Post Card Challenge at Artful Times

Over at the Artful Times the challenge is to make a postcard FROM Abroad.  I was wondering what to do and thought I would probably visit India and Paris. Guess what, Wendy had beaten me to it and those were the two countries she chose.  You really should give them a look, they are fabulous.

That put me in a quandary, what should I do?  China or Japan seemed to be the only alternative although I do have some stamps representing Thailand.  Then in a light bulb moment I remembered my African themed stamps and so I stamped and embossed these three bits of rubber.

Out came the Caran D'Ache and I coloured the images and then used my Pan Pastels to make the background colour as it was so boring in white.  This is on an actual postcard.

A rummage around and I found my Non Sequitur plate, deciding to use this handsome fella which is a masked affair.

The colours are not true, background is orange and black

I had not a clue what colour to use for whatever it is he is wearing so I put Non Sequitur Rubber Stamps in the search engine and came up with a website.  Went to their Gallery and then to 'Africa' and I got the surprise of my life when I saw the first card.  Follow this link and you can see what I found:

http://www.nonsequiturstamps.com/index.php?item=art-gallery-cards&action=page&group_id=42&lang=EN

Now why not go over to Artful Times and join in the fun, there is a monthly voucher for £10 for goods from my lovely friends at Oyster Stamps.  Be in it to win it!

A Postcard for Artful Times

Thanks for the lovely entries last week, once again we did enjoy visiting your blogs and hope you are enjoying the topics we have chosen so far.

Sam's choice again and this time she challenges you (and us) to make a postcard with Alphabet letters/script on it.

Not long ago I had sent some atc's off to different places in an atc swap I was in.  One of mine went to Finland and when I got one back from the lady there she had also included some pages with Finnish on, some lace (which I didn't use on this) and a piece of lovely card with rectangles on it.

Now at the same time I had come across this free stamp from a magazine that I had omitted to remove and it reminded me a little of the art dolls I had seen this lady make.  So here is my postcard for the challenge - a tribute to Tuire (Flemming), a delightful lady I met on WOYWW and with whom I had an atc swap.

First of all I cut myself a 6" x 4" piece of cardstock then a tiny piece off the rectangle card so that I could still keep the writing on the back of the left over piece.  Next  I began using my Distress Inks in shades of brown to cover the white card and let little bits overlap onto the  fancy card.  

I had already torn a tiny strip of paper with the writing on it and this was then adhered to the card and it got the treatment too with the Distress Inks.  Then a quick stamp of the lady's face, stick some letters on (that are relevant - see the "T" for Tuire) and cut out the stamp and postmark from the envelope that I received my atc in and it was almost ready.  Just a quick squirt of Glossy Accents on a couple of the Grungeboard letters and we were all finished.

Now what will you do for your postcard - you will enter our challenge won't you?  We'd love to visit you and leave a comment - btw - we love comments too.

The Hatters on Holiday

Over at Out of a Hat Creations the girls have got Postcards as the theme for their challenge this week.  Funnily enough at Victoria Stampers I issued a challenge of my own for members to make a postcard for us to swap the following month, which will be tomorrow. Not sure if we will be actually doing it as there are a lot of members on holiday but we will have to wait and see.  If not they can sit and wait for another month.  (That's the postcards, not the members) Anyhow, the Hatters spurred me on to think about my postcard (I am making it suffice for both) and here is mine.

Years ago I was really into doing Postcards for swaps and so I must have found a website that had lots of different styles for the back of them on it.  Luckily I copied them onto paper which I found a while ago and so I chose one with Asian writing on and decided to revisit my Asian stamps.  I love the one with the lanterns on, have four of the ones with the words on and always like the flying cranes so those were the three I chose - all mounted - so unlike me!

First of all I used Post-It notes to mask areas off and then proceeded to stamp the three images, then I went over them with Pan Pastels to create a background colour.  The one on the right I erased the clouds at the top to bring them back to white, then coloured the dragon and the two corner pieces in with my Caran D'Ache watercolour crayons. Did the same with the lantern image but left the cranes as they were.

I will write a little message on the reverse and probably pretend I am in Xian which was one of my favourite places when I was in China all those years ago.  One of my friends is going later in the year for her tenth (China - get it) anniversary.  Wish I was going with them but can't play gooseberry on an anniversary can I?

Anything Goes - Especially At This Time of Year

Yes, it is a five week month here on JFF so once again we have an Anything Goes.  No theme this week - just go with the flow.

If you can tear yourself away from the "scintillating telly" (I think I joke), the tin of chocolates, the mince pies and that yummy Christmas Cake that is left you can make something of your choice and enter it into our challenge this week.  Go on, you know you want to.

One of my friends is "Alice" mad, well as mad as I am about Alice themed things so when I got a Christmas card from her but forgot to give her hers in return (it wouldn't fit in the envelope and I was having one of those dilemmas so forgot to give it to her before she left) I didn't know what to do.  Too late to post (almost) so i sat down and made her this calendar.

Now another friend from Vicky Stampers had sent me a calendar postcard which gave me the idea - not entirely my own, in fact not my idea at all.  Here is mine

A magnet on the back and away you go.  Can be posted in time for New Year to those you missed.

Before I go, I do hope you all had a lovely Christmas.  I have several friends who had loved ones poorly, others who had unhappy memories from past years some who spent Christmas alone (their choice) so to them I just want to say "I was thinking of You".

Now to wish you all a Peaceful New Year - love to you all out there in cyberland.