Three cards each very different

Improvising isn't really my strong point but I am getting better at it. I am babysitting and I have brought cards to finish off, colour in, put together and photograph for challenges. I have bought so much with me, my son will start to worry I am moving in or not paying much attention to the children but I still manage to forget the essentials. In this case it was the camera, so I have had to improvise with lighting and use my phone.

Edit: Im sorry I really hate the photos and I have become so obsessive, not sure if you will all get this as a post again, my apologies if you do but I had to retake all the photos as replace, much happier NOW

This first card is an image from Mo's Digital Pencil, isn't she a sweetie. I have watercoloured rather loosely. Before printing up I played around and added some extra frogs, even snuck one in behind. I have used a die to cut a piece of plaid paper as a frame and sit this on a piece of blended cardstock.

Here you can see the bits of gold paint on the mushrooms and that cheeky frog behind her waiting for a kiss.

Just love the sentiment  'You need to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince!'

For this card my inspiration came from the Muse Card Challenge #224 

I was inspired by the shapes, one up one down, the mix of colours, 

separate panel and the inset sentiment.

What I have been trying to do recently is start using stamp sets I bought goodness knows how long ago. Stamp sets I just had to have and then they ended up in that NBUS pile, my goal is to use them at least once and see if they inspire me and I can see myself using them more. If yes then continue to keep them, if not then its time to move them to a friendlier environment.

So here I have used a set I bought that is three layers, diamonds. I have used mainly Altenew Inks and the stamp set is from The Ton. Each time you stamp with a darker colour and it defines the heart better.

I then die cut the 'celebrate' sentiment once from the front panel and once from white fun foam, added the panel to the front of the card. Glued everything back in place and finished off with glossy accents.

This last card was very quick and easy. I silver embossed a strip along the card. The strip is from a set of lacy panels from Penny Black. There are about 6 to 8 different lacy panels and they really are pretty and haven't been used enough. Perfect for this type of card.

I stamped and coloured with copics a few flowers and leaves, fussy cut then added a few little white dots with white gel.

As you can see here I have used the same pink to colour the petals just gone over the petals a second time. Added a few green leaves and all done.

Finished the card off with the silver mirror cardstock diecut 'with love'. 

Challenges:

Muse Card Challenge #224

Celebrate card

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge : Use Plaid

You need to kiss a lot of frogs

Glitter 'N' Sparkle Challenge #248 Anything Goes

You need to kiss a lot of frogs

Crafty Friends Challenge Blog Challenge #62 Floral

Best Wishes Card

Sisterhood of snarky Stampers #88 K is for Kids

mmmmm this is one of those times you think to yourself is kissing frogs somethings snarky you would say to a kid just to get even or was it meant to be cute.... I'll leave it to you.

Crafty Creations Challenge #346 Anything Goes

Celebrate card

Thanks so much for coming to look and I hope you come again soon.

The Flower Challenge Reminder Post

Its that time of the month when we remind you that time is running out if you haven't done a card for The flower Challenge yet. In case you have forgotten this month is 

All about embossing heat or dry. I have again gone with heat embossing as I have always loved heat embossing my images. I love the look it gives to the images and also allows especially when watercolouring more control over where the colours go.

This was a card of many layers as it was just going to be a very light watercolour but when finished I wasn't happy so then I decided to do some pencil colouring to add definition.

Of course I was very happy then but can never leave well enough alone, I just had to colour the grass and the sky, I really do push my luck.

Anyway with lots of pencil work and babyoil it all came together and I am happy with this card. Finished off with a silver diecut 'thank you' and some silver balls stuck here and there.

Thank you so much for coming to have a look, now off you go and check out the rest of the design teams beautiful creations and add a card or two to the challenge. We love it when you join in.

Just Us Girls Guest Design Week Three

Its that time again, a brand new Challenge and check out the colours for this week, Dark Pink, Pink and Blue. I know really hard to use, NOT. I am so enjoying these challenges.  For this one I decided to leave the butterflies and get back into flowers.

I have used a mixture of flowers here from a few different stamp sets as one of my favourite pass times is to stamp and emboss the flowers in bulk and then when I have time I just colour or paint and fussy cut later. I have containers with all my flowers in little piles in no particular order just easy access.

Now needing two different pinks I couldn't have found a better background paper than this patterned paper I have here, I LOVE it.

Anyhooo we have white embossed, gold embossed, silver embossed and diecut and lots of watercolouring pinks soft and pinks dark and blue so all criteria met.

Die cut a pink metallic look 'happy birthday' and its all done, ohh I stuck them all on with double sided tape easy as. Very light watercolouring for the vase so it looks like water in the bowl.

Ok now its time to go see what the Design Team at Just Us Girls has come up with and be inspired and then make a card or two and join us.

Thank you so much for coming to have a look and please come again. I love it when you visit.

My Friend

Ohhhh I am in heaven, in heaven, these pencils (I forgot to mention they are PRISMACOLOR) are so beautiful to play with. Look at how vibrant they are on on Kraft card stock. Don't look at my stamping mistakes (I ran out of Kraft card stock and now I have to wait for more to be delivered. I do have more things stamped but I was unable to rest amp this so we are going to look at the beauty not the balance OK!!)

More stamps coming out of NBUS pile or I should say have been stamped and coloured and fussy cut and then put aside, wellllll then I saw  how Kelly coloured them with the Chameleon pencils, I fell in love with the look. I don't have their pencils but I sure have a million and one pencils these days.

I just picked random colours and went rainbow for the front and yellow/orange for the back ones.

I may end up going over the black lines again though it is only really obvious here in this close up.

There is no need to adjust the photo at all, the colours are this vibrant on the kraft. I have always seen other peoples colouring on kraft and wondered if they put down white first...... no they don't the colour just goes down perfectly and each is soft and blends into the other. I didnt use any baby oil at all just pencil to pencil.

I cant wait to use this stamp more, its perfect and also more pencil, my copics are getting jealous now they will have to share custody of me. Goodness when I go away now I will need to double pack and of course now the next quest - what is the best paper to colour in on that is also white enough for the front of the cards.

Challenges:

Less is More Card Challenge #336 & #337

its a Collaboration  between Less is More and

AAA Cards so the next challenge

AAA Cards CAS Game #94

Tuesday Throwdown Challenge #351 One Layer

thanks so much for coming to visit and I hope you com again soon

Three New Cards and its all about the Butterflies

My First card was inspired by The Muse Card Challenge #223 for this week

done by Anita Bowden

I absolutely love the  the coloured swatches Anita has done on her card

with the butterfly over the top. Its a style I have never ever been able to do and

I sadly lack in these style of stamps all together. 

I hunted through all that I had and found that the closest I came to swatches was a set of

smaller ones from STAMPlorations that I am sad to say that I bought many years ago and have never used. I sat and played all afternoon with different ideas and ended up feeling that this was a card that

I not only liked but it was also me.

I used the same stamp twice but turned it up side down for the second stamp and of course I stamped with my Distress Oxide Ink. Flicked just a little water as I have used cardstock and didn't want it to swell out of shape. I stamped and coloured a little butterfly with different green copics to get a close match as I didn't want all black.

I used just a small sentiment for the Birthday Wishes as the swatches and butterfly were small and I felt that was what suited better. So though its a different look it was certainly inspired by Anita and I thank her for the inspiration to step outside my usual style.

These next two butterfly cards came about over quite a long process. I had spent a quiet few hours blending Distress Ink colours on Watercolour panels in different mixes and some I put aside as fails or to be worked on. These two panels are from this pile. This first had started a mix of orange and red and become too red, I decided to stamp and white emboss a large butterfly from the Stampendous collection and do some water resist, problem was it really wasn't doing much at all. I had also stamped and white embossed the other panel and managed to bend it in the process, so it was sitting to the side as wastage and the red well a dud.

Then my pencils arrived, my new Prismacolor pencils, all 150 beautiful colours. so after I sat and sharpened then all, I started playing,  ohhhhh the joy, the ease. Remembering to colour lightly, blending colours in, layers, not hurting the hands. Yes I have become a pencil addict, not watercolour pencils but pencils like my Polychromos so I can combine the colours and use them together.

Look at those beautiful colours, so a card that was destined for the bin became a beautiful butterfly.

I added a couple of sequins and yes a most unusual front. I had bought these clear photo fronts in a reject shop and they sat amongst the NBUS stuff and fell into my hands and I loved the look.

I attached them with a strip of washi on the side so the recipient can open and look at the beauty

of the butterfly then open the card to read what I have to say to them. A three fold card with a difference. The flash has caught in the reflection of the first photo but the front is a white heart and the sentiment 'best friends'

Now the ultimate save, this is the card that ended up with a fold in it from to vigorous blending. Just love the pencil blending and the photos overs-heet. 

Look at those rich colours, achieved so easily with very little effort from the hands.

Love this butterfly, great for practicing and beautiful to look at.

Again I have attached the Photo clear panel with washi tape at the side, this time a white with gold spots.  You  & Me in White

Not sure if we have any challenges I can add these too.

Challenge

The Muse Card Challenge #223

Birthday Wishes

Seize the Birthday Red White and You

Without the topping this time. 

'Birthday Wishes'

HLS July CAS Challenge: Birthday

Birthday Wishes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge #93 Embossing Heat or Dry

You & Me Butterfly Card

Alphabet Challenge Blog 'I' for Insects

Best Friends Card

4 Crafty Chicks :  #358 Stamping No Digi's

You & Me card

Thanks so much for coming to have a look and I hope you come again soon

JUST US GIRLS Guest Designer Second week

This week is trend week

I decided to go with my Distress Ink Oxides and I have blended on

watercolour canvas. i still don't have the orange so I did mix of Barn Door Red and Worn Lipstick

to get the orange look.  

I Heat set the panel then used my butterfly dies to cut out the different

butterflies and one swirl.

While the butterflies were still removed I did a bit of water flicking, dabbed

dry and once happy, cut another lot of butterflies with orange fun foam to fill

the spots where the butterflies went so they could sit a bit higher. 

Used the Misti to help with the Butterfly related sentiment and all done.

Thanks so much for coming to have a look. 

Don't forget to go see what the Design Team have done at Just Us Girls and get inspired to join us this week for another challenge.