Out of Africa - Movie Challenge

Hello lovelies! I made a collage for the new challenge over at the Rubber Dance blog. The theme of the challenge is to make something inspired by a movie.

I'll admit that it took me a while to pick a movie, but my love for elephants lead me to choose 'Out of Africa', an American movie from 1995, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. The movie was loosely based on the autobiographical book 'Out of Africa' by Danish author Karen Blixen, published in 1937.

I made the sunset background first, using Distress Oxides and a makeup sponge. I had masked a circle where the sun would be and coloured it in with Oxides after making the sky. There are some purple looking mountains in the back, painted with ink. I drew the tree by hand. The bird stamps I used are seagulls, so I added some feathers and adjusted the beaks a bit in an attempt to make them look like eagles. I stamped the elephants over the background and coloured them in with black ink, as I just wanted their silhouettes against the sunset. I adjuested the tusks of the left elephant with a black pen to make the two elephants look slightly different.

This is what the elephant stamp looks like.

It's easy to turn any stamp into a silhouette!

Some details:

 

I used a page from an old Danish book, since Karen Blixen was a Danish writer. 

She lived in Kenya, a British crown colony at the time, hence the British postal stamp.

Karen's husband was from Sweden - luckily I had a Swedish postal stamp.

I didn't have any postal stamps from Kenya, so I found some photos online and printed them out.

The Lion was stamped on a book page ... I don't know whether Karen Blixen made any sketches of African animals, 

but I imagine it would look something like this.

The African pattern in the back is also an internet photo that I printed out for my collage.

 

Karen Blixen wrote a lot of letters while she lived in Africa,

perhaps she sent some postcards as well .... 

I stamped the postcard with Distress inks and sprayed it with water

to make the ink seep for a vintage look. I also crumbled it up 

and added some ink here and there.

So there it is,

Out of Africa:

Stamps used (all from Rubber Dance):

Elephant and Lion from African Animals

Seagulls from A little Birdie

Vintage Postcard

Which movie would you pick, if you were to make something inspired by one?

Would you like to join our challenge?

You have until midnight CET on November 30th.

See you there! Maybe? ;-)

I want to end my post today by sharing this quote. I've printed it out and hung it up in my studio, as a gentle reminder in case I should forget .... (Feel free to do the same - I made it using a copyright free image of a torn book page. Print out and decorate if you wish!).

 

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, 

and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."

Thanks for looking!

 

Rubber Dance Animal Challenge - Two Cards

Hello humans! The challenge over at Rubber Dance blog this fortnight is to incorporate stamped animals in your work (you don't have to use our stamps to join).

Rubber Dance has lots of animal stamps and I ended up making two cards with the largest ones - one on land and one underwater.

My first card, or picture really as it's rather big, features the blue whale - at least one of mine is blue - 

this adorable stamp from Whale Wishes:

 

I made the background with Distress Oxides, blending the colours and spraying light with water. After the first layer had tried, I added more green ink, lots of it, add water and held it upside down to let the green run down the background to look like tall seaweeds. I used a black pen around the edges of the "seaweed" to make them stand out more, and stamped the smaller seaweed and flowers at the bottom. The whales were stamped on watercolour paper and coloured in with Zig clean colour markers, cut out and adhered with foam dots. The fish from Something Fishy were stamped on acetate so I could turn one of them around to swim in the opposite direction. I coloured them on the back with copper paint and gave them a dash of copper glue glitter on the front.

My next card features the Elephant from African Animals. Do you know the children's rhyme about the elephants playing on the spider's web? Edited: Many have not heard of the rhyme, so if you want to get a mind bug.... you can hear the song on youtube here.

One elephant went out to play

Upon a spider’s web one day.
He had such enormous fun,

He called for another elephant to come​ ...

I cut the head off one of the elephants so I could tilt it upwards to reach the tail of the other: 

The leaves are die cuts, stamped on top with leaves and texts from Rubber Dance:

Wanna join our animal challenge? 

You have until 31st of October (midnight CET)

and you don't have to use stamps from Rubber Dance to enter. 

 I'm so proud that Susanne chose my blue whale for the challenge image!
She's our DT & social media manager over at Rubber Dance

and also the one who designed the Whale and Elephant stamps for Rubber Dance.

Thanks for looking! 

Norwegian Elephant - Christmas Card

The elephant is not an indigenous animal in Norway, but this elephant stamp is made in Norway by Rubber Dance - so is the winter sentiment stamp.

Elephant and sentiment stamped with Archival Ink on Strathmore Mixed Media paper. Coloured in with ZIG clean colour markers and a waterbrush. The trees and the stitched line are dies from Your Next Stamp. I cut the elephant out and tucked it behind the trees.

I added Stickles glitter (Diamond) to the trees:

 

I'm entering my card to these two challenges:
 

Scrappegarasjen:
#29: Norwegian Design (i.e. the stamps I've used)
- Challenge open to people in Europe. I live in Norway.
Craft Stamper November Challenge:
Anything Goes! (just remember to stamp somewhere!)

Thanks for looking!

 

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hey! Today is NOT my birthday!

However, I will turn 50 on the 4th of December - so if you want to make me a birthday card, here's your chance: My stamp company's blog has a new challenge today and the theme is... you guessed it, BIRTHDAY! There is no need to send me a birthday card, just join our challenge and I'll "receive" it online ;-)

Here's one of the inspiration cards I made for our challenge, using this month's challenge colours - which juuust happens to be some of my faves:

 

Both stamps from my company, Rubber Dance: Elephant from African Animals,

sentiment from Funny Birthday.

Come join our challenge and help me warm up to my BIG day :)

See you there!