Butterflies! No, really....

Welcome, to my project for the new challenge at 

Aurora Wings.

The new challenge theme chosen by fellow DT member, Sandra, is

Butterflies!!!

Contrary to my initial feeling of, "Ummm....", I am super happy with how

this card turned out. I found some scraps of old dp that I loved, and

used that as my color palette for the image. Super vibrant, but I love it.

This Aurora Wings image is called, 

Poppy Fairy-Butterfly Ears Elf.

I am not a huge butterfly crafter. I love butterflies, but I just don't

have a lot of butterfly themed products. I do have 2 Martha Stewart

butterfly punches, though. And that's pretty much all I used besides some

kraft card stock, a cut up Vaudeville Frame die cut from Memory Box,

 and the Curved Rectangles from Spellbinders.

And some Stickles. All butterflies should have Stickles.

Please stop by the Aurora Wings Challenge blog and 

take a look at all of the incredible inspiration pieces

the DT has created for this theme.  

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Dream Valley Challenges - Things with Wings 

Digi Galore - Kraft

Craftitude - Use a die

A Little Bit Crafty - Flower Power

Simon Monday Challenge - Botanical Bliss

Mother's Day blahs

Had a case of the blahs for the past few weeks.

A little too early for PMS, and I wish our new puppy

liked me more than my husband, but not enough to be so irritable.

And weepy. Uncontrolled, unannounced, and untimely, tears.

Fuck. Mother's Day is coming.

This will be the second Mother's Day without my mom.

It's just been a little over a year since she passed away.

Time flies. And we all get older. Fuck.

I still have two awesome Mother-in-Laws, and an incredibly

vibrant Grandma to appreciate this holiday. So stop yer cryin"!

Since I am such a fan of these adorable little guys, 

and as are most ladies, a fan of flowers, it seemed only fitting

to use at least one of Aurora Wings' Flower Sprites on a Mother's Day card.

Grandma has probably ten (or more) thriving, and flowering orchids at her house.

She has the gift of a really green thumb. She and Grandpa ran their own floral

business in Escalon, CA way back in the day. Total no-brainer to use the fabulous

Orchid Sprite from Aurora Wings. Grandma loved the card!! 

Another of my favorite artists, Torico of Birdie Brown drew up this cutie.

Unfortunately she no longer sells her images as digis, but she currently 

designs for My Favorite Things.  

I tried a new way of shading/coloring. I was trying to achieve a

vintage, tea stained feel by using browns to shade. I like it.

 Kept the layout pretty simple, too. I couldn't get too involved in too

much more than that anyway. My MIL loved it. She always loves my

cards no matter what they look like. She is a wonderful woman.

Hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day. 

I did.

I got a Daenerys Targaryen action figure.

She is the Mother of Dragons, after all.

   

Let's smear some ink!

Here is my Smeared Ink project for the week.

I am only a few pages short of completing my very first art journal (thanks, Suzie!),

and I thought this would make a neat page.

I used the digital versions of the empty specimen jar, specimen label,

and the elephant from the Circus Procession set. 

I turned them into png images using Gimp, meaning I made the 

backgrounds transparent so that I could layer them into one complete image.

I covered the jar with Glossy Accents, but apparently the medium wasn't

completely dry, which I learned after putting a heavy object on top

of it to make it lay flat. When I pulled up the object, part of the elephant

was stuck to the bottom. I added more accents to the ruined spots and

let it dry overnight. 

I used the same process for this little bear, and even

used the no-lines coloring technique on him as well.

I was hoping it would make him look more realistic.

 No Glossy Accents on this one. I didn't want to take a

chance on ruining this one once it was colored.

Same technique here as well, using the Death Cab Hearse #1 image, 

and some of my favorite medium, Crackle Accents from Inkssentials.

I made the background using Dylusions Spray Inks, and a couple of 

Tim Holtz stencils, and a stamp. I used the water spritz technique to remove some color,

and I drew on a little spider web, and attached teeny, punched spiders all over. 

That's it for me.

I have three Mother's day cards to make today.

Not feelin' it, but that's not their fault. I miss my Mom worse

this year than I did last year. Been plagued by random tears yesterday

and today. Weird how the subconscious works....  

Anima Sola at Aurora Wings

"Anima Sola" means "Lonely Soul", a Christian notion in some traditions, 

often depicted as a chained female figure with arms outstretched 

skyward with salvation in sight, with flames all around her.  

The original image was painted for one of the monthly themes 

at the Enchanted Visions Project (a fantasy artists group, 

where participating members paint to a pre-set theme).  

Mitzi stylized her image with poppies to hint at the flames, 

and gave the woman a look a little more despairing 

than a lot of 'Anima Sola' images out there.  

So her take was a bit more like a "Lost Soul".

This is a new image available today over at

Aurora Wings. Isn't she lovely? 

Aurora Wings is having a huge party over on their

facebook page to celebrate over 1000 members!
It's truly a testament to Mitzi's jaw dropping talent and generosity, that

she has become so popular, so quickly in the digi world and crafting community.
She is a doll to work with, and a super sweet lady. Big hugs to Mitzi.

Please stop by today and join in on the fun contests and and super

generous giveaways. It is so fun to create with Mitzi's art.
Once you try one of her digis, it'll be hard not to start an entire collection. 

Don't say I didn't warn you!!

Aurora Wings facebook page

Aurora Wings digi shop

Aurora Wings Etsy shop

Aurora Wings Challenge blog

Aurora Wings Showcase blog

   

Working in the lab, late one night...

When the current Mad Scientist challenge at HDH was announced, 

I had so many ideas of how to illustrate this theme.

But then I realized I was running out of time, and

maybe I should think on a less grand scale.

So, I decided to scale way back , and create some

teeny tiny monsters for my mad scientist laboratory.

"Say hello, to my leedle friends!!!"

Little #13 is my favorite of the bunch. He'll probably stay in my

personal collection, while some of the others will be listed in my Etsy shop. 

I sculpted #13 out of polymer clay and then adorned him with various

acrylic paints. I placed him under a mini glass cloche from TH.

I have also included some hummingbird feathers and some cat nail casings

in their own jars. I love these tiny jars. Just wish the mouths were larger to 

accommodate my creatures. 

How cute is this one?
I had to add something to the bottle to help keep #57

cozy, so I used some Shaved Ice from Stampendous. 

#002 is an "Eye Worm".  Yup, just one eye on this little guy. 

I dropped some copper sparkle mica powder in the bottom to give the

idea of some fancy schmancy soil for the worm.

Here is a Dragon-type embryo head thing. He's cute, but strangely, never

grew appendages. Hence the display cloche. I used a TH pin-thing to hold

the specimen tag inside the cloche.

Some of the weird schtuff I have saved for just such an occasion as this. 

The "Terrier Teeth" are all Charlie's puppy teeth. Probably like 7 or 8 of them.

They were too oddly shaped to fit in a smaller bottle, so the larger one will have to do.

That's it for me today.

Make sure to stop by the HDH blog and check out the other awesome

inspiration pieces by our extremely talented design team.

Keep it creepy!!!

Smeared Ink Monthly blog hop

Today, I have another Smeared Ink project for your visual amusement.

We're having a design team blog hop for the month of April.

If you'd like to begin the hop from the beginning, 

here is the hop order:

Black Dragon

Shell

Kapree

Shoni

Creepy Glowbugg - me

Lisa

Elenor
Rebecca

I purchased a few of these blank notebooks from Pick Your Plum

a while back, and I needed a gift for a friend's birthday, so it

was a double duty project. I like that.

The notebook folds out into thirds. This gives plenty of room to decorate

and customize. I started out by removing the covers, and painting them with

a tan acrylic paint.

Then, I broke out with my new TH Clockwork stencil, and some

SU teal ink. 

Next, I distressed and aged the covers using Distress Inks

in vintage photo, and walnut. I have tried many types of applicators

for applying inks to my projects, but I love the fingertip sponge daubers 

the best. They give great control, and they're easy to hang onto.

I gave the covers a coat of matte medium to seal the inks and keep them

from bleeding onto the recipient's hands when they use it someday.

I went ahead and added a script stamp, and then I heat embossed it.

I used this script stamp throughout the entire notebook. I added a Copic colored

image called, Specimen Jar - Man from Smeared Ink. 

I gave the image a coat of Glossy Accents to give it some durability.

I really love this image. It's very 'DaVinci' feeling, to me.

Here is the opened view of the notebook. 

I have continued all of the same techniques and finishes throughout the book.

I have used the Butterfly Jar image from Smeared Ink here,

and I have added both, Glossy Accents, and Crackle Accents to the jar

for a varied effect of textures. I like it.

 I have used another butterfly from the Specimen Jar digi set

at Smeared Ink. I colored it with watercolor pencils,

and accented it Stickles and Gelly Roll Stardust pen.

And here it is all folded out and finished.

I have to say it turned out pretty cool, and I am 

eager to send it to my friend. I have a feeling she'll dig it, too.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Make sure to check out the entire Smeared Ink DT hop

to see more creative craftiness from my fellow DT members.  

The hop order is in my sidebar, and at the beginning of this post.

I'd like to enter this project in the following challenges:
613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes
Anything But a Card - use/make a book
That Craft Place - Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar Challenge - Things with Wings
Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge - Wings 
Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge - Anything Goes
C.R.A.F.T. challenge - Not a card
Crafting at the Weekend - Anything Goes

Buzz Buzz

I finally got a chance to work in my (almost complete) art journal.

I've been working on it for over a year now, and it's finally

nearing the finished stages. So cool to have a bound compendium of

my work to flip through and enjoy in the future.

I made a colorful background using Dylusion spray inks, and a

honeycomb stencil from The Crafter's Workshop. I used both modeling

paste, and Distress Inks with the stencil for dimension and interest. 

The actual stars of the show here, are the awesome bee images I have used.

They are available through Smeared Ink in their Queen digi set, or as singles. 

So many possibilities with this set of images. 

I printed the bees out on Paper Trey Ink paper (I use it exclusively),

and then used (gasp!) Distress Inks to color them with a water pen.  

I figured the less vibrant the bees were, the better the contrast on the vivid background.

I fussy cut everyone out, and added some kaleidoscope embossing powder 

to every bee's wings. Lastly, I added some letter tiles from Tim Holtz.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Make sure to come back tomorrow, as I will have more

eye candy for you to check out, plus a little blog hop, too!