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. 

 



12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist - take 4

This tag has been created for Ellen Hutson 12 tags of Christmas with a feminine twist challenge. This tag was inspired by Heather Campbells shaker tag from day 10.  I have used two Bella tags. One I cut the window in with a curved rectangle die from MPress. This tag I left white and adhered the plastic window to it with the MFT skyline border die-namics sandwiched between the two so it is outside the shaker window as Heather had done.  Next I stamped and embossed the Kaisercraft Christmas sentiment with Zing red metallic finish embossing powder, which is much more a magenta pink than red. I then cut out a circle of masking material and placed over the sentiment  while I coloured to create the moon effect.  The background was then coloured with distress inks - squeezed lemonade, mustard seed, Victorian velvet, worn lipstick and picked raspberry.  Then after removing the mask I proceeded to stamp the Kaszazz Santa and sleigh with versamark to heat emboss with black - spectacular fail!!  The background distress inking was still too wet so black powder stuck everywhere.  So I brushed it off and now I have a slightly smoggy sunset, lol. I stamped Santa and the reindeer again just with brilliance black ink.  I stuck some thin adhesive foam strips around the edge, popped in some gold and silver sequins and a little sprinkle of silver stardust ( a mixture of coarse glitter and little stars) and adhered together. I created a black reinforced with two punches from some black card and then popped a couple of piece of silver ribbon through the hole and tied it up with gold cord.

Thank you for looking, cheers Linda

12 Tags of Christmas with a feminine Twist - Take 3

This tag has been created for Ellen Hutson 12 tags of Christmas with a feminine twist challenge. This tag was inspired by Jean Manis's sparkly tag from day 6.  I have used a Bella tag to which I have adhered some Basic Grey paper - this is from an old 6x6 pad called wisteria (definitely a non holiday paper collection).  The tree was cut from purple cardstock using a Nellie's Multi-frame die (MFD045).  I then adhered the sequins with the multi-medium from Ranger. (I tried the double sided paper like Jean, but it was an utter failure. Mine definitely isn't the same quality as Jean used). This was popped over some handcut snowbanks.  The Merry Christmas light string is a stamp which came free on a magazine called Christmas Cheer (the stamp set not the magazine).  It was stamped with versamark and embossed with detail white powder from sparkle n sprinkle.  The strings were extended with signo white pen. I cut the stamp in half to create the two strings. (Jennifer McGuire is right they don't scream or present any indication of pain). The present is a die from Kaszazz (I don't think it is available any more). It was cut out of two colours of the Wisteria paper and layered.  The bow was cut out of tinsel paper to match the sequins.  I finished it with a triple bow of seam binding and a little bit of gold trimmed purple satin ribbon. The seam binding came from Craft Queen but I'm not sure about the other as it was only a tiny offcut. Sorry about the crappy photo - late at night and the flash picture looked awful - the sequins looked all funny colours - yuck!

Thank you for looking, cheers Linda

 

PS I love purple

12 tags of Christmas with a Feminine twist - take 2

This tag has been created for Ellen Hutson 12 tags of Christmas with a feminine twist challenge. This tag was inspired by Julie Ebersole's arty tag from day 1. The tag background is a Reves 300gsm watercolour paper cut at about 7.5 x 12 cm and the corners cut off to create the tag shape .  Julie created her stripes by hand watercolouring with distress ink (definitely watch her video she such great fun). I wanted a little more sparkle so I painted my stripes with the melon metallic Faber-Castell gelato. I also used tape to create straight stripes (a little OCD I know).  The sentiment is from Kaisercraft Christmas sentiments. It was stamped with versamark and embossed with gold.  The wreath is the breezy wreath from Poppy Stamps. I cut it out of plain white cardstock 3 times and layered it up (fiddly and I think I need new glasses).  I then stuck on some iridescent pale pink sequins on the wreath and decorated around the star with some gold and transparent pink sequin stars. The smaller of the gold stars was actually silver but I coloured over it with a Faber-Castell metallic marker. I punched a hole in the top (please try to ignore my poor centring) and created a reinforcer out of gold shimmer paper with two small circle punches.

Thank you for looking,  cheers Linda

12 tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist

This tag has been created for Ellen Hutson 12 tags of Christmas with a feminine twist challenge. This tag was inspired by Kittie Caracciolo's gorgeous tag from day 3. The tag background is a 8 x 15 cm white tag from Bella. The patterned paper  at the top of the tag is from a Webster's Pages 6x6 pad from a few years ago. Below that is some linen textured white card which was scored to look like timber boards. Not that this is very noticeable in the photo with the flash flare. As per usual I'm taking picture at night no natural light and pretty ordinary photography skills to boot. The window was cut with a Cheery Lynn Designs die - Window C.  It was partial die cut as I didn't want the lowest row of window panes. The flower was cut from gold shimmer paper using Kreaxions LIT144ABC die (sexy die name huh!).  Two of each of the three sizes of flowers in this die set were layered together. These were then layered on two of the smallest flowers in the Nellie's Multiframes MFD046 (another sexy name).  A little pale blue gem was placed in the centre to match the shimmery cardstock of the foliage behind.  The foliage was cut from off-white shimmer paper and the pale blue shimmer card using the following dies - Joy crafts - 60020257, billies flourishes 6002-0264; Couture Creations Dolce; LeCrea Design leane 003 and Marianne designs Anja Leaves 4.  There is also a couple of sprigs cut with a Punch Bunch punch.  I tied a double bow with some thin satin ribbon and organza ribbon layered together. I tied a shimmery ball to this ribbon and adhered it down and called the tag completed. 

I hope I can find some time to make some more tags inspired by this challenge. There are some gorgeous creations. Thank you for looking,  cheers Linda