Altered Playing Cards, Week 16

Welcome to 2015.  It's going to be a fantastic year, isn't it?  I hope your New Year's Day is going well, and you are safe and secure in a warm (or cool, if you live in the southern hemisphere) and loving environment. 

For Week 16 at Claudine's Art Corner, Claudine wanted us to focus on backgrounds using tissue paper.  I thought I could work with this challenge, even though I had none of that cool tissue Claudine used.  I also wanted to welcome in the new year and honor 2015 with these two playing cards.

Claudine wanted us to make backgrounds using the same technique, so I came up with the idea of using the same ink on both backgrounds.  I decided on ink, rather than paint, because I was in the mood to try something new and different.  Of course, I ran into problems from the very beginning, because when I started to use my digital camera for step-out photos, I had no charged batteries.  So, I did the next best thing and scanned each step along the way.

I combined midnight blue and lavender pigment inks to create both backgrounds.  I couldn't believe how similar these two colors looked when combined on the playing cards.

While the ink was drying on the cards,

I stamped and scrunched the tissue paper with fun sparkles embedded in it.  I used three stamps randomly on this glitzy tissue paper.  For the second card, I marginally scrunched the tissue, then decided I wanted to leave it as straight as possible.  I was impressed at how much the background color affected the color of both tissues.

Now I confess, I've stamped more on APCs than I have stamped in my life.  And I still don't like stamping very much.  Give me good old cut and paste collage any day.  But once again, I stamped on both these cards.

This stamp came with its own sentiment, "Live Art," so I didn't add any other words.  Live Art is something I hope to do in 2015.

And of  course, if I have to stamp something that signifies the new year, it's going to include a charismatic rocking horse.

Here's one final look at both cards as we welcome in the new year.

Thanks for looking, laughing, and having fun with my botched stamp jobs on these APCs this week.  As always, I appreciate you and your wonderful comments.  Welcome to 2015 everyone!