Crazy Amigo - Splash

Here's my splash into 2009.

Wishing you all the very best of New Years.

Thank you for looking.

Sunday Postcard Art - Happy New Year

It's an open theme at Sunday Postcard Art this week so I thought I would take the opportunity to wish you all manner of good things for the New Year.

Elements used are courtesy of Pepeetje, EMS Arts and Graphics, Tartx and Irene Alexeeva. The air mail sticker I scanned from an envelope. Mabel of course is part of the family.

Fonts used are Optima and Persimmon.

Thank you for looking.

Thank God It's Friday - Mabel Gets a Social Life

A new social life for Mabel was not necessarily a good thing.

The Charlie Chaplin suit was Googled. Everything else courtesy of Irene Alexeeva. Mabel, of course, is one of the family.

Font : Sans stone

Mable Parties Her Way Through Christmas

The last I saw of Mabel she was having a wicked time celebrating the festive season.

Credit goes to 51291 for the handsome mask and hat. The background is made up of so many brushes I'm unable to name them, but say thank you for their use anyway.

The dress and stockings are my own design.

The font (much altered) is Chocolate Box.

Thank you for looking.

Nursery Rhymes

A new Quirkster Jane was the host for this week's Quirkle and she decided we should use a nursery rhyme, a piece of bling and a bird in our artwork.

Credit to Kubivet for the background, the altered moon and the blinged wings, MarialaFrance for the felt bird, and Mamacatscraps for altered crown. The 'Old Woman' is from my own photo collection.

Other bits were Googled.

Font : Chalkboard.

Sunday Postcard Art - Christmas

The theme is Christmas at Sunday Postcards this week so here is a Christmassy take on the challenge.

The lovely snow covered tree background (altered) is from a kit with the charming name of The Kiss of The White Princess by Glow Fairy Designs, the snowflake is courtesy of Elena Designs and the turquoise Christmas tree is from Kubivet.

Fonts used are Almonte Snow, Gang of Three, and Cantara Gotica.

Mixed Media Monday - Gold

I made this from Danielle Engebretson's December Doodles kit. The star I made myself.

Font : SpillMilk

Thank you for looking.

Simply Skinnies - Your Presents or Yor Life

Here's just a silly one for Christmas. I saw the pirate (Cardamome blogspot) and thought of this.

Credit also to FlashGraphics for the presents, BarbaraDerksen for the santa hat and the wonderful designers of the Neige Eternelle collab kit for all the snowy bits.

Fonts used were Snowshoe and Santas Sleigh

Thank you for looking.

A Moo Or Two - Alice In Wonderland

Alice In Wonderland is the theme at a Moo Or Two this week, and since I've just purchased a beautiful Alice Through the Looking Glass kit from Irene Alexeeva I couldn't wait to get started.

Having said that I've altered all the elements either by duplicating and blending, or recolouring to get a truly unique effect and then adding a final mosaic filter to the finished Moo.

Thank you for looking.

Artarazzi - Challenge 2

An excerpt from Mitch Albom's book The Five People You Meet in Heaven inspired this piece for Vron's second Artarazzi challenge.

Credit also to Outsider Artists for the image of the girl (altered) and to Kubivet for the window frame.

Font used is Stone Sans Semilta.

Thank you for looking.

Quirkle Challenge 67 - Mabel's Incredible Talents

Donna hosted the challenge this week and set us the task of using a timepiece, some glitter and some brush strokes to complete our Quirkle.

I had great fun and of course Mabel got involved.

Thanks go to Irene Alexeeva, 500 ml and Headley Designs for the elements and brushes.

Photograph is my own.

Font (much altered) is WhatsHappened.

Make A Moo Or Two - Christmas

GingerScraps provided these lovely elements for my inspiration for the Christmas theme at Make a Moo Or Two this week.

Art Creation Friday - Challenge 4 - Smoke and Mirrors

A really enjoyable challenge with plenty of scope for layer blending and filters, which I used liberally.

I duplicated the 'lady' layer, added a radial gradient overlay which I inverted, and gave it a hard mix blend.

At this point I flattened the layers and added a 'paint daub' filter.

The frame I also duplicated and then used a hard mix blend to get the coppery colour.

Thank you for the lovely image of the lady. The gold frame was courtesy of Numbumm.

Art on the Dark Side - Masks

Aah a lovely new challenge, a little bit on the dark side, with a theme of masks ..... Yaay I love it.

Well lookee here, I don't know where this came from but I did enjoy doing it. :O)

All images and bits of images (much altered) were Googled.

Theme Thursday - Mabel and the Perfect Present

Mabel saw her opportunity when she saw this week's circus theme.

The window is courtesy of Kubivet, the photos are my own and the bits and pieces were Googled.

Font : WhatsHappened.

Who will get those shoes?

Mabel and the Snow - A Quirkle Challenge

Donna chose the colour purple, a number or numbers and some dots to be used in our Quirkle this week.

As I've just made my first foray into making my own templates I thought the numbers should be used as templates, so that's how Mabel is looking out of number 25 and showing Albert the snow.

The background is courtesy of Can Designs, and the photos are from my own collection.

The fonts (much altered) are slugfest and WhatsHappened.

Frameworthy Challenge - In the Style of Randal Plowman

Each week at Scrapbook Graphics there is a challenge where participants try to emulate the style of a famous artists. This week it was Randal Plowman.

Completed entirely with brushes by 500ml in Photoshop.

Font : Copperplate Gothic.

Sunday Postcard Art - Fairies

This week's theme is fairies at Sunday Postcard Art.

I used Enchanted Forest Collab (designs by Vicki) to layer and blend a pink background paper and pink flower, and to get the lovely rich red I used colour burn. The word art I duplicated, then used multiply to give depth and richness. I added fairies, bubbles and cream flower, resizing as needed. Finally I added the child image from Christine Annette's Free Image stock and blended her into the two backgrounds to create an ethereal feel to the piece.

Gothic Arch - Trees

Trees is the theme at Gothic Arch this week.


I chose a festive slant on this and used Ginger Scraps' Whoville kit as it's so colourful and Christmassy.

Artarazzi - Challenge 1

Vron has given us the theme Beautiful for this her first challenge.

Here's mine and of course I added just a little twist.

Credit goes to Outsider Artists for the image of the girl, and to NumBum for all other elements.

The font is Skia.

Thanks Vron.

Theme Thursday - Children

This week at Theme Thursday the theme is Children.

I had lots of fun with layers and filters and this little girl from Art E Zine is busy imagining herself as a famous ballet dancer.

My own backgrounds and hat.

Font : Shoplifter.

Daily Art Stop - Dolls

My Mum often tells the story of when she was a child and two beautiful dolls came into the shops for little girls : one was the Princess Elizabeth doll, and the other was the Princess Margaret Rose.

Mum was a tomboy, but she said she wanted that Princess Margaret Rose doll soooo much.

Like lots of things in life though we don't always get what we want, and with a wistful look she tells me she never did get that doll.

So here's a Princess Margaret Rose doll Mum.

The frames are courtesy of KlarissH and the photographs are my own.

Font is Chalkboard.

Simply Skinnies - Party

Come and join us at Simply Skinnies where this week the challenge theme is Party.

I used balloons and happy birthday from Memories Made Easy, and the little girl from Art E Zines. The papers are my own.

Mixed Media Monday - Home Sweet Home

Marie has chosen the theme this week at MMM.

I used the shape of a house, overlaid this with a Christmas tree background paper from Kubivet which I reduced in opacity. I painted a blue background behind the house to give a demarcation between house and sky whilst keeping the tree background as part of the sky.

I added the vintage family, reduced opacity, then duplicated the layer and blended the layers using colour burn, to get a good deep, warm yellow highlight and bronze contrasts.

The heart is meant to represent the heart of a home, so the heart was layer blended using Difference and then moving it into the blue sky zone.

Finally I added my quote using Fonts : Actionis, BahiaScript, Burtons Nightmare and Almonte Snow. I chose the colour for the fonts by using the colour picker tool to pick up the shades of red/brown in the vintage photo.

To complete the look I gave a slight drop shadow to the text and a much larger one to the house to bring it away from the sky. And that's it.

Sunday Postcard Art - Winter Wonderland

I loved making this vintage winter wonderland postcard and used the image of the girl from Art E Zines as the centre piece.
I coloured the background with a pale tint to complement the dress, and added a winter overlay by BarbarDerksen. This I duplicated three times to get a good strong white. I added a snowflake from Boyerville Scraps, which I coloured white, again to get a good contrast to the background. Finally for a splash of colour I added the santa hat courtesy of Bannerwoman.

Thank God It's Friday - Games

I had so much fun creating this card for TGIF's game challenge.

Theme Thursday - Santa

Santa hard at work in this festive postcard for the Theme Thursday challenge.

All elements are courtesy of Janniscrap Designs.

Daily Art Stop - Mermaids

I thought this little lady looked like she ought to be in a mermaid kind of film.

Credit to Art E Zines, SailorAndLula and Kubivet.

Fonts : SpeedballNo3 and WhatsHappened.

Crazy Amigo - Hands

Well, sometimes I don't know where these come from, but hey, hands it is.

Credit to Art E Zines for Mabel.

Font is SpeedballNo3

Mixed Media Monday - The Eyes Have It

Bev is guest hosting the challenge this week and she says 'the eyes have it'.


Credit to Lisbonlionness and Aprilmouse.

Fonts : Ransom, Monaco, Stone Hinge and Slugfest.

Nursery Rhymes

Well it was my turn to host the Quirkle this week, and I decided on

1 A nursery rhyme or children's story for inspiration
2 A splash of blue
3 Postcard size

The 'hill' (altered) is courtesy of Madam Mim, the crown (altered) from Fantacy blogspot, other bits were Googled.

Font : Mayfield.

Art Creation Friday - Amber

Yipee there's a brand new challenge at Art Creations Friday.

Credit goes to Art Creations for the lady (altered), to Aprilmouse for the flower, and to those talented ladies down under at Numbum for the gold frame.

Scrap Artist - Altered Jigsaw Puzzle

As it says, a day trip to the seaside, done for the weekly challenge at Scrap Artist. It's probably about 1956 and the place is likely to be Blackpool and we would have travelled by coach. Ahh happy days.

The backgrounds and small puzzle pieces are courtesy of Aprilmouse. The puzzle template is Sue Jones at Scrap Artist and the photo is one from my own collection.

Font : Lucinda Handwriting.

Make A Moo Or Two - Pets

At Make a Moo Or Two this week the theme is pets.

This little girl was never allowed a pet but no matter her rocking horse was always her best friend.

The little girl is courtesy of Art E Zines. The rocking horse comes from a colouring book.

Font : Inkburrow

Thank God It's Friday - Vintage

Nellie is hosting the TGIF challenge this week and she's chosen Vintage as her theme.

This inspired me to make a postcard using old family photos of our holidays just after the war. Yep that's me sitting on my Grandma's knee. And yes, one of those ladies is my Grandma with her dress tucked up so she could have a paddle.

Background from lisbonlionness, other photos are my own.

Fonts : Handwriting Dakota and Kleinslabserif.

Couch Potato - DAQ Stock Photo Challenge

Ozstuff hosted the stock photo challenge at DAQ this week and she chose the sofa by Kiamedia at Stockxchnge to be our inspiration.

Here's what I was inspired to do.

The vintage backgrounds and the brooch are courtesy of JulieO on her blogspot, Lady Alice and the bottom half of the couch potato are from my own photograph collection.

The font is Fontdinerdotcom Loungy.

Crazy Amigo - Moon

The moon is the theme at Crazy Amigo this week.

Maude and Harold spend the evening gazing at the moon in the hope they will find romance.

Credit to Aprilmouse for the backgrounds and the moon base (all altered), photograph my own.

I'd Rather Have Roses - Quirkle 63

Sue Jones is hosting the Quirkle at DAQ this week. She asked participants to

1 use part or all of a quote : I'd rather have roses ...........
2 something feminine
3 something to show love

Love and femininity were in short measure in mine I'm afraid as the emancipated lady wanted to be centre stage.

Credit to Simka blogspot for the lace and diamonds, Art E Zines for the lady, and the lips were Googled.

Fonts : Chocolate Box, Hootie, Black Widow, Missaluncialebricks, and Isle of the Dead.

Think Monday Think ATC - Food

Mabel and Arthur go shopping, an ATC for the TMTA theme of food.

The Mabel and Arthur photo is my own and the sweeties and jar are from ScrappinCop.

Fonts are Decaying Kuntry, Dirt Font, Elise, FG Albin and Doodolonomy Fred.

I applied filters to achieve a poster effect.

Sunday Postcard - Hats

Mabel likes to dress up and 'posh' hats are her favourite indulgence.

Mabel (not her real name - changed to preserve her good character) is one of my own photographs, the background and wings are Kubivet, whilst the regal hat was Googled.

Fonts used were Cantara Gotica, Decaying Kuntry, FG Adrian, Giddyup Std and Handwriting Dakota.

Gothic Arch - Yuletide Blessings Contest

A gothic arch submitted for the Yuletide Blessings Contest across at Gothic Arches.

Credit to DerekMDesign for One Night and Andrea Boyer for Christmas Around the World.

Font is Holy Cow.

Crazy Amigo - Blue and Red

The theme this week at Crazy Amigo is Red and Blue.

Credit to Winterling, Krimeboy and Penywise for the altered backgrounds, Skol22 for the map, Fenix for the flag, and Svilen for the skull (all altered), all from Stockxchnge. The hat and patch were courtesy of Google.

Thank God It's Friday - Hats

The theme is hats at Thank God It's Friday this week and mine is a mixture of hat and mask.

The mask is courtesy of Superstock.com, the crown and the girl were Googled. The dots and stripes are my own.

Love Story

Sue hosted the stock photo challenge at DAQ and she set the challenge for quirksters to use this face in a layout.

Flower courtesy of KlarrisaH, face from Thanx at Stockxchnge, and Leonardo and Mona were Googled and (altered).

Quirkle Challenge - It's Down Below

Helen is hosting the Quirkle challenge at Digital Art Quirks this week where she asked us to use 1) a map, 2) a clue, and 3) treasure in our layout.

Credit to Sailor and Lula for the chest, the map is courtesy of Google and the photo is my own.

Font : Doodolonomy Fred.

Stock Photo Challenge - Mabel's Euphoria

The stock photo challenge at Digital Art Quirks was hosted this week by Laurel, who chose a Saw to inspire her fellow Quirkers.

Mmmm!

The elements and backgrounds (all altered) were courtesy of Kubivet. Art E Zines provided Mabel, and the Saw was by Sundstrom at Stockxchnge.

Font : Kathleen.

Make A Moo Or Two - Paris

At Make A Moo Or Two this week the theme is Paris.

Credit to Molgokon, Createsima and Gundolf for the stock photos from Stockxchnge (altered. layered and filtered).

Mamma's Monday Musings - Remembrance

Remembrance is the theme at Mamma's Monday Musings ATC challenge this week.

Casualties of the Somme.


Credit to Aprilmouse for the poppies and field. The photo is my own.

Arty Girlz Challenge - Hand Drawn

The theme at Arty Girlz this week is to add an hand drawn element.

As I'm not very competent at drawing with a mouse, my element is the arrow.

Credits : The eye, hair and Mona (altered) were Googled. The glasses and mouth (altered) are Stockxchnge. Clocks (altered) and arms and legs are courtesy of Kubivet.

Font : Hopscotch Plain.

Simply Skinnies - Hearth and Home

The theme is Hearth and Home this week at Simply Skinnies, and now that I've eventually retired there is definitely no place like home for me.

Credit to Kubivet. Photo is my own. Font is Hopscotch Plain.