So it is Thursday night and I have been sitting on these six cards since Monday morning wanting to share them, and yet not able to find a moment to sit down and type out the words.  That is simply because this has been a huge and crazy art week.

Needless to say some of the link ups for the cards have expired, but I am going to share them anyway, because they were pretty cards and thus should be shared.

But first, I am going to tell the tales of my art week.  This was the week I have been waiting for for so long.  This was the week that we launched the new art program at my kids’ school.  This week we launched a pilot program of sorts trying something that has never really been done, at least for our school.  We are teaching an eight week art program for every student in our school, giving every student over eight hours of REAL art education, with a heavy focus on the elements of design and a focus on drawing techniques.

This week we launched.  It has been months of prep work and planning.  I stand at the helm of this project, the mouth piece as such.  I’m the teacher here, but they thing is, I have no teaching experience.  I have no teaching credentials.  I am NOT a teacher.  And yet, I am teaching.  And I am not teaching a classroom.  No, I’m teaching a grade.  An entire grade at one time.  What does that mean?  That means over 100 students in a mass lecture style room.  Over a hundred students (and for the first eight weeks it will be 129 kindergartners and 101 first graders ) pencils in hand lined up at 10 massive tables (they hold 12 kids each) learning about art theory, artists and their artwork, and creating actual art.

And at the end of the day…I think we pulled it off.  There has been an amazing response from the teachers, the parents, and most importantly, the children.  And at the end of the day…I think I am going to learn a whole hell of a lot more than the students ever will.

I have already learned that little kids have no concept of space and how to fill it.  So day one my kinders drew too small.  So I had to learn fast, and on day two was able to fix that.  A great kinder teacher taught me to drop dots onto the paper and have the kids connect the dots on their first lines.  And that solved the problem.  The first of many we are going to have to learn to solve.

Then on top of that, we are in the beginning throws of Choir rehearsal.  And tonight we sold pizza at the book fair to raise funds for our winter programs.  My partner in singing crime and I find that we tend to raise more money when we raffle off art work (ironically, I am the only one who paints) so today, my first day off from the Art program, I spent the day painting acrylic on canvas.  I’m sharing them, cause they came out really really cute.

And at the end of the day, we raise over two hundred dollars.

But that is why I have been sitting on these cards almost literally all week.

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First up we have a fun inspiration challenge from the team over at Inspired by All the Little Things.  I am loving the beautiful blue tones through out the inspiration photo, and new I was going to have to create a card focusing on those lovely shades.

I started by pulling out some great textured card stock in a pretty sea foam blue shade, and ran it through my Big Shot with a wood grained Darice embossing folder.  The card stock has a white core, so I rubbed
some sandpaper over it so that you could see the difference in color.  I die cut with a Little B die the circle (and little hole punched boarder) and using a Prima Marketing stamp, added the coffee and books.  I colored them in with my copics, trying to pull the blues and browns from the inspiration photo.  I distressed the card stock with some tea dyed Distress Ink.  Finally I added the ribbon (I am trying to learn to tied better card bows).   I don’t think I quite got the blues right, but I do like how the card came out regardless.  It has such great texture.

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Next up is a great color challenge from the gurus of color over at Color Throwdown.  The colors they were looking for were peach, aqua, and gray (this is one of the link ups I missed, but I loved the color scheme).

I pulled out one of my favorite Penny Black stamps, and with some archival ink onto a bit of watercolor card stock.  I used my Gansai Tambi watercolors and shaded the sweet little girl.  I added a simple little sentiment from Paper Smooches and a Tim Holtz sentiment sticker.  I trimmed p the card stock and back the whole thing with a bit of gray printed paper.  I originally wanted to place either a aqua or peach paper under it, but every time I tried one, the whole balance of the card got thrown off.  Go figure, it had to be gray.

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Next up in the very long line up of card tonight, is another color challenge, this time from the queens of color over at Colour Q.  This week they are looking for a design that is CAS that includes black, primrose petals, summer starfruit, soft sky, and white.

I loved both the type print in the inspiration photo and the floral theme on it, so I went in search of a way to include both.  I started with a spiritual sentiment from Recollections in the center of the card in a bit of pink archival ink.  Then I stamped and masked Ellen Hutson Essentials floral stamps into the corner.  I stamp the type writer and books from Prima Marketing, and started coloring in things with my copics.  In the end I felt I needed just a bit more of the mustard color, so I blended in just a bit of Distress Mustard seed into the other two corners.  I added a bit of black and pale pink striped paper, can called it a day.  I also missed the link of for this pic, but isn’t is just so pretty.  I don’t make pretty cards, so this is a bit out of my norm.

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The design team over at The Paper Players had a super fun challenge this week.  They were looking for simply, a clean and simple taste of fall.

I decided to go with everybody’s favorite fall flavor, pumpkins.  I pulled out a stamp and die combo from Hero Arts and stamped out the pumpkins and leaves onto some colored printed paper.  I die cut the images, and added a bit of distress ink in several shades to give the images some dimension.  I took a bit of carved pumpkin Distress Ink and blended into the bottom of the card stock, splattered some ink onto the card (I know that makes the card not CAS, but alas, the card needed the splatters) and adhered the pumpkins (the small pumpkin is added with a bit of dimensional tape).  Finally, I added some of the orange printed paper to the side of everything and called it a day with this card.  I think I might have just gotten the feeling of fall here.

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The sleuths of design over at Can You Case It this week delved out an interesting technique challenge asking for a shaker card.  I am not good at shaker cards.  I have tired them in the past, but in the end they always end up weird or boring.  So I figured this card was either going to break my ugly shaker card streak, or be awful.

I decided to focus more on the picture instead of the shaker aspect, making my shaker element the moon.  I stamped out a Hampton Art Halloween stamp and masked it out with a bit of Postit tape.  I blended Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint, Forest Moss and Black soot Distress Ink over the card, blending out from where I was going to cut the moon. I then colored in my owl with my copics.  I added the sentiment from the same stamp pack in both Memento Lux white and black ink.  I did the whole complicated things you have to do to make a shaker card, added some black card stock under everything and added another stamp.  I added lots of little black little sparkles.  And at the end of the day I think the foreground looked cool, but the shaker still came out weird.  I am not good at shakers.

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Finally today we have an inspiration challenge from the design team at Always Playing with Paper‘s The Challenge.  They had this whole tropical pineapple thing going for them, so I went with it.

Now, I only have one pineapple stamp, and that is a tiny one from You Next Stamp.  So using that little pineapple stamp I created a whole scene around it.  Now for a while now I have been trying to improve my background coloring with my copics, so I took this scene and really focused on laying down the color.  I sort of biffed the the island sand, and I don’t like how I colored the little girl, but I think the dock and the water have good movement.

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That’s all for today (cause there wasn’t enough right?).  I am off to bed.  I have tomorrow off, so I should have a few more pretty cards up, cause I am only doing selfish work tomorrow.  Till then, create something pretty.