Gothic Arch Challenge

This weeks challenge was 'Grunge'. Not something I'm used to doing so this made it a real challenge for me. I used some fine, corrugated card from the inside of a cracker packet for the background which I dabbed over with some Adirondak Paint Dabbers. It was too dark for my plan so I 'lightened' it up by covering it with a layer of tissue paper which did the trick! Next I used some of Tim Holtz' grungeboard shapes for the door hinges and the skull image which I painted with the dabbers again, highlighting them with some gold also. The wording was inspired by one of my son's books on Pirates which I thought went well with the image I chose, lol. All in all, I am quite pleased with my arch, the first I've done in a while now and can't wait for next Sunday for the next challenge now!

Gothic Arch Challenge

Its Gothic Arch time again and this weeks theme 'Asian' was set by Linda M. Now I really love the oriental style and thought that this challenge would be a doddle but no, I just couldn't get the look I wanted at all! I tried two or three different designs before finally settling on this one. Although you can't see it very clearly the background was stamped with a large cherry blossom stamp using versamark ink and then heat embossing with clear embossing powder, then I dabbed a couple of shades of blue ink over it and when dry, buffed the image so the image stood out glossy white against the blue shades. The beautiful girl is an image I found on the internet one night and the wording I did on the computer. I finished it off with a small panel which shows the same design as the background stamp I used. At first I felt it might be a bit sparse but the more I look at it the more I like it as it is, it shows the beauty of the geisha as she sits in contemplation! Hope you like it people :)

Gothic Arch Challenge

This weeks theme was 'Heritage'. I used a piece of background paper from a Vintage Memories book, rubbed the edges with a nail file and then inked them, I also repeat stamped a leaf stamp all over in a medium brown. The photograph is one of my great-grandparents taken in the late 60's I think! which I have ripped and then inked around the edges to give a feeling of age. The wording was done on the computer and again, ripped and inked to age it. The big H is a wooden one which I just inked over with a couple of different shades of brown. I enjoyed this theme and it was nice to have an opportunity to look through some old photo's (for which I must make some scrapbook pages) which haven't seen the light of day for a while!

Gothic Arch Challenge

This weeks challege was 'Transitions' and I have been struggling with this all week, have discarded countless ideas and filed a couple of my attempts in the 'round bin' in the corner of my craft room LOL. Anyway, today I finally came up with a concept for this that I am happy with. Hopefully you get will the idea of it just from the image but if not, the left is an 'idea' of hell and the right heaven, in the middle at the top is chocolate ...... get it now? LOL

The beautiful images are actually fractals which I found on a wonderful website, they are free to use and as soon as I saw them I knew what I was going to do so it was a good job I decided to 'waste' some time on the internet this morning LOL again! I have put a link to the site under my favourites so you can go and see all this wonderful art for yourselves.

Gothic Arches

The other day I stumbled across a blog about Gothic Arches and was immediately interested - something new to have a go at! The theme they had set was "Trash" meaning you had to decorate your Arch with anything you would/were throwing away, sounds easy ..... not so, LOL. In the end I created my background image from the back of an old Sky Movies magazine, added a piece of a teabag envelope, some string, an old button I found on the floor (I do hope nobody claims it now as its stuck on quite firmly LOL), 'Felix' off a box of Felix cat food and a 1p piece. As this is my first attempt I have no idea if I have done it the right way or not, sure I will soon find out though LOL.

I have put the link to this great site under My Favourite Blogs, go and check it out there is loads of interesting stuff on there!