Cure For The Monday Blues Challenge # 21 - Placing Pizzazz

I have been feeling in a floral mood today - probably because we have some gorgeous blooms out in our back garden at the moment. I'm not sure exactly what these purple flowers are, but they have very dark centres and pretty frilly leaves and are looking particularly lovely this year.

 

 

 

 

We built an arbour last year and planted some honeysuckle at the back, which we took as a cutting from my Dad's original plant. We bought a pair of red climbing roses to train up the trellis each side - we chose these as my Dad used to love roses and David's Mum used to love red flowers, so we thought it would be a nice way of remembering them both. This year they are doing really well and have produced some stunning velvety red blooms, so I couldn't resist taking some photos to share.

 

 

 

This week Taheerah has chosen an inspiration photo which also has bright flowers, http://littlemisst-papercraft.blogspot.com/2014/06/cure-for-monday-blues-challenge-21.html , so I decided to focus on those and design a more Clean and Simple card. Those of you who know me will realise that I don't usually do CAS - I am always too tempted to keep adding layers and embellishments - so I think I've been much more restrained for once - Lol!

 

Source: Pinterest

 

 

I decided to concentrate on the three blooms in the inspiration photo above, so I selected the pretty peony stamp from JustRite's "Seeds of Summer" clear stamp set (CR - 03755) and started by stamping it onto some Friskett masking paper and cutting it out carefully to make a mask. Working directly onto a white DL card blank I then stamped a vertical row of three of the peonies using Watering Can Archival Ink and my mask. I used Tim Holtz Distress Markers in bundled sage, festive berries, mustard seed and spun sugar to scribble some ink onto an acrylic block, then I picked this up with a fine detail tipped waterbrush to watercolour the flowers. As I hadn't used watercolour paper the card warped a little, so when it was dry I found my iron and actually ironed it smooth again!

 

 

Please click on the photo for a better view.

 

 

The Thank You sentiment is from Clearly Besotted's "Many Thanks" clear stamp set and was stamped with Tuxedo Black Memento Dye ink. I used foam tape to adhere the sentiment to a banner which I made by stamping the polka dot background from the "Gingham & Co" clear stamp set by Waltzingmouse Stamps with Rose Bud Memento Dye ink and trimming into a banner shape. At this point I had to sit on my hands to stop myself from adding anything else!

 

So I have probably shocked you three times today - with a CAS design, doing some ironing, and (very unusually for me) completing and blogging a card several hours before the actual challenge deadline! I think I'd better go and lie down in a darkened room!

Soft Watercolour Wash Background (with Stencils) - part 3

 

My fourth card in this series is a slightly larger one - this time using The Crafters Workshop Mini Cherry Blossoms stencil. I wanted to see if I could watercolour a background which wasn't quite so abstract, so I chose this stencil of birds sitting in a cherry tree and used pale blues, green, brown and pink paints. The pooling of the watercolour paint in the spaces left by the stencil gave a lovely edge to the flowers but the birds weren't very clear, so I decided to die cut a flock of them using Memory Box dies instead. I mounted each bird onto my card with tiny foam pads, so that they look like they are perching on the branches or flying.

Please click on the photo above for a better view.

 

The sentiment is another from the useful Clearly Besotted "Many Thanks" set. I stamped it straight onto the background using Potting Soil Archival Ink. I really like the subtle, dreamy quality to this card!

Cupcake Inspirations Challenge 254

 

Earlier this week I discovered the delicious looking Cupcake Inspirations challenge blog here http://cupcakeinspirations.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/challenge-254.html . Their sponsors this week are Core'dinations and I am a great fan of their colourful card so I decided to join in with this week's colour themed challenge. I have made two cards, both using 5" x 7" white card blanks and Core'dinations card.

 

 

 

For my first card I cut a panel of "Aruba" Core Color card and embossed it using a Darice Circle Background embossing folder and my cuttlebug machine. I used some lemon yellow card to die cut a panel for the sentiment using one of the Spellbinders Card Creator A2 Polka Dots dies (S5 - 133). The sentiment is from the JustRite "Seeds of Summer" clear stamp set (CR - 03755) and was stamped using one of Wendy Vecchi's new Archival ink colours, Forget-Me-Not, which is a lovely shade of turquoise blue. I then cut a white card panel with a Spellbinders Labels One die (S4 - 161)  and used Memento Tuxedo Black ink to stamp the pretty petunias image from the same "Seeds of Summer" JustRite stamp set. I coloured the petunias with Copic Ciao markers - Aqua Blue (BG01), Yellow (Y06) and Yellow Green (YG03). I used double sided tape to add the yellow panel to the card and foam pads to adhere the white flowery panel over the top. A row of three yellow pearls was the finishing touch.

For my second card I took two strips of Core'dinations in Aruba blue and a lemon yellow colour (which was from the Tim Holtz and Ranger Adirondack collection), and embossed them both with a Darice "Scroll with bird" long embossing folder in my Cuttlebug machine. These were adhered to the white card base with double sided tape, so that they joined in the centre to form one background panel. I cut two white card panels from the Spellbinders Deckled Rectangles large dies (S4 - 202) and used Memento Rich Cocoa ink to stamp "A Little Hug" by Leanne Ellis for Sugar Nellie and the "Thanks for being there"sentiment from the "Rescue Remedies Additions" stamp set by Waltzingmouse stamps. I coloured the image with Copic Ciao markers - Aqua Blue (BG01), Yellow (Y06), Chamois (E35), Skin White (E00) and Burnt Umber (E29). The two white panels were mounted onto the card using foam pads and the smaller one was embellished with a row of three tiny aqua coloured pearls.

 

 

I'd like to say a big Thank You to my good friend Lana, who gave me the Sugar Nellie stamp as part of my Christmas present last year!

Sunday Stamper - week 300 - Dream Lover

This week is rather a special one over at the very talented Hels Sheridan's blog http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sunday-stamper-week-300-dream-lover.html  - it is the 300th week for the Sunday Stamper challenge! For each of the last 300 weeks Hels has come up with a theme, loosely based on a song title, and has created a gorgeous example of her stamped art to inspire us all to join in. As it's the 300th anniversary of the Sunday Stamper challenge, this week there are several companies sponsoring it and a very generous prize up for grabs for one lucky entrant.

All week I have been deliberating as to what to use to make my entry for the "Dream Lover" theme. I knew straight away that I wanted to use the Catslife Press quote stamp that I acquired recently (thanks Kaz)! But it wasn't until I was able to get into my craftroom yesterday afternoon that I was able to find the perfect image to go with it. This romantic couple from Paper Artsy's Urban Snapshots range - Young Love 4 - fitted the bill perfectly!

Apologies for the poor quality photograph - as per usual I was stamping and taking photos at night! The flash has made the copper areas look more orangey, but in real life they are a bright metallic copper. You can click onto any of the photos for a clearer view if desired.

I gathered together some more supplies - a white card blank, some shiny copper mirror card, thick white card which had been previously sprayed with various pink / purple / copper ink sprays (from Sticky Fingers), some pearlescent pink card, double sided tape, foam pads, some pink gems and everything shown in the photo below. Hels is a great fan of all of Wendy Vecchi's products so I thought it would be appropriate to use the "Art Colours Life" stamp set (which happens to be the only one of Wendy Vecchi's that I own), together with the Large Heart from her Stencils for Art collection.  



I started by trimming a layer of copper mirror card slightly smaller than the front of my card blank, then I cut a smaller panel from the colourful ink sprayed card. I used the central heart shape from the stencil as a mask and inked up the large flower panel stamp below with Victorian Velvet Distress ink before stamping it all over the background to give it a subtle texture. When I removed the mask there was a feint outline of where the heart was, but it needed more definition, so I laid the outer stencil over the flower stamped portion of the card and christened my new Ranger mini ink blending tool with the Victorian Velvet Distress ink to add more depth of colour to the heart. I really like the new little circular ink blending tool as it's ideal to use with stencils and it's easy to control the ink without getting any harsh lines.

I stamped the lovers' image onto white card with Jet Black Archival ink and cut around it leaving a narrow white border. I used the mini ink blending tool and the Victorian Velvet Distress ink again to gently add a little shading to the couple, but I made sure to leave the man's shirt white - if he was anything like my husband he wouldn't be seen dead wearing pink!

This photo and the one below were both taken without flash, but have come out a bit dark. In reality the pink is more of a bright rose pink and what looks like gold is actually a warm copper colour.

The brilliant Catslife Press quote was stamped onto white card using the jet black Archival ink and the corners were rounded with a corner chomper. I then layered this onto a slightly larger rectangle of pearlescent pink card, also with rounded corners, and stuck it to the card with foam pads.

I used a pretty Magnolia Doohickey heart lace border die to trim either side of a strip of pearlescent pink card and added a narrower strip of card, which had been sprayed with slightly darker shades of pink and purple with copper. I used JustRite alphabet stamps (Times New Roman font - 50 pt) to make up the words "Dream Lover" which I then stamped onto the strip of card using the jet black Archival ink again. I trimmed the right-hand side to a fishtail shape and mounted it on the card with foam pads, to help ground the image of the pair of lovers (which I had stuck inside the heart using double sided tape). The final touch was the addition of three sparkly pink gemstones .

I was really happy with the finished card and am now considering making something similar in a cream and duck - egg blue colourway that I can use as a hanging in our bedroom. Watch this space!

Bright hexagons.

This is my second post today, again with a hexagon themed card - but this one is totally different from my last card!

Earlier this week I was playing around with my watercolour paints making card backgrounds. I very rarely use reds, oranges and yellows - so this one was really out of my comfort zone! I started by painting lemon yellow circles randomly onto white card, then went around each one with orange paint - at this point I decided to try to make the shapes roughly hexagonal for a more angular look. Then I filled in all the remaining spaces with bright red paint, blending it into the orange. The resulting piece was ever so bright and it looked good with a black card blank for contrast so that's what I went with. I stamped over each yellow hexagon shape with a selection of tiny stamps from Papertrey Ink's Happy Hexagons stamp set, using Jet Black Archival ink and Wendy Vecchi's Red Geranium and Orange Blossom Archival inks.  The sentiment was from the same PTI stamp set and again stamped in Black Archival ink.

I would normally add additional embellishments to a card, but I felt that there was enough going on with this one already and that anything else would detract from it. I think that this must actually be the first one - layer card that I've made so far!

I'd like to enter this into the Moxie Fab World's Happy for Hexagons challenge. You can see the details here http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2014/02/hexagons-happy-for-hexagons-challenge.html .

I would also like to enter it in the Sunday Stamper challenge -  Week 287 - All Thing Bright And Beautiful. Details are here on Hels Sheridan's blog http://pinkleart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sunday-stamper-week-297-all-things.html .

This is the first time that I have entered either of these challenges, so I hope that I have followed all the rules and linked up correctly! Thanks for looking.