Time Flies when you are having Fun

I can't believe that I have already completed 38 days of the ICAD challenge. 

Then again I can't believe 2016 is more than half way over. My parents always said that time flies the older you get but this is just crazy.  And why does it happen???

Well, here are my cards from the past week. And let me tell you, some of these prompts did absolutely NOTHING for me!!!

Like this one...

Day 32: Zodiac

It took me most of the day to force myself to sit down and do something. (and I didn't do much lol)

The goat is drawn with pencil and colored Inktense pencil. 
Capricorn is stamped with black StazOn ink using the Close To My Heart Circus Alphabet set.


Day 33: Magic

The rabbit, hat, cards and wand were colored with Inktense pencils. The table and background were watercolor pencil.

I like this one. As soon as I saw the prompt I knew I wanted to draw a bunny. :-)


Day 34: Statue of Liberty

Since I am still trying to teach myself how to draw chibi characters Lady Liberty just came out that way lol

The outlines are Sharpie fine point pen (not the markers, these have a slim body and super fine point). 
Color was added with Inktense pencils.


Day 35: Sunflower

Drawn with Sharpie black pen. Colored with Inktense pencils. Sunflower was written with a Cricut calligraphy pen.


Day 36: Prism  (another boring prompt lol)

I had no idea what to do so went very literal (and boring). I have to say I do like the vibrant colors. I used Cray-Pas oil pastels and blended them with my fingers. Very messing, very pretty lol


Day 37: Meditation

I don't meditate and this card shows why. 
I start out with good intentions everything as it should be and soon my mood goes to black as the cat is howling out in the kitchen, I am thinking I need to get dinner on the stove or I start thinking about work....  I am much better off locking myself in my art room and grabbing a pencil or some paint! lol



Day 38: Folk Art

Wow! I thought I would just whip out a folk art flower in a couple minutes and be done. They used to take me no time at all. BUT that was over 30 years ago!

It is hard to believe that this was the craft painting style of the 80s. I don't think I have seen it since. But I still have a couple painting books on my shelf so I hauled one down and gave it a go. 

It isn't great (after 3 attempts! lol) but it will do.

Painted with acrylics (that I still have from the 80s lol)

So that covers all my cards for the week.

But I also did a vinyl project this week.  :-)

I love yard sales, You can find the oddest things. Like a couple months ago I scored a box of at least 50 glass baby food jars with metal lids for $1.

I had no use in mind other than maybe sorting and storing beads or something but everyone on the Let's Learn Cricut Explore facebook group has been making fairy jars.

I am not into fairies, although I do like Tinkerbell, so I hadn't jumped on that bandwagon.
Not until someone posted a Mermaid jar. Now there is something I can get into :-)

I cut the vinyl pieces with my Explore. A mermaid lounging on the sea floor, a couple fish, a sea shell and a sea star. They were applied to the inside of the jar.

I did not have any colored tissue paper so I made my own. I spritzed some tissue paper with water and then with Dylusions Ink spray. Voila! Colored tissue paper. I then dried with it my heat gun and then sprayed it with Krylon Workable Fixatif so the color wouldn't bleed when I glued the tissue to the jar.

I used Mod Podge to glue the tissue.
I then sprayed the metal lid with Rustoleum white metal primer, let it dry then dabbed on alcohol inks.

Just a piece of jute tied around the top and some sand glued to the bottom with Tacky glue.

I have a tiny battery tea light inside.  I think it turned out cute. 

That about covers it for this week.

Stay cool and dry. Happy Crafting!!!

Half Way!

I can't believe it! We are already half way through the Index Card a Day challenge!

I am still on track and having fun.  :-)

Here the my cards from this past week.

Day 26: Space Invaders

I have to admit, I played a lot of video games as a kid. Atari had just come out and my dad was just as hooked as us kids so we had ALL the games!  Space Invaders was NOT one of my favorites. I always lost...and the sound was so annoying!!! lol  I didn't even like it in the arcade! 

I had to really think about what I would do for this card (since the prompt was a game I thoroughly disliked lol)

So I created a real space invasion. The landscape is the Table Rocks in southern Oregon. :-)

This was done with a mix of watercolor, Inktense and Prismacolor pencils.


Day 27: Motel

Sheesh!  I told you last week we had some real duds coming up lol

Talk about zero motivation.....that is what this prompt was doing for me. 
I normally work on my cards right after I get off work. Not this one, I was scrambling right before I went to bed trying to come up with something!

I have no idea where in my brain this crawled out of but here it is! lol

A mix of Inktense and watercolor pencils.


Day 28: Dog and/or Cat

Well duh! CAT!

I love when I have a reason to use Tucker as my model (not that I really need a reason) :-)

Inktense pencils.

I always say Tucker was incredibly intelligent. When the temperatures began creeping up we would always find him lounging on the hearth. One foot draped over the edge looking very nonchalant.

His face isn't exactly how I would like but the card was beginning to disintegrate so I had to stop lol

See, just lounging and keeping cool.  Kitty never understood it. He would give Tucker the funniest looks like "what the heck dude, those bricks are hard" as he was panting and drooling lol


Day 29: Aqua or Pool

Ok, Aqua is one of my favorite colors....but to just create 'aqua'? Nothing was coming to mind so I went another direction.

Pool! lol

This was done with Prismacolor pencils.


Day 30: Trivial Pursuit

Ok, hubby did not 'get' this one at all.  Now I have to say, somewhere out in storage, I have one of the first Trivial Pursuit games. We played it all the time. And I know it referenced the game pieces as 'pie'. But when you view the current rules online they refer to them as 'wedges'. How boring is that?

Anyway, I still call them pie....thus my card lol

This was done with Inktense and watercolor pencils.


Day 31: (July 1st)  One Hundred

I have a feeling that the general idea was to have a hundred of something but that just isn't me. 

I read the prompt and immediately thought Winnie the Pooh.
I went for the classic Pooh and Piglet using Inktense pencils. I laid down so many layers of color that the index card is pilling up and disintegrating in spots...too bad, I would have liked to add more to some areas. 

Prompt 32? Zodiac....yuk! Thankfully I don't have to think about that until tomorrow. :-)

And believe it or I did something besides index cards this week! lol

I have gone back to trying to learn how to draw Chibis and Manga.
I found some awesome videos on YouTube by Mark Crilley. 
I like his style and find his sense of humor hilarious.

Have a fabulous weekend and a safe and Happy 4th! 

Twice in One Week?

Yep, I am back already!  :-)

I thought I would share a couple more projects I found on my camera and also a work in progress. 

The Bad Babies had a tag swap in July. We could submit either 3 or 6. I struggled to find ideas for 3. No way was I going to make to six!

Above are my 3 tags.
As you can see I included one of my chibis. What can I say, that is what I am focusing on right now lol

I used alcohol inks for the background then did a gel medium transfer for the eyes.

Tag #2 was Gelli printed I then added images of day lilies and a Victorian woman.

And lastly, I spritzed a tag with Dylusions sprays, I then painted a peacock feather with acrylics. Next came a gel transferred peacock then a definition of peacock from an antique dictionary. Finally another spritz of Dylusions.

I really struggled with these but I am pleased with the final products.

I told you I am obsessed with Chibis...well maybe I didn't say 'obsessed' but I think I am!

Here is one of my cards from the ICAD challenge. The prompt was Disco.

I think he was the first boy I drew. (I have only drawn maybe 2 or 3 since....boys are yukky lol)

And my sister, seeing all the projects I post on Facebook, asked me to draw her dog and my other sister's cat together (even though they live hundreds of miles apart).

My sister's dog loves to play with socks (or so they tell me lol) My sister's cat does not seem to be amused haha  I seem to be much better at drawing cats than dogs!

And now, here is my current work in progress.

I did the pencil sketches on tracing paper so that I could easily transfer the lines onto card stock with a light box. 

Here is my initial transferred lines just begging for color.

It took me several days (and a trip to the local craft store for a couple more pens) to color in all 4 characters.

I am currently working on their environment. I used watercolor for the road but am not please with how the cardstock is buckling so I am now trying to figure out what I want to use for the ground and sky.

So that is where I am at right now....stuck lol

Maybe something will come to me while I am working this week. :-)

Happy Crafting and have a wonderful week!

Can you believe it is already August???

I know, I have not posted in a while. My excuse....um, sorry, don't have one. lol

So, I thought I would pop in and share a little of what I have been doing lately.

In my last post I shared some of my favorite cards from the first 30 days of the Index Card a Day challenge over at Daisy Yellow.

I am proud to say that I completed the 61 day challenge. I did not skip a day and I ended on time.  Now, I won't say that every card I created was a work of art. Some of them are pretty bad lol  But I created a card EVERY day and that is the challenge.  I also stayed on prompt for every card.  Yep, I am very proud of myself....and feeling a bit lost without the daily challenge.

So here are some of my favorites from July.

The prompts from left to right:
Top Row: Queen of Hearts, Chess, Face, Flag
Middle Row: Definition, Parachute
Bottom Row: Bridge or Gin Rummy, Raindrops, Weather

I found myself drawing more in those 2 months then I had in years....and loving it!  I also had strange and unexpected side effect. I became hooked on Chibis. Yes, those cute little childlike Japanese anime characters. 

Someone in the group posted a card one day stating she had bought her daughter a learn to draw chibis book and decided to try it herself. Her little people were adorable and made me want to try it too.

I ordered a couple books from Amazon (How To Draw Manga Chibis & Cute Critters by Samantha Whitten and Jeannie Lee and Manga For the Beginner, Chibis by Christopher Hart)

I am having so much fun! My kitten from the Raindrops card was my first attempt at an animal chibi. I love how he turned out.

I am finding that I am better at drawing the faces than I am at bodies and clothing....but I am loving the learning process so I draw at bit a few days a week. I think I am getting better....not sure how hubby feels since I keep bugging him with 'how does this look?' haha

So, here she is, my very first chibi. Her face is cute and done fairly well. Her body and clothes...well there are issues lol I drew her on July 17.

Red Riding Hood. Again, I really like the face but the hands, legs and feet are too teeny/scrawny. Drawn on July 19.

Now we jump ahead a couple weeks. I was stuck in bed with severe back spasms so I had hubby bring me my sketch pad, pencils and markers. I decided to concentrate on faces and hair for the day. I wanted to create expressive faces and cute hair. July 31

Moving forward to today, August 7. I have been wanting, since day 1, to create the cast of the Wizard of Oz. I may have jumped the gun but I am having a good time and learning as I go.

Here is the pen drawing. 

I have started adding color. I am using Copic markers. Now if you have read my blog over the past few years then you are probably shocked. I swore I would never jump on the Copic bandwagon! Who in their right mind spends $6+ on a single marker? Well, obviously, now I do. I found that for the first time in my life I could not get the look I wanted with pencils (and I am really good with pencils - if I do say so myself lol)  

So each payday I head to the local craft store and pick up a couple. Not a huge hit to my budget and I slowly increase my stash. Tomorrow I need to pick up a couple for this piece as all I currently have are flesh and hair colors. Dorothy said she does NOT want a peach or brown colored dress!

But fear not, I have not totally abandoned my Explore lol

My nephew's birthday is next week so I created this fun box card for him from the Summer Box Cards set at SVGCuts.com

I used my Minc to create the gold foil stars. I love how the Minc can give any project a little extra 'pop'.

Well that's all for now.
Stay cool in this summer heat and if you are on the west coast of the USA, try to stay smoke free. The fires are really bad this year and the air quality is becoming very hazardous. 

Until next time. Happy Crafting!