Squeaking In Under the Wire

I've been meaning to do two cards for Darnell's March Twofer Challenge, but somehow March flew by!  So I'm getting them done and linked up on the last day!

I recently bought a new Penny Black stamp full of different flowers that is perfect for the challenge.

The first one is a "best wishes" card that I will probably use as a birthday card and put the "happy birthday" sentiment inside, and the second is a "summer time" notecard.  I went with softer colours, the full image, and some tiny flower sequins for the first, and, for the second, brighter colours that make me think of the heat of summer, just part of the image, and a die cut frame.

Here's the first card.  I'm also entering it in the "Inspired by All the Little Things" challenge where the image is:

I watercoloured the image with my Gansai Tambi paints - I find they give me the flexibility to achieve a soft watercolour look.  I did a bit of grey around the bottom to ground the image and mounted it on a thin dark grey mat.  My plan had been to use 3 or 4 regular sequins on the open space but I couldn't decide on placement and they just didn't look good, so I scattered quite a few tiny flower sequins around and glued them down, and then wished I'd just let the image stand on its own.  Oh well - no way to peel them off without damaging the panel.

And the second card:

I coloured this with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers - I laid down the colours and blended them into each other without using any water so I got rich strong colours.  I trimmed it down and attached it to the card base.  I then created the top layer with the sentiment, an opening, and a cross-stitch frame around the opening.

Thanks, Darnell, for creating the Twofer challenge - it really stretches my skills to think of two different ways to use a stamp!

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black flowers, unknown Best Wishes, Rosie's Road Show Summer Time

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - white and dark grey cs, watercolour paper

Size - 5.75" square, A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolours, Zig Clean Brush markers, tiny flower sequins, foam tape, Ali Express cross stitch dies

Classic Spring Watercolour

The March challenge for CAS Watercolour is "Spring".

What could be more evocative of spring than a vase full of tulips?  I decided not to use any fancy watercolour techniques, but rather to keep it just classic watercolouring so that the image can stand in its own right.

After I'd watercoloured the vase and flowers, I was planning to watercolour a background or do some splattering, but decided either of those would take away from the image and make the card less CAS, so simply watercoloured a bit of grounding for the vase, used a stitched rectangle die to trim it down, popped it up on fun foam, and added three sequins and a sentiment.

Please come over to CAS Watercolour to see the cards posted by the rest of the Design Team and our wonderful Guest Designer, Heather Telford of bits & pieces.  You have until March 24th to post your card - please be sure to stick to the theme of spring and keep your card CAS (clean and simple).

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black "Tulips in Porcelain", PTI sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die, blue and yellow sequins, fun foam

NBUS Flowers

Darnell over at djkardkreations hosts an occasional NBUS (never before used stuff) challenge.  I love it as it gets me to dig out some of the things I've bought and finally put them to use.  This time, Darnell is offering optional themes.  The theme for the first week is "use coloured pencils on kraft".  I haven't done that technique in ages so a good chance to pull out the pencils.

I went on a bit of a Penny Black spending spree about a year ago and ended up with some of their lovely floral stamps so pulled those out for their first ever inking.

I couldn't decide whether I prefered the look of white ink or black ink for stamping the image so did one in each.  First up, a white heat embossed image:

I couldn't decide where to put a sentiment so decided to just put one on the inside.  I bordered with dark red cs and used a white cardbase.

The second one is stamped in black ink with no heat embossing:

I used the same colour palette for each as I wanted a fair comparison of which ink I preferred for the stamping.

For this one, I bordered with black cs, and used a cream linen cs for the sentiment and card base.  I really like the look of the hemp twine for attached the sentiment tag - it seems to go well with kraft cs.

Now over to you - which do you prefer in terms of whether to stamp the image in white or in black?

Thanks!

Supplies for card one:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - ColorBox white

Paper - kraft, dark red, and white cs

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - white embossing powder, coloured pencils, fun foam

Supplies for card two:

Stamps - Penny Black flowers, SU sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - kraft and black cs, cream linen cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Spellbinders sentiment tag, hemp twine, fun foam