. . . another thank you card for my sister’s soon-to-be-ex colleagues. This one is based on the sketch over at Crazy 4 Challenges, and I’m really out of my comfort zone with all these patterned papers!
The stamp is from my stash, stamped onto watercolour card with Versafine Onyx Black ink. The paints are Zig Clean Colour pens, which are ideal for the tiny details of the stamp:
My lucky sister is “retiring” early in a few weeks’ time, and wanted some thank you cards for colleagues. This is the first of a few I’m making for her, and I’ve based it on the sketch over at Two Paper Divas which I’ve turned on its side. A very simple card (usually best for men, I think) with a pre-cut image, some subtly-patterned paper and a few brads from my stash, with a stamped greeting to finish.
The challenge over at Sketch Saturday this week is to choose any sketch from numbers 215-362. I chose number 225 which looks like this:
Apart from elongating it, I stuck pretty much to the sketch. The main image is a stamp by Inkylicious called Windswept, inked in Memento Olive Grove onto watercolour paper which had been pre-painted with a sky image in my Cotman watercolours. The paper had been in my stash for years, as had the brads, but they both matched perfectly. I then stamped the Clearly Besotted greeting in Olive Grove, too.
Ever made a card where everything that could go wrong, does go wrong? Yes, I thought so! This was one of those cards for me. I wanted to play along with the colour challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays, where the theme is tan, white & a bright colour. The allium stamp is by Inkylicious & is a two-step stamp but I only used the outline part, inking it up with Hero Arts Unicorn white ink then painting the flower head with Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paint in Aqua Mist. So far, so good.
I had decided I wanted to play along with the Sew Cute challenge over at Kitty Bee designs but almost broke my newly-repaired sewing machine trying to sew a border round the main image. I had to hand-sew a second border to cover up the mess of the first! Then I thought the white stem didn’t stand out enough, so I tried painting some of the Aqua Mist over the top but the result was so bad I hand-stitched the stem to cover up the mess. I kept the rest of it simple (didn’t want to tempt fate!) by die-cutting the Thanks word using a die by Clearly Besotted.
Another week, another challenge, this time the one over at Addicted to CAS where the theme is geometric. This was an ideal opportunity to try out a recent Ebay purchase of some Clearly Besotted stamps & dies, and another watercolour technique. This time the technique is to emboss with the dies rather than cutting the card, and to let watercolour paint fill the embossed lines.
I decided to cut out one or two of the shapes to let the black background show through, and stamped some of them with a variety of the stamps from the set. The greeting is by Woodware, and the enamel dots were created with Ranger Enamel Accents.
Last week our 14 year old son – after 2 years of extremely hard work – became a 2nd Dan black belt at karate. Not only that, he improved his points score by 6 over his 1st Dan grading score, so to say Mum & Dad are proud would be a huge understatement! He owes his success in no small measure to a teacher called Steve, who notices the little things that make a big difference, so this card is to say thanks (“Arigatou” in Japanese, apparently!) to him.
I downloaded the image as an SVG from the internet & cut it on my Sizzix Eclips. The stamp, by American Crafts, was inked up in 3 colours of Hero Arts ink then embossed with clear embossing powder. Although the ink is supposed to be quick drying I’ve found that if I’ve got everything ready beforehand, the ink stays wet just long enough to emboss it. The background was created using various masks & stamps in second/third generation inking.
Very quick post from me this morning! When I get the time I love to take part in the challenges over at Addicted to CAS. The theme of the current challenge is “Transparent” and this is my take on it, the glass vase I hope meets the challenge criteria.
I’ve only recently started entering blog challenges, but sometimes they’re almost a challenge too far! This week at Less is More the theme is to use felt or fabric. Felt? I’ve not used that since my son was a toddler, but having tidied up my stash the other day I knew I had some felt flowers which had been languishing unloved in a box for a couple of years so I decided to put them to good use.
A few challenges have caught my eye this week. The first is at Stamping Sensations where the inspiration is a picture of poppies. The second is a colour challenge at Less is More, the colours being dark green & rust, and the third is at CAS-ology where the cue is silhouettes. I immediately decided against rust-coloured poppies as they would look like they should be thrown on the compost heap!
I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, mostly because I never stick to them. This year will be different. I have made only one resolution – to spend less time thinking about making cards (and browsing the web for inspiration) and more time actually making them! This will, I hope, force me to experiment a bit more, to use more of my stash & to be prepared to take the risk that something might not work. I’m also hoping it will mean that I will be less last-minute with my card making, but maybe I’m expecting too much!
So here are this week’s experiments, and I decided to use the new Sizzix stamps my husband bought me for Christmas. The first two cards were inspired by Ali Reeve when I saw her demoing on Create & Craft a few days ago. To make the inky backgrounds I made masks from copy paper & inked through them. The butterflies were stamped & masked then coloured with a Lilac Promarker and the finished image was mounted onto dark purple cardstock.
Another inking & masking experiment. The butterfly was “watercoloured” with a Sakura Silver Stardust pen.
Fuchsia Crafts 