52 Week Mini Art Card / Tag Challenge 2025 - Week 13

The Crafting Niche 52 Week Mini Art Card/Tag Challenge 2025:

This is a weekly challenge. I provide you with a prompt/theme each Sunday morning through out the year.  The challenge is very relaxed.  You can do as much or as little as you like.  You can create cards, tags, Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) or index cards, the choice is yours. You just go with what ever is in your head at the time.  You can stamp, get inky, use patterned papers, texture, embellish it is all down to you.

There is a dedicated private Facebook Group, with a lovely bunch of people who are already sharing their makes from previous challenges.  You can find the group by clicking this link.  I'd love you to join in.

The prompt for Week 13 is "Garden Visitors"

Once again, I apologise this tag is not to my normal stadard, but I'm still in the caravan and my crafting supplies are limited.

I cut a plain white tag and splattered blue water colour paint across the surface.  Once dry, I mounted the tag on to a piece of white card.  

In Issue 266 of Simply Cards and Papercrafts Magazine there were some die cut bird images, so I decided to use one of these on the tag. Adding a word from the Funky Fossil Designs word sticker set called "Sentimental Sticker Stack".

52 Week Mini Art Card / Tag Challenge 2024 - Week 5

The challenge for 2024 is weekly.  I will provide you with a prompt/theme each Sunday morning through out the year.  The challenge is very relaxed.  You can do as much or as little as you like.  You can create cards, tags, Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) or index cards, the choice is yours. You just go with what ever is in your head at the time.  You can stamp, get inky, use patterned papers, texture, embellish it is all down to you.

There is a dedicated private Facebook Group, with a lovely bunch of people who are already sharing their makes from previous challenges.  You can find the group by clicking this link.  I'd love you to join in.

The Crafting Niche 52 Week Mini Art Card/Tag Challenge 2024:

The prompt for Week 5 is "Paint Play"

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This is my Week 5 tag.  There are so many different ways paint can be used, so I enjoyed having the freedom to "see what happens" making this tag.  It's unusual for me as my tags tend to be more structured but I went a little out of my comfort zone making this one.

I used a plain white tag and three shades (a light and medium green and a turquoise) of Cosmic Shimmer Iridescent Shimmering Water Colour Paints.  I used them with a little water and allowed the paint to run down the tag.  I used a Tim Holtz hand held blowy tool (sorry I don't know what the correct term for it is, but I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about) to blow the paint down and across the tag.  After each colour, I used the heat gun to dry the paint before I used more.

I then used gold and white paint to create fine splatters across the surface using a fan shaped paint brush and tapping the paint off the brush on to the tag.

Once dry, I mounted the tag on to a teal coloured card and then stamped the sentiment, which is part of the Lavinia Stamps set called "Heartfelt Verse" stamped in Versafine Clair "Twilight Ink".

Here's a photo of the first five tags of the challenge that I have made.  All very different in theme and techniques.

Funky Fossil Designs "MDF Fish Trio" Mandala decorated hanging fish.

For the past three weeks, it feels like I have been fighting off a cold.  Last night it came out in full force, I even did a Covid test - just in case, it was negative, so this is just a cold. I am sniffing, coughing and spluttering and actually feeling quite miserable, even though it is a beautiful sunny day.  Hopefully it will pass quickly .

Anyway, I fancied doing something that I wouldn't have to think about too much and decided to try mandala painting again.  You may recall earlier in the year I had a go at it and it was reasonably successful, but as you can see from my effort today, I need to perfect my art of mandala dotting!

For the base, I used one of the three "MDF Fish Trio" from Funky Fossil Designs. Here's the link if you want to buy them. I coated both sides in metallic silver paint.  I then went over that with three shades of Cosmic Shimmer "Iridescent Shimmer Water Colour Paints" using pink, green and blue.  I set aside to dry, which didn't take long at all.

I then used three sizes of mandala dotting tools with a selection of PaperArtsy "Fresco Finish - Chalk Acrylic" paints to create the dotty design.

Visible Image "Live In the moment" Dragonfly Card

I'm still in Visible Image mode today, making this dragonfly card.

I started by stamping the dragonfly (part of the Visible Image "Live in the moment" stamp set) in two colours of Versafine Clair" inks, "Twilight" for the body and "Warm Breeze" for the wings.  I then coated the stamped area in Wow! Clear Embossing Powder and heat set. The sentiment, also by Visible Image, part of their "Happy Birthday" stamp set was also stamped in "Twilight" and heat embossed in the same way.

I then started on the background, using a paint brush and different strengths of four shades of Distress Oxide Inks:  Tumbled Glass, Salvaged Patina, Cracked Pistachio and Mermaid Lagoon, fading the colours out towards the top left corner.  I then used a heat gun to dry the surface.

Next I used the Visible Image "Ripples" stencil with two shades of Archival Inks:  Garden Patina and Shadow Grey.

I then used the dots in the Visible Image "Two Tone" stencil with a gold shimmer pen to add tiny shimmery sparkles.

Next, I painted the wings of the dragonfly.  I created a beautiful shimmer look by painting green Cosmic Shimmer "Iredescent Shimmer Water Colour", which although green also has a hint of gold to it too.

Now I added the finishing touches to the card.  I used Ranger "Glossy Accents" to stick some flat backed beads to the surface of the card.

I used a metallic gold pen along the right hand and bottom edge of the card. I then added green dots using a unibal Signo pen.

Sweet Poppy "Dragonfly Blooms" with in a circle card

Having made a few cards with "white space" lately, I've covered every surface of this card!  One extreme to the other! Sadly the lovely sparkle and shimmer doesn't really show up in this still photograph, so I've made a short video clip so you can see it.

I started by using the Sweet Poppy Stencils (SPS) "Twisted Vines Aperture Stencil" with two shades of Archival Inks:  Peat Moss and Garden Patina through the decorative edge of the stencil to create a border.  I used the same colours for the central area using a light covering of the "Peat Moss", then lay the SPS "Faux Dragon Leather Stencil" over the top and applied the "Garden Patina" Archival Ink.

I stamped the dragonfly, which is part of the SPS "Dragonfly Blooms" stamp set, using Versafine Clair "Medieval Blue" ink.

I then painted the dragonfly using Cosmic Shimmer "Iridescent shimmering watercolour paints" and a silver glitter Signo Pen.

Around the edge of the circle, I painted a purple colour, suing "Dusty Concord" Distress Oxide Ink.  Once dry, I then edged the card with Versafine Clair "Blue Belle" ink, fading the colour out towards the circle so just a halo of the original paint colour showed.

Using a glue pen, I outlined the dragonfly and the foliage detail in the ring adding Lavinia Stamps "Moon Dust".  I then added touches of Ranger "Enamel Accents" in white and dots of Liquid Pearls in "Blackberry" and "Mermaid".

Funky Fossil Designs "Wild and Free" New Stamp Preview 2

This is my second preview sample of the new Funky Fossil Designs stamp set called "Wild and Free", designed by Tina Ashton, which will be availble to purchase from Friday 14th May 2021.

I've used some of the smaller elements from this stamp set to create this card.  Stamping the images in Versafine Clair "Verdant" green ink and colouring them with Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints.  I then die cut the stamped images with circles, mounting them on to a piece of Kraft cardstock.  I added some white dots to the Kraft background to add a little more interest, before mounting it on to green card and then a white card base.