Love these little collages

I've probably said this already, but I'm having the best time working in the decos for the swap on NGS. I find these small collages great "block busters." I've been continuing to feel creatively stymied on some of my bigger projects, but these small collages help keep the creative juices at least flowing. Here are two sets I finished last night.

The pink/orange/green set uses Color Mists, various inks and stamps and an acetate overlay. Though you can't tell on the purple set, the left-hand panel is embossed and has a really nice sheen to it. The right-hand side actually has a tag with fibers and a starfish charm inserted into it.

Complementary Colors ATC Swap

These are going out to Annie in the U.K. I love comp colors, especially tertiary colors. Here I used red orange and blue green in oil pastels, a recent present.

Oil pastels are awesome. They go on so smooth and dense, and you can scrape them off to be as grungy as you want--my favorite part. The colors are highly saturated too.

The theme developed as I went: "time & tide."

Cheers Annie.

Shining Stones Backgrounds

The first "noise" challenge was Julia Andrus's "Shining Stones" background a la Trish Bee. It involves rainbow dye ink pads, glossy paper, mica pigments (I used Moon Glow w/ gum arabic for the binder), water, a heat gun and paper towels. For a how-to, please visit Trish's blog at
http://trishbee.co.uk/?p=309.

With the exception of the creole spice, which is a Kaleidocolor pad, I used Adirondack Big & Juicy rainbow dye ink pads. In order: Beach Comber with Moon Glow Fool's Gold; Waterfall with Pay Dirt Gold; Creole Spice with Fool's Gold; Hydrangea with Fool's Gold; and Tutti Frutti with Pay Dirt Gold.

This is an easy technique and the scans don't show the lovely gold shimmer.

Happy New Year

We just weathered a big storm here, intermittent power with lots of power outages around town, and no Internet access for three days. I've done a lot of tidying up and culling of stuff during this time, as well as lots of reading with the kids and just hanging out. It feels good to be a homebody after a very busy holiday season and being out of town. I am ready to start making art again!

On that note, I am posting here a few of the things I did at Christmas. I actually made few cards, but I did make ornaments and tags. Here are some ATCs made for a challenge on NGS, with images supplied by Trish Bayley.