Snowy Landscape

Hi everyone.  I think it is getting to the time of year, especially now the clocks have gone back, to be thinking more about Christmas cards.  I didn't manage to enter the Rudolph Days Challenge last month as there was too much going on and being prepared is not my best trait...lol.  It is run by our lovely friend Mo over at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo and runs from 25th to the end of each month.  I am determined to enter it this time though, and I have just enough time to get a card in, and there is only one more to go this year which is rather frightening, so I have to start making more than just one card a month.  I kept it quite simple and used a set of landscape border dies which came with a magazine fairly recently, and this is their first outing.

I found a snippet of card which was about the right size and which I had coloured with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink intending it for another card I have been working on, but didn't get to use it, so I thought it would make a good backdrop for my white silhouette landscape.  I die cut the house and tree layers snipping one of the trees and moved it to the left of the house, and thought I would leave it at that.  I then added some Cosmic Shimmer White PVA for some snow in the sky and on the landscape too.

I decided to frame it so I cut a snippet of white card just a bit smaller than my 6" square base card and cut a window just a little higher than the middle to leave room for the sentiment.  I embossed it with my Falling Snow stencil to add some interest but it doesn't show up very well in the photo, it is better in real life though, and then layered the scene and popped it behind the frame.

Subsequently I decided to add the figures with the snowball and sled to add more depth to the scene, so I die cut it from another snippet of which card and cut it to fit the edge of the frame using some foam tape to lift it a bit.  I added some white PVA snow before adding it on to the card.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges too:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 305/6 where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - No. 357 Anything Goes (no optional theme).
Sweet Stampin' Christmas October Challenge - Anything Christmas Goes.

Silhouette Tree with Oak Leaves

Hi everyone.  I have a masculine card to show today, another card I have had to make in a bit of a hurry!  I used my distress ink to make a watercolour background, an XCut die for the shape and a tree die which one of my lovely crafting friends sent me and which is seeing its first outing.  You know who you are and thank you as it is so sweet and pretty!  I  have in mind amongst others to enter the CAS Watercolour Challenge and this month's subject is Fall Leaves, and they are celebrating their 1st Birthday so many congratulations to Loll and Bonnie who have made this and the CAS Mix Up Challenge such fun, and there are two lovely prizes up for grabs too.

I found a snippet of white card and at first had in mind to use an ink splat stencil to make some background shapes very close together, applying it with blending foam and spritzing with some water to spread the ink to make an interesting shape, which I did.  Well, this was not very successful as the ink didn't move that much because I think the card was not really watercolour card, bad choice!... so I decided to add ink to my glass mat, spritz and add more of the colours.  I used Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass, Spiced Marmalade and Mowed Lawn.  There was a bit of wrinkling which the photo highlights rather, but in real life it isn't so noticable.

I had already cut the tree from a piece of thickish copy type paper, just to see what it looked like, and this had been sitting on my table for a while.  So instead of wasting it I decided to colour it with Black Soot Distress Ink and when dry coated it with Versamark Ink and used WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder, and I did this twice to build up the shine and make it stronger.  I then die cut the XCut Ornate Frame, the largest die in the set.  I decided to flip the topper for added interest and adhered the tree to it.  I then added the sentiment using Black Archival Ink.

I then found another snippet of white card and stamped two oak leaves again using Black Archival Ink and a Hobby Art set called Falling Leaves.  I then coloured with my Distress Inks in Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Walnut Stain, Fired Brick and Black Soot using a waterbrush.  I did make the colours softer by adding quite a bit of water to go with the more subdued colours in the topper.

I finished the card by adding the frame to a white 6" square base card and added the leaves to one side and adhered them with Pinflair Glue Gel. 

About half way through this card I really was wondering if I should just start again, but once I start something I hate to give up and admit defeat so am inclined to battle on...lol.  I think this was worth sticking with.

Before I go I have to say thank you to a new follower called Henry who doesn't seem to have a blog, but if I am wrong and you do, let me know and I will give you a shout out.  

Thank you for dropping by today and I'll be back soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

CAS Watercolour October Challenge and 1st Birthday Celebration - Fall Leaves.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 303/4 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.
Dies R Us Challenge - No. 83 Leaves.
Happy Litttle Stampers October Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes (no twist).
Happy Little Stampers October Anything Goes with Dies Challenge.
Uniko Challenge - No. 43 Autumn/Fall (no twist).

Fallen Leaf

Hi all.  One of our good friends has a birthday and as Autumn is truly here now I decided to do a card with that topic in mind.  I used a template for the leaf and one of the stencils I have from The Range with this great all over leaf pattern.

I started with the leaf.  I found a freebie outline leaf on line and sized it to fit nicely on my 7" square white base card.  I printed it on to a piece of copy paper and cut it out and then added the inks through it on to a piece of white card.   I used the following colours of Distress Inks: Mowed Lawn, Walnut Stain, Black Soot, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick and Mustard Seed.  I used some blending foam to apply it and started with a  light layer of the yellow and then the green over the top I then put some orange and red but keeping the centre green, followed by the brown and black around the edges and added several dark patches to other areas, and also on the stem.  I then fussy cut the leaf and added a bit more of the darker colours to blend in the white cut edges, and also some Pebeo copper gilding wax.  I also added a few white veins to the leaf with a sand eraser which was gifted to me by a lovely crafty friend.  It is very new and has a nice thin edge to it, so I ran it up and down the leaf to erase a little of the ink, and it worked beautifully.

Then on to the background made using a 6" square piece of white card.  Using the leaf stencil I ran it through my embossing machine to dry emboss, which it did reasonably well considering the stencil is very thin.  I then added a bit of the Mustard Seed ink on to it but decided it needed something more interesting, so added some of the copper gilding wax to highlight the pattern of the leaves and a bit more around the edges too, and then buffed it to make it shine and to remove any of the excess.

I adhered this background to the card and then added the leaf using some Pinflair Glue Gel to give it a but more dimension, and then added the die cut sentiment using a piece of card which I had liberally covered with the gilding wax, buffed and backed with Stick It adhesive.

Thank you for looking at my blog today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge - Week 436 Trees and Leaves.
Country View October Challenge - Mixed Media with Autumnal Hues.
Seize the Birthday Challenge - Anything Goes Birthday. (I have not used the optional twist)
Uniko Challenge - No. 43 Autumn/Fall. (no twist)

Silhouette Rose

Hi there everyone.  This is a card for a friend whose birthday I very nearly forgot so this was a bit last minute.  I used a stencil from a set I bought at The Range and which is having it's first outing, and used my Brushos with it.  This means I can enter my second card over at Darnell's Challenge where we have to use our NBUS, this means Never Before Used Schtuff, which I'm sure we all have ample supplies of.

I thought I would try the monoprint technique which involves inking up the stencil itself, spritzing it with water and laying over a piece of card so that in this particular instance the the rose shape would remain white whilst the rest would be inked.  I tried this using and Ultramarine colour Brusho powder and this rose stencil, and then spritzed it with water, but unfortunately as this is quite a thin stencil the ink crept under quite a bit and the image wasn't terribly clear.  I then did the same steps again after drying it, but it made it worse rather then better.  I then thought I would add some colour to the rose itself by shaking the Brushos through the stencil before spritzing, but it didn't look that great.  After drying it I turned the card over and the colours from the other side had bled throuth and given it quite a pretty look, so I thought this time I would just use the ink straight from the pad through the stencil to give it the look of a silhouette, using Memento Teal Zeal but I didn't like the finished colour, and adding water didn't improve it.

My last shot was to try using a  Black Micron Pen through the stencil.  Eureka! it looked better!  I decided to leave it at that and this is the finished look.  The black pen could have been smoother but with time running out I was not going to start again.

I hope you managed to follow all that without going to sleep....lol.  I cut this out using a Crealies Nesting Die XXL No. 44 with dots, and then I cut the blue layer using the same set of dies, the largest die.  I then dry embossed it using a Sheena Douglass Textures Embossing Folder Distress.

I finished the card by layering it up and cutting the white base card down to leave a small margin all the way round.  I then die cut the sentiment twice, once from white card and once from blue and both backed with Stick It adhesive.  I then layered the blue over the white and attached it to the card which helped it to stand out better from the background.

Thank you for taking a look today and I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Darnell's NBUS Challenge No. 12 - Anything Goes with NBUS.  (The stencil is my NBUS item) 
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 301/302 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.  (I have used snippets of white and blue card and a further small piece of blue for the sentiment)
Dies R Is Challenge No. 82 - Life's Events. 
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes Birthday.