Well, freezing Autumn weather has officially arrived here in New Zealand!! Its gone from shorts and t-shirts at the weekend to thermals and jackets in the space of 24hrs.....and here I was thinking that Summer was going to last forever......
I'm up on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today with a belated birthday card. Even though I usually post birthday cards with plenty of time spare to travel round the world, every now and then I'm a bit late and sometimes the postal service doesn't work in my favour either. So thought it would be a good idea to have some 'belated' cards on hand just in case:
I was in a watercolouring mood when I created this card and I was also inspired by the pattern of this tray I saw in a Hard to Find brochure recently:
I'm sorry the picture is a bit grainy, the photo was really tiny and I really wanted to show you the colour detail with the navy and purple highlights. I just thought this monochromatic look was so pretty, I would try to recreate it!
I cut a panel of Strathmore Bristol Smooth CS and stamped flowers from the 'Pretty Posies' stamp set with Distress Ink 'Chipped Sapphire'. I then coloured the flowers with a waterbrush, bringing in the colour from the image outlines. I also added some Distress Ink 'Seedless Preserves' to some of the images. Once this was dry I adhered it to the card front.
I didn't want to cover up all my painting, so I used the larger circle die from 'Ornament Tag Fri-dies' with some clear vellum and heat embossed the sentiment from 'Bold Wishes' in white. This was glued to the card front by adding double-sided glue tape behind the embossed words.
The rest of the sentiment from 'WTF 2' was stamped with Hero Arts Navy mid-tone shadow ink on a strip of the same watercolour CS and adhered in place, along with some navy and purple iridescent sequins from Neat and Tangled.
If your interested in purchasing any of the items I used today or any others from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps don't forget to use my special code to save yourself some money!!
I'm going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Happy Birthday'.
Will also add to the Simon Says Stamp - Work It Wednesday Challenge where they are looking for 'Fun Inking Techniques'. Hope my stamping with Distress Ink and watercolouring from the images counts as one!!
Thanks so much for stopping by and will see you back here very soon!!
Take care
Shona
Well, it finally happened.....I got sick. After Max being sick for weeks (he's on Week 6 now) and getting a cold last week, both Phoebe and I succumbed to it on Friday. So its been a very long weekend, feeling very crappy, watching Netflix and reading heaps of magazines. I do feel better than I did on Friday, so will definitely be going off gardening tomorrow....
Today, as I was feeling not so ghastly, I decided it would be a good chance to get out some new stamp sets and colour away to my hearts content. I even managed to make two cards for this months The Cat's Pyjama's Challenge and it was so wonderful to use their stamps to create my entries:
Aren't these bunnies the cutest??!! They are so sweet and I loved colouring them in while I was watching a horror movie with Phoebe (sweet bunnies and horror movies seem a strange mix actually now I think about it......).
I started by grabbing my MFT stencil 'Radiating Rays', putting it in the corner of a white CS panel and blending with Distress Ink 'Mustard Seed'. When I removed the stencil I blended over top to create the sun itself and then softly over the rays to soften the hard lines. At the bottom of the panel I blended some Distress Ink 'Twisted Citron' to create a grassy area for my bunnies.
I stamped the bunnies (from The Cat's Pyjamas 'Family Forever' stamp set) with black ink and then coloured with my pencils. I stamped the sentiment (from the same stamp set) in black, popped the panel up on foam tape and glued on some sparkly sequins from Neat and Tangled.
I'm also going to link this to the AAA Card Challenge # 112 where their theme is 'Use your Favourite Technique'. I love stamping and colouring with pencils!!
I have another card to share with you for the TCP challenge but will do that tomorrow. Starting to feel tired and need all my energy for a busy week. Max is back to school tomorrow too. He has had 3 weeks off in the past 5 weeks. He's still coughing his guts out every 5 minutes but feeling much better in himself. The funny thing is after this week its the school holidays and he will have two weeks off!!
Take care
Shona
Well hello there, hope your having a wonderful week and its not to stressful trying to fit five days worth of work into four!! I'm just popping in to remind you all about our current challenge at TIME OUT where we have this beautiful photo to inspire your creations:
There is so much that I love in this photo!! The yellow flowers, the hint of light blue and the pattern in the vase.....so many ideas to inspire your projects!
We also have Altenew as our Sponsor for this challenge and they are giving a $20 gift certificate to the winner. So very lucky!!
For my card I wanted to make sure it included yellow, light blue and green in the colours but also wanted to have a nod to the cool vase pattern:
I've used all Altenew products for this card and even though it was a bit fiddly, I'm so happy with how it turned out!
I started off by die-cutting the 'Layered Medallion Cover Plate A' from some light blue CS and adhering it to the white card front. I then die-cut again from some white CS and chose different shapes to colour with a yellow pen from my Tombow Dual Brush Pens set, and a green from Altenew Markers Set A. These were all glued into place. The sentiment (from 'Build a Flower Anemone') was stamped with black ink on white CS and popped on foam tape. And to finish off I glued on a few half-circle black pearls.
You have until Wednesday 11th April to link your projects to the TIME OUT challenge and if your needing help with inspiration, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our wonderful Guest Designer Sarah of Funky Fossil Designs have created for you. I can't wait to see your projects in the Gallery!!
Take care
Shona
