Saturday's Workout

The challenge for Saturday's Workout is to use corrugated

cardboard. I used a scrap of it on this oddly shaped ATC.

Saturday's Workout -- Finally!

I'd been wanting to participate in Saturday's Workout all week. The challenge was to alter a bottle. I couldn't find a bottle initially and then when I did I was uninspired. It was also a very busy week getting ready for my first craft fair next weekend. But last night as I finished a Diet Snapple I noticed the unusual design on the bottle and thought how this was too pretty to just throw away. And that's how I arrived at this altered bottle. Which is just barely making it in time for the challenge, but that's okay.

Details: I altered this very easily by taping a portion of the bottle at the top and bottom that I didn't want to cover with alcohol ink. Then I applied some plum, blue and green alcohol ink which didn't turn out well. When I tried to take it off with the blending solution the glass just left a black color behind it. So I went with that and added some brown alcohol ink, creating a black and brown color scheme for the middle instead. I then removed the tape and added gold sticky-backed lace on the bottom and a gold rim around the top of the alcohol ink border. I had some gold stick-on embellishments from Prima which we got on the cruise, so I added four of them towards the top. Finally, I added a beaded embellishment which came with a ribbon on top that fit exactly around the opening at the top of the bottle. Added a gold ribbon and that was it!

Saturday's Workout

Saturday's Workout has a theme to alter an original postcard or photograph. I chose to alter this mini cabinet card I found recently -- already distressed for me with some obvious water stains on it.

SAWO - Art Journal

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I had a brand new art journal sitting by my craft table, something I had been meaning to give a try. Today's challenge at Saturday's Workout nudged me to create my first two pages.

I was hoping to capture some of what I'm feeling about my one and only child leaving home to move into his own apartment at the end of this month. Leaving the nest so to speak. My son is a runner -- he really never walked anywhere he could run.

So, therapeutic? Definitely. Fun? Very much so. Artistic.....well, not so sure about that.

Saturday Workout, Lots To Do & A Freebie

I was able to combine two challenges in one today. The Saturday Workout challenge had a theme of collage while the Lots To Do challenge called for using a face. My face is part of this image from Collage Visions.

The bicycle stamp is from Art Impressions.

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I recently thought I got quite a deal when I found an old French Composition book for less than a dollar in a thrift store. But I had another surprise when I thumbed through it and found somebody's bookmark -- this old bank receipt.

I'm offering it up to anybody that wants to copy it and use it-- enjoy!

Saturday Workout

I'm not the biggest technique junkie -- but I couldn't resist this super easy one they challenged us to use on Saturday's Workout. It's called the fossil stone technique and it produces a very cool background with minimal effort. There's a how-to link on the challenge site if you're not familiar with it.

I created an ATC with my background as well as a simple card for a male colleague. I was so thrilled to find an appropriate sentiment in my stash of old stamps to go along with this new Tim Holtz image of the man under an umbrella. I think it makes a great male encouragement card!

Saturday's Workout

I got inspiration from the challenge at Saturday's Workout for this card. They challenged us to use any number of resist techniques in our work. So I stamped my image with cranberry ink and then clear embossed it. I then used crumbled up plastic wrap to apply ink over the image and onto my paper. I guess that would count as a resist technique? Either way I was quite happy with the way this card turned out.

Yesterday our local stamp store had a HUGE sale. I shouldn't have been there:), but I was.

I found this bird in a frame from Crafty Individuals. I had admired this for a while, but since they are a company from the UK, I decided I would not order it on-line. I found out yesterday that Magenta (a Canadian company) is making some of their stamps and distributing them in the US. So it was affordable, it was on sale -- and I was happy to get it!

They also had a lot of their classroom stamps on sale and I bought a couple sheets of clear stamps for a great price. It doesn't bother me the stamps were a little dirty --- since I heard Tim Holtz does not clean his stamps, I don't get hung up over how clean my stamps are anymore:)

Finally!

I've created something with an Asian theme! After missing out on a couple of challenges because I had nothing Asian inspired with which to create, my friend Kris RAK'd me with these wonderful gifts. So I set out to create something for Saturday's Workout which challenged us to make something embossed. I thought I would do that using these Asian corner stamps which I embossed in gold. I also embossed my butterfly in gold as well as the background I created for this ATC.