Anything But a Card: June 2014

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Heading into Summer with another FIFTH SUNDAY Challenge!

Good Morning Everyone! It's the last weekend in June... and the Summer Season is starting to sizzle. Thanks so much for all of the wonderful comments for Brenda's mini-challenge. If you missed out on this MARBLE-ous Challenge... please CLICK HERE to play along {this wonderful challenge has been extended for another week}. Stay tuned for a new "Mini-Challenge" at the bottom of the month at the end of Challenge No. 37.

The moon and stars have aligned to give us an EXTRA Sunday this month which messes up our 3 +1 system of challenges. Today is a FIFTH SUNDAY! This is an oddity in the calendar that is happening numerous times in 2014... SO we have added this fun MINI-Challenge today here at Anything But a Card Challenges!!! Are you ready to play and have some fun??!

The Fifth Sunday Challenge... "USE FIVE"!! Use the number 5 or five items, five colors, five words... what ever FIVE represents to you. For those who want to go a little more literal - here's the definition, too! Loads of inspiration could be had over at Wikipedia's page for 5 (number).

* * * * * * * * * * * *

five (faɪv)
n.

1. a cardinal number, four plus one.

2. a symbol for this number, as 5 or V.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

4. a five-dollar bill.

adj.

5. amounting to five in number.

[before 1000; Middle English; Old English fīf; c. Old Frisian, Old Saxon fīf, Old High German fimf, finf, Old Norse fimm, Gothic fimf, Latin quīnque, Greek pénte, Skt pancha]

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Please share any current project you have created and JUST REMEMBER... create anything EXCEPT a card for this challenge. Please mention and LINK BACK to this challenge. ALSO - Please new projects only {no-backlinking}. :)

**A REMINDER** This Mini-Challenge will go through midnight April 5th giving you 7 days to play along and ENJOY the creative process! Next Sunday will start a brand new 3 week challenge.

Let's see what our DT has created!!

Please click on the designers' name to visit their blog. We hope you’ll take a minute to go see their work up close... and as long as you’re there – please leave them a little love!

Julie

Actually 5 minutes would mean Superstar had trouble getting to sleep! The count of 5 is about what it is. On our very long trip Superstar amazed me. He looked so uncomfortable but woke with the batteries fully charged ready to take over the driving! Come on over to my blog for more details.

Sheri

Made 2 mini albums using 5 coin envelopes.
Please visit my blog for more details!

For this month's 5 week challenge, I've made a small pentagonal-shaped box (5 cm all sides). It also has 5 butterflies and flowers. Pop on over to my blog to see how this was constructed and for more detailed photos. Please visit my blog for more details!

Lisette

Having chosen to alter a domino for the last "5" challenge, I decided to stick with gaming theme and alter a playing card. I've used the song of the magpie "five for silver" and included 5 little flowers and 5 little silver charms. Please visit my blog for more details!

Margaret

I used five different flower stamps to make a new page for my quotes journal. I thought the bright flowers went well with the Hemingway quote. Please visit my blog to get all the details!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We hope our designers have you INSPIRED to take some time to be creative!! We can't wait to see your creations and we hope that you will join in and share them with us! Stop back next Sunday to for a brand new Challenge No. 37.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday, June 22, 2014

MARBLE-OUS Mini Challenge and Artist Spotlight with
Brenda Burfeind

Hi, I am so glad you stopped in to check out the Artist Spotlight and Mini Challenge here at Anything But a Card Challenges and maybe learn a little bit more about me.

I'm Brenda and I blog over at Creativity is a State of Mind. People often ask me how or why I came up with that name and I'll tell you a little bit about it.

I've been creating since I was a very young girl living in Germany. My mom, grandma and aunt all sewed, quilted and cooked very well. Growing up with them, I was supposed to do those things also. Nope I rebelled... I couldn't get a seam to run straight. I would hide in the garden on Wednesday evening when the quilting ladies would arrive because I did not want to listen to their endless chatter about nothing. And seriously, when it came to cooking I could burn water. I am not exaggerating one bit. To this day I hate to be in the kitchen, unless it's for a crafting thing (hehehe).

Instead I found beads...I loved making jewelry. Necklaces, earrings, bracelets. I even bought a beading loom with money I made from selling some of my jewelry at my grandpa's store and created the most beautiful pieces. I loved counting out the beads and making the most extravagant designs. From there I went on to lots of different crafts. Seriously, I've probably tried a little bit of EVERYTHING. I usually use my family as my guinea pigs, using them for input or inspiration. My mind runs in a lot of different ways and some ideas are WOW, while others are OK. There are certain things I think are FABULOUS while my family thinks it's just plain WEIRD. Thus I decided that Creativity is a State of Mind. Not everyone will like EVERYTHING I create, but it's all about how you perceive those ideas.

Which brings me to my mini challenge today. I hope you all will like the idea and sure would love to see some of your creations. As you get to know me better you will find out right quickly that I love to experiment. I will TRY anything with failure at times but even with failure you can come up with some extraordinary things.

My best friend's daughter showed me this awesome idea about marbling your fingernails. You can find the instructions HERE on YouTube. They turned out so awesome I wondered if I could take that one step further and marble my resin pieces. These are some bracelets I made using my Amazing Mold Putty and Amazing Casting Resin. You can go check out my blog any time to see how I use these Amazing products to create some fabulous pieces. You can also check out the Amazing Mold Putty blog to see all the designers over there.

Now I challenge you to try some marbling!

You can marble paper with instructions HERE on YouTube. Do what I did and use fingernail polish to marble something... or do some research on your own and show me a new idea.

Thanks for coming by today and I cannot wait to see what you all can come up with and remember, Creativity is a State of Mind!

Until next time, have a great day and happy crafting. ~ Brenda

** A NOTE: This challenge has been extended
to July 5th to give more time
to play along with this Marbel-ous Challenge**

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Dive Into Summer for Week 3 of Anything But a Card Challenges No. 36 Summer Lovin'

Good Morning and Happy Father's Day Everyone! Welcome to week three of Anything But a Card Challenges No. 36... Summer Lovin'. We hope you enjoyed meeting and getting to know our special Guest Designer Tracy Alden last week {click here to view her stunning art journal pages}.

The current Challenge... Anything But a Card Challenge #36 - Summer Lovin'!! Any and all things summer are your inspiration... and we are sure that most of you are happy that Summer has finally arrived to melt away the winter blues. Remember we welcome scrapbook pages, ATCs, tags, and more... just anything but a card!

Challenge 36 : Summer Lovin' – A celebration of all things summer! Think summer weather, vacations, sunflowers, beach parties, cold drinks and Barbeques... bright colors and wide open sky. Pool parties all day, then sitting in lawn chairs sipping drinks and watching the night sky.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

**A REMINDER** This Challenge will go through midnight June 21st giving you one more week to play along and ENJOY the creative process! We will share a brand new Artist Spotlight + Mini Challenge next Sunday.

Let's see what more of our DT has created!!

Please click on the designers' name to visit their blog. We hope you’ll take a minute to go see their work up close... and as long as you’re there – please leave them a little love!

Brenda

Using buttons, beads and Amazing Crafting Products to create a one-of-a-kind jewelry set. I hope you will hop over to my blog here to see more details.

Australian summers often equate with the beach. I've used a Graphic 45 image for the focus on the tag. This image is overlaid onto a stenciled background. Pop over to my blog to see all the details.

Margaret

In our family, summer means softball season so I was inspired to make a scrapbook page using some of the many softball photos I have. The softballs embellishing my page were handmade and gave just a little dimension to my page. Please visit my blog for more details!

Jennie

After my fabulous weekend with Finnabair I was just itching to do another journal page! This is a photograph of my parents taken many summers ago before they married and I tried to get some warm summer colours into the pages as well as lots of texture. And the quote I hope sums up their feelings for each other - in all the world there is no heart for me like yours. There are more photos and details on my blog as to how I created the background.

Christi

I finally got a bird feeder. When I moved, I had to leave my old one at my old house and after about a year of begging for one, I went and bought one myself. Now that I have my spectacular feeder, but I needed somewhere to keep the birdseed. I am not particularly strong, so the idea of lugging a bag of birdseed out to the front yard doesn’t thrill me. So I made a birdseed (bird food) holder for my Summer Lovin’ Challenge. Please visit my blog for more details.

Julia

For my Summer Lovin' project, I've been inspired the beautiful blue seas of summer with the sunlight dancing on the surface of the ocean - quite difficult to capture from a distance but the close ups on my blog will show the details within this piece. Please visit my BLOG for more details!

***********************

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Drinks on Me! Anything But a Card Challenge #36 with Guest Designer Tracy Alden

Good Morning Everyone! It's week two of our current challenge and we are excited to introduce a new Guest Designer to join us for here at ABAC. Tracy Alden is our Guest Designer this month and joining us for our current Summer Lovin' Challenge.

The current Challenge... Anything But a Card Challenge #36 - Summer Lovin'!! A celebration of all things summer! Think summer weather, vacations, sunflowers, beach parties, cold drinks and barbecues... bright colors and wide open sky. Pool parties all day, then sitting in lawn chairs sipping drinks and watching the night sky.

**A REMINDER** This Challenge will go through midnight June 21st giving you 2 weeks to play along and ENJOY the creative process! We will share more of our Design Team's creations each Sunday to keep you inspired.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Tracy created a fun and funky necklace for the Summer Lovin' Challenge.

We hope you enjoy getting to know our Guest Designer...

please click on the images to visit her blog –

and give her a warm welcome!

This time of year has me thinking of the colors of summer, be it nature, clothing or food is always so vibrant. Which also gets me thinking about going to the beach, having a BBQ or throwing a party for friends and family. One of the aspects of having a party or BBQ is that someone is bound to spill a drink. While many find it an annoyance, I decided to use it as a inspiration for my challenge. I started with using polymer clay to create the central pieces. Once I made those I molded them and cast resin pieces as my necklace base. With a second pouring of tinted resin I created the spilled drink, ending up with a fun and funky necklace to wear to the next party. One of the the really fun aspects of this project is with a simple change of dye used with the resin you can create any spilled drink you would like!

Here is some more Seasonal inspiration:

Faux Coral Necklace

"Two for Tango" Mixed Media Canvas

I am a mixed media artist, craft product designer and owner of Art Resurrected, an indie art company. I live in sunny Southern California with my husband and menagerie of animals. I had always loved drawing, dancing and wearable art even as a child.When young and fickle I didn't know if I wanted to be a fashion designer, comic illustrator or archaeologist. As an adult I have had the amazing luck of working with clay, jewelry, illustration, museum replicas and product design and development in the art/hobby industry. Nature and Ancient Art are my top inspirations. Sometimes just watching the sun rise, rain drops or the wind moving leaves gets me sketching something. With a love of art, travel, museums, cooking and an animal conservation I am always busy.

I am currently a proud member of Amazing Crafting Products design team.

To see more of my work, visit my blog: http://artrez.com/blog/

* * * * * * * * * * * *

We hope our Guest Designer Tracy Alden has INSPIRED you to take some time to be creative!! We can't wait to see your creations and we hope that you will join in and share them with us! Stop back next Sunday to see more of our Design Team creations!

Thanks so much for joining us!

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Tell Me More... Tell Me More... it's all about Summer Lovin' for Anything But a Card Challenges No. 36

Good Morning Everyone! It's a brand new month and time for a brand new ABAC Challenge just in time for International Scrapbooking Day – launching a month long celebration of scrapbooking. If you missed out on on getting to know Di and joining in on her Mini Challenge... please CLICK HERE to jump over and be inspired {there's still time to play along}. Stay tuned for a new "Spotlight and Mini-Challenge" at the bottom of the month at the end of Challenge No. 36.

Last month flew by and it's time for a new challenge today here at Anything But a Card Challenges... let's get ready to play and have some fun! Thanks to all who played along with Challenge #35 - COLOR and jumping right in to swim in the glorious peaches and plum colors of our inspiration palette... please CLICK HERE to check them out.

The new Challenge... Anything But a Card Challenge #36 - Summer Lovin'!! Any and all things summer are your inspiration... and we are sure that most of you are happy that Summer has finally arrived to melt away the winter blues. Remember we welcome scrapbook pages, ATCs, tags, and more... just anything but a card!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

**A REMINDER** This Challenge will go through midnight June 21st giving you 3 weeks to play along and ENJOY the creative process! We will share more of our Design Team's creations each Sunday to keep you inspired.

Let's see what part of our DT has created!!

Please click on the designers' name to visit their blog. We hope you’ll take a minute to go see their work up close... and as long as you’re there – please leave them a little love!

Lisette

Even though the weather in the UK is so unreliable during the summer we still love our trips to the seaside. If you've got a little beach hut to huddle inside, then who cares if it rains?! Check out my BLOG for more details.

Diana

Summer isn't usually my favorite season. I live in Phoenix and it's hot hot hot! To stay cool I spend as much time as I can in the pool, and inside in the A/C. I made this fun art journal page to celebrate the "beginning" of summer, and what I will probably look like in the pool! If you've never tried art journaling, it's really a lot of fun, and you can find a LOT of tutorials on YouTube! Please visit my BLOG for more details!

Sheri

When I saw them I thought of the song in the movie. :)

Please visit my BLOG for more details!

Julie

I scored a serving plate and a bowl at the op shop, challenged myself to transform them and then tested what would work! Please visit my BLOG for more details!

Susan

Molded and cast resin lime slices are the perfect accessory for summer! The fruits of my creative experimentation adorn these freshly squeezed earrings! They certainly will make an AMAZING birthday gift for my sister this weekend :) Please visit my BLOG for more details!

***********************

An InLinkz Link-up

Featured Artists for Anything But a Card Challenges No. 34 "Spring Forward"

Good Morning!!! Thanks to all who creatively celebrated the new season with our "Spring Forward" challenge #34! A plethora of submissions sharing the inspiration and celebration of Springtime. If you missed out on seeing all the fantastic submissions... please CLICK HERE.