Smeared and Smudged Challenges

Smeared and Smudged is a forum that my friend Pam introduced me to. I know, I know, don't end a sentence with a preposition but sometimes it's just impossible to back out of! Anyway, they foster the alternative stampers - the ones who love vampires and Steampunk and zombies and gore and Halloween every day of the year. And they are the nicest, most nurturing folks! They also have a challenge blog Smudgy Antics and a shop Smeared Ink. I haven't gone hogwild participating other than doing their yearly 31 Days of Halloween in 2011 and 2012. But the past few weeks I've played along with a few of their monthly challenges.

For the first piece the challenge was to interpret a video called You Da One by Rihanna. The particular challenge is called the Rock and Rolla Challenge and features a video to use as inspiration once a month. I love taking really old art pieces like this Titian "Venus of Urbino" and playing with them digitally so this was so much fun! The video wasn't anything I've heard or seen before but I find myself humming and bouncing to it all the time now!

The challenge for the second piece was from their Guest Designer for February, Leigh Snaith-Brunton and basically anything Alice worked. I had been working on these (mostly) Rick St. Dennis images for a couple of weeks with this in mind. The last piece of the puzzle was Rick's Dormouse that I had requested from him. So in the end this came together very nicely. I will be printing it out to put into my over-sized Alice altered board book. That's my woods in the background with a couple of stamped trees to integrate it with the foreground. Another of my favorite techniques!!

The Incredible Fairy Queen Palace

I'm quite a bit behind here on my blog so I'm going to do several posts today. As I said in the title, this is one incredible digital stamp that Rick St. Dennis has in his Etsy stop here . I had so much fun making up stories for each wing of the lovely palace that was constructed with stardust and magic in an old gnarly tree. I intend to do a lot more with this, adding all sorts of naughty and nice fairies to reside here but currently the only occupant is Rick's Dormouse .

The background I've used is a sunrise shot off the deck of our house in Washington with some color variations applied to turn it into dusk. I adore fairytales and fantasy and in my mind this couldn't be more magical!

A very Special Birthday Card

I will be 70 in a couple of days. The years certainly sneak up on you. And to paraphrase the Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey, "At my age, one must ration one's excitement." But I got a very nice surprise in the mail today - one of my sister's collages as a birthday card. At about 9" x 12" it may be the largest one she's ever made and it's spectacular. She tells me the quote is from Mark Twain and it's a doozie too. I hope you will enjoy seeing it as much as I enjoyed getting it!!

Thank you, my wonderful sister, Kate!