California Poppies Outside and Inside

Day of the Month Card Club is celebrating California Poppy Day.  I have a friend who loves them and her birthday is coming up this weekend so made this card:

I inked up the poppies with mini Distress inks. I used just one green for the stems but three colours for the flowers letting them overlap to get a nice blend of colours, then spritzed with water, and stamped on watercolour paper. The colours didn't run as much as I'd intended but the stamp slipped out of place (even though it was in my MISTI) so I couldn't spritz again and restamp. So I don't have as much of a watercoloured look as I'd wanted.

The sentiment (a belated birthday one as the postal system won't get the card there by this weekend!) is stamped and heat embossed on vellum and wrapped around the panel. I added a thin green border.

I added a sentiment I really like to the inside of the card and then fitted the poppies around it at the bottom, inking them up with mini Distress inks, but not spritzing them like I did on the outside as they're being stamped here on cs, not watercolour paper. They didn't stamp very well over the centre crease of the card, but I think it's good enough.

 

Day of the Month Card Club "California Poppy Day"
   

 

Supplies:
Stamps - SU Pleasant Poppies, SU sentiment on the outside, TH sentiment on the inside
Ink - mini Distress Bundled Sage, Fossilized Amer, Spiced Marmalade, and Carved Pumpkin, Versafine Olympic Green, Memento Bamboo Leaves
Paper - PTI Vintage Cream cs, green cs, watercolour paper, vellum
Size - A2
Accessories - clear embossing powder

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

Last of the Summer Flowers

 

I still have some California poppies blooming in my garden so when I saw today's SCS Technique Lovers' Challenge "Floral Frenzy" - a last curtain call for the flowers of summer, I went with poppies. And I went with autumn colours to be seasonal.

I made a Wrinkle Free Distress background on some watercolour paper and added some faint text stamp. I stamped the poppies on top, let the ink dry, and then coloured them with Distress inks. I made a real mess of painting a couple of the flowers in the centre area so restamped, coloured, and fussy cut two flowers and one bud. After I layered them on top, they looked odd so decided to highlight them by adding the square frame over that area. I'm not sure how I feel about the finished card, but it needs to go in the mail to my sister or I'll miss her birthday!

Supplies:

Stamps: SU Pleasant Poppies, Gina K sentiment

Paper: PTI Vintage Cream cs, watercolour paper

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black; Distress Old Paper, Brushed Corduroy, Bundled Sage, Antique Linen, Fired Brick, Barn Door, and Festive Berries

Accessories: Lil Inkers stitched squares dies, foam tape

Techniques: Wrinkle Free Distress