August Challenge at Eclectic Ellapu

The theme at Eclectic Ellapu for the Purple Team in August is 

 "it's a man thing" 

(something for a male. masculine: colours, prints, textures)

I used some stash I have had for a while, and some brand new stuff to make this:

I used some SU new DP (Floral Boutique) and Not Quite Navy card

My surfer dude is mounted on a piece of card which has been dry embossed

The sentiment and the surfer are on some hessian which is on some card which is on some DSP which is on some card........

A bit of blue twine and some sequins

Behind the dude is the Swirly Bird die cut twice - one in card and once in silver sparkly card to imitate the sea and waves, and give some further texture to the whole

The whole is on a white square commercial blank card. 

The surfer and the sentiment are from a set which has to be three years old, floating around in the stash. Now I have broken open the packet to use two pieces - the other 7 or 8 pieces will be used perhaps in another three years!

Eclectic Ellapu 

You have a month to join in the challenge.

Well, it did snow at sea level - eventually.......

The weather people told us it might and it did - but a week later than the first dire warnings! 

It snowed to sea level again

Photo of Geilston Bay from my veranda, taken by me!

We even had snow flurries at our place - but nothing settled of course!

Bloody cold but.......

Thought this card might be appropriate

I found some flimsy Christmas papers - magazine freebies - of penguins and snowflakes

See photo below to get an idea of the originals

So I cut out a section of penguins I liked and glued them onto some white card, and then fussy cut out individual penguins or a group of penguins in one case......

....and then took some of my Tim Holtz inks to the snowflake sheet in an attempt to create a sort of Southern Lights or Aurora by masking off sections and sponging on ink

The ice flow is from the pack of Dior perfume, cut to look like hillocks and with glitter on the top edge. I then positioned my penguins on these

I think they are Emperor Penguins - cute babies......

I put glue and sparkles on the snow flakes to create icy conditions

The sentiment is computer generated

My Aurora

So - my natives for this week - the penguins 

and the poor old Taswegians like me suffering from the cold weather!

Hopefully I have not caught a chill - yet!

Whoohoo - Anything Goes at Crafting with Dragonflies!

Hello all, hope you are warm and dry (or cool and dry) and that life is treating you well. 

It is time for a new challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies

Challenge#62: Anything Goes

Remember, this is a card challenge

I subscribe to a monthly kit from D'Lish Scraps

It is supposed to be for scrapbooking but I just love the eclectic bits that arrive, and usually use them in cards in anything but the way they were probably intended

This month's arrived a few days before my DIL's birthday, and looked so delicious I had to use them to make her card. 

The background paper is a scrap from SU, I think, and I just love those jelly colours together - they seemed to go with the colour scheme of the flowers too

I used my Copic marker to colour in the letters, before sticking them onto the card, and I also coloured up the butterfly before adding a touch of Stella sparkle to the wings

The black strip is washi tape and the little heart is wooden, while the bird is plastic!

The sentiment strip was in the kit although the letters were from my stash.

The whole is on a piece of SU Flirty Flamingo card folded to make a square 14 x 14 cm card blank.

As my DIL lives in another state I had to post it - and as I was a bit late it had to go express!

Thought it was a bright, cheerful card to get in the middle of winter!

You always love the Anything Goes challenges so let it rip!!!!

Still a Little Dotty.......

At Unstampabelles, the challenge is to GO NATIVE, and I have been playing with the art of the original inhabitants of Australia, and their method of dot painting - while I am a native Australian, my ancestors are from Europe, and so this is a new technique for me and one I have greatly enjoyed using in my work. I discovered it is not easy to do, and that there is a language involved in the paintings - just google aboriginal art symbols - and see what I mean. Here is one example

It depends on the artist and the area, and the clan of course.

Then there is the amazing rock art, some of which goes back 28,000 years old and predates known European known rock art. Amazing huh!

This photo comes from the Northern Territory, and shows work in the region of the Katherine Gorge (Nitmilik National Park)

I have been lucky enough to see some rock art work in situ in America as well, in Colorado, and that too is awe inspiring, to see the work of an artist from so far back in time. I have been to some sites in the Northern part of Australia as well, and just been so blown away by the work. 

This is a photo I took at Uluru in 2004 

So, using all this information and my interest in the art work I made this

The background is drawn by me, the image is from Google images 

and after I had coloured him up with Copic marker, using the dot painting technique 

I fussy cut the kangaroo out and put him to one side

Then I did the background

On a sheet of Whisper White, I masked off a space and using post-it-notes to create layers of TH Distress inks in sort-of hill shapes. When I was happy with these, I took the masks away, and started to draw on them with a fine black pen.

I really enjoyed that part

Then I added the kangaroo to the white sheet with dimentionals. I used my Copic marker to outline the edges of the sheet, and then mounted this on black and then SU Peekaboo Peach card on a white blank. The sentiment is a rub-on and I was tempted to colour in the letters, but resisted.

The recipient loved it!

It was fun to make

So, Unstampabelles current challenge runs for another two weeks

It will be interesting to see what you create

Just me and a Geko.....

This is referring to the card I made for the current Challenge #59 at Unstampabelles

Go Native!

I decided to make a dot painting - not because I am trying to copy the fabulous work of the Traditional People's dot painting, but because I really like and admire the work of the new rash of modern young Aboriginal painters and wanted to try my hand at it. You can find amazing work just by Googling dot painting as well. 

I suggest you look up some of their work - it is stunning

Mine is very primary school by comparison but I enjoyed doing it and would consider doing it again. I started by finding a photo of a geko and drawing him up into a piece of watercolour paper - I then ran my embossing pen around him and embossed it with black EP. It wasn't as crisp as I would have liked but OK. I then pencilled in all the circles around the image so I would have the circles looking like circles. 

I coloured in the geko with Dylusions paint straight onto the paper - I used a minimum of water to keep the brush working so the paint was thick and rich. I used the end of my brush to create the dots - the light green was done with a larger brush end - and again used Dylusions paint. The texture this created was amazing. The white dots were added last after the blue had mostly dried. I hand drew in the circles then, with a fine line pen.

My biggest problem was the twist - a square card - as my Watercolour paper was rectanglar in shape. I added a die cut scalloped circle piece top and bottom as it looked empty without something there, and it then just looked strange so I drew on the top one and covered up the bottom one with the sentiment - a rub-on.  Still looks a bit awkward but OK. The background card has been dry embossed using a new SU folder - love it!

Anyhoo......that's it! Mounted on a commercial cream blank

So, my geko is my attempt to 'Go Native' and do a dot painting.......

Harder than it looks folks!

Summer Fun! Yep, that's our challenge for Crafting with Dragonflies!

That is, if you can remember what summer was like last year? I think we were in the grip of a drought, running out of water and wondering when it would rain. What a difference six months makes, eh!

Hilde has asked each of us at Crafting with Dragonflies to nominate a theme, and so Wynn, who lives in sunny Corfu, immediately thought "July, that's summertime!" Hence the theme........trouble is for those of us who live south of the equator, it's mid-winter!!

I had trouble getting my head around sun, and sand and heat - but then I thought, what do you do when it's too hot outside? Visit the Aquarium, of course! So, my card was born........

I used the very popular Sea Breeze kit to put this together, plus I will admit to purchasing some more bits from this series to add to the mix. The kit came as a magazine with lots of 'free' pieces and papers, but the purchased bits included dies and more stamps and stuff.......including the die for this little sea horse, which coincidentally, lives just off the shore of this island.....in fact there is a Seahorse Aquarium tourist attraction in the North of the State.

There are always lots of seagulls and Pacific gulls standing around, waiting there opportunity....

Lots of shells and star fish on the beaches and in aquariums.....

My Aquarium window - stamped some more images inside before making the window and adding the sequins (which came with the pack).

So did the embossing folder - very nice

All card is SU card.

The pale blue is embossed with the new SU Embossing Folder to give the impression of the sea or water flow or whatever......

Hope you like it - I love going to an Aquarium, especially in summer!

I know, I cheated a bit........but it is seasideish......

Now, a previous post referred to the Echidna, and I was asked if it was real!!!

By Wynn, in fact, who had never heard of it I presume

Well, they belong to the same family as the Platypus - monotremes - and are the only mammals like this in the world, where they lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young but produce milk and lactate for their young. They have hair like other mammals too.

Some hair follicles turn to spikes as a defense mechanism, and if frightened they roll into a ball (they are like a large football), and their spikes protrude. They will often dig into a bank or log, and present the dog or animal or human with a bunch of prickly spikes.  One day when I was quite a small child my Dad picked one up by it's back legs to show it to us, but he got it around the wrong way, belly in rather than belly out, and it peed all over him. My cousins, siblings and I laughed so hard as a consequence, that we peed ourselves I think! I have always remembered it and the day: a lovely blue summer's day with the sound of children's laughter pealing in the air - it shines in my mind.

They also walk with a funny wobbly walk and so make you laugh just looking at them.

What summer memories do you have and what sort of Summer Fun card can you make to share with us at Crafting with Dragonflies?

You have two weeks to show us your stuff!

Unstampabelles new July Card Challenge: Go Native with a twist of Be Square

Hello Peeps!

It's July! Over at Unstampabelles, we have a new challenge for a new month

Go Native 

with a 

TWIST "It's hip to be square"

(Make a square card)

There is a prize as per usual

and DT Favorite will be chosen

Do you know anything about echidnas?

Pronounced EE-KID-NUH

THIS SITE has lots of information 

(Fact Number 3 truly freaked me out!)

Fact Number 4 says

4. Echidnas form mating trains. 

A strange process marks the start of echidna breeding season. Males line up nose to tail behind a single female, forming a train of up to a dozen individuals.  Trains can last more than a month, with males dropping out and rejoining. When the female is finally ready to mate, the males dig a trench in the ground around her. The males compete for mating honors by pushing each other out of the trench. The last one remaining gets to mate with the female.

My card is based on this fact

A photograph of a real-life echidna, sort of fussycut ; three die cut echidna's and a grass tree plant. The sentiment (pun) has been printed off on the computer and added.

It was the best I could come up with - better than "eats roots and leaves............"

Go on - go native yourself and enter the challenge

You have a month to enter 

Unstampabelles!