Bring on the sunshine! SDC 184

Our designer hostess this week is Kaz.  Brrrrrr... she says, living in the UK.  She has requested we being a little Stampotique sunshine to her with a "Bring me sunshine" theme.   So lets sunny up her days and also get a chance to win some lovely Stampotique stamps!

This theme makes me think of my friends and family in NYC.  It's been cold and they have been hit hard with snow.  So I used my NYNY! stamp and little taxi to create a bright and sunny NYC.

The city stamp was repeated and trimmed to create a 3-D layered city.  I stamped with Versafine onyx black and embossed.  Peerless watercolors and a waterbrush were used to color the images.

My background is layers of paint and collage scraps.  A piece of washi tape creates a street for the taxi to drive on.



  

Stampotique 2015 New Image Blog Hop!

Flower Shop and Flower Truck

 Clock Shop, Birch Tree,woman with dog from Crowd image

 

Today we are so excited about the new release for Stampotique Originals!!!  We've been keeping it under wraps for weeks now, but know that some of you got a sneak at one of our new stamp artists.  

Stampotique is thrilled to add to the line-up the designs one of our former team members and popular mixed media artist, Kate Crane (is that squealing we hear amongst you?).  We know you all won't be disappointed with the line-up of stamps from all our artists this go around.

Are you ready to see some wonderful artwork showcasing some of the new stamps?  There are 50+ new ones being released this time around, so plenty for everyone to choose from (or choose them all).

Hop along with the design team and 2 special guest bloggers leaving comments along the way.  We will choose 3 random winners from 3 selected blogs along the way to win some goodies.

 

We will choose our winners with our next challenge on February 25th.

You should have arrived here from the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog. Your next stop along the way will be Coby vanWilligenburg.  If you get lost anywhere along the way you can come back to the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog to find your way.

You are here now  Janet Klein

Coby vanWilligenburg

Claudine Criner

Kim Howard

Astrid Stulemeijer

Valerie Wilson

Carol Fox

Kate Crane

Sue Davies

Kaz Boughton

Corrie Herriman

Kathi Rerek

Samantha Read

France Papillion

Roc Nicholas

Kristen Catalano

Nellie van Leeuwen

Arwen McCullen

Magda Polakow

Jackie Payne

Gez Butterworth

Hope you enjoy all the design team creations, 

we can't wait to hear what your favorite new stamps are!

It's all about Love and Hearts; SDC182

It's all about love and hearts says Kristen in this weeks designer's challenge sponsored by Stampotique.  Gather your favorite Stampotique heart images and stamp to your hearts content!

My "Love You" heart is featured in this mixed media collage card.   I stamped the heart with black STAZON and clear embossed.  The image is colored with NeoColor II crayons and a waterbrush. I love to work with a little scribble, color, stitching.  Pop in a stamped image for a unique card.  This versatile stamp is good for Valentine's Day or any day.  It's loose line nature is great for art journals, ATCs, tags and more. 

The background is a piece of "under paper" that had splashes of acrylic paint.  I pulled the yellow-orange color up by stitching a matching strip of fabric to the top.  Handmade washi tape (flower stencil and spring green acrylic paint) with scraps and scribble complete the composition.  I stitched the piece to a 5" x 5" card. The left is anchored with  floral washi tape giving a hint of "Valentine" colors.  The heart is raised with a silicone glue dot.

I had fun creating this card. I hope you enjoyed taking a peek.  Have a happy Valentine's Day!  Do something nice for yourself. 

When you have lemons...

It's  a beautiful day here is Arizona.  We will be hitting the 80's this week with glorious sunshine.  Lemons we have a plenty.  Citrus tress are giving us an abundance of beautiful fruit.  I thought I would jump in on Sue's challenge this week and use some citrus colors to send some sunny cheer and vitamin C out to those of you in snow.

My background is stencil with Gelli plate along with hand-drawn elements to enhance my little Midge. She is truly one of my favorite images for Stampotique and has been loved and used again and again in multiple projects.

I layered some white-washed book paper over my Gelli print where Midge is standing.  I added some smears with Gelatos, a paper scrap and text from the computer. 

Join Sue in the SDC 181 orange and lemon citrus challenge!

DLP 2015 The Blank Page: Week four and five

The theme for January is facing the blank page.   The prompt for Week Four is writing with friends.  Since I like writing for a textural element, I chose to keep it under my layers of color.  Covering a blank page is the easy part;  gesso, smear Inktense, Gelatos or acrylic is right up my messy ally.    How to layer and what elements to add relies on intuition and discovery in one's stash. 
My initial idea always seem to take that divergent path.   I sketched a Modigliani inspired portrait on a calendar page that became my focal point.  Once she was colored I played with additional elements and repeated colors in the palette. Since the final composition took it's turn the addition of Picasso's quote sums it up:

     "I begin with an idea, and then it becomes something else."

What do you do when you are unhappy with the "something else" -- do you chalk it up to a learning experience, try to add, take away?  Guild the lily so to speak?  So I gave it a rest and came back to it later.  I decided the three center flowers bothered me the most.  I  allowed myself that one change. 

On to week five.

The week five prompt is to cover the page with "underpaper."  Underpaper is the paper we use to protect table tops when we paint. Cleaning brushes, brayers, stamp testing, notes, etc. 

Since most of my underpaper is abused around the circumference of my journal I tore the pieces and glued randomly to cover my page.  I pulled out the colors and just played by adding more painting and fast doodles.  I created the background in a short period of time.  The explosion of color called for a party.
I used three digi stamps from the "Housewives" stamp set and added the quote, " A party without cake is just a meeting."
I had fun with this page and I even did it without my glasses on!  Ha!  Talk about freedom.

Thanks for looking.