FunwithATCs - a Round Lot and a Good Bye

Hello and welcome back, dear readers and crafting friends!

It's time for a new challenge over at FunwithATCs and as it is the 100th challenge the theme is

100

But not only do we celebrate challenge No. 100 (and the fact that you have been with us for so many challenges - entering such a lot of fantastic ATCs) - we also have to say "Good Bye!" as Caro, our blog owner, decided that she can no longer run the blog as there are a lot of new (and good) things in her life that use up all her time and effort.

We hope you will play along with us one more time and enter some fab ATCs for the "100" jubilee! Thank you to all of you for making FunwithATCs such a fab place by entering your awesome art! Thank you, teamies, for all the fab inspiration and comradeship! I loved creating alongside all of you talented bunch!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia x

FunwithATCs - "night"

Wow - time runs fast! It's already time for a new challenge over at FunwithATCs!

This fortnight the theme is

"night".

So get out your dark papers, night creatures, moons, stars and creepy crawlies stamps...or whatever you can imagine to happen at night ;)

I went for a more romantic approach - as I love full moon when being outside (and hopefully outside of Vienna, as you can see much more stars then). It's always amazing how much light it reflects - you really can see perfectly and walk without any additional light between the shades of the trees. 

The world seems so very different then. Like frozen in time. Love that.

Stamps used are from Crafty Individuals and 100 proof press. I did some masking and heat embossing to make the trees stand out a bit more and add some texture.

I hope you like it. And I also hope that you like the theme and play with us again! So hop over to the challenge blog to see what my teamies have prepared for your inspiration!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia x

FunwithATCs - "At least three stamps!"

Hello and welcome back to another fortnight's edition of FunwithATCs' challenges!

This time we want you to use 

"at least three stamps" 

for your ATC. 

I chose my new favourites - the 7 Gypsies stamps "A bug's life". As I love natural history books and especially the books of Sybilla Merian, who was a remarkable wife and artist, I tried to do an ATC "Merian - style".

The stamped images were coloured using artists brush felt tip pens and for a finish I gave the whole ATC a coat of DecoArt One Step Crackle for a sealant. Used on a porous surface like paper it does not crackle, but builds a nice even glossy layer that protects the image.

I hope you join in with us at FunwithATCs! See you over there!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia x

Clean and Simple - Fun with ATCs

Welcome back, my dear crafting friends,

it's time for a new challenge over at Fun with ATCs!

This fortnight we want to see you entering

Clean And Simple

ATCs. 

CAS was the perfect occasion for me to use my newly bought Paper Artsy "Letters 4" stamps.

I hope you like them and enter your own CAS makes with our challenge soon! Of course my teamies have prepared a lot of inspirational ATCs for you too. So hop over to FunwithATCs and join in the fun!

Hugs and happy crafting! 

Claudia x

"Stripes" - FunwithATCs

Hello and welcome back to another fortnight's challenge over at FunwithATCs, 

where my talented teamies and me have prepared a lot of fab inspiration for you!

Stripes

are what we want to see with your ATCs and I look forward to seeing them in all possible variations entered by you soon!

Hugs and happy crafting,
Claudia x

FunwithATCs - "Set of Three"

This fortnight we ask you to create a set of three ATCs that belong together.

I chose some of my favourite cities I have been to a couple of times already (and which I will definitely go to again).

I really love the stamp sets from Tim Holtz (London and Paris) and Darkroom Door (Venezia)!

Hop over to FunwithATCs and see what our team holds in store for you! See you (entering your sets of three) soon ;)

die amelie x

FunwithATCs - "Classic Films"

This fortnight we invite you to our "Classic Films" challenge over at FunwithATCs!

And I LOVED to create a Classic Movies ATC for your inspiration! As I am very much into silhouettes at the moment I knew immediately which film character I wanted to have on my ATC! Nosferatu - especially Murnau's Nosferatu! The whole movie is a celebration of awesome black and white imagery and Nosferatu's is one of the most impressive silhouettes I have ever seen.

So I tried to capture the special feel of this movie. I hope you like it! You also have to see the wonderful ATCs my team mates created for you! So hop over to our FunwithATCs challenge blog and have a look around!

Hugs,

die amelie x

"Flowers" at FunwithATCs

Flowers

is this fortnight's theme at FunwithATCs 

and we would love to see many of them 

with your ATCs you will (hopefully) 

enter with our challenge ;)

As you know I am not very much of a "flower-girl", they always come with some special spin with my projects... this time I used the Tim Holtz tattered florals Sizzix die to create not only my flowers with but also use the card the flowers were cut from as a stencil for my ATC's background. 

I did a lot of layers, blending the white card background with various DI colours.

 

After that I applied the cut out flowers to the background, overlapping them here

and there. Some final touches with my beloved white gel pen... and heat embossing with clear and white embossing powder and embossing pen...some metal flower brads... done!

I hope you like it and look forward to seeing a whole flower parade over at our challenge blog soon;)

Hugs,

die amelie x

FunwithATCs - "Underwater"

June seems to be my "underwater month" as Underwater is not only the theme of SanDee&amelie's Steampunk challenges but also over at FunwithATC's challenge for this fortnight :)

As I LOVE underwater and everything deep sea I had to make two ATCs this time - both by using my awesome brand new Oxford Impressions "The Deep" stamps!
I hope you like them!

With this ATC I first stamped the man in his diver's suit to a piece of paper, cut the shape out and used it to mask the area where I wanted him to be in front of the kraken. So I stamped the kraken first and the diver afterwards, using DIs "chipped sapphire" and "faded jeans". The words were stamped, cut out and edges blended with DI "broken china".

For the second ATC I first stamped the two fish and the "sea" onto some sticky labels while still on their sheet using archival black jet ink. Then I coloured the background using the acrylic bloc, felt tip pens and water technique (= applying some colour onto the acrylic bloc using felt tip pens, spritzing the bloc with water and pressing it onto the paper).

After some drying time I applied the single labels onto a prepared background and drew some bubbles using white and blue gel pens. Done!

I would love to invite you to hop over to our FunwithATCs challenge blog and see what my talented teamies made! I look forward to seeing your entries with our challenge soon!

Hugs,
die amelie x

"Recycling" at FunwithATCs

is this fortnight's theme with us at FunwithATCs!

I always love "recycle" challenges - a wonderful opportunity to use up left overs from other projects, scraps, ephemera, and especially die cut left overs. Many dies do not only cut your desired shape but also the other parts from the die if you do not cut your papers to exact size.

So for example I have a lot of die cut letters and numbers (and I am not able to  throw them away... even though I cannot do any words with them that would make sense - having used the important letters already ;)

So here comes my recycling ATC for our Recycle-Challenge:

Definitely every single piece used on this ATC is a left over from previous projects, die cutting attempts and background left overs made using stencils, sprays and all that messy stuff I love to work with.

The background is cut from a piece of glossy card I often love to use as a mat when I work with alcohol inks or apply gesso to smaller pieces of paper or card. This one shows the "traces" of a stenciled flourish that did not turn up well enough to use it with the project it was meant for. So I cut it to ATC size for later use - and now its' time has come. :)





The "M" is a left over from my self- made foam word stamps, made by using letters I die cut from funky foam.

The frame was "accidentally" die cut together with the big tag from the Sizzix Bigz tag die designed by Tim Holtz.

To add some fun I fixed the tiny tags on top of that frame together with the
frame and left them spin-able. So you can play around a bit, changing the look of the ATC as you please.

Just in case someone wonders - no, there is no hidden meaning with the letters m and n and the 1,2,3. I chose them by colour and shape, thus putting together an "assemblage-ATC".
Recycling gives me a kind of freedom in thinking which I enjoy very much. Browsing through left overs, playing around and finally putting parts into place to create something totally new is a lot of fun and often a surprising to me too when a piece is finished.

This time I even used a recycled background (packaging material from a T-Shirt) for taking the picture...  100% recycling.Yesss! *lol.

I hope you like it and have a lot of fun (like I had) creating an ATC from recycle material!!! I am already curious to see your makes with us at the FunwithATCs challenge!

Hugs,
die amelie x

"Magic"

is this fortnight's theme over at FunwithATCs!

As usual you can interpret the theme as you wish, as long as you create an ATC (Artist Trading Card) for our challenge, which means you have to stick to a format of 2.5 to 3.5 inches.

This time I took it "clean and simple" (which I rarely do to be honest). But I do not own a lot of "magical" stamps.... or magicians images.... only some gentlemen wearing stovepipe hats....and that made the idea for this ATC finally pop up before my eyes.

And how else would you understand that raised eyebrow of this magician (which he obviously is) than this quiet approach of despair as the expected rabbit still hasn't popped out of his hat yet? (Well, maybe he should have taken it off first to do the trick...hm?)

I hope you  like my CAS ATC (LOVE all those abbreviations *lol) and look forward to seeing your magical creations over at our challenge blog soon! You have to hop over to see the enchanting ATCs my DT mates made!!!

Stamps and die used with this ATC are Tim Holtz designs. The words were written by hand.

Hugs,

Claudia - die amelie

"Windows and Doors" at FunwithATCs

Let me welcome you to another challenge at FunwithATCs!
This time our theme is

Windows/Doors

(If you also want to know the challenge theme over at TioT, please, scroll down to the previous post).

Doors are a very mighty symbol... no surprise then that doors come with many sayings. One of my favourites says:

For each door that closes there is a new one that opens. 

I love the idea that we first have to close doors (or sometimes fate closes them for us) to be able to open new ones and step through  - without carrying too much of the old stuff with us. And I like the thought that we never have to be afraid of having nothing to step forward to... fate always will provide us with new goals and challenges worth being met. There's always the chance to evolve by opening unknown doors.

I had this awesome stamp from DarkroomDoor which I used on a background cut from a paper scrap left over from a selfmade background.

and I also stumbled upon my (seldom used but) gorgeous Lynne Perella stamp showing a door opening and a mysterious man standing in it...

On this ATC I did some metal leafing with IndigoBlu guilding flakes and I applied the glue (and some thin layers of white Gesso in other places) using a stencil, thus creating a couple of dotted layers.

I hope you like it and will hop over to our challenge blog to see what my DT mates have created for your inspiration! 

See you at the challenge!

die amelie x

"Writing" at FunwithATCs

I am so happy to be able to welcome you to this fortnight's brand new FunwithATCs challenge - 

"writing"!

If it is handwriting or if you use script stamps (or have any other inspired ideas upon the theme) - it's completely up to you...as long as you create an ATC (Artist Trading Card) of the size 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 ''!

I love writing, calligraphy, writing poems and short stories (there's even a once started fantasy novel stored in one of my (virtual) drawers, waiting to be finished some day). I love the look of handwriting. I love that writing is a process of creating images quite similar to painting, stamping or any other art.

So you should not be surprised that I chose a quote by C.S.Lewis for my ATC, that expresses my feelings towards "writing" quite well.

I combined some script (and flourish) stamping (along with heat embossing), handwriting, drawing and - of course - ink blending, use of metal and distressing.

I hope to see your writing/written creations over at the FunwithATCs challenge site soon! And you should have a look at my team mates' awesome creations too!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a wonderful crafty week!

Hugs,
die amelie x

"Gothic"

is what we ask for as challenge theme at FunwithATCs this time! (Please, scroll down to the previous post if you want to know this fortnight's challenge theme over at TioT!)

As I love gothic style I curiously look forward to seeing your awesome ATCs made for this challenge!

My ATC for your inspiration from the DT features a dark, creepy scenery of a "House on the Hill"...wooaahhh....anyone seen the movie? (had my hands held before my eyes - peeking through the fingers of course - most of the time *lol...).

The background was created by using alcohol inks on some glossy card (I cut from a paper plate). I dabbed some darker tones to the card using the blending tool with the felt pads, but also added them directly to the card and let them run down to create "traces of blood and decay". After that I stamped and heat embossed the image using black embossing powder.

Some of the areas that were too dark to make the shapes of the house and the tree sufficiently visible were lighted up by removing some of the alcohol ink using cotton swabs and nail polish remover. (You have to reheat the embossed image to get the shine back after that procedure).

The words were stamped onto card, cut out, blended with adequate colours  and glued to the ATC. Done!

So get yourself into a dark and creepy, gothic mood and create! And have fun - I had a lot of it making this ATC!

Hugs,

die amelie x

"Vintage"

Welcome back to another challenge at FunWithATCs!!!
So glad to see you visiting (and maybe joining in) again!

Vintage is what we want to see on your ATCs - so have a go and fetch all those gorgeous vintage loveliness you have in store to enter our challenge!

My vintage creation shows some use of one of my alltime favourite themes: birds. I stamped some of the lovely Kaisercraft "Periwinkle" and TJ Designs "Birds of a Feather" images on crinkled, ink-blended and water-stained card, fixed a lovely button, some (pink "tainted") lace and rough cord to it and added the vintage picture of the lady with the roses. Here comes the result:

Hope you enjoyed your visit (well, of course I always hope you do)!

Hugs,

die amelie x

"It's all about the Eyes!"

Another fortnight has passed and this means a new challenge starts today over at Try it on Tuesday! (and another one as usual over at FwATCs - so please scroll down to the previous post if you want to see some "red").


This time it's all about the eyes! So show us projects where eyes play a special part in (have to admit: I am really, REALLY curious this time!).

I had some eyes left...*lol...I see how that sounds. Next try: some months ago I had used a copy of a (rather strange looking) postcard I found at a Museum's flea market, showing a collection of glass eyes. I had used some of the eyes for a tag, but I did not use all of them. So the left over eyes were just perfect for this challenge! At least for my interpretation of the theme...

Scary, aren't they? That inspired me to do a rather dark and spooky tag, using alcohol inks on glossy card. (Glossy card is rather easily to be found, when you keep an eye on packaging material that goes with a lot of things you buy - I used the card back of the package of some winter insoles I bought recently. Good thing: that card was already coloured in light grey, which made it the perfect base for my project).

For a start I blended the whole tag with darker tones of alcohol inks, dabbing them on, using the blending tool with the felt. Over that layer I stamped the framed image of the house with tree and moon and heat embossed it with black "Sternenstaub" embossing powder.

To make the image more visible, I removed some of the dark alcohol inks by using a cotton ball and nail polish remover. 

That made the embossed surface dull, but reheating the image restored the gloss of the embossed layer.



Then I used alcohol inks again - mainly red and black - and let them run down the upright held tag, applying the ink directly from the bottle.

I wanted the eyes to be more spooky, so I covered them with "crackle accents" and rubbed in some red Distress ink afterwards - that made it look like thin blood vessels...










I added some stamped (and heat embossed) images - the quote and three flourishes - to get some texture and embellished the tag with the die cut ornament (which was treated with alcohol inks too and fixed with two tiny brads) and a self adhesive black lace ribbon. Done!

(Well, I am sure that you will see something less spooky from the DT when you hop over to TioT! :))

This month's sponsor is Really Reasonable Ribbon, who are offering a $15 gift voucher to this months winner!

I am curiously looking forward to see you (and your creations) over at the awesome design team's challenge blog... and hope you enjoyed your visit with me today!!! Thanks for stopping by!!

Servus from Vienna,

die amelie x

"Red" is the colour that...

the DesignTeam FunWithATCs want you to use on your ATCs this time! Quite easy, isn't it?

So here are my two takes on the "red" theme (nothing much to explain as they speak for themselves - first comes with a rather scientific approach and the second shows some delicious doodling. Both of them provide verbal guidance for colour blind people as well ;)

So enjoy your red fortnight with FwATCs and show us your take on the challenge! Hope to see you there!

Hugs,

die amelie x

"Flourish"

What would we creative bunch do without our flourishes!? They are the salt to each recipe, they bring some sprightliness into our lay-outs and can be of great help in optically holding collaged pieces together.

Well - easy to guess: the new theme of FunWithATCs' challenge is "flourishes" this fortnight! Show us all your swirly lightness on just 3.5inches x 2.5inches of space! Let flourishes be your main ingredient or the essential spice - but show them!

I had some silver metal foil, from which I cut the flourish using the Tim Holtz "flourish" die. For the background I used some glossy cardstock, which I treated with AAI (mainly dark tones and "copper"). Afterwards I distressed the surface with the scratching tool. The flourish received a treatment with alcohol inks too and afterwards I sanded its edges with the "Sand It Gadget Tool" from Core 'dinations.(I also sanded the edges of the die cut ATC. Love the scratched and worn look).

To receive more depth and texture, I stamped and heat embossed a Paper Artsy image, using Fran tage "aged silver embossing enamel", onto the distressed background. The "flourish" quote was written by hand and embossed too.

Then I fixed the flourish to the background using staples - a lot of staples to be exact. :)
For a finish I added two industrial looking brads (LOVE THEM! Thank you so much, Sandra!!!).

I really hope you enjoyed your visit today and am looking forward to seeing your flourishing creations over at FwATCs ;) !!!

Hugs,

die amelie x

Let's celebrate!!!

Believe it or not: FunwithATCs celebrates its 3rd Birthday on January 19th! So the challenge theme for this fortnight is - of course - "Birthday/Celebration".

And there's even more to come! On this special occasion FunwithATCs is having an awesome blog hop in store for you with great prizes to be won. Prize sponsors are Tando Creative, Visible Image and 100 proof press!!! Cool, huh?!

To participate in the prize draw you have to take part in the blog hop - which means you have to visit all of the blogs and leave a comment with each of them. If you came to me from the FwATCs challenge blog and then Irit's blog "Irit Shalom's Designs" you are on the right track and will have to hop over to Mark's "Spesh Ink" blog from here (Mark will tell you where to hop next). If you just popped in here accidentally and want to take part in the blog hop, go directly to FwATCs challenge blog, where you find a list of all the "stations" of this blog hop in their correct order. The winner/s will be drawn randomly and of course the Top 3 will be selected too as usual.

My ATC for the challenge is quite different from the things I commonly do, but I just love these stamps from flonzcraft, which come with a gorgeous "Birthday" stamp set with many more gorgeous images. :)

I coloured the stamped quotes and images and the background using felt tip pens and crayons, then I drew some garlands with the embossing pen and heat embossed them with some of my sparkling embossing powders. I also heat embossed some of the stamped stars with clear embossing powder to add a little more bling and depth. Hope you like it and have fun and of course I wish you good luck with the blog hop!


Yours,

die amelie xx

"Something new" at FwATCs

Another fortnight's challenge at FwATCs has just started and "Something new" has to be used on your ATCs. That could be something new you got as a Christmas present... anyhow: it has to be something you have never used before.

I used my new Sizzix (yippeeh!) with the TH Alterations die "ATC&Corners" and new stamps from the "Sarah's Choice" set from Indigo Blu and Paper Artsy's "ink and the dog" set.

This time I used some heavy artist's paper, because I love the effect of stamping on structured paper (you can very well see it in the film-strip-image: those ink-spared white areas, where normally would be a clean black silhouette).

I used the masking technique for applying the background textures and words. Only the "Dream" quote was stamped over the image and heat embossed with black embossing powder, which I also used for the ATC corners.

I really enjoy going to the movies. Capturing cine films are like dreams that are as close to reality as possible. I admire directors who are able to transform their dreams into mere "realities" and drag viewers right in! Good films do just that - don't they?

Hope to see your ATCs, where you used "Something new" on! Maybe you will be the one to get to take the Top3 blinkie!!

Hugs,
die amelie x