Peony Thank You

I have another card for Altenew's May inspiration challenge - 'From Places Abroad - Australia', you can check out the details here. For my first card, which you can see here, I basically went with the colours, for this card I tried to get the feel of the mosaic from the inspiration photo as well.

I stamped one of the leaf images from Peony Bouquet with Versamark on watercolour paper and heat embossed with clear EP. I then coloured in the leaves and background with my Peerless watercolours. The shine from the embossing does give it a somewhat mosaic look, although I wasn't able to get a good photo showing that.

I am also entering this card into Simon Says Wednesday challenge - which is anything goes this week.

Supplies:
Stamps - Peony Bouquet (Altenew)
Dies - Branching Out, Thankyou (PTI), Stitched Rectangles (Lil Inkers)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), lt. green, dark blue cs - scrap box
Ink - Versamark, Clear EP, Peerless Watercolours
Other - raindrops

Papertrey Ink May Blog Hop - Layered Text Over Images

Good morning, it's time for this month's blog hop at Papertrey Ink. Nichole has provided us with another great inspiration, this month from the artwork of Sarah Langtry.

I made a couple of cards for this challenge, the one below being my favourite. I don't have a lot of large sentiment stamps that go well together for this challenge, so I went with a smaller sentiment for this card.

 

I created a mask from acetate and stamped the feathers with a combination of stamping off, rock and roll and spritzing the stamps with water before stamping to get a watercolour look. Some of the inky water slipped under the mask in a few spots so I die cut the round frame to cover up. After stamping the sentiment I didn't like the space I had left between the two words so added the grey rhinestones.

The card below is actually the first card I made. Even though I like it, it didn't have the feel I was looking for.

 

Supplies:

Stamps - Card 1 - What the Doodle - Feather, Thank You Kindly, Botanical Silhouettes (PTI)

               Card 2 - The Sweet Life, Birthday Cheer, Filled With Joy, Botanical Silhouettes,

                             Background Basics - Super Stripes (PTI)

Dies - Std. Circles (Spellbinders)

Paper - Stampers Select White CS, Lemon Tart CS

Ink - Various (CTMH)

Other - Rhinestones

Pretty Peony Blooms

Last week I received my very first Altenew stamp set, Peony Bouquet in the mail - how many ways can I say the word 'love'? This is a fabulous multi-layer set and foresee adding more gorgeous Altenew stamps to my collection.

 I decided to play along with Altenew's monthly inspiration challenge for the month of May - Places Abroad - Australia and also with CAS(E) this Sketch! #173.

 

For this card I was inspired mainly by the colours in the inspiration photo and of course by the great sketch above. I echoed the circles in the photo by using a home made impression plate on the right panel. I fussy cut two of the three blooms and touched them with some Wink of Stella.

I am hoping to have a second card completed for this challenge later this week.

Supplies:
Stamps - Peony Bouquet (Altenew)
Dies - Wet Paint (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS (PTI), yellow and blue CS from my scrap bin
Inks - various (CTMH), Wink of Stella
Other - raindrops

Welcome Baby - Masks and Shading

The challenge at Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday this week is to ink blend through die cut masks. Lizzie has a great video that you can watch here. I created this baby card using a mask that I made with a circle die and acetate.

 

I blended the ink one circle at a time, moving my mask and taping it down each time. I then laid the mask over each inked circle and stamped my polka dot stamp with white pigment ink.

Supplies:
Stamps - Polka Dot Basics, Keep It Simple - Baby (PTI)
Dies - Std. Circles Lg, A2 Matting Basics A & B (Spellbinders), Double Ended Banners (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White (PTI), Lagoon DP & Vellum (CTMH)
Ink - White Pigment Ink, Gypsy, Lagoon, Pear, Sky & Moonstruck (CTMH), Versamark, silver EP
Other - Fun foam, acetate, Metal flower & brad

Birthday Balloons - Watercolour and Stencil

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Today I am playing along with the Wednesday Challenge at Simon Says Stamps, which is to use stencils.

I used my new Peerless Watercolours to create the background and using the Bubble stencil from Tim Holtz I added some modeling paste over top. Some of the watercolour had not completely dried so the paste soaked up some of the green colour, I do like how that turned out. The background colours are actually much more vibrant in person. I added a silver foil balloon die cut, embossed the sentiment using Versafine Onyx Black and clear EP and added a few silver sequins.

Supplies:
Stamps - Ombre Sentiments (PTI)
Dies - Best Birthday (PTI)
Stencil - Bubble (Tim Holtz)
Paper - Watercolour (Strathmore), Silver Foil CS (DCWV), Stampers Select White (PTI)
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Peerless WC, modeling paste
Other - Sequins

Watercolour Peony Card Set

The Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week is to create a watercolour set of cards. Melissa has a great video tutorial that you can see here illustrating how she created her pretty set. I love the look that Melissa created using a sponging and ink technique to create a watercolour look, but since I just received my Peerless Watercolours last week I had to use them. I am also posting these cards to Simon Says 'Work it Wednesday' for the month of May. Here is the set I created:

 

I first stamped my images with Versafine Onyx Black ink onto cold pressed watercolour paper. Then using a wet brush I added my Peerless colours to each image. As I am new to this it took a little bit of experimenting. I first started with a wet on wet technique and ended up with a royal mess with far too much bleeding of colours into each other. I think the wet on wet works best if you heat emboss your image. I then spattered some watercolor paint onto each and then water droplets. As you can see I don't have a lot of bleeding of colours, but I rather like it that way as it satisfies my need for precision and colouring 'inside' the lines - I am working on this.

I die cut my watercolour panel using a new die that I just received in the mail as part of a blog hop prize from Simon Says - a great big thank to them!

Supplies:
Stamps - Peonies on Parade, Botanical Silhouettes (PTI)
Dies - Big Word Pop Die (Memory Box)
Paper - Watercolour paper (Strathmore), Stampers Select White CS (PTI), Black DP (CTMH)
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Peerless Watercolours
Other - Raindrops (PTI)

Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop - Stacked Circles

Good Morning! Today is the day of Papertrey Ink's monthly blog hop. This month Nichole has given us a very interesting photo as our jumping off point. The stacked concentric circles and subtle linear elements inspired me to create this card:

Here is the inspiration photo:

A lot of different ideas popped into my head the first time I saw this picture. After a few failed attempts at different designs I finally came up with one that I liked.

I created a set of masks using full sticky backed post-it notes and my Spellbinders Standard Circle dies. Using these masks I sponged the concentric circles in shades of blue, inking only half to create an invisible line down the center. I used a stitched rectangle die to mimic the dashed lines in the photo, added a die cut silver foil and white heat embossed sentiment.

Supplies:
Stamps - Thank You Kindly (PTI)
Dies - Wet Paint (PTI), Standard Circles Sm (Spellbinders), Stitched Rectangles (Lil Inkers)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS, True Black CS (PTI), Silver Foil
Ink - Sky, Dutch Blue, Pacifica, Outdoor Denim (CTMH), Versa Mark, White EP

Tulip Glory - Make It Monday #246 - Faux Brush Lettering

The Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week is brought to you by the wonderfully talented Amy Sheffer, I have been a huge fan of her work for years. This week she has a tutorial on creating the look of Brush Lettering with sentiment stamps - check out her video here. I used one of the beautiful layered images from Tulip Time and a sentiment from Birthday Cheer. I was inspired by this beautiful card by Marika.

I masked the large three tulip image and stamped only one of the blooms and then coloured over the stamping with coloured pencils. The stem is from Meadow Greens, and I masked one of the leaf images from Tulip Time. I stamped the sentiment in a medium grey tone. I tried using a brush and ink and also copics to get the brushed look effect but the lines of this sentiment were too fine and I just made a mess, so I settled on adding the darker highlight with a coloured pencil. I added some shading to ground the image and raindrops to finish it off. I kept wanting to do something else to this card, but couldn't come up with anything so decided to just leave it alone.

Supplies:
Stamps - Tulip Time, Meadow Greens, Birthday Cheer (PTI)
Paper - Stampers Select White CS (PTI)
Ink - Grey Wool, Petal, Gypsy, Pansy Purple, Pear (CTMH), Prismacolor Pencils - Cool Grey (70%, 50%, 20%), Violet, Parma Violet, Apple Green, Dk Green, White
Other - Raindrops (PTI)

Coloured Beauty - Copics & Pencils - Create Along With Us

Today I decided to play along with PTI's 'Create Along With Us' challenge, a new challenge to me. I chose to CASE this pretty card created by Laurie, you can see more of her work here.

I was truly inspired by another blogger and her beautiful colouring technique using Copics and coloured pencils. Marika Rahtu has some fabulous videos showing how she colours her gorgeous flowers, be sure to check it out here.

 I absolutely love this method of no line colouring and am very excited about doing more of it. For my first attempt I am extremely happy with it, although I had a little oops at the end and got black ink on the lower right petals. My sentiment covers most of it - I had put far too much time into this not to use it. I guess the ink thing frazzled me a bit because I had intended to pop the flower up after fussy cutting and instead just glued it straight down to my watercolour card base.

 

I was unhappy with the colouring of the flower center, so I stamped over it with black Versafine ink. I then added my sentiment and raindrops.

Supplies:

Stamps - Peonies on Parade (PTI)

Dies - Wet Paint (PTI)

Paper - Nina Solar White CS, True Black CS (PTI), Watercolour Paper

Ink - Baby Pink, Buttercup (CTMH), Tumbled Glass (Ranger), Copics - R01, R20, YG03, YG11, Prismacolor Pencils - pink, pink blush, crimson red, apple green, grass green, dark green, white, Versafine Onyx Black

Other - Raindrops (PTI)

New Beginnings - MIM #245 - Colour Isolation

For the Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week, Ashley highlights a technique called Color Isolation. This technique, used in photography, creates beautiful and dramatic photos. I love the look of pops of colour against the neutral backdrop, like the one below:

 After a couple of false starts using different stamp sets, I finally settled on Mini Blooms to try to recreate the feel of one of these great photos. Here is the card I came up with:
 

I started out with a piece of Fresh Snow linen cardstock (love this paper) and stamped two of the large corner stamps from the set in grey. Next I centered my sentiment from Tulip Time before filling in with the rest of the flowers. I coloured in here and there on my flowers with a darker grey pencil crayon, inked the edges with grey and then added my colour pop. I thought this would be a great card for someone facing a difficult challenge in their lives, so I coloured the flower red for love and strength, added the touch of green for health and growth and topped it off with a rhinestone for a glimmer of light and hope.

Supplies:
Stamps - Mini Blooms, Tulip Time (PTI)
Dies - Mini Blooms (PTI)
Paper - Fresh Snow linen CS, True Black CS (PTI)
Ink - Grey Wool, Tulip, Pear (CTMH), Memento Tuxedo Black, Warm Grey pencil (Prismacolor)
Other - rhinestone