WINNERS - Challenge #12 - Earth Day

Samra here to announce the winner of our Earth Day challenge from last month. Thank you all who entered with us your marvelous work! Choosing a winner was not an easy task with so many wonderful entries! But without further ado I present to you...

WINNER -#33 Miranda

Miranda created this Earth Day inspired Journal Page, draw the hands holding the globes so beautifully and picked such a perfect sentiment to top it all off. In my eyes, this is a perfect interpretation of the challenge. Thank you Miranda for creating such an inspiring piece!

Congratulations Miranda!  Pamellia will be in touch by email to send you a personalized winner's badge and to provide details about being our Feature Artist for the next challenge.

RUNNER-UP -#46 Kerstin

Truly and magically gorgeous piece. Love the magic of the sea feel of this piece and all the greens and blues that mix so well in this work of art.

RUNNER-UP - #51 Lisa

Shabby Chic gorgeousness at it's best!!!  I love the blue flowers, shabby bow and the delicate butterfly just like our strong and mighty earth, yet so very delicate and fragile.

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Now let's have a look at our DT favourites:

Anne's Favourite - #30 Karina

Karina transformed a plain album into a beautiful sea themed one, inside and out.  Each page has been altered, capturing the wonderful colours of Samra's gorgeous mood board.

Branka's Favourite - #4 Julia Aston

This beautiful project has stolen my heart! A brilliant design with so many yummy elements, fabulous color choice and a perfect use of fabric! This altered book is truly a work of art!

Cec's Favourite - #23 Yellow House Studio

I loved this array of ATCs because they were chock full of stamping, stenciling and wonderful colour. All the fun vintage images paired so nicely with birds and insects to tie into Earth Day. Each one stands on its own but together they make a cohesive grouping.

Niki's Favourite -#1 Maura

I love the story of the butterflies having an internal compass and being able to fly thousands of miles by instinct. Maura has told their story amazingly well with this lovely tag and has captured a truly magical element of Earth Day. Maura used the greens from the mood board smashingly well and the gears with the pops of gold are stunning! Fantabulous design and details!

Pamellia's Favourites -
38. Jacquie's Jewels

I just loved the technique Jacquie used to colour all these amazing leaves, but there's no denying that my favourite part of this fabulous creation is RUSTY the Squirrel!! Jacquie has captured my heart and the essence of what I enjoy about the outdoors the most...foliage and furry beings! LOVE IT!

54. Jane's Journal

Not only do I love all the amazing blues that Jane used here, but I love her earthy elements and amazing textures!! I also really enjoyed where Jane found her inspiration, please check out her post and be as inspired as I was!

Sara Emily's Favourite -  #32 Joi@RR

I was totally blown away by the colors and the texture on this painting! You really need to visit Joi's blog to fully appreciate this work of art. Her step by steps are fascinating!  Joi took the colors from Samra's mood board and ran with them! And even her inspiration is organic!

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Honourable Mentions:

13. Corinne                   14. IRIT S                      17. Sue                       34. Astrid

      

35. Drea Slee                 40. Deonna                   41. Suzz                         47. Karen

      

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A huge congratulation everyone! Thank you so much to everyone who played along with us last month and don't forget to grab your badges! You earned them!!

We are currently celebrating our first blogiversary and it's not too late to get in on the action. We have tons of amazing prizes from our sponsors The Funkie Junkie Boutique, Emerald Creek Crafts and Alleystamp!! You still have until June 4th to...

"CELEBRATE YOUR STYLE"! 

Hugs to all, from the 'Anything But Cute' Design Team

Challenge #12 - April - Earth Day

Hello Everyone!

Samra  here, hosting my last challenge here at Anything But Cute as a member of Design Team. Thank you all who took part in our last month's challenge! It was a pleasure to see all the gorgeous entries. Don't forget to check back with us next Tuesday when Branka and the team announce the winners of the Crazy For Colors challenge. Now on to this month's theme.

Inspiration for this theme came from the fact that April 22nd is celebrated as Earth Day, and I wanted our team to take part in the celebration by putting together Earth Day theme challenge.

EARTH DAY

Create a mixed media project inspired by this mood board and the beauty of our planet. Please tell us what inspired you. Entries for this challenge can be echo friendly, or even recycled/upcycled items; or depiction of the sea, mountain, river, forest, flowery meadow…let’s celebrate our planet!

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It's Sara Emily here, and I'm excited to introduce our talented Guest Designer for April!  She was the winner of my February challenge "Grungy Love". Please welcome Nikki Acton of Addicted to Art!

Nikki has a distinct simplistic style that I adore! But even though her projects appear "clean and simple", she puts so much into them with her perfectly executed techniques. What I wouldn't do to be a butterfly on her art room wall! Without further ado, here is the super talented Nikki and her gorgeous canvas! Check out all her techniques!

Hi everyone - I am Nikki from Addicted to Art. Many thanks to Pamellia and the ABC team for welcoming me as a Guest Designer today.

I live in Hampshire in the UK. I have been crafting and blogging for just over two years. I joined a new gym, started playing badminton again, made some new friends and one of them was a crafter. I visited her house, saw her craft room and scrapbooks and the rest is history! My own craft is eclectic, from simple cards to grungy mixed media projects. I am a big Tim Holtz fan but also love bright, bold abstract art and lots in between. 

Around the time I received the guest invitation I was visiting Brenda Brown (Bumblebees and Butterflies) who lives locally and she was creating a project using the Tim Holtz globe thinlits die at the time. I don't own it, but she kindly cut one for me as it seemed perfect for this theme. I decided to celebrate the beauty of our planet with my canvas but used a crackle effect on the surface to reflect the fragility of the world in which we live.

The cracked surface was created with PaperArtsy crackle medium.

My butterflies (Tim Holtz butterfly duo) were coloured with oil pastels and PaperArtsy fresco paint. There are more details of these techniques over on my blog today. 

I hope you like my creation. 

Nikki - Addicted to Art

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And now for some inspiration from the talented Anything But Cute design team!

It is with a sad heart that we tell you the news that this will be the last challenge that Cec and Samra join us as Design Team members. It has been such an honour to work behind the scenes with these ladies. They are so talented and have been an inspiration to everyone, they will really be missed by all of us! We wish both of you the best of luck in all that life and crafting has to bring you! Hugs, the entire Anything But Cute team!

Cec - CW Card Creations

I have gone into the rain forest for my Earth Day offering.  This little canvas has a background created with card stock die cuts covered with paints along with some stenciling.  I have added elements created from crafter's clay, altered greenery from the dollar store and even dirt made from beads and texture paste.

Samra - Paper Talk with Samra

I created a house in a flowery meadow  next to a deep blue lake under the starry sky. As you can probably tell, I was inspired by the blue flowers and the house at the base of a mountain. There was a quite a bit of texture, recycling and painting involved in creating this card for my co-worker who is going to retire in a year and move to another state to a house by the lake.

Anne - Redanne

I just love Samra's challenge theme, I was really inspired by the gorgeous colours in the mood board. It was perfect for me as I absolutely adore seahorses, they are an endangered species where we live.  I had lots of fun with some Fiber Paste, lots of paint and a real starfish to create an underwater scene.

Branka - Vintage Handmade

I was so inspired by Samra's beautiful mood board and especially by those awesome blue and green tones to create a mixed media mini canvas. I used gauze, art stones, modeling paste, Dylusions inks and some lace. 

Niki - Pawsitively Creative Crafts

I was so inspired by Samra's lovely mood board and used the blue tones, the earthy feel, the grass and the butterfly. Found objects, tinted modeling paste, and stamps made this design come alive.The eggs are made from polymer clay and painted a robins blue to compliment the mood board. Happy crafting and Carpe Diem!

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things

I just love Samra's mood board and I was completely drawn in by these neon earth colours! I drew inspiration from the foliage, the flowers and the gorgeous bird. I also was inspired by Samra's project. I love the natural foliage she included! My "Big World" canvas is going on the wall beside my bird-watching window!

Sara Emily - sarascloset

I just loved Samra's mood board, and I was inspired by the beautiful colors, butterfly, flowers, mushroom,  mossy looking fields, and the overall sense of nature combined with fantasy. Even Samra's words inspired me to use recycled materials.  I used over 20 of my mixed media products including, but not limited to paints, sprays, inks, pastes, and other mediums to create my tree stump. I hope you'll pop by my blog for lots of close ups and a step out of how this was made. There's even a little surprise! 

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I hope the inspiration from our team's creations and the mood board gives you plenty of creative juices to make a project for this challenge . Please hop over to the team blogs to see more photos and get some details on how these projects were made. And don't forget to leave some bloggy love while you're there.

I hope that we have inspired you to celebrate planet Earth with us this month. The winner will receive the honour of being our Feature Artist for an upcoming challenge!

JUST A REMINDER THAT WE DO NOT ALLOW BACKLINKING. PLEASE DO NOT ENTER PROJECTS INTO OUR CHALLENGE THAT WERE POSTED ON YOUR BLOG PRIOR TO TODAY. THANK YOU!

Challenge runs until May 4th - we can't wait to see what you come up with! Happy Crafting from the entire team and thanks for visiting Anything But Cute!

An InLinkz Link-up

Spotlight Artist - Samra - Handmade Flowers

Hello dear "Anything But Cute" readers!

Samra here, and thrilled to show you how I make the flowers for my projects. Mind you, this is nothing new, but it is the presentation of how I create flowers. So, there will be tons of pictures, everything is very self explanatory and as you will see, I don't have any fancy tools, just what I can find in my kitchen or crafting supplies that helps with the process.

Now, I'll show you how I make flowers with pearl stamens. (Prepping of the petals is the same as it is for the roses)

Very important thing is that you add glue on the bottom to ensure that flower does not come apart. And here are a few pics for the smaller flower version:

Now onto the wrapping tissue paper flowers: the only difference in making this type of flowers as oppose to paper/card stock flowers that you have to take several die cuts of the same size and glue them together to the stamen before going to the next size cutouts.

Well, that is it from me...I hope you found some useful tips and that you enjoyed this picture show :) There is still plenty of time to join in on our current challenge Grungy Love hosted by Sara Emily.

Thank you for stopping by...
Samra