CAS Flowers

Hello there everybody.  I saw this sketch over at Less is More and I thought as I am a bit short of time at the moment it would make a nice easy card.  I used  a Chocolate Baroque set of stamps called Poppy Meadow, one of the smaller stamps in the set.  I have used this stamp before, and in similar colours.   I don't know why, but with this flower  just seems to draw me to orange, red and blue.

I used a smallish rectangular shaped snippet of white card and stamped with Black Archival ink and then coloured with my Spectrum Noir Pencils - Primaries.  I made the background using the same set of pencils.  I mounted this on to a piece of gold card, and then on to a piece of dark blue.  I stamped the sentiment using the same Black Archival ink on to a snippet of white and then mounted this on to another snippet of blue card.  I used a Gold 7" x 5" card and shaved approximately 1/4" off the length and the width which I felt made it look more balanced.  In real life it is actually a bright pearlescent gold colour but looks rather beige in the photo.

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Less is More - Week 186 a sketch challenge.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 139 where we use snippets of card or paper, and I have excelled myself as every single piece was a snippet!
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

  

A Great Pear or Two

Hi there.  Hope you are having a good weekend.  I need an anniversary card shortly and I saw this card design on the Clean and Simple Challenge Blog here.  It just appealed to me, and isn't the sort of anniversary card I would normally make but I liked the sentiment too - just thought it was amusing and a bit different.  I searched around for an image I could use and eventually found a free digital image at Beccy's Place, and there is also a tutorial on how to use Copics, but I have used my Spectrum Noir pencils to colour it.  Colours include Yellows 10 and 12, Greens 50 and 52, Browns 96, 99 and 104 and Reds 27 and 33.

I printed the image on to some inkjet paper I use for inserts which I wasn't sure would be thick enough, but trying to get a printer to take card is not an easy task.  Anyway I started colouring and it seems to have worked fine.  For the background I decided to use my Tim Holtz Honeycomb stencil which I hand embossed.  I laid a scrap/snippet of my inkjet paper over the stencil and using a fairly large ball tool rubbed over the stencil to get the impression.  It worked fine and then I inked it with Distress Ink using Walnut Stain, Spiced Marmalade and a little Mowed Lawn round the edges.  I finished by printing the sentiment on to the same inkjet paper and using one of my Xcut Nesting Hexagons dies I cut and then mounted on to a snippet of dark green card.  I also tied a piece of black ribbon round the top of the two pears tying them together.  This was recycled as I cut it out of a new top which I bought recently, and didn't seem to be necessary for hanging the garment up so I found a better use for it.

I have to say that the gremlins struck again.  I cut out and mounted the pears using my Pinflair Glue Gel which I thought would give them just a little more shape.  After I had glued them down I noticed there was some of the glue showing through, probably because the paper wasn't that thick and maybe it could have been something to do with the pencils which are quite waxy, and maybe it reacted to them too.  I just hoped when dry it would just disappear, but unfortunately it didn't.  I have to say the air was a little blue as I had spent quite a bit of time on the colouring, which, I hasten to add, I did enjoy.  I decided I would have to do two or three of the leaves again and place over the top as it was the leaves which were the worst.  The pears themselves escaped apart from some quite small marks which I have left as pears do have blemishes so that's what they are.  I stuck the new leaves over the top but this time used my Collall Photo Glue which is fine.

Thank you for stopping by and I look forward to being here again soon.

Pat x 

I am entering the following challenge:

Clean and Simple Challenge 303.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 139 where we use up snippets of card and paper.  I did use up a snippet of inkjet paper for the background.  Not much of a snippet but hopefully ok for the challenge.
Spectrum Noir - August Challenge.

By the Lakeside

Welcome all.  I have another male birthday to make for and so out came my Sheena Douglass stamp set A Little Bit Scenic - Sea Scapes.  I chose the shoreline stamp and the boat.  The rest of the scene is obviously my own imagination.  I did wish afterwards, that I had chosen a softer colour ink rather than the Black Archival to stamp with, and that I had left the sharp edge free of ink so the line between lake and shore was not so prominant, but perhaps next time I will  change it a little.

The scene was stamped on the half of a white card which I saved when I pulled my last card apart, and I wasn't sure how it would take the watercoloured distress inks, but it held up pretty well apart from one spot on the distant hills where there is a slight white mark which again I didn't notice until I had photographed it.  I could have tried to get rid of it, but after my recent poor attempts at correcting things I decided to err on the side of caution and live with it.  The colours for the water and sky were Tumbled Glass, Faded Jeans and near the horizon Shaded Lilac.  On the shore I used Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn and Walnut Stain, and for the boat I used Walnut Stain and Fired Brick.  I quite often mix the colours together to get slightly different shades so they probably don't look exactly as expected.

The boat was stamped on a snippet of white card, coloured and then cut out and applied to the scene with some Pinflair Glue Gel.  I think a little artistic licence is needed where the boat is concerned as I think it looks a little large for the background, but I felt that something was needed in the front of the scene.  I decided when I thought I had finished to add the distant hills to give it a little more interest and a touch of sun coming through.  Not sure if it works but thought it added more atmosphere to the scene, as hopefully do the three very distant birds.  I decided not to add a sentiment on the outside as, to be honest, I wasn't sure where to add it, so as I always use an insert I put the sentiment in there instead. 

Thank you for taking an interest in my meanderings, and I really do appreciate it.  With this in mind I would like to introduce a new follower who is Jacee of  Simply Paper Card Design.  I'm sure she would love it if you pop by and say hello. 

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 138.  I used a snippet of white card and also a recycled card back.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Summer.
The Artistic Stamper - August Challenge - Anything Goes.                                                                                                                              

'Bee Happy' Birthday

Hi there all.  Hope you had a good weekend  Here at the start of another week things have not been going so well on the card making front!  I made this birthday card, as usual a bit at the last minute, and it wasn't really going well.  This morning on inspecting it again I decided the edge was not straight so tried to lift it enough to get a pair of scissors underneath it.  BIG MISTAKE!   This usually works as the photo glue lifts relatively easily, but today it was not playing ball.  In the end I had to remove it completely from the base card which was wrecked in the process, and then straighten the edge up and fix to a new card.  The good news was that it had a much straighter edge, and the bad news was it got a bit creased in the process.  I did decide to send it anyway as I dare the say the recipient will look at the card and not notice anything that much amiss, and as I was pleased with the design I decided to put it up here anyway.  Mind you now I can see that the top edge could have done with a bit of surgery too.  Anyway here is the card.

 I originally saw the bee and the hexagon on CAS(E) this Sketch  and thought of this stamp which is in a set from Sheena Douglass called Floral Fantasy - Violets.  The hexagon die is from a set by Xcut.  I used  a 5" square snippet of white card for the layer.  I originally wanted to emboss with two of the dies layered up, and tried several times, but maybe the dies are to thin and the card too thick because they just would not play ball.  I even tried several shims to make the sandwich a little bit thicker, but in the end they started to cut even though the cutting edge was under the silicon mat, so I decided to cut out rather than waste the piece. 

The next step was to stencil using this Tim Holtz - Honeycomb.  I blended the ink,  right across the hexagon using some blending foam and Adirondack - Sunshine Yellow and Distress Ink - Spiced Marmalade over the top to darken and shade.  In the photo the lighter colour doesn't really show up.  I adhered this layer to the base card and stuck the smaller hexagon in place.  I added the area to the bottom left as an after thought and decided to keep it light by using just the remnants of the ink left on the blending foam.

Lastly I stamped the bee using a snippet of white card and Versamark and then heat embossed using WOW Gold EP.  I coloured it using Promarkers in Canary and Henna, and cut it out and positioned using Pinflair Glue Gel to give a little shape.  I then stamped the sentiment and heat embossed with the WOW Gold EP.

Well, whinging over, and I hope you feel the card was worth a viewing.    I'm sure I'm not the first and won't be the last crafter to find that things don't always go to plan and that creating cards is not an exact science.

Thank you for looking at my blog today and I would like to welcome two new followers.  They are Liz of  Crafty Sunflower, and Jennifer of Jennifer's Crafting Rainbows.  There are plenty of lovely things to see on both their sites so please do go give them a visit.

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 137 where we use up snippets of card and paper.
Addicted to CAS - No. 44 - Gold.  I have used gold embossing.

Gelli Plate Snippets Anniversary

Hi there everybody, I hope your week is going well.  I can't believe that it's been nearly a week since I last posted.  I didn't think I would be able to keep up that frantic pace, well, frantic for me anyway..lol.  I have several anniversaries to make cards for and I still have some remnants from a gelli plate session where I made this card but the colours were slightly different on these pieces, probably Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and Stonewashed Adirondack ink, with a little Seedless Preserves DI blended round the edges afterwards, plus another piece using Barn Door DI and some water sprayed on to the gelli plate before pulling the print.

I found this sketch here which  appealed to me which led to this A6 card.

                                                                                                   
As you can see I went with the sketch virtually as shown.  The only difference is that I rounded the corners of the mat, made from a snippet of white card, and made the mat more square.  The heart was made from another snippet of white card using a set of Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Heart dies.  I embossed using the Cutttlebug EF - Kimmy-Luvs which doesn't seem to be available here any more.  I then coloured the raised embossing using a Rose Pink Promarker and inked the edges very lightly with the Seedless Preserves DI.

I finished by adding some faux stitching round the mat using the same Promarker and then blending Seedless Preserves DI round the edges and added a sentiment to the bottom of the card using the same colour second generation ink, and mounted it on the white A6 card.

Thanks for stopping to take a look today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 136 using snippets of card or paper.
Wanna Sketch - No 18.