Blues and Bunny with a Stocking

Colorful Options has a colour palette to choose from and, needless to say, I chose the blues.  

I sprayed the background with a few different blues and then die cut three hexagons out of it and stamped postage marks, etc. on them. I die cut the hexagons again out of scrap cs, popped the scrap ones back in the holes and layered the stamped ones on top of them.

I did some ink smooshing with various blue Distress inks and die cut the flowers and the sentiment out of that.

Here's the colour palette I chose from.  I tried to capture the various shades of blue from the left third of the colours..

 
And a Christmas card for Sparkles Christmas Challenge "Christmas Stocking" and Jingle Belles "Animal Antics".

One of the fabulous Anita Jeram stamps, simply watercoloured, bordered with black, and on an off-white card base.

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - unknown postage mark and text stamps
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, various blue Distress inks
Paper - mixed media cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Alexandra Renke flowers, Happy Birthday die, hexagon die, various blue sprays

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Colorado Craft Co. Anita Jeram
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, off white and black cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints

Gemstone Ornaments and Elegant Writer Poppy

A Twofer today.  First for My Time to Craft Christmas "Ornaments", I did something a bit different and used a deciduous tree die cut with gemstones for ornaments.

I die cut the tree three times and glued them together for dimension.  I sprayed my focal panel with enough blue spray to provide contrast to the white tree.  Stamped a sentiment on it and popped it up on fun foam on the card base.

And then had lots of fun finding various shades and sizes of blue and silver stick-on gems for the ornaments on the tree.

My second card is for Cardz4Guyz "Poppies or Remembrance".  I did a muted colour scheme (seems more guy-like to me) by using my Elegant Writer pen to colour the poppy.

 

I haven't done this technique for a long time so my Elegant Writer pen was a bit dry and I didn't get as much colour variation as I've gotten in the past, but I still like the effect.

I stamped the image in Vintage Photo, added small lines with the Elegant Writer on the poppy, seed heads, and butterfly, and then with water and a paint brush, pulled out some of the Elegant Writer and Vintage Photo ink.

For the leaves, I scribbled a bit of Elegant Writer on a palette, spritzed with water, and then picked up some colour for the leaves.

I pulled out a bit of Vintage Photo to ground the image and sponged Antique Linen around the edges.

The panel is popped up on fun foam on a cream card base.

Here's a close-up to show the colour variation from the Elegant Writer pen:

 

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Stampendous sentiment
Ink - Archival Hickory Smoke
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Penny Black ornament tree die, blue spray, blue and silver gemstones

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Carabelle
Ink - Distress Vintage Photo and Antique Linen
Paper - mixed media cs, cream cs
Size - 6x4.25"
Accessories - Elegant Writer pen, fun foam

Blue Forget-Me-Nots

Time to remind you that you only have until June 24th to enter a card in the CAS Watercolour "Something Blue" challenge!

Every spring / early summer, my garden is full of blue Forget-Me-Nots.  I'm always sad when they are finished and I have to pull out the dying plants - but as you pull them out, they drop their seeds everywhere, ready for next year.

I stamped the image on hot press watercolour paper with archival ink and watercoloured with my Gansai Tambi paints, using quite an intense blue for the flowers, a very pale bit of green for the leaves, a bit of very pale blue on the postmark, and adding an even paler blue wash around the flowers (so pale it doesn't show in the photo!).

I used a linen cardstock for the card base and for the stitched frame.  The frame is popped up on foam tape over the image.

I added a tiny drop of cream from a Viva Pearl Pen to the centre of each flower.  Here's a close-up:

Please head over to CAS Watercolour and check out the rest of the Design Team and June's wonderful Guest Designer, TaeEun (rainbow in november).

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - hot press watercolour paper, linen cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, cream Viva Pearl Pen, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die, foam tape

Blue Butterflies

I love the new CAS Watercolour challenge!  Those of you who know me know that my all-time forever favourite colour is blue.  And that is this month's challenge!

I went with blue butterflies:

And I went back to an older watercolour technique - Wrinkle Free Distress.  Because it's an old technique, I often forget to use it, but it is so effective and such a great way to create backgrounds.

I swiped a few shades of blue Distress inks on my craft mat, spritzed with water until I got droplets of colour, and then pressed and tapped white cs into it.  I dried it with a heat tool.

I die cut the butterflies, layered them over the blue panel, and added it to my card base.  I stamped my sentiment on the butterfly layer but got it crooked so redid it on a scrap of cs, heat embossed it and die cut it with an oval die.

Wrinkle Free Distress is a Tim Holtz technique from at least ten years ago.  If you can't decide what to do for this month's CAS Watercolour challenge, why not revisit it?  Or head over to the CWC blog and get some inspiration from the rest of the Design Team and June's wonderful Guest Designer, TaeEun (rainbow in November).

You have until June 24th to link up your card.  It must be clean and simple, must use a watercolour technique, and must follow the theme.

Supplies:

Stamps - A Muse sentiment

Ink - ColorBox True Blue; Distress Faded Jeans, Broken China, and Tumbled Glass

Paper - white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Memory Box reverse butterfly die, Spellbinders oval die, clear embossing powder

Blue Valentine

Those of you who know me will understand why I could not resist the latest Color Throwdown challenge:

A friend asked me to make her a few Valentine cards and blue is also her favourite colour so I thought I'd do one of them in blue:

I used Karen Dunbrook's technique of smooshing by applying the ink with a scrap of acetate.

I used quite a small piece of acetate as I wanted to limit where my ink went. I lightly penciled lines on my mixed media cs to indicate where I wanted the ink to go.

I started with the lightest blue, patted it on my craft mat, misted it, picked some up on the acetate, and pounced it between my lines. Then dried with my heat tool and repeated with the medium blue and darker blue.

The hearts are die cut out of white shimmer cs. I popped them up on foam tape.

I added a sentiment (on a lttle punched label as my attempt to stamp straight onto the card ended up crooked so restamped and punched it out.

The panel is trimmed with a stitched rectangle and taped onto a blue shimmer card base.

What do you think - is it okay to step away from red and pink for Valentine's Day?

Supplies:

Stamps - SU sentiment

Ink - Distress Oxide Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Faded Denim

Paper - mixed media cs, blue and white shimmer cs

Size - A2

Accessories - heart dies, SU label punch, foam tape, Lil Inkers stitched rectangle die

Blue - my favourite colour!

Those of you who know me (or even look at the design of my blog!) will know that blue is my favourite colour.  So I was very happy to see the ATCAS challenge "Blue".  I have a cousin who loves blue as well, and her birthday is coming up so it seemed the perfect opportunity to get her card made well in advance.  

I  used a piece of a background I'd made by sponging with Distress Peacock Feathers and Broken China, and then flicking with water.  I stamped some text with the Broken China and the sentiment and flowery flourish with Archival Black.   I bordered it with black and added it to an embossed background that seemed to go well with the image.  A few aqua and blue gemstones finished it off.

Thanks for dropping in to have a look!

Supplies:

Stamps: Tim Holtz flower flourish, Gina K sentiment, unknown text

Paper: white and black cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Ranger Archival Black, Distress Peacock Feathers and Broken China

Accessories: blue and aqua gemstones, Crafts Too embossing folder, foam tape