It is getting Quirky colder, and those leaves are still falling.

 To make a change from Ike's Art lovely cats, here is an Ike's Art lovely dog image. He is called Leaf Pooch, and is such a happy Jack Russell that I thought the Hero Arts Sending Smiles stamp was perfect to go with him and it is stamped in brown Versacolor and heat embossed with clear EP. I cut all the panels out with Spellbinders card creator and rectangle dies. I found some Autumn Papermania ribbon with more leaves on it. The paper is HOTP Artsy Collage. I kept this card monotone in shades of brown, apart from the green in the ribbon, and pink tongue, and it is coloured with Graph'Its, and Promarkers which blend together beautifully.

This card is made in the same way, paper from the same pad, and same sentiment (and I used another dog image). I just thought this was such an amusing scene it would make someone smile too. The image is called Standing Guard by Gingerloft from Stitchy Bear Stamps, the ribbon is also from the same pack.

This image is coloured mostly with Promarkers, with a little Graph'Its brown for the soil, they blend together beautifully.

Our sponsor is Stitchy Bear, and the challenge is happening at Quirky Crafts now, you have until Saturday 11th October to join in.

I have entered the following challenges with a woof:

Die cutting Divas - anything goes (Tues)

Addicted to Stamps - photo inspiration (Wed)

Left of Center - 3 or more layers (Fri)

One Stitch at a time - colour orange (Sat)

Open Minded Crafting Fun - Autumn (Sat)

Pile it on - Autumn colours (Sat)

ABC - U for Unique anything goes (Sept 15th)

Graphit Markers - autumn colours (17th Oct)

Pan Pastels - Autumn (18th Oct)

Crafty Little Faries - only one DP (6th November)

The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - V

I only found out about this challenge at The Craft Barn blog yesterday and I have had a lot of fun with it! The challenge is to alter an old dictionary, a redundant one or a charity shop buy. You can also make tags or journal pages without a dictionary but you have to stick to the same thing right the way through this. Now I just hope my book stays in one piece or I will have to add it to pages and make a new book. 

The letter is V, and this is an old French dictionary of no great value as you can see, so I didn't hesitate (much) as I love books and it is hard to vandalise them. So I picked out my first word which is Valiant, meaning brave or courageous (courageux actually), gallant, robuste or hale and hearty or penniless according to the dictionary. I thought of my Rubbadubbadoo knight immediately and after painting the page with white gesso I got stamping. Oh before I started I outlined the word and meaning and then heat embossed them with clear EP, to protect it from the gesso, not sure it was a good idea! I stamped the castle in Memento grey, the knight in Brilliance black and heat embossed with black EP, and the seal with gold Brilliance and copper EP. I found it was not too easy stamping directly onto the book, I need to put a mouse mat or something under the page I think. I stamped the word brave also with Rubbadubbadoo stamps, and stamped an arrow and heat embossed that from an Autumn Leaves set I got in a sale and have never used, all the arrows are from the same set and the You Are Here sentiment. I die cut the V using Sizzix Shadowbox in copper metal sheet and a script paper. I decided the page looked too bare so I stamped the fluer de lis which I got free from Crafty Individuals with some other freebies when I purchased the music stamps. I decided to paint the by now curling edges of the page with Tim Holtz crackle paint in antique photo, this was an unopened pot I bought from someone and it was like thick mud - not sure if that is how it is supposed to be, it was difficult to paint!. Still not happy I sprayed the page with bronze Glimmer mist, this was my first Miranda type mistake - the green fleur de lis's started to run! So sort of happy I had done all I could and after drying the page with my heat gun I started on the word Vacance, holidays, vacation, take a holiday, go on holiday, which was on the other page. I painted the page first with gesso and heat dried it (I was running out of time by now) then painted the sea, beach and sky with acrylics, adding gold glitter to the beach paint. I used a Debbi Moore stamp set to stamp Summer and the shells on the beach, and a recent bargain Warren stamp from Happy Everything set by Craftwork Cards (isn't he the cutest?) onto white card and coloured it with Promarkers and Trias, and cut him out. I also stamped the sun and sheep cloud from a Hero Arts clear set called Sky's the limit. and that is it. Oh my other Miranda moment? I managed to knock the blue paint loaded brush onto my Valiant page and in attempting to clean off blue paint I managed to spread yellow on it too, scream!

So I may have messed this up totally but I had a good time doing it!