Aunt Ethel is the Life of what Party???

Happy New Year!!! It's Susan here with the top of the month Saturday post and today I'm feeling a little quirky. I am sharing two cards with you today. The first one falls into January's Theme Challenge of "Celebration". This kooky gal is dressed to the nine {NOT} and she's ready to P-A-R-T-Y!!!

Isn't Aunt Ethel the life of the party???

This card uses Party Lady #15176, Design Solid Ovals #9817 and the phrase "I'm Retired..." #15408 from Viva Las Vegastamps!

 

Here's the details: I started with a plain piece of matte finish cardstock that is painted with my special mix of gesso shimmer primer. Sounds fancy but it's a mixture of gesso and glazing medium with a small amount of gold shimmer, pale green and creme acrylic paint. It makes a nice buttery background that has a little texture. I mix this up so often I made a whole bottle of it complete with a dauber top.

Now to the fun part...stamping. I used Stewart Superior Memories Black Dye ink and stamped the image on the base layer. I love this ink! Especially for stamping images that I'm going to do a lot of coloring...there's no bleeding or smudging. Then using the ovals, I stamped a patterned floor using peeled paint distress ink. The gesso in the background tones down the intensity of the distress ink. I use my marvy dye markers and my  water brush to paint in her skin, hair and lips. With a makeup sponge, I used old paper distress ink to darken the background around her.

Now to dress her up! I have these metallic textured papers from an altered book club goody bag and have been saving these for something special {hehe}. I had a matching purple and pink paper with a wavy modeled texture like wallpaper that I stamped the image on with black staz-on. Then I stamped it again on a royal blue foil paper for just the balloon. I cut out the balloon, hat, dress, shoes and socks and paper pieced this doll back together. I added some finishing touches with a white opaque pen and my favorite gelly stardust pen. I stamped the quote on a piece of the same painted paper, matted with the textured pink metallic and VOILA..."A Party Queen"! These stamps just bring out the kid in me : )

Now for the second card...

I did a little bit of extra work here. I started out with a piece of crumpled hand-painted brown packing paper {like a brown paper bag}. I had made a couple huge sheets of it to make mini book covers. This is painted with a purple/bronzy shimmer spray and purple & brown acrylic paints with glazing medium. The top half of the card is the front of the paper. For contrast, and because it was pretty too, I used the backside of the same paper for the bottom left and right panels. The center panel is the same painted paper overstamped in black with a Texture/Chevron #9771, a natural pattern stamp from Viva Las Vegastamps! The quirky Birdhead #4026 is also from VLVS and is stamped in brown ink and embossed with clear embossing powder on tan cardstock. I trimmed around the image, sponged a little yellow ochre on the beak, added white to the eyes and raised with 3D dots. I finished off with an acrylic bezel word from SEI, burlap cording from May Arts and this silly quote #14908 in cardstock ovals to make a thought bubble. I love this monochromatic card - it is just so irresistably cute!

Thanks for dropping by and staying until the end. I invite and encourage you to submit your creations for the VLVS Theme Challenge for January! Submit your "CELEBRATION" theme creations using Viva Las Vegastamps! for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate at the VLVS online store. CLICK HERE for info on submissions. Don't forget to check out the Viva Las Vegastamps! store - there is something for every occasion and everything from breakfast to weiner dogs! Don't forget to hang out a little while to see what our talented Design Team has been up to.

Thanks so much for visiting & if you would like to see more of my creations please visit my blog, sbartist : painting in the dark HERE. Enjoy the rest of your week : )