Time Travel

Back to Ancient Ages - for Gingersnap Creations and as Visiting Artist! I am so thrilled and I still cannot believe it! But I was more than happy to start the journey for the month of September with going on a trip back in time .... Egypt, land of pyramids, treasures, sand, pharaos and so much more. My little pyramid book will tell you a story about the journey, the sites to visit and the treasures to find. It all started with a map ....
... and the plan to follow the sun and the stream into a foreign land by means of boat, animals and on foot ....

... in the end to find a long lost treasure ....

To create this little book I used slightly textured 300gsm watercolour card and covered it inside and outside with Rayher patterned paper. The vintage images are from The Vintage Moth and Arthur's Clipart. I stamped the Egyptian images with Tanda stamps with brilliance and Elzybells hybrid ink onto the watercolour card. You will find quite a bit of embossing using papermania gold embossing powder because I eventually treated myself to a heatgun and need to practise a lot (lol) ... and lots of stickles and glitter. The little sarkophag is made of Fimo, the mould is from Lucy who kindly offered me the mould when she heard that I would travel to ancient Egypt. Lucy is a very talented lady and she is this month's muse over at Gingersnap Creations.

Now you know all about my travel, why don't you hop over to Gingersnap Creations to see for yourself all the amazing work from the DT, the visiting artists and Lucy and hopefully even take part yourself? Petra.

NB Somebody very close to my heart now pointed out that Ancient Ages is a whisky and was surprised that I had only thought of it in historical terms ... well, I suppose it is all about getting your priorities right (lol)

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.

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.

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.

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.