This is a piece I did for the latest Three Muses challenge. When I saw the theme “Fowl Play”, for some reason my imagination went straight to Japanese Dancing Cranes. These cranes, who mate for life, have the most amazing dance rituals that are artistic, elegant and – playful. Says a lot about the nature of their Creator, don’t you think?
If you’ve never seen them in action, there is a David Attenborough YouTube clip HERE. (1.25 mins long)
The title is part of a quotation by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
And now, the 5×7″ Rounded Frames Freebie…
And the Commercial Use Template…
(This is a layered Photoshop psd file so you can style your own frames and mats separately)
(Click the image above to be whisked to my Printables blog)
The theme at the moment in Small World of Inchies and Twinchies is
Dresses and Dressforms
and I have set my dressform a-dreaming.
And a new freebie today…
I’ve recently been admiring some fabulous photography work which was all displayed in rounded frames. It looked so lovely that I decided to make some of my own. So I’ve made some standard 5×7″ frames and then I downsized them to fit ATCs too. Today I am sharing the link for the ATC Frames, tomorrow I will come back with the 5×7″ Frames and the Template so that you can make your own. The Template will be ok for Commercial Use, and the Frames for Personal Use. Enjoy!
“Faces” is the theme for Something Completely Different this week, still in Inchie mode.
So, I did a search under Face in my image folders, knowing that I have lots of beautiful faces that I have gathered over the years, but when the search threw this up, I knew this was the one!
There are two frames in this image, one around the inchie itself and one blended into the background.
Both are courtesy of a Doodle Frame Font by the Scrappin Cop.
The blended corner is a 14th Century design.
Courtesy of Corey Raymond at Adobe Exchange.
Links are in my sidebar.
“Black and White” Inchie for SCD
I made mine into a teeny box.
I adapted an Art Stamp from Lynne Perrella for my Lady Pearl.
“Hair, or an outrageous wig”, said the entry at Three Muses.
“Outrageous wig?”, said I, all a-plotting…
I am once again in the (happy) throes of Wedding Stationery production, so I am just quickly popping in to post this piece for the Small World of Inchies and Twinchies. 
The owls are from a vintage embroidery pattern which I then “painted” with an airbrush on a low opacity setting. The gorgeous frame is done with a Photoshop Style from donnaK that I found at Adobe Exchange. You need to register for an account there but you will find a treasure trove of free actions, styles and brushes by clicking on the Photoshop link from the lists on the white background.
I am really enjoying taking part in the various Art Challenges, whether it be designing Inchies, Twinchies, Moos or ATCs. It is certainly creating on a different scale! So I have decided to add smaller scale versions of my digital freebies when I can. There would be no point in downloading the hugely bigger file sizes for 12×12″ digital scrapbooking if you are only going to make a Twinchie or two! So I am thinking, scale the elements smaller, and add just a part of papers etc, just as though you were cutting them out of a larger sheet to create your art piece. And so I offer you my first installment of the new series of ATC Selections: juno Vintage Borders ATC Selections
DSO is staying open, I am happy to report! This month sees my tenth entry to Kim’s Color Challenge there (month-wise, some months I add seconds!) and I continue to enjoy the fun and the opportunity it affords of trying new things and stretching my design abilities. For this next offering, I am indebted to Ian Alexander’s Natural Patterns Library. Ian has gathered a large collection of very unusual patterns and textures in this lovely site and I love that he has added notes to explain where and what an image is or where he derived it from. For example….
Ian made a border pattern from this 18th Century piece of pottery, which I then altered to harmonize with Kim’s October swatch.
A second example is this wallpaper from the celebrated William Morris, of the 19th Century Arts and Crafts Movement. If you look very, very closely, you will see that it is a photo of a wall actually papered with this William Morris print. The join is not perfect, which adds to its authenticity and charm, so I didn’t Photoshop it…Much 
I did, however, alter the colour to achieve the Wayne’s World Pink in the swatch. Sorry William, Kimmie made me do it!
See if you can find my starting point for the third Border…
All three borders are 12×3″, the centre one is a png to preserve the lovely curved border I extracted from the wallpaper.
Think Monday Think ATC - last week’s theme was Big City. For me, I chose Florence. As I told my friend Limar, some day I will get there and from there I will visit Siena, and in between the two, I will find the little village where they still make the hand-marbled Florentine paper…..
