Candy corn colour catastrophe

Below you will see my second card for the Unity be inspired challenge.  Again I have used the colour palette. This card started out brilliantly. I stamped the Big Summertime Bouquet itty bitty by Unity Stamp Company twice, one using the mirror image technique by stamping onto the back of a larger acrylic stamp and using that to stamp. It came out perfectly - Score!!  Then I coloured the flowers with copics in the RV and YR range and the leaves with the cool greys. I wasn't overjoyed with the results as I don't have copics close together in these colours to get a good blend, but I was happy enough.  Next I thought I do some ink smooching with distress ink.  Bad move you certainly don't get good results on the xpress-it blending card like on watercolour card.  It ended up looking like someone threw up candy corn all over the card.  I tried to blend it with a bit more distress ink but the flowers then almost disappeared. So next I got out the white gel pen and did some highlighting, which brought out the image a bit.  Then I shaded around the image a little with one of the cool grey copic which popped it a little more.  The original sentiment in this Unity set would have just disappeared on the candy corn vomit so I cut out the MFT happy birthday out of black fun foam.  I was going to directly mount the card panel on the black card but thought it needed a bit more pink so put it on some pink card with a thin border and called this card finished. It wasn't till after I took the photo I noticed that I had lost the dot on the birthday I. I think a dot of enamel accents will have to do, the foam has been put away and it is late at night here.  Time for beddy bis now.  See ya, cheers Linda

Inspired to be inspired

Today I have made a card for the unity be inspired challenge.  I have followed the colour inspiration photo for my card. To create my card I masked off an area with tape and colour with the rectangle with picked raspberry, spiced marmalade and abandoned coral using the mini distress applicator. I then flicked the panel with water and removed a bit of the colour is some splotches. I then stamped the flowers from the Unity itty bitty Wishing you Joy stamp set. I extended the stems of the flowers to the boundary of the colour panel with a black sharpie. I then got a waterbrush and coloured the flowers with more of the picked raspberry distress ink to deepen the colour. I then went over the flower with the Wink of Stella glitter brush - not that you can see it in the picture. I stamped and embossed the sentiment from the dragon fly of beauty Unity itty bitty set in ranger weathered white embossing powder on vellum. The vellum sentiment was folded over and attached to the card panel on the back and the whole panel was mounted on black card. I then attached some white iridescent sequins to complete the card. Thank you for checking out my card. Cheers Linda

Let it bloom inspiration challenge

I made this card for the Verve Stamps "let it bloom" Inspiration Challenge.  The inspiration photo is a gorgeous mason jar floral arrangement and as you can see I have made a very literal interpretation. The first step in this card was to stamp out the two of each of the different size flowers from the Verve Brighter Days stamp set onto some ranger mixed media cardstock in versamark and heat emboss with  Sparkle n Sprinkle white detail embossing powder and heat set. I then coloured the stamped flowers with kuretake gansai tambi watercolours (which I only just got this month for my birthday so this is the first time I have played with them).  I then fussy cut the flowers so that I only had the first two layers of each of the flowers - to make a larger bunch of smaller flowers if that makes sense. On another piece of the ranger cardstock I smooched around some watercolours in the area where the flowers were to go so that the white cardstock would not be seen behind. I cut some leaves out of the ranger card with the Joy crafts vintage flourishes die 6003/0026 and some strips to act as stems and again watercoloured them in the soft blue and green. 

I cut the jar from the Lawn Fawn summertime charm die out off vellum and shaded it with some BG copic markers. I then (and this was my first boo boo) stuck the stems behind the jar and then tied the bakers twine around the top of the jar. I then went to emboss the sentiment from the same verve set onto of the jar - which now had a very uneven surface.  I only had the tiniest bit of the twine in the turquoise colour so if I had cut it off I would have had to change the colour also I had used super tape and it didn't want to come off anyway. So I just stamped and embossed with the gold trying to push down enough over the stems behind to get even coverage. I almost succeeded but not quite.  I then adhered down the jar, leaves and flowers with silicon to get some dimension.

Boo Boo number two - I decided that the white background was boring and needed something so I decided that some ink splashes might be nice. But with everything adhered down I had to tear up some paper to create a mask so I wouldn't get ink all over the floral arrangement. Finally I stuck down some iridescent pink sequins and stuck the panel on a pearlised card base and called it finished.

So the things I learnt in making this card
1.  You get much better stamping results if you stamp on a flat surface
2.  Finish your background before you put on your main elements
3. (another one I hadn't mentioned yet is) When you create the perfect arrangement of your elements - take a photo before you pull it apart to adhere it all down - frustratingly I forgot.
Anyway here is my card and the inspiration photo from Verve.