Challenge Card - 03/2019 - Marigolds

Hello & Happy Sunday

Since my last post I've been busy. Not crafting. I wish! But it's been a whirlwind of hospital appointments, craft group afternoon and a trip south to Castle Douglas. It's exhausting so I took yesterday to recover. And today I'm fit to play again. Not that I made this card today. No, it's another  'one I made earlier' for last month's UKPC Swap - the challenge was to include the colour orange.

I like orange but I must admit it's not a colour I use often. However, when I think of orange I do inevitably think of marigolds. Easy to grow - just sprinkle a packet of seeds around and you have marigolds for life - bright and cheerful. They're also edible - nice in salads. So marigolds it had to be.Not that I have a stamp of marigolds. I did search through my stamp stash but the nearest I found were these daisies so they had to do.

Supplies used:
- cardstock - white A6 card base; orange satin finish cardstock for layering; white card from Craft Sensations Mixed Paper Block for stamping
- stamping - 2 Daisies by Rubbernecker; bee and greeting from a Rare Earth Spring stamp set from Issue 130, Papercrafter
- watercolouring - Spectrum Aqua Artist's Markers in shades of orange, yellow and green 
- embellishment - Vicki Boutin Texture Paste Iridescent Glitter

My camera struggled to catch the iridescent glitter paste but it really does add a beautifully textured shimmer to both the flowers and the bees wings. I used a small paint brush to apply it, adding extra to the flower centres for more bling.

I trust you are all having a wonderful weekend. I've been doing a bit of sorting out in here and rediscovered my Stampendous Creative Palette - I can't remember the last time I used it! Surprisingly, it's still in perfect condition so I'm planning to have a play with it this afternoon and see what I come up with. If the results are good, I'll post a few photos here later.

In the meantime, you all take care and have a fabulously crafty week.

Sunday Snippets with Winter Botanicals

Hello Everyone ...

... and happy Sunday too. It's another beautiful day for us - dry and sunny with just a wee bit of a chill in the air. Perfect for autumn.

I'm still beavering away at the Christmas cards - needs must! Today, I have a set of four featuring a very pretty embossed topper using one of the folders from Winter Botanicals from Sizzix - a set of four.

This is one of the smaller folders which is just the right size to create a topper. Some time ago - many months ago in fact - I had a wee embossing session with scraps of card that were stashed away in my snippet box. When I dug out the four I've used here I thought they needed a bit of colour so I painted them using Winsor & Newton watercolours. Once dry I matted each topper on to a layer of red card - more scraps from the snippet box - before fixing them with dimensional adhesive to the card base which I'd already decorated with red gingham ribbon and a greeting. 

Here's a shot of some of the supplies used. The greeting is from the Forest Magic stamp set. The flowers and buds were embellished with Dovecraft's black enamel and yellow Stickles.

I've used a selection of cardstock to emboss on - watercolour, smooth white, satin - actually whatever came to hand at the time. Interestingly, the paint behaved differently on the various finishes but I rather liked that - the cards are all the same but different.

As it's Sunday and I've used snippets of card - even the red card used for matting is from different sources - I'm popping over to Pixie's Snippet's Playground  to submit these cards to Di's Challenge #339.

Sunday Snippet Card - Golden Leaves

Afternoon Everyone,

It's been a while since I popped over to the playground at Pixie's Crafty Workshop. I've been so busy with the summer scrapping challenge I've been participating in that there's been very little time for cardmaking, but here's one I made with a background made from leftover watercolour paint.

Rather than mop up the paint, such a waste, it was brushed on to a scrap of white card and put aside for later. Later usually takes months but on this occasion it only took a week or so - something of a record for me - before I decided to make this card with it.

Supplies used:
- one white 5¼" square card blank
- sheet of lavender patterned paper from a very old 6x6 pad - the Prima Londonderry Collection from 2011
- the scrap of white cardstock
- yellow paint mixed up from my Winsor & Newton set
- Penny Black Golden Leaves stamp 
- Personal Impressions Happy Birthday stamp
- Whispers Archival Rio Purple ink pad
-  three tiny lavender coloured enamel dots

It's a very simple design but I like it. That's one of my all-time favourite wood-mounted stamps and I really like the font used for the birthday greeting - it's not unlike my own handwriting.

I've just mopped more leftovers on a scrap of white card - this time it's blue ink - so I might just have to make another snippet card very soon.

Hope you are enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend and have a great evening.

Create Art Card - More Enamelled Letters

Evening Everyone,

Surprise, surprise! I've made a card. It's been a long time.

I'm so enjoying trying out this new to me technique for changing the colours and enamelling letters I thought I'd try them out on a card.

It's very much a scrap card. It's made from bits leftover from some of the layouts I've been working on recently. For example I made up far too much red paint for one page so I took a wide brush and brushed it in wide strokes on a scrap of watercolour paper with no idea of what it's future use could be. The black and white patterned paper used as a layer under the topper was another scrap looking for a home.

Supplies used:
- an A6 size blank white card base
- the scrap of watercolour paper
- the red Winsor & Newton paint
- Darkroom Door Collage 'Create Art'
- Archival black ink
- American Crafts Alphas Memo 'Newsprint' chipboard thickers
- a red Sharpie marker
- Stampendous Transparent embossing powder
- American Crafts Brush Tip embossing pen
- the scrap of black/white patterned paper from Craft Sensations Chalkboard Basics

This close up shows just how glossy the letters are after being enamelled.

Now I'm off to look at a sewing project now while I have a few minutes to spare.

Have a lovely evening and take care.

Sunday Snippet Card - March Hares

Hi Everyone,

And a very happy Sunday to you too. After almost two weeks of not being able to do much in the way of crafting it gives me great pleasure to tell you that my mojo returned yesterday - yay!

The first card I made has a topper with a lovely image of family of hares - very seasonal.

Here's how it was made:

1. I started with the topper, stamping the image from the March Hares set (Hobby Arts) on to a scrap of smooth white cardstock, using a Versafine ink pad, Olympia Green.
2. It was then coloured with Windsor & Newton watercolours mixed to create browns, greens, blues and yellow.
3. Once dry the greeting was stamped on the topper, again with the Olympia Green ink, which was then matted on to some dark green cardstock, another scrap.
4. To a cream card base measuring 4½" I glued yellow polka dotted patterned paper, Summer Textures 6"x 6" paper pad, trimmed to leave a very narrow margin of the cream base showing. Leftover patterned paper was used to decorate inside and back of the card.
5. Finally, the topper was fixed with sticky pads, to create some dimension, to the front of the card. 

The March Hares stamp set has a nice selection in it, including another larger hare image and several wild flower and grass stamps - all very easy to colour and usable at this time of the year. In fact, I'm now working on a second card using the flowers and grasses ... hope I'll be able to share it soon as my crafting life get's back to normal.

Having used two snippets of cardstock on this card I'm submitting it for our Head Snippeteer Di's consideration at Pixie's Snippets Playground.

Take care and happy crafting,