Back to School - His & Hers

Day 1 and I've already got my money's worth!  Today we've been doing His & Hers Thinking of You cards, using the same principles for each card.  I'm blown away by Jennifer's technique for the male card.  I'll be using that technique.  A lot.

Images are from Paper Smooches and sentiment is from Marion Emberson Designs.

For the female card the sentiment is from Penny Black Gratitude, and the images are from Papermania Hampstead.

Both of my cards are fairly close to Jennifer's originals, so I'm not entering them into any challenges, just uploading to the student gallery.

If you haven't signed up for this class, what are you waiting for?  Get over there!

Card Makeover

I like playing along with One Layer Wednesday, one of the first blog challenges I ever entered.  This week Karen's got a makeover challenge:

MAKEOVERS - remake one of your cards

Come and join us, there's only a few of us this week and it's a bit lonely.  I chose to do a makeover on this card,

turning it from a multi-layer card to a one-layer card, using a stamp for the flower image instead of the die-cut, and incorporating the sketch from this week's Less is More:

Bit of a radical makeover, but I think it still retains the general character of the first card.

I masked an area on the card, including the strip for the sentiment, and loosely washed Peacock Feathers and Shaded Lilac distress inks over with my Chinese water brush.  Leaving the mask in place, I stamped the flower (JOFY JM13) in Versafine Onyx Black, then removed the mask and stamped the sentiment (Paper Smooches).  I used Tombow markers to colour the flowerhead, leaves and stems, so I'm entering it into Addicted to Stamps and More:

MAKE YOUR MARK

And I'm also entering it into The Wonder of Watercolour challenge at Moxie Fab World.

Housework Makes You Ugly, Darling

Here I am, taking a bit of time out from the housework.  I saw this picture on Pinspired, which reminded me it was time for a facepack.  I've run out of green gunge, so I used my more expensive gold gunge, but I'm wearing my green dressing gown in honour of the icing.

This week's cue word at CASology is GIGGLE.  Works for me :)

Here's the full card.  Image by Me and My Big Ideas, sentiment by Inky Antics.  Facepack by L'Oréal Liquid Pearls Platinum.  Colouring by Tombow markers.

Simon Says Anything Goes this week:

And the challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More is

MAKE YOUR MARK

Seeing Double?

I certainly was by the time I'd finished all the dots!

So, after I'd posted yesterday's card I went looking for which challenge to do next, and there was ColourQ's juicy range of colours, including kraft, which would have been ideal for yesterday's card.  Fine, just make another.

This time, I used the inspiration from Virginia's card over at Muse:

I've used Paper Smooches Reflections and Sentiment Sampler, so in it goes to the Picture Perfect challenge, with the flowers and dots again as the inspiration:

Simon Says that anything goes this week:

And CAS-ual Fridays Birthday Bash for Michele is still open:

I masked a circle then stamped the images overlapping the circle, and left the mask in place while I drew in all the dots, in order to get a crisp edge.  My first attempt is on the reverse of the kraft panel, where I'd used dye inks but they weren't vivid enough, so I turned the piece over and used the reverse side with pigment inks.  The good thing about kraft is that even dye inks don't soak right through, so you can use the reverse.  The bad thing is that the reverse (on my kraft at least) is hairier so even after dusting with a magic bag, there was quite a lot of white embossing powder hanging on around the sentiment.  Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a paintbrush before embossing and an Exacto knife after.  Kraft is more forgiving in that respect.

Join The Dots

When I saw the inspiration photo for The Play Date Cafe's new challenge, I was as much taken by all the white dots as by the colour scheme,

Grass ... Rose Petal ... Hibiscus

and suddenly I knew how I wanted to case Jen's card at Less Is More:

Here's a little close-up of my case.  I like how the white dots define the colours.

The image stamps are Paper Smooches Reflections (such a versatile set) and the current challenge at PaperSmoochesSPARKS is Picture Perfect using this image as inspiration:

So friends, that's your challenge--use this picture as your inspiration for your creation. Get inspired by the flowers, polka dots, cupcakes, or colors!!!  Follow it closely or use it loosely...just have fun! 

My interpretation is very loose - flowers!  And maybe dots, on a different scale.

And seeing as Michele of CAS-ual Fridays is still having her birthday bash, I'll add it to her many birthday cards.

Oh, and Addicted to CAS is still open, where the code word is Flower:

Blossom and Flourish

Me again, with another one that won't wait until tomorrow.  Scroll down  or click here for today's earlier post.

This one is for Hypothesis #3 at Fusion Card Challenge:

And Addicted to CAS where the code word is Flower:

And I've used the colours from The Play Date Cafe's current challenge:

Flourish from Indigo Blu

Flower from Rubber Stampede Wildflower Duet

Sentiment from Personal Impressions Marion Emberson Designs

New Home In The City

Whistling in before the doors close on CAS(E) This Sketch with a new home card for city dwellers.

And while there's still time, Simon Says Travel/Cityscapes:

And Addicted to Stamps and More:

ANYTHING GOES!!

Create anything you like.

We are sponsored again this week by

Cityscape by Art Impressions
Sentiment by Woodware

Travel Snapshot

This card grew out of a number of challenges.  Firstly, Unscripted Sketches, which I've never played before, being generally sketch-averse.  But this week's Unscripted Sketch, which I saw on my blogfriend Geri's site (she's on the DT) just screamed "washi" at me.

Simon Says challenge this week is Travel/Cityscapes, so out came the French photo-stamp.

The colour scheme at Dynamic Duos this week is Black and Grey, perfect for a photo-style card, with a dessert option of a masculine theme.

And Ardyth at Maskerade has set a fiendish One Layer Card theme.  One layer cards aren't fiendish, I actually like making them.  But this theme is fiendish - A-ok:

Use something on your card that starts with A. An image, colour, word, technique or embellishment. Remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

So, mine's an image of the Arc de Triomphe.  I stamped the image in Versafine Onyx Black, then drew a pencil frame around the image, stamped washi tape images around, then drew in the frame in the gaps with a black pen and added a grey shadow around the "photo".  I quite like how it turned out so I think I'll make another similar one because this one could have gone into another challenge, but I've bust again.

Arc de Triomphe - Oxford Impressions

Washi tape stamps - Kaisercraft

Wonderful Birthday

Another quickie today - we have warm(ish) sunshine and I want to play out in the garden.

Runway Inspired Challenge #34

And CAS-ual Fridays Birthday Bash, open till 1st May.

Flourish from Indigo Blu
Sentiment from Hero Arts

Big Birthday Wishes

Just a quickie - this card is for three challenges:

MUSE, inspiration provided by Marion's card:

ColourQ, using this colour scheme:

And CASual Fridays challenge celebrating Michele's birthday:

Florals by Paper Smooches
Sentiment by Woodware

Even More Chloe Stems

Don't worry, this is the last of the chloe stem cards for a good while.  This is the first card I made with the chloe stem die cuts, using the technique described in this post.  With the three resulting coloured die-cuts I made another card here.

Since both of the cards were made using the Paper Players colour scheme, it would be a shame not to enter this one into the challenge to keep its partner card company.

I'm also entering it into Addicted to Stamps and More Anything Goes.

I'm leading a workshop tonight for our stamping group (usually about 25 people) doing mini canvases, a bookmark or gift tag, and a card, all as a set.  I'll share it next week.

Another Chloe Stem

The challenge at CASology this week is WORD.  My favourite word at home is the last word because it's always mine.

But for this challenge I used a whole field of words.  Just before posting, I was checking through new posts in my blog reader and I saw the Wonder of Watercolour challenge at Moxie Fab World.  Perfect timing.

For the background panel I dragged Peeled Paint and Tumbled Glass distress inks across a piece of watercolour paper, then with a very wet Chinese water brush, spread them over the paper.  Once it had dried, I stamped the script with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

I'm also entering it into Addicted to Stamps and More Anything Goes.

The chloe stem is a by-product from making this mini canvas (70mm x 70mm).  I've been playing with mini canvases in preparation for a workshop tomorrow (which look nothing like this one).  For this one, I attached the die-cut to the canvas with temporary glue then dusted Peeled Paint and Tumbled Glass across the whole thing.  When I peeled off the die-cut it left this lovely silhouette and I had my coloured die-cut to use on my card.  The splodges you can see are where the aerosol fixative decided to blob instead of spray.

To finish, I just added some ribbon around the edge of the canvas.