I had a hard time photographing this one. The stained glass nativity scene was stamped in gold but it doesn't show properly in the picture neither do the transparent beads I added to the stars. As for the metal foil, I've used a wrap from a Kinder chocolate bar again. I'm recycling as much as I can these days. (The background of the ATCs below had been previously wrapping a Christmas present.)
At One Powerful Hour the theme is 2008 revisited, which gave me the chance to finally end my domino keychain, although it obviously took me more than an hour to have it done. I started by gluing with "Alkyl" varnish a scrap of Christmas gift wrap to a bamboo domino I had bought on ebay months ago and had wanted to use for ages. After two coats of "Alkyl" (which were actually not necessary, as I realized later), I coated the domino with Antique Medium I, let it dry and then applied Antique Medium II for a crackling effect. Next I added dissolved "Goldfinger" to it and quickly wiped off the excess.(You can get a similar result with acrylic paint.) Finally I added the cotton thread and the beads. I had a lot of trouble trying to make the thread go through the flower beads holes; it was simply too thick for those holes. That's why one of the threads has some knots instead of a bead. I'm not totally satisfied with the way this project turned out, but was it is my first altered domino, I won't be too hard on myself.
I'd like to say thank you very much to all the visitors to my blog throughout the year. A big warm thank you to all those who take the time to leave such uplifting comments to my simple creations. You really make my day! God bless you! Have a Merry Christmas time and a New Year full of the Lord's blessings!
The theme at Dans ma Maison... is gardens. After embossing the garden with a stencil, I placed the leaf roof, but I wasn't quite happy with it, so I added a stamped bird; but somehow the design of the bird didn't combine with the embossed roses and leaves, so I ended up replacing the roof with a scrap of wrapping paper.
I loved creating this Christmas ornament.
I bought a few styrofoam hearts last year before Christmas and I planned to do some découpage with them so that I could hang them on the Christmas tree, but I guess I was too busy with other things last year or maybe I didn't have enough motivation... (I found blogland in January 2008, right after Christmas...)
I'm entering these for TMTA, whose theme is Hallowe'en. I'm sorry the photo is a bit dark, but it was taken with my Sony Eriksson k800i because my brother has taken the Canon camera with him to the Azores where he's teaching now.
Thanks for looking!
Today is the International day of Peace.
This week at Wednesady stamper the challenge is to make art on Peace.
The white cross with the heart-shaped red seal on the card is meant to have two meanings: I first thought of it as Jesus' cross, so that heart would be Jesus' heart because on the cross He gave us His Peace. Then I just thought I might use this card at Christmas time and in that case the cross with the heart would also represent the ribbon and bowknot that wrap up the present within, which in this case would be Peace, of course. Does that make any sense to you?
I had a few problems with the sealing wax, though. It turned out too dark. I then watercoloured it in red, but it lost its shine and became too matt, so I cleaned it off and applied some red glitter.
As for the ATC, it was a quickie and I made it mostly with scraps.
Some time ago I found this Joker card in very bad shape inside the drawer of my mom's sewing machine. After a lifetime spent inside the pack with no use, a coarse heart had been drawn on it and the word "dama", which means "queen" in card games, had been added because the Queen of Hearts was nowhere to be found. And so by means of a simple pen surgery Mr Joker had become the Queen of Hearts and the 40 cards deck was complete again. When I found blogland, I realized that playing cards could be successfully used in crafts projects, so I kept this card for future use. I honestly find the Joker figure on this card completely hideous, but I guess that on the whole I managed to give this card enough beauty to enter the altered playing cards challenge at Theme Thursday.
This week's Mixed Media Monday challenge is to make something with rust.
I altered this chocolate box a while ago and I've been using it to keep cards and letters ever since. It's a hard plastic box and the top was transparent, so I started by coating it with Rembrandt's pearl green acrylic paint. Next I découpaged the napkin flowers and the Stamperia ducks on it. Then I applied Decoart/Rayher's Antique Medium I and II to obtain a crackling effect. For the rust effect I then used Ceramichrome Mineral Spirit Translucent Stain (MS1 Walnut). It was very dark and had a very heavy look, so I had to wipe off the excess rust and apply some white acylic paint to make it softer.
I had great fun making these for Make a Moo or Two. I have only one Mona Lisa stamp and it's actually quite large: it's 4''x3 1/2'' and it's part of the Jim Holtz collection for Stampers Anonymous. So instead of "Mona lisa and friends", I focused on the several faces and ages of Mona Lisa. From left to right I present you GreatgrandM(on)a, GrandM(on)a, Hippy Mona, Goth Mona and Sleeping Mona. :-)
Fairies is the theme at Small World of Inchies. I'm not sure, but I think the picture I used to make the inchies is from http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ (I downloaded it some time ago.)
(I uploaded two photos because neither the glitter in the inchie of the baby fairy nor the embossing effect of the white background paper were visible enough.)
