Christmas Alphabet - L for Let It Snow

Afternoon Folks

Here's the finished card that, if you participate in WOYWW, you would have spotted partially done on my desk yesterday.  The topper is my second attempt - messed up the stamping on the first - and I'd say this was my first really successful attempt at brayering - I do believe I've got the hang of it now :)

I used what I think is termed a resist technique on the background. To do this I started by stamping the Let It Snow stamp with VersaMark, then dotted the fine tip of a VersaMark randomly over the card to form the snowflakes. I then used blue ink and the brayer, as per Barbara Gray, over about two-thirds of the card for the sky and just a swipe or two over the bottom right hand corner which gives a hint of blue and no more. Topper is matted on to holographic card and two shades of blue, dark and medium, and the base is the palest shade of blue.

I did make the mistake of stamping the row of houses with Archival Ink so had to use AquaMarkers to colour them. It was serendipity, because I actually like the effect of the pastel colours and the houses now look like those on the waterfront at Tobermory, Isle of Mull - also known as Balamory! The snow is made using the very fine iridescent glitter I found at the craft show in Glasgow last week.

Just a simple insert - the edges are stamped using a favourite Hero Arts stamp.

I rescued the stamped area from the first attempt, trimmed it down and adhered it to the back.

Materials List:

• Cardstock: Papermania Textured Cardstock in three shades of blue; Claritystamp white matt-coated A6 postcard; silver holographic card 
• Stamps: Docrafts, Penelope & Percy Christmas Greetings; Claritystamp, Street, No.55 & Tree, No. 59; Hero Arts, Wavy Stars
• Inks & Pens: Adirondack, Stonewashed; Archival Ink, Jet Black; AquaMarkers, Aquamarine, Straw Yellow; Rose Carmine, Sepia
• Insert: White copy paper 
• Embellishments: Very fine iridescent glitter; blue card candy

It's just 4.30pm and it's already dusk - I really don't like it when the clocks are altered. For me, I'd be perfectly happy if they, whoever they are, just left time alone. We, DH and myself, have been to the gym this morning and had a workout - yes, worked up a sweat and feel good after it.  I can't believe I've just said that! Disaster struck later when I discovered that my mobile phone had stopped lighting up - couldn't see the screen. Alan hot-footed it down to the 3 shop to see if they could do anything. But, no, it's been sent off for repair. Now, I don't use any phone often, well, for talking on, but I do rely on my mobile to keep me on track - directory, calendar, notebook, all on my phone. Help! All my appointments are logged in the calendar with reminders all set up. Oh, well, I'll be winging it until my phone comes home - so if I forget next WOYWW, you'll know why :)

 

Happy Crafting,

 

Poppy Picture - An experiment with recycled plastic

Good Evening All,

I've been experimenting again. This is loosely based on Debbi, The Crafty Cuttings of Wiccababe's tutorials - see here - showing what could be done with Promarkers and plastic. (Apologies for the glare from the flash.) When I did this one I did not have any blending solution so I tried the technique using Aquamarkers instead. As you can see it was not a great success. I shoved it to the side, as we do:) But whenever I was looking through my bits and bobs it kept turning up so I finally decided to try to make something of it, and you see the result.

Materials used:

• a piece of clear plastic (from a Promarker container) cut to size;
• Aquamarkers in various colours;
• Sheena Douglass poppies stamp; black ink pad;
• Promarkers to colour popies;
• 4 clear flat-backed crystals (coloured with red Promarkers);
• white card for matting and layering.

I've framed it and it's going into the smallest room - now fast becoming my gallery of turkeys!

Thought I'd let you see the contents of a package that arrived on Saturday from Helena at Poppy's Cabin.

Helena sells a wonderful selection of doilies and trims in a variety of sizes and shapes. I spotted the pink ones and thought they would come in handy - of course the other items just fell into my basket!

I'm off to watch a bit of TV before calling it a day so here's wishing you all a good night.

The Busy Little Girl Card

Hi again,

 

 

Two posts in one day - for me that's quite an accomplishment : ) I thought I'd just get this card posted tonight because we are going off on a jaunt tomorrow - the weather forecast is good.

 

So here she is, and yes, Julia, I went with the pink but teamed it up with the pale coffee colour which seemed in keeping with the vintage theme.

 

 

 

I found some card candy that picked up the colours of the dress and, another first for me, I spritzed the coffee coloured seam binding, tinted it a little with pink distressed ink, and left it trendily crinkled.

 

 

 

The matting layers are made up of a coffee & cream card, design paper covered in tiny pink, cream & coffee daisies, and cream pearlescent card, all matted on to a Kraft base.  The very pretty DP is punched along the edge on the front, the inside and also on the back.

 

 

 

And that is it - I almost put a flower on the bottom left corner but decided against it because I like the simplicity of the card as it is.

 

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Kraft card for base; cream/coffee gingham patterned card & cream pearlescent card for matting; Daler & Rowney watercolour card for stamped image
• Design Paper: Flutterbyes, Small Daisies All Over paper, edge punched with a Woodware edge punch
• Stamp: Sheena Douglass' Busy Doing Nothing coloured with Aquamarkers and sentiment stamped in Memento ink pad Rich Cocoa and the edges distressed with TH's Spun Sugar ink pad
• Embellishments: Seam binding, Camels Hair from The Ribbon Girl; Card candy in coffee and pink/white polka dots

 

That's me for tonight - time for bed, methinks.

 

Happy crafting,

 

Columbine - Clean and Simple Cards + Snowdrop Disaster

Afternoon to everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend with plenty of crafting time. Unfortunately, my weekend was a bit of a non-starter as I had a lot of leg pain which prevented me sleeping and left me pretty wrung out by Sunday. However, all crafting was not lost because on Friday I had printed out a couple of digital stamps and stamped a couple of others on to watercolour paper all ready to be coloured so I was able to spend yesterday just quietly sitting colouring in with my Aquamarkers.

Spring

The theme for the Less is More challenge this week is Spring and for me it is the Aquilegia or, as it is more commonly known, the Columbine that epitomises Spring. I have several varieties in my garden. There are two favourites, one a red and yellow beauty that grows in my wildflower border and the other an alpine plant with a striking blue and white flower that grows in a trough just by the garden gate.   

 

The stamp I used is Columbine from A Passion for Stamps - thanks to Kerry of a Load of Old Pickle ,whose Honeysuckle card I so admired -for leading me to this lovely site.The stamp is a digital stamp so I decided to use my graphic programme and put it together with some lines from Shelley that I thought was particularly appropriate to the Spring theme.

And Spring arose in the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

The font used is Ancestory SF size 16. Once happy with the positioning of both the flower and the lines, they were printed out on Reeves watercolour paper (12" x 9" pad). I discovered that at 190gsm this paper is ideal for putting through my printer but unfortunately Daler & Rowney at 300gsm  is far too thick.  Once I'd coloured in the columbines I punched the edge with my only Martha Stewart punch as the finishing touch.

I couldn't decide which was my favourite flower colour so did both.

AquaMarkers used: Flame Red, Straw Yellow, Celery, Bamboo, Sepia, Aquamarine, Twilight Blue

Now for the disaster!
My first thought for the theme was kind of predictable - snowdrops - easy, especially as I already had the the lovely Sheena Douglass Spring stamp set. I stamped the snowdrops stamp and my favourite sentiment about Spring on to a pre-made base card. I then coloured the snowdrops using ProMarkers and this was the result:

The card was the wrong type for using ProMarkers on, it just soaked up the colour and became really smudgy looking. Lesson learned - the right card is needed for the job, especially if making a one layer card.

An Old Tip but A Good One
I'm sure many of you know this one but for those new to watercolouring - and it isn't so long ago that I was a total beginner, and I'm still no expert - this may be worth knowing and  it is that a white tile makes an ideal palette when working with AquaMarkers. Here's a photo of mine after my watercolour session. I've not washed the paint daubs off because a wet paintbrush makes the paint usable again - no waste!

Hope this helps some of you,