Katzelkraft February Challenge

Sorry it's a rubbish pic. The challenge on the Katzelkraft forum is to make a card or tag with an element that sticks out of the confines of the card/tag (it sounds so much better in French). I decided to combine this with the Tim Holtz tattered floral challenge.
The base is black card with Katzelkraft's wood background stamp and Brilliance pearlescent orchid(have you tried the Brilliance pearlescent colours on black?). I cut a full set of flowers from Tim Holtz's tattered flowers die in pink card, black music printed card, vellum and Black Magic pink Core'dinations. The pink flowers were edged with spun sugar and worn lipstick DIs, the vellum was embossed with a stained glass effect folder and the black core'dinations were embossed with a swiss dots folder and sanded to reveal the pink core. All the flowers were curled or shaped and then I mixed the different elements up to make the flowers. For the stylised stem I cut a flourish from Tim Holtz's elegant flourishes and coloured it with Brilliance pearlescent lime. The tiny flowers are from a retro punch. The tag was edged with a Uni Posca pen and I added some pink organza ribbon stamped with the word bloom in Stazon cactus green.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - H

The fourth letter for the Craft Barn Alpha Challenge is H. I did want to do House/Home but then I spotted Haiku while leafing through the relevant section of my dictionary and my choice was made. This haiku is one of the most well-known in Japan.  It was written in 1686 by Matsuo Basho, a famous haiku poet. I decided to keep to an oriental theme and used some of my beautiful washi paper to make a tiny origami frog and to frame the computer generated texts. The BG is made with a dragonfly stencil, sequin waste and various sprays. I used teardrop shaped gems to give the illusion of a splash in the pond (salty ocean DI).  As well as the Japanese script  I have given a translation and in the bottom right corner I have written roughly how the poem sounds.
Now that I've finished my entry I can come over and see all the beautiful interpretations of your chosen words.
Edited to add: I'm sorry that I am unable to comment on Facebook entries or log in to comment on Yahoo/ Flickr accounts.

Tim Holtz Tag February

So it's February and inevitably the theme for Tim Holtz's tag is Love (am I getting too old and cynical?). I used barn door and fired brick DIs on the tag and splattered some water over, then distressed the edges and added some Adirondack black. The BG was stamped with a KTZ and a Stampington stamp. The queen of hearts is a stamp from the Non Sequitur plate every woman is a star. I stamped it with Adirondack red pepper and an extra body in Impress cerulean blue. The hearts were sprinkled with glitter and her face coloured with coloursoft pencils. I used some black colour core cardstock to emboss the hearts and the word love and sanded them. The charm is a CB die cut in silver card with a punched circle, computer generated text and a dome sticker. I didn't have any baker's twine so I made my own by wrapping some plain twine around a ruler and then drawing lines along it with a marker pen (I saw this idea on the net somewhere but can't remember where). The tissue tape ribbon is about the only thing that I could do according to Tim's instructions.

LIM 105

This week's challenge on the Less Is More blog is kraft and cream (sorry but I can't bring myself to spell cream with a K). I scored a line along each edge of the kraft blank. The cream is a book page which has yellowed with age. I used it to cut the bird and branch with a Marianne die. The sentiment is one I just received in a grab bag. A very quick and simple card from me this week.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - E

This fortnight's alpha challenge on the Craft Barn blog is E. I looked through the e  section of the dictionary searching for suitable words - experience, elephant, egg. Eye was on the last page and I knew it was the one. I blanked out the non-eye related words but wanted to keep all the eye derived words visible in some way. I just received the TH spring DIs this morning so I had to use them - squeezed lemonade, shaded lilac and peacock feathers. I applied them randomly with cut n' dry foam and then used a brayer with rubber bands on with the lilac DI. I randomly added a small non sequitur crackle stamp with the peacock DI. The face and eye stamps by Hampton Arts are stamped in Archival grape. The butterfly is also by Hampton Arts coloured with Coloursoft pencils and Sansodor, stuck to the page with foam pads so that it looks like it has just landed (this stamp always freaks me out a bit). The text is by Paper Artsy. I added 2 butterfly eyelets to finish.
Thank you for all your kind comments. This is all quite new to me but I am enjoying myself tremendously.

Katzelkraft Technique - Feb

I've just started re-reading Nancy Curry's great book Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping so it was fortuitous that this month's Katzelkraft technique challenge is resist. I stamped a Hero Arts dragonfly several times with Versamark and clear embossed them. Then I used Impress inks in lemon yellow, chartreuse, spring green and emerald over the card. I stamped the dragonfly again with spring green near the embossed images and added some Katzelkraft splatters in lemon yellow. The small dragonflies are punched shapes and the white border is the waste from the Memory Box die I used here.

Katzelkraft Inspiration - Feb

 

The Katzelkraft forum which I participate in has started a series of monthly challenges. I don't know how many I will do but I do enjoy taking part and using my not-so-great French.  For this challenge we had to take inspiration from the object pictured below. The whales suggested a marine theme so I used this KTZ seashell stamp which tied in with the circles as well. I used a similar blue to the bag (Impress cerulean blue) and added white highlights. I embossed a card blank with a Crafts Too folder (spots & dots) and coloured in some of the dots.