Watercolor Flower Fun

I've been following action over at the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 3 even if I haven't had the time to participate in all of Linda Ledbetter's and the Curosity Crew's calls to action. Beautiful work - be sure to check out the site if you haven't already.

We're using Tim Holt'z third book of techniques....cleverly entitled Compendium of Curiosities 3! These books are just great - overflowing with inspiring ideas. This time the challenge was Distress Watercolors. I just had to play along!

As you can see I went with a floral theme. Each of the flowers used a minimum of three of the distress markers on each of the paper flowers. I remember the first time I tried this technique; I felt like I was actually painting! If you haven't tried it, get your hands on the book, and turn to page 39 and 40 for a full description from Tim.

I layered the paper colored flowers with some metal flowers (an inspiration from Hels Sheridian, a member of the Curiosity Crew, who used metal flowers on her piece). I love the contrast in texture of metal and paper but wanted to mix it up a bit from Hels, so I  colored them with alcohol inks and/or distress embossing powder.

Other bits of using the magic of Distress with water include the ribbon colored with inks, and the second background. For that - I used the cute little mini distress inks on an embossing folder, misted with water and embossed. LOVE this process. Thank you Paula Cheney for that idea.

Okay - one thank you card done, only about 10 more needed!! 

WOYWW #223....or Look, There's Grass

Howdy Folks!

It seems that one of my pictures actually shows one of our accomplishments this summer - grass!

I snapped this because it shows what a terror my window sill has become...but I did have to brag on the grass just a bit. We spent many months looking at rocks, so we are much happier now! But why, you ask am I showing you my desk extension at all? Well, it WEDNESDAY!! The day I kind of wonder how much fun it would be to live in England, with Julia and Jan, and many other lovely ladies live who craft, and sew and create. Each Wednesday, Julia provides us with an opportunity to  link together, literally around the world to share our work spaces. So from Alaska to the United Kingdom, to the Netherlands to S. Africa I go looking about. 

This is considerably cleaned up from this morning. I took a day off work (shhhhhhh) and three hours at home and then packed up and headed off to a friend's house where we spent a lovely, lovely afternoon creating and crafting.  Alas, she is leaving for a few months, but we are already planning our December day!

One of the accomplishments of the day was to finish the major project for an upcoming class at the Stamp Cache. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out - wish the wooden leaves on the right were a tad lower, but hey they aren't so we're just all going to have to live with it. Please note I immediately lost the washer for the second screw. Oh well. Perfection is so boring. 

Totally love the raven stamp! Ravens are everywhere in Alaska. They certainly have my admiration. I don't know anything else that can land on a metal lamppost in 70 below zero weather  or -56 Celsius). It's pretty damn impressive. Plus in Southeast Alaskan mythology,  the Raven is mixed in most everything. You will find him appearing in one form or the other. He was legendary, talented, full of magic, benefactor, bringing good will or casting an evil spell. Pretty cool bird. A big shout out to Paula Chaney, who totally came up with the grid idea for the burlap piece. 

I absolutely love the colors of fall - there are so many of them!!  Hope wherever you are has lots of what you like!