Thinking of You & Hugs were invented........

Yep its that time of the week again and as per my usual its a last minute idea and entry for the Muse Card Club Challenge.

But first another idea came together as I was painted the background for my Muse card.

I spent a day playing with inking up my stencils, spraying with water and lifting and laying onto my watercolour card stock. I made some amazing backgrounds with both the first squish and spraying again with water and doing a paler version. I made that many backgrounds that then I had to decide which one to use for the challenge I had made them for.

Im pleased to say in the process I managed to ink up lots of my stencils (not all but a pretty good amount). This card I have used the stencil from Altenew that looks absolutely amazing done with ink blending and just as good here with ink on the stencil, strayed with water then press onto watercolour cardstock.

I used Distress Inks for this rather than Oxides as I wanted a slight wet look that the Distress Inks manage to do. This colour in 'Blueprint Sketch' love it, it has a slight mauve tinge to it.

So easy and CAS, added a die cut Hugs sentiment from MFT and the sentiment to follow are part of a set that automatically go with Hugs die.

Perfect for the CAS Mix Up Challenge

Stencil Mono-printing which is the name of the technique used, stamped sentiment and die cut sentiment.

My next card was inspired by Tracy's wonderful card. I loved her blue watercolour panel with most of the colour to the top half of the card, the fussy cut flowers on top and stamped sentiment.

I have done a watercoloured panel concentrating on the top half of the card, but I went further by using 5 different Distress Ink blues (the mauve looking one is the 'blueprint sketch'. I don't seem to know the word light watercolouring, I just have to keep playing as I love mixing colours but have to say it was totally inspired by Tracy's beautiful light watercolouring.

I have Copic coloured the flower, I went with pinks. I fussy cut around the flowers but also added copic dots in blue to make the outline blend a bit better.

I then stamped the 'Thinking of You' as I didn't need any more Missing You at the moment.

Now before the Challenge closes I had better get my card up on their sight.

Challenges:

Muse Card Challenge #279

Thinking of you

CAS Card Mix Up August Challenge

Hugs were invented........

HLS Watercolour Challenge August

Thinking of you

AAA Cards CAS Game #122 Use a Stencil

Hugs were invented.........

Time Out Challenge #116 Bright

I know its a 'Thinking of You' card

but it is bright to lift anyones spirits.

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope I see you again soon

Reminder for The Flower Challenge #23 One Layer Card

It's time for a reminder post, I have used the same stamp set, Forever and Always from Altenew, that I used for my other one layer card. Its a beautiful set of roses in a bouquet and sentiments perfect to go with them. 

I stamped then coloured with Copics. Very quick colouring on these as they are quite small so I only did one layer starting with darkest colour Y18 Y08 Y02 Y00 and leaving white on the top edge of the petals. No real blending in this type of colouring. Works well. The leaves are in the 'G' range sorry cant remember exactly but from palest G00 and then next two blends up. Ferns YG00 YG01

Nuvo Glitter Gloss for the roses. Of course it looks much more impressive IRL.

When I was ready to stamp the sentiment (again one from the set) I realised I had dripped coffee on the top left edge of the card. One layer you cant disguise with washi tape or gems so I cut a cple of sentiments off. It took the edge of the leaves but I think the card still works ok. Bit jinxed with this challenge but at least there was no big Copic leak this time.

I love that sentiment

"You Make My Life Blossom"

Now its time to go to The Flower Challenge and check out what the rest of the team and 

our Guest Designer Milla have been up to. 

Thank you so much for coming to visit

Challenges:

Crafting By Designs Anything Goes August Challenge

A Bit More time To Craft #74 Anything Goes

a2z Scrapbooking August Challenge

Forever Wedding Card

If there's one place I can count on each week for inspiration it's the Muse Card Challenge and this week certainly hasn't disappointed me.

This card by Anita is just beautiful and as soon as I saw it I thought of an idea. So I have been inspired by the white heat embossing, the white border around the embossed image and the unusual colour of the background for a wedding card. I also decided to go wedding as I have so few of these and thought it would be a good way to build a bit of choice in my collection.

As soon as I saw those white embossed flowers I thought of a rose background stamp I have from  'The Ton'. I had white embossed this rose onto multimedia cardstock which is really good with Tim Holtz Distress Oxides. You can play and play and play with very minimal warpage.

I had heat embossed a while ago and had watercoloured one panel but wasn't so happy with the result but this one I love. The Distress Oxides look amazing with this stamped background. I blended first for overall coverage then flicked water. 

Then I decided I wanted more so got out all the colours I liked the thought of so my tattered rose, worn lipstick, barn door, abandoned coral, wild honey and mustard seed, squished on mat, sprayed with water. I drag a piece of acetate through the mess to split it up a bit and cause small bubbles and spots as these look good on the card stock. Use the acetate to place exactly where I want the added bits and turn the card over and just tap down into whats on the mat for more coverage.

I do a lot of little bits at a time and dry the layers in between for more effect. I love how it turned out and I have found the more complimentary colours the better it looks. Once finished and dry I wiped off the flowers with a 'wet one' to bring the white back up. Cut the panel to fit a standard card and glued in place. Finished it off with the 'forever' word die from 'Stamplorations' (ohh yes I do love their dies)and then added some clear gem.

Card Challenges:

First one definitely:

Muse Card Challenge #278

613 Avenue Create Anything Goes without the Twist

Though it doesn't follow the Twist I still reckon it looks

magical the way it turned out :)

Just Us Girls  Week #453 Trend Week

I hope this fits the criteria for watercolours.

If not I will remove

Crafting With An Attitude #42 Anything Goes

Thanks so much for coming to visit. Hope I see you again soon.

Hello Sunshine & a big Thank you to Gina K & Kathy at the Daily Marker Challenge

Long title I know but I wanted to make sure I covered it all.

Look at these amazing wonderful stamps and die I got from Gina K Designs as I won them when participating in Kathy's The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge  .

I cant thank them enough for this wonderful prize so I thought the best thing to do is to make a card straight away from one of the stamp sets to show my appreciation.

I have spent the last few days just making backgrounds, painting, blending and generally getting very inky. This was an attempt at a sunset, lots of playing and then just had to stop. I'm not an artist and lack the skills for all the little touches it deserved but I felt it passed muster. I then sprayed with a shimmer spray which I probably shouldn't have as it dropped in splotches here and there. Need to work on that step, probably better off adding to the water I use to paint with.

Close up so you can see the shimmer.

I painted with Kurtake Gansi paints in this instance and I must say I love playing with these paints. I don't use them enough and I should as they are so rich in colour and beautiful to use.

I have used the large background stamp that adds the border and those trees. I was using my new Tim Holtz  positioner, I did struggle to get the image to stamp clearly and I don't know whether it was because the positioner needs a mat to lift the paper higher that I was stamping on or if it was because the painted background was struggling to absorb the ink as the watercolour paper I used was not smooth. 

The image eventually stamped and Im really glad I used the positioner as I needed to repeat quite a number of times to get everything stamped. 

I stamped the image again onto multimedia paper and it came out perfectly first time so I can say it was just the cardstock that had warped slightly and had quite a heavy weave and lots of paint on it.

Doesn't  it look amazing. I can see myself using this stamp set a lot. As well as this main framed image theres lots of other smaller tropical images and a cple of sentiments. There was a sentiment 'Hello Sunshine' but I decided to use the white diecut one from Stamplorations as it stood out perfectly on this card.

I love how it looks finished and will continue to work on my backgrounds for more cards.

Again I say thank you to Gina K for these amazing stamps and die and Kathy for making it possible for me to get them in the first place and Tina Magnusson (my piece of paper) who nominated me in the challenge so we both got to shop.

Challenges:

Southern Girls Challenge: Stamp your mark on it with Team Lou

Crafting with An Attitude  Challenge #42

Mod Squad Challenge: Water Theme

Work It Wednesday Simon Says : Watercolour

Thanks so much for coming to visit.

Hello, How Are You?

I know I already had a post today but I couldn't resist making this card after seeing the card on Muse Card Challenge. The ideas just fell into place and I had to move on it today as I'm off to Canberra to see mum and dad tomorrow and I didnt think I would get back in time. Also for the first time I had the time and the idea just came, not last minute as usual.

I love how this turned out, no stamping but some watercolouring, die cutting and embossing a card. Yes I know I never use my stash of embossing folders as I never seem to think of them but seeing this card from Muse Card Challenge and receiving my prize from HLS Challenge which is that fabulous flower die got me going.

What wonderful card Tristan has made for the challenge, I love her embossed card front, the hollow white frame and the blue flower sitting on it.

This die cut is from watercoloured cardstock. I mixed some blues and pinks and mauves from my Distress Inks, then sprayed liberally with Shimmer spray. I did find I needed to put this design twice through the big Shot together a clean cut.

I used a stripped embossing folder to emboss the front of the card. I die cut the frame from Paper Smooches in white card stock and in blue funfoam. Glued them in place added the flowers so some are under the frame and some over, glued them in place and finished the card off with my silver mirror card 'hello'.

I love how it looks and it was so easy to put together.

Challenges:

Muse Card Challenge #277

HLS CAS Card Challenge August

HLS Watercolour Challenge August

Went with the twist

Cute Card Thursday #541 Anything Goes

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

The Flower Challenge #23 One Layer Card

This month we have the very talented Milla from Mustesormi.blogspot.com as Guest Designer on The Flower Challenge. She makes such beautiful cards, please be sure to visit her blog and leave her a comment or three ;) 

Now don't you dare click close just because it's one layer card.

Think about it and then decide your going to give it ago. Come on, if I can do it, you can too. Most important thing to remember it's a FLOWER card challenge so the main image needs to be flowers.

The first thing I want you to do is look at this card and see where I had to rescue my flower. See that pink rose with the dark petal and your thinking 'why has she done that petal so dark???' Wellllll it goes like this, I had nearly finished colouring and opened my dark green Copic to add a bit of shadow on that greenery and blop, yep it was definitely a blop, in my imagination, when that big green blob feel off the end of the nib onto my nearly completed card.

I managed to remove a lot of the green with my colourless blender around the greenery but quite a bit still held on that pink petal. I was going to throw it out, then  I got a call and I had to do a mad dash and there was no time to start again. So I just added more pink and shut it from my mind.  There is no such thing as perfection.

Here I have gone into close up to show the sparkle on the roses.

When I embossed the sentiment the line 'I fall in love' didn't emboss clearly, so I double embossed. Thank goodness for the Misti. When stamping the sentiment the second time I only added ink to the middle line as I didn't want the smaller font to get too thick. 

So although there are errors and could have ended up in the bin or cut out, but I persevered and ended up with a card I rather like.  Since I line most of my cards that heavy ink flow through to the inside won't matter.

Now its time to go to 'The Flower Challenge' and check out the wonderful creations from the rest of the girls. So much stunning inspiration from a truly gifted group of people.

Came back to add a couple of challenges:

Southern Girls Challenge: Flower Power with Team Trace

Crafting With An Attitude Challenge 42 Anything Goes

A Bit More time To Craft Challenge #73 Anything Goes