paper ... the edges are slightly distressed with ink. The vital accessories for a painter (palette, brush, pen) were created by stamping the pieces with Darkroom Door and Creative Expressions stamps onto sligthly textured white card and doing some fuzzy cutting. The work of art and a scenery of Leonardo's environment Florence come from Magic Moonlight Free Images.
Petra.