The old oak tree

 International Art & Soul, a challenge which has been put together to incorporate any type of craft, paper, wood, flowers, recycling, glass - the world is your oyster :).  Come on over an join us with you artwork :)

Challenge #21
AUTUMN COLOURS

A simple but effective creation.  I was in the mood for stamping a silhouette image and have had this Sheena Douglas stamp for a while and not used it so today it saw the light of day.  I know I said simple but the trials and errors I had making the background ended up taking me a good 2 hours lol.  I first tried on some stamping card I got on my holidays down under several years ago (with being a useless stamper I hardly used this rather nice card so most of it has spent the last 7 years hiding away).  Anyway, one side of the card is shiny and the other matt and I had no idea which side to use.  Opting for the shiny side I set to work with distress inks and WOW what a result, mega interesting.  Then came the stamping and using a stamping tool to get everything position just right I moved on.  Grrrrrr, the shiny side of the paper kept sticking to my stamp and pulling it off the stamping too.  First attempt in the bin.  Then I tried again and I have no idea what I was playing at but that ended up in the bin too.  They do say 3rd time lucky and using my cheap white card I stopping trying to be so careful I succeeded.  So simple in reality and without the hiccups I would agree.  With such a beautiful tree and the vivid autumn colours I decided on the most minimum of embellishments, 3 black gems, just could not resist putting them on hahaha.  

Challenges entered:-

• Allsorts  W,3E  - Colours of Autumn
• Crafty Calendar M,3E November  - Autumn Colours
• Quick Quotes - M (First Friday of the Month), E1, SIO - November - No. 81 - Fall Colors
• Moving along with the Times 2W,3E #58 Trees (W1 of 2)
• Tic Tac Toe Challenge - W, E3 - #23Tic Tac Toe*
• Artistic Stampers (M, P1, E3, must use rubber stamp) November - Use a Quote
• The Crafty Addicts M, 3E, #41 - Anything Goes Autumn Colors
• Double D Challenges - 2W, 1st /3rd Wed of M, E3 - Fall/See Mood Board* (W2 of 2)
• Shopping Our Stash W, C13 - #328 Autumn Color Challenge*

Pocket Watch

Time for another challenge over at

IKEsWORLD

Anything Goes

Welcome back to the IKEsWORLD challenges :)  I think we are all refreshed after our Summer break - wow that went a bit fast, seems like only the other day I was posting my DT creation for IKEsWORLD.    Pop on over to IKEsWORLD to join in the challenge, just remember, you must use and IKEsART image to be eligible for the prize.  Why not pop on over to the store, Ike produces the most amazing stamps, everything from off the wall to cute and fluffy :) :) :)

An Anything Goes challenge is certainly a challenge for a silly brain like mine, so many ideas I get throughly confused and flustered.  Now, for some reason, this came together perfectly for me hahahahaha as I have made myself a 'tic tac toe' die which fits snuggle in a box.  The next time my silly brain gets lost in the land of what to do for an Anything Goes challenge I will take out my die, roll it and then use the 'tic tac toe' grid which lands uppermost to get me going.

I do need to apologise here, rather a lot of pictures taken to show you what I did.

To begin with I chose to work with the image 'Pocket Watch' for no other reason than I felt like using it.  Now that is not the best starting point for me in an Anything Goes and I normally end up making a card.  However, out of the blue lightening struck and the Anything Goes die was born.

To begin with I cut a cube template and then airbrushed it with two shades of green Promarkers.  Next I got brave and rubber stamped a fab clock stamp I recently got.

Fingers crossed as I assembled the box - brill, it went together like a dream.

Next job was to print the tic tac toe grids I had made, one for each side of the die and also print the digi.  Everything was airbrushed in the same way as the die.

With the inside box (dice) done I created a second box a little bigger to hold the dice in.  Again it was airbrushed and then rubber stamped.

Time to test - would it all fit - yes it did, a big sigh of relief.

Finally onto colouring the digi, I used gold shades of my Promarkers and a gold pen.  The sentiment around the digi was digitally created by, well I think you can guess hahahaha  To give a gold sheen to the digi topper I sprayed Crafters Companion Gold varnish - my favourite purchase, wish I had bought two tins as I don't this one is going to last me a whole year here in Saudi.

 Promarkers used.

Almost there - time to embelish the outer box.  I used tiny purple, green and light green gems around the hour points on the clock faces then added clock hand dies, part of an X-Cut set.  Some black lace to finish things off and . . . .

here you go - done at last, I just love the vintage look of this box.

Ingredients:-

• Digi - Pocket Watch by IKEsART
• Promarkers
• Gold varnish spray
• Lace, gems and gold pen from my stash

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-

• Clear It Out W, 3E, Must use stash item - Challenge Theme: Anything Goes Stash: Anything Goes (LACE + GEMS FROM STASH)
• Craft Room Challenge 2W, 3E - Something Old, Something New (Week 1)  
• Just Inspirational Challenges W, 3E – Vintage
• Through The Craft Room Door W, 2E - Always Anything Goes
• All Crafts Challenge - 2M, 1st Monday of the month every other month, NO CARDS - (Aug/Sept) Anything but a Card
• Crafting from the Heart - W, E3 - Always Anything Goes
• Digi Makeover Challenge - W, SIO, must use digi - Anything Goes + GD Call
• Addicted to Stamps - 2W, must use stamp- #86 Pastels, Soft Colors
• Hobbycutz -W, 3E, SIO -  #62 Use No White
• Robyn`s Fetish - W - #227 Use a Digi
• Brown Sugar – W, E2 - No. 109 - Anything Goes
• Frosted Designs Friday Challenge - 2W - (W1 of 2) - Include Stamping
• 4 Crafty Chicks - W Something New/Something Old (OLD = die for cutting clock hands, NEW = clock rubber stamp)