Pony Pulling Puppy (and Reading Books)

Sneaking in under the wire for a couple of challenges.

First up for Christmas Cards All Year Round - something starting with O or P.  My card is "P" for a pony pulling a puppy.  It's also for Cardz 4 Guyz "Things with Tails".

Stamped on watercolour paper, watercoloured, trimmed with wonky stitched die, bordered in copper, and a bit of glue and glitter along the snowline.

And for Day of the Month Challenge "Book Lovers' Day":

This is a very quick CAS card - an old PTI image stamped in navy, the sentiment in beige, and then the panel bordered in matching cs colours.

Thanks for dropping by today!

 

Winter Chill

A very straightforward card made with a few challenges in mind:

SCS CAS Challenge "Take the Chill Off" - a card depicting how you would  take the chill of winter off.

The Paper Players "Sweet Treats".

And Jingle Belles "Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding" - any kind of holiday food or drink.

I stamped my image on watercolour paper, coloured with Inktense watercolour pencils, trimmed it and mounted it on cream cs. Added the sentiment, bordered in black, and used a blue card base.

It's making me want to curl up on the couch with a good book and a pot of tea (can't stand coffee!).

Supplies:

Stamps - Stamplorations

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, black, cream, and blue cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Inktense watercolour pencils

Dogs and a Mouse

I haven't done a post for a couple of days so am including three cards here: a couple of dog cards, one sad and one happy, and a card with a mouse!

The sad one was made for a friend whose elderly dog passed away.

 

I did the dog by inking up the stamp once, stamped it full strength, and then stamped it off twice without reinking as it goes off the page to give the idea of her wagging her tail right to the end as her life fades away.

On a happier note, I recently came across a stamp that reminded me so much of my puppy, Tessa, and her litter mates when I went down to see them a couple of weeks before I got Tessa.  They were weaned off of their mother and just starting to eat mushy food - and they all shared it from the same bowl.  They would step in the food sometimes and then track it all over their pen.  There is a lot of clean-up and laundry involved if you breed dogs!  Whoever designed this stamp's image sure knew what they were doing!

I turned it into a thank you card to send to Tessa's breeder.

I stamped the image in Distress Tea Dye ink as it is close to Tessa's colour, then watercoloured it with various Distress inks.  I added the pawprints on the bottom right to balance with the sentiment.

Tessa no longer steps in her food and is growing up into a well-mannered (most of the time) and very sweet young dog (most of the time) - she's now five and a half months old.  Here's a recent photo:

And finally a card I made with a sweet mouse - I sent it to a 10 year old great-niece who loves to read.

I used an ancient stamp I have of a mouse on a stack of books - simply stamped and watercoloured.

The sentiment below the mouse makes me think of my childhood - whenever my mother asked me to do something when I was reading, I'd always reply "as soon as I finish this chapter".

I cut it out with a tag die, made a background with a text stamp, and popped it up on fun foam.

Thanks for dropping by!

Supplies:

Stamps -
1st card: SU D is for Dog
2nd card: PB puppies, Bouji paw prints, Savvy Stamps sentiment 
3rd card: Kidstamps mouse, Wendy Vecchi text stamp, PTI sentiment 

Ink -
1st card: Memento Tuxedo Black
2nd card: Distress Tea Dye and various others, Memento Tuxedo Black
3rd card: Versafine Onyx Black, Adirondack Lake Mist 

Paper -
1st card: PTI Vintage Cream, Deja Vu dp, black cs
2nd card: watercolour paper, cream cs
3rd card: green and white cs, watercolour paper 
 

Size - all are A2

Accessories -
1st card: dimensionals, twine, Spellbinders tag
2nd card: Lil Inkers stitched rectangle die, fun foam 
3rd card: watercolour paints, Die-namics tag die, brad, fun foam

Cutting up Books!

This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge uses a website called EcoCycled that uses pages from old books as backgrounds for art.

As a retired librarian, it's definitely challenging for me to cut up books! But I have some discards from the library so can manage to take pages out of them!

I ended up making two cards as I wanted to do one with the image stamped directly on the book page, and another where I layered the image on top. I like the first one the best:

I was inspired by the red balloon in this one:

and the red sun and layout with the sentiment at the bottom in this one:

I tore a page with a poem about poppies out of an old library discard of "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady". I stamped part of the Pleasant Poppies stamp in the centre directly on the book page, and then coloured it in with Distress markers.

I sponged the edges a bit to give them an aged look, added a couple of gemstones and a die cut sentiment, and popped the panel up on fun foam.


I'm not as pleased with my second one but it was a good chance to use a die cut / embossing folder combo that I've never used (so I'm entering it in Darnell's recently announced NBUS Challenge that opens in a couple of days):

I chose this image for my inspiration:

Instead of the three small dragonflies, I just used one large one. I die cut and embossed it, and then coloured it with Inka Gold.

The background is a page out of a dictionary discarded by my local library. I used the page that has the word "dragonfly". I highlit "dragonfly" with tiny gold sequins at the beginning and end of the definition. I sponged the edges of the page with Distress ink, added the dragonfly, a sentiment with ribbon, and a scattering of sequins.  Here's a close-up with the definition marked by the sequins:

That's it for today!  Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies for card one:

Stamps - SU Pleasant Poppies

Ink - Distress Vintage Photo

Paper - cream and brown cs, page from a book

Size - A2

Accessories - Tattered Lace Happy Birthday die, Distress markers (Festive Berries, Barn Door, and Vintage Photo), brown gemstones

Supplies for card two:

Stamps - Memory Box sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Frayed Burlap 

Paper - white cs, mixed media cs, page from a dictionary

Size - 6.25 x 4.75"

Accessories - Tim Holtz dragonfly die and embossing folder, Inka Gold, label die, gold ribbon, foam tape, sequins

Spring Birds

Just lately I've been woken up every morning by the singing of the spring birds - they're so busy starting their nests and courting!  Appropriate then, that I've done two cards of spring birds today.

First up is one that is still a bit wintery as it's got some snow on it, but the snowdrops are blooming on it so definitely a spring card. I made it for the SCS Free for All challenge, "Going to Pot" - use any type of pot or container on your card.

I watercoloured the image with my Gansai Tambi watercolours - love those paints! Added a Quickie glue pen and snow glitter to the snow on the edges of the pot, leaves, and branches, and along the ground lines.  And then popped it up on fun foam.

The second one is for the SCS Ways to Use It challenge to use book pages on your card.

As some of you may know, I'm a retired librarian so my professional instinct is to rebel against cutting a page out of a book!  But I have an old copy of the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady that was discarded from the library because it was falling apart so I decided it wouldn't be too painful to take a page out of it!

I found a page in the entries for the month of March that refers to various birds' nests - perfect to use with my stamp of bird, nest, and blossom.

I used mixed media cs for the image as the Zig brush markers work really well on it. And it's a fairly heavy cs so works well when popped up on foam tape. I painted it quite pale first as that's the look I like for blossom, but it looked lost against the book page so went over it all more heavily - and now it looks too bright!

I sponged the edges of the piece of the book page with Distress Brushed Corduroy and then splattered some watered down ink over it.

I'm stamping Happy Easter inside it and giving it to my best friend's mother who has invited me to Easter brunch. The dates on the book page are so perfect for it as it includes the date of the brunch! Ironically my BF's mother is also a retired librarian so I'll see how she reacts to a page cut out of a book!

Happy Easter!

Supplies for the Robin and Pot card:

Stamps: Penny Black
Paper: cream cs, watercolour paper
Paper Size: A2
Ink: Archival Jet Black
Accessories: Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Quickie glue pen, snow glitter, fun foam

Supplies for the Bird Nest and Book Page card: 

Stamps: B-Line Designs bird and nest

Paper: cream cs, mixed media cs, page from a book

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Archival Jet Black, Distress Brushed Corduroy

Accessories: Zig brush markers, foam tape