Framed Silhouette

I've made an extra card for this month's CAS Watercolour challenge:

Here's the card:

I made a smooshed background by pressing my Faded Jeans Oxide ink onto my craft mat, spritzing with water, and then splashing my piece of watercolour paper into, drying, then repeating, and then doing the process with Cracked Pistachio Oxide ink.

When it was thoroughly dry, I stamped and heat embossed the wildflower silhouette and sentiment onto it.

I framed it and popped it up on fun foam.

So much fun to play with the Oxide inks - the resulting backgrounds are perfect for silhouette stamps or dies.

Supplies:

Stamps - Tim Holtz wildflower, unknown sentiment

Ink -  Versafine Onyx Black; Distress Oxide Cracked Pistachio and Faded Jeans

Paper - PTI Vintage Cream cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - Impression Obsession frame die, clear embossing powder, fun foam

Joyful Snowflakes and Stars

I'm happy to see that the Merry Monday Christmas Card challenge has started up again.

The image in the challenge photo inspired the colour scheme of my card, and also the snowflake in the "Joy" on the pillow inspired me to use snowflakes as my theme.

I die cut the snowflake wreath out of SU shimmer cs (it's more shimmery in real life than in the photo), glued it to a kraft cs panel, bordered that with the shimmer cs, and mounted on a red cardbase.  I die cut "joy" out of the same red cs.

I'm behind on getting Christmas cards made so decided to make another variation on this theme, keeping this one very simple and flat - easy to mass produce and easy to mail.

I die cut the starry wreath and "joy" out of gold glitter cs and added it to a cream cardbase - I love gold and cream together.  I glued the tiny stars that fell out of the wreath at random around and inside the wreath, and used one as the dot above the "j" in joy.


I'm also adding both of them to the SCS Christmas Card Challenge "wreath" theme.

Supplies:

Paper - card 1: red and kraft cs, white shimmer cs;   card 2: gold glitter and cream cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - card 1: Memory Box Frostyville Wreath, Lil Inkers joy die;  card 2: Memory Box Starry Wreath die, Tim Holtz joy die

Winter Sky

When I was growing up in Ontario, I always loved the pale winter skies with the silhouette of bare tree branches against it.  I tried to capture that in this card:

I heat embossed the image in sparkly embossing powder on watercolour paper.

I did a watercolour wash background using Distress Stains and lots of water - the stains give a lovely pale look, typical of a winter sky on a cold day.  I put a bit of each on an acrylic block, spritzed with water, and brushed on with even more water.  Love the way the colours blended into each other perfectly!

When I stamped the sentiment directly on the panel, it ended up crooked so I restamped it on a scrap of watercolour paper, cut it into a thin banner, and taped it over the crooked one.

I popped it up on fun foam on a pale blue card base that tones in nicely with the middle band of colour.  The final touch was adding some glitter along the snow lines.


It's going off to the following challenges:

CAS Watercolour "Silhouette".

CAS Mix Up "Watercolour Wash" - I have stamping, the watercolour wash, and heat embossing / emboss resist as my "other".

SCS Ways to Use It "Oldie but Goodie" - I used one of my oldest stamp sets for it.

SCS Christmas Card Challenge for September "Trees or Outdoor Scenes".

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Lovely as a Tree, Penny Black sentiment

Ink - Versafine Smokey Grey

Paper - watercolour paper, pale grey blue cs

Size - A2

Accessories - SU Irridescent Ice embossing powder, glitter, fun foam

Silhouettes and a Watercolour Wash

A card for both of Loll's and Bonnie's challenges, CAS Mix Up and CAS Watercolour:

For CAS Mix Up, I have the watercolour wash, a stamped sentiment, and smooshing and die cutting for my choice.  And for CAS Watercolour, I have die cut bird silhouettes.  Here's my card:

For the background, I did a graded watercolour wash as shown in this video.

For the focal image, I smooshed various blue, green, and brown oxide inks into watercolour paper and then die cut the globe out of it.

I added three small silhouette bird dies with their wings spread, flying high above the world.

I am also entering it in the SCS Free for All challenge, "Spread Your Wings and Fly High".

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Happy Birthday

Ink - Ranger Jet Black, various green, blue, brown Oxide inks

Paper - PTI cream cs, watercolour paper, black cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Ali Express world die, Impression Obsession bird dies, blue watercolour paint, fun foam

White Silhouette

I can't believe it is September and that means summer is basically over!!  The new challenge for CAS Watercolour is:

My first thought was that a silhouette should be black but for our challenge, it can be black, white, metallic (gold, silver, etc.), navy, brown, etc.  I was glad it could be white as I had this wonderful die cut of children heading off to a birthday party that I wanted to turn into a simple CAS card that didn't involve colouring the die cut.

The background was made with blue brushos sprinkled on watercolour paper, then spritzed heavily to get good coverage.  For added interest, I splattered a bit of darker blue brusho that I'd watered down on an acrylic block.

I stamped a sentiment onto the silhouette, glued it onto the brusho background, and trimmed the background to fit the silhouette.  It's popped up on fun foam for some dimension.

Head on over to CAS Watercolour to see the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team and this month's Guest Designer, the wonderfully talented Birgit of the Rapport Fran Ett Skrivbord blog.  You have until September 24th to link up your card.  Please be sure it is clean and simple, and includes some kind of watercolouring and a silhouette, either stamped or die cut.

Supplies:

Stamps - Savvy Stamps Happy Birthday

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - blue brushos, Spellbinders Party Kids die

Flat Red Wash

Another month has rolled around and it's time for CAS Mix Up to start a new challenge!

There are various types of watercolour washes but I chose to do a flat wash for this card.

I mixed two red tones of my Twinkling H2Os to get a Christmas-y red (though I think it's still a bit too pink).  I followed this video (it's one of several listed on the CAS Mix Up challenge page).  I used a hot press watercolour paper to get a nice smooth finish.

I die cut a holly sprig out of green shimmer cs and glued it to the red watercolour.

I stamped my sentiment in green and die cut a window out of my card front.  When I went to assemble it over the red washed piece, there was a bit of uncoloured section in one corner (and I'd been sure that rectangle opening would be just right!!). 

So I added some gold peel off strips inside the opening to hide the uncoloured section.  When I snipped them off to fit, I ended up with some tiny squares of the strips, so randomly stuck them around the holly.  All in all, I was pleased that I'd ended up with the uncoloured section as I really like the addition of the gold!!  Another happy card-making fix!!

Please come and join us at CAS Mix Up between now and September 24th.  There is lots of inspiration from the rest of the Design Team and our fabulous Guest Designer, Cathy of Cathy's Card Spot.   Just remember to keep your card Clean and Simple, have some stamping, a watercolour wash, and at least one option from our list of options (mine is die cutting).

Supplies:

Stamps - A Muse sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Library Green

Paper - white cs, green shimmer cs, hot press watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - Twinkling H2Os, Tim Holtz holly die, Spellbinders rectangle die, gold Star-form peel-off tape