UK Stampers ATC Swap - March

I was in the mood for something a little lighter in tone after a few rather heavy and serious pieces of work and this month's ATC swap on the UK Stampers forum fitted the bill nicely. I have the perfect owl themed stamp and die set and present (drumroll) Woohitney Hootsun with her classic song 'Owl Always Love You'. OK sorry but how could I resist?
The background is DCWV patterned paper with my favourite KTZ text stamp, a few orange blobs with a Uni Posca pen and some tea dye DI. Woohitney is stamped in Archival teal and has googly eyes. I've used a piece of fabric tape for her to perch on.

Quotes & Lyrics - Road

Firstly let me thank everyone for their kind thoughts after the death of my Father-in-Law. He was 90 and died peacefully which I guess is all you can ask for.
This fortnight's words are art and road. I had a lot of road songs in mind - 'the Road to Hell' by Chris Rea, 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' by Elton John plus a few others. I decided on the Bob Dylan classic 'Blowin' in the Wind' . The segment I've chosen is I believe a protest against the racism that was prevalent at the time.  I made a paper mask to create a road and used scattered straw DI over a trellis effect stencil ( a nod to the yellow brick road). For the rest of the background I used shaded lilac, peacock feathers and picked raspberry DIs and then Brilliance starlite black over a swirl stencil to represent the swirling wind. I stamped umbrella man on some scrap card and added him to the road. The strips of tape which I bought thinking they were washi are in fact fabric.
I'm looking forward to seeing all your entries.

Quotes & Lyrics - Age

I am sorry I was unable to visit anyone's previous entries for the Quotes and Lyrics Challenge but I've been away and we had to postpone our return due to a death in the family. This might go some way towards explaining the subject matter of my entry for this fortnight's challenge. Marriage and age were the 2 words we had to choose from. There has been a lot of publicity recently regarding the centenary of the start of the First World War and I remembered part of the poem 'For The Fallen' written by Robert Laurence Binyon which is quoted as part of the Remembrance Day ceremonies.

'Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.'

The image is of one of the British war cemeteries in France. I wanted to keep the background colours light and used wild honey and spiced marmalade DIs with a small crackle stamp. The sunrays are a Craft Concepts embossing folder coloured with watercolour pencils and the punched sun reminds me of the sunsets I saw last week in Mumbai when the sun resembled a vivid orange ball gradually falling into the sea. The poppies are from a stamp set I bought from Lakeland many years ago, coloured with Coloursoft pencils.
Edited to add: I've added some birds to the page (Crafty Individuals) which I had thought of initially but forgot to do before scanning last night. I wanted to represent the souls of the dead flying free .

Quotes and Lyrics - Strong

A quick entry from me for this fortnight's quotes & lyrics challenge on the Craft Barn blog and the 2 words are 'strong' and 'miss'. I went with 'strong' and the lyrics from an old Labi Siffre song 'Something Inside So Strong'. With the recent start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi I was reminded of the wonderful summer of 2012 when the Olympics were held in London. The Paralympic Games have especially stayed in my memory and so I decided to feature one of our gold medal winning paralympians - Jonnie Peacock as a representative for all those athletes who gave me so much pleasure. The image I've chosen needs the viewer to look very carefully before  noticing that he only has 1 complete leg because in all other respects he is a fantastic athlete.
The words, for those that can't decipher my handwriting, read:

'The higher you build your barriers

The taller I become.

The farther you take my rights away

The faster I will run.

You can deny me

You can decide to turn your face away

No matter 'cause there's

Something inside so strong

I know that I can make it'

This is a very simple page, in order for the words to shine through. I used a stencil and rusty hinge DI for the brick wall, added a salty ocean DI sky and the Olympic motto translated as 'Swifter, Higher, Stronger'.
In addition to the version by Labi Siffre I've linked above, I also like this version by Lira.

Scatter Joy

I am slowly emerging from my germ-filled fug and returning to the devastation that is my workdesk. I am not quite back into the swing of things and have spent a few hours at my desk doing ... well absolutely nothing productive. Just mooching on websites (yes Pinterest I blame you). I decided to grab a stamp set and use it to make whatever. The set I grabbed was Hero Arts' flower garland which was good because I was in the mood for some easy colouring. I decided to add Stampotique's moongirl - she seemed to fit nicely nestled into the flowers. The card is a tent fold with the image standing proud of the card base. I wanted bright, sunny colours to cheer myself up and hopefully the recipient will be cheered up by it as well.

Card Inspiration

Sorry this picture is even more rubbish than usual but it wouldn't scan properly because the stamped panel is raised on foam pads and the light is too dim for a decent photograph but you get the idea.
I am a regular visitor to Susan Raihala's blog Simplicity. I love her very clean and simple cards which nevertheless have had so much thought put into them. She explains design ideas which are new to me in a way that makes them easy to understand. Last week I noticed this card on her blog and it inspired me to try something similar. I used flowers from 2 different Hero Arts sets and Versafine habanero. The sentiment is from a See D's set. Looking at it objectively I think the sentiment needed to be a little larger to balance the flowers on the left hand side but my larger sentiments were too large so I went with what I had.

New Month

Another month from Mary Anne's printables.