Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 5

Hello and welcome back to another week of our Altered Playing Card Challenge

Can you believe we are already on week 5!!?? Wow! Time sure is flying by, it seems like we just began and now we are already on Month 2. 

If you have missed any of the previous weeks

Here are your links 

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4

and our Facebook page

Altered Playing Card Challenge Facebook Group

For this week I wanted to go beyond some of the bright colors and just use my acrylic paints and other techniques to create more of a muted background
For the first card, I chose three different colors of acrylic paints
Two shades of green and one shade of a peach color

I used the peach to color my entire background and let it dry thoroughly

I then used a stencil (by Memory Box) and taped it down over my card

I used some sponges and applied my two shades of green, using the lighter color first and overlapping with the darker color. This give my circles a lighted effect, you can almost see the background peach through the light green

This is how my background turned out, I love it!! 

I then took a sharpie marker and drew some lines on one side of my background

I then took my white gel pen and doodled some circles in the upper and lower corners, I went in later and added more

I then added a few dots of black acrylic paint, I just used the tip of my finger to add these dots, I like that the circles aren't completely symmetrical 

Lastly, I added some black acrylic paint lines here and there and also a piece of butterfly wash tape

For my focal point I used a Tim Holtz stamp called Winged Things 2, I don't have this entire stamp set just the boy
I stamped him and then embossed him with clear embossing powder. I then colored him with a combo of distress markers and copic markers and then cut him out

For my sentiment or "word" I used another Tim Holtz stamp and stamped onto scratch paper and then cut out the word "Imagination from the phrase

Here is my first finished Altered Playing Card

For my second card this week I wanted to do a collaged background so I grabbed a bunch of misc.. pattered paper

I chose the paper that I wanted for my background and tore some and cut some and started glueing it down 
This is what my finished background looked like

I then used some brown archival ink to go around the edges and background in order to blend the color a bit more. I also stamped a few number stamps onto my background with the same ink

For my "word" I used a stamp that said "dream" and stamped onto another piece of leftover torn paper, I used black archival ink for the word, I then went around the edges of that with the brown ink

For my focal point on this card I wanted to use another image of a child, so I found this card in my stash it's in the Found Relatives deck by Tim Holtz
You can also find an image from a magazine, book or use any old photo

I cut out one of the girls and used distress paint to color her dress, I simply watered down the paint and brushed it on and then wiped it off with a paper towel. Just so that there was only a bit of color. This way the color doesn't overwhelm the photo

This is what it looks like before you wipe it with the paper towel
If you don't have distress paint
I'm sure you can also use watered down acrylic paint too 

Lastly I used some die cut butterflies and colored them with coordinating archival inks and then stamped them with a word stamp

Once that was all done I simply glued everything to my background
I love how the girl looks on that collaged background and then the word "Dream" right up front there

Here are my two finished cards together

I hope that you have enjoyed today's cards. Have fun this week making your own, I always love to see what you all come up with.

I will have to update later with supplies for next week. 
** I apologize, I didn't get a chance to update with supplies last week. My Dad has been in the hospital and I just ran out of time.

We will also have another drawing this week, One person will win this prize pack

All you have to do to win:

1. Simply Leave a comment on this post
2. Be a follower of the blog
3. Be playing along and making your own Cards with the Altered Playing Card Challenge 

Good luck and have a wonderful week!!!

Playing Around

I was dabbling around in the craft room the other day and messing around with backgrounds and all that jazz. I decided that I wanted to make an ATC for the challenge over at Wicked Wednesday, they always have a fun challenge and this time it's all about "On The Playground"
I am in love with a stamp by Hero Art and everytime I get a chance to use it, I do. So I actually ended up using several Hero Art stamps for this ATC...

First think I did was colorize my background with Archival Ink  I used this light blue.

I then stamped my Hero Arts large background (love this stamp) with Archival black, I used Archival so that when I colored everything it would not run into my marker colors.

I used my Copics to color the background leaves and flowers, the Copics are great for this because they aren't water based they won't run

At this point I wanted to stamp the kids into the background behind the flowers so I needed to make a mask for the flowers.

I stamped onto scratch paper and cut out the flower portion to make a mask.

I then stamped my kids with Versamark ink and added black embossing powder and heat set

I love the way the kids just fall into the background, so cool.

I added the sun in the upper right corner with another Hero Arts stamp and yellow Archival Ink 

Thats it, this was an easy one with minimal steps but I love the outcome.

Thanks again for stopping by and be sure to check out the challenge at Wicked Wednesday

It's Been Awhile

Wow, sorry it's been awhile since my last post. I've been a busy bee. My craft room had to be all moved to make room for new carpet and then the landlord decided to cancel the appointment so I had to move everything back without any work being done.
It did give me a chance to organize a bit and get some things moved around like I have been wanting to do, so it wasn't all bad. 
I've also been running around trying to get tons of appointments done prior to our PCS move in June. My husband is in the Air Force and we are heading West to Colorado Springs in June, woohoo! I'm excited!

Today I only had a little time to create so I put together some quick Mother's Day cards. Like I said in a previous post, I have quite a few I need to make this year. 
I didn't do much of a tutorial but I will let you know what items I used and how these came together.

For these two cards I went with a sort of monochromatic color pallet. I was thinking shades of browns. 

I used some Stampin Up stamp sets that I have had for awhile and don't use enough. I should get those out more, they are stunning.
I also used my Tim Holtz Bigz Sizzix dress form die and stamped it with a LeBlanche word stamp and also edged it with distress Inks.
For the hummingbird card, I made a mask with the humming bird and stamped the hummingbird first, then simply put my mask over it and stamped the floral background. Easy peasy!
The butterfly is from Graphic 45 paper, simply cut out and the circle scroll is from a Hero Arts. (love those)
I also added some little gems to the card on the right to dress it up a bit more. 

The hummingbird was cut into four equal pieces to sort of create a window-ish display.

I am entering these two cards into the challenge #4 over at 

Hobby Cutz Challenge blog. This week they are challenging us to do something Monochrome. 

Thanks for coming by and checking out my cards. I will be back soon with more tutorials and projects. Now that my room is back together and organized! YAY!