Anything Goes...

...Almost! I missed out on participating in the Art With No Boundaries challenge, "The Eyes Have It," but this fortnight's challenge, "Anything Goes," allows me to make up for that. The central image is from Third Coast, the Palm frond is Stampington, the two masked ladies and the sentiment are digital stamps from CS Designs. The ink is SU Wild Wasabi. For some reason, Blogger has cropped this card; it actually has a green border on all four sides.
Using so much green helped brighten up the day. Would you believe that I awoke yesterday morning to a snow fall? It was still on the ground this morning, so the only green visible is this card! Living in Québec City means that one can't let the weather influence one's moods. A joyful life has to be built on something more solid.

Happy Easter!

My Easter joy will have to come entirely from the meaning of the Day, because the weather is not joyful! No problem!

To all my friends and family dropping by, I wish you joy at Easter and always.

Recycle, Re-purpose, Re-invent!

The title of this post is also the name of a CS Designs blog, sister to their Art with No Boundaries blog. The brand new Recycle, Re-purpose and Re-invent site  challenges us to dig into our stashes and recycling bins to come up with fresh ideas for our art. Check the right side of this blog for a link.
To answer RRR's first challenge, Anything Goes, I'm using cards I made for a CST (Canadian Stamp Talk), card mingle. Last year, CST challenged us to use tissue boxes as material for our mingle cards. I hopped on board, because I've got a drawerful of flattened tissue boxes I've been meaning to use, but needed a push to get me going.
I saved the box used on these cards because the colors, flowers and design elements appealed to me and are similar to  some of Stampin' Up's colors and one of their stamps.
SU's Build-a-Bird punch was used on the first two cards, along with stamps from the SU set, Warm Words. The background is not printed cardstock, but part of the tissue box. SU Baroque Motifs was used on the third card, beneath the tissue box strips. The card base and other cardstock used on the cards are SU.
For the Bonus Round of RRR's April challenge, one must answer the two-part question, "What’s the strangest thing you have been hoarding for the
purpose of using it in your art and how do you plan to use it?
I had a hard time with this, because one artist's weird is another's normal, no? I finally decided on a piece of the birch bark I've been saving for years. I intend to use it on a card.
The bark comes from birch trees used for the wood-burning stove at the Chabot family cabin, which is on a lake three to four hours driving distance from Québec City, plus a hike up a hill. Since my deceased husband and I spent part of our honeymoon at this cabin, the bark has a particular meaning for me.

Mudpie finds a 4-leaf clover

I just got the SU Framelets Labels collection and thought that Mudpie was the perfect choice for my first time using such dies. He is recessed beneath the frames, which is perhaps why the scanner didn't produce a clear image of him. It also didn't pick up the Sakura Clear Star shine on his clover. You'll have to use your imagination!
The House Mouse stamp is O Lucky Day, and the Shamrocks are an old PSX stamp. I  Cuttlebugged the green frame with Swiss Dot. Mudpie and clovers are colored with SU Watercolor Wonder crayons and SU Stampin' Write.

Lulu's back!

Lulu just had to have a St. Patrick's Day outfit to wear on this ATC. She even dyed her hair red and grew freckles. I didn't tell her that the four-leaf clover she found is not a true Shamrock, which has only three leaves. St. Patrick used the Shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity; three Persons in one God. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!
The other card celebrates Spring, and was used for an Inkstainers challenge to "make something on wheels". I think it pretty well expresses my longing for snowbanks gone, long, sunny days, and taking the garbage out without putting on boots and coat. My needs are simple--sometimes.

What Sewing Stash???

Here's fashion-conscious Lulu, a digital stamp from CSDesigns. She's my answer to the current challenge on Art with No Boundaries in Paper Craft Planet. Check it out
The challenge is "Fashionista", and asks that one use something from one's sewing stash, which in my case is non-existent. I did find a bit of rick-rack, so I qualify!
I must apologize to Chris Stern, creator of Lulu, and of the digital sentiment stamp I meant to use. The printer refused to cooperate, so I stamped the text and punched it out.
The scanner doesn't like white, which makes for a poor image. The background behind Lulu is Stampin' Up Fine Lace . Below the rick-rack, the cs is cuttlebugged with the Swiss Dot folder. Lulu has been watercolored with Twinkling H2O's; Egyptian Gold and Rose Petal.

Of Cats, Mice, Tea, and Harlequins

The Harlequin Games card is one I've been planning for some time, finally made last week. The bg stamp is SU Print Pattern, the Harlequin is a bonus pattern from the February/March 2007 issue of Stampers' Sampler magazine, and the "inchies" are CS Designs digital stamps, "Harlequin Images", and "Solitaire".

The teapot was done for a challenge by the group, ATC Artists, "Tea with Royalty", in honor of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine. I was a bit cheeky in using Alice in Wonderland images!

The other cards are ATCs, made for ATC Artist swaps with the themes, "Cats" and "Mouse House". Being a House Mouse stamps nut, I used those images instead of creating two ATCs of mice houses. The last two ATCs were made to make up for my mistake. I just had to make a story of these last, with one lucky mouse making a friend of a cat, and the other cleverly escaping through the "roof" of his house.