Monthly Archives: February 2015

Pleasant Poppies

I recently got the Stampin’ Up! Pleasant Poppies set; it’s a large background stamp but I cut it down to fit on a horizontal card front. I stamped the image in my favourite black ink, memento’s tuxedo black on whisper white paper. I then settled down to colour the image in using the blendabilities. My brother commented, seeing me sitting so peacefully, colouring away, that all those hours of colouring in primary school must have paid off. And maybe that’s one reason why it’s so relaxing. The same as when you were a child, you’re not thinking about anything except the colouring. Mindfulness is mentioned a lot these days. Be mindful when you eat, when you’re out walking and so forth. Well, grab some pens and start colouring. It’s a good way to get into the mindful zone.

Stampin' Up! Pleasant Poppies

The stems are coloured using a single old olive blendability whereas for the poppies themselves, I used all three of the cherry cobbler pens – dark, medium and light. I started with the dark pen and blended with the medium and then covered all of the poppy with the light one, blending as I went. I also used the colour lifter to lighten a few places even further. I matted the white on a a piece of cherry cobbler and then glued that to the old olive base.

An autumnal sheltering tree copse

When I made a card for a challenge – although I didn’t follow the instructions properly – it inspired this one. I really liked the hello honey and the tangelo twist as the foliage on the tree from the Stampin’ Up! Sheltering Tree set but decided to try more trees. I started off the same, using sahara sand ink on sahara sand card stock to stamp the trees. Then I used the hello honey ink to stamp the large foliage image on each tree. After that I took the small flower head stamp and, using tangelo twist, added more colour to the trees. I finally added some more of the flower head stamp in cherry cobbler to give a very autumnal look.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree

Since hello honey and tangelo twist are both from the 2014 in colours, I chose their sibling, mossy meadow for my green. Using the hill image from the set, I stamped it several times. I then stamped the flower stalks, some were stamped twice without re-inking to give the impression of depth. I used cherry cobbler for the flower heads. I mounted the card onto a base of mossy meadow. I also used the mossy meadow background DSP to line the envelope.

A Spanish watercolour thank you

Firstly I’d like to thank Genny and the team at Hand Stamped Sentiments for selecting a card of mine as one of the Artist Picks for the colour challenge 205. You can see my card here.

I made a card for Gloria, my hostess in Barcelona, recently but just as I was about to write in it, I realised that I had Thanks on it in English. One of the sets that I’d added to my order with my Bingo winnings at the crop was the Stampin’ Up! Gracias en Acuarelas, the spanish version of Watercolor Thank you. I decided that it made sense to wait and use that one on a card for Gloria. I also challenged myself to look at my card stock and pull out a colour that I haven’t used lately. This turned out to be perfect plum. So I pulled out a piece of very vanilla and actually used my aqua painter. I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever used it with ink and then made a card with the result! Previously I’ve only used it to do the bokeh technique. I do have watercolour paper but I wanted very vanilla rather than whisper white so I tried not to get the paper too wet and it worked fairly successfully – presumably because there isn’t too much water colouring. I just squeezed the ink pad so as to get some ink onto the lid and quickly made the background. The colour coach suggested whisper white and early espresso to go with perfect plum so I adopted the early espresso part of it.

Stampin' Up! Gracias en Acuarelas

After allowing a little time to dry, I stamped the sentiment in early espresso. I added a tiny mat of early espresso, it’s just 1/8 inch larger than the very vanilla and left a large border of the perfect plum to pull it all together. I used snail to attach the very vanilla to the early espresso and a lot of it since the the very vanilla was no longer completely flat. I lined the envelope in the backgrounds DSP in perfect plum.

Banner Blast with Vivid Vases

This is another card that I made at the Winter crop weekend earlier this month and it was just after I’d been lucky enough to win a door prize. I’d made a banner card with my winnings and then decided to make the vases a bit more exciting. The Stampin’ Up! Banner Blast set has a couple of small stamps, a star and a flower and I decided to decorate the vases with those.

Stampin' Up! Vivid Vases

I started by stamping the image on a scrap piece of very vanilla. I then snipped around each vase with my paper snips – not a big deal at all. Then I took the flower, star and one of the banners and stamped the vases in rose red and so saffron. Next I stamped the image on a piece of very vanilla in the black memento ink ready to colour with the blendabilities. And that’s when I realised my mistake! I don’t have rose red and so saffron blendabilities. They don’t exist. So I used daffodil delight and melon mambo and I think it worked out fine. I admit I left it on my table overnight so that I could review it in the morning before continuing! The green is the wild wasabi blendabilities, a new colour in the Occasions 2015 catalogue.

I popped up a couple of the vases using stampin’ dimensionals to add some more interest. Then I glued the very vanilla onto a very vanilla base. The envelope is lined with the backgrounds DSP in rose red.

 

Irresistibly Yours DSP and a colour wheel

On Sunday I sat down to have some fun with my crafting supplies and had one of those days where nothing looked right. But I did use a sponge dauber and rose red ink on a piece of the Irresistibly Yours specialty designer series paper. I don’t know why I haven’t used this before, it’s really fun and I have several packs of it! It’s one of the items you can get for free during Sale-a-bration – you select a free item for every $50 you spend (not including tax and shipping). So on Monday, the piece of coloured DSP was screaming to be used. And this card slowly evolved.

Stampin' Up! Because You Care

I originally was going for a monochromatic look and had stamped the sentiment in rose red on whisper white – the sentiment is from a new hostess set, the Stampin’ Up! Because You Care set. I then matted the whisper white with more rose red card stock. The issue was that my sponging didn’t precisely match the card stock, I’d got a deeper depth of colour. Whilst I thought about that, I realised that the card needed something more and introduced the spring flowers DSP to the party. I then glued the DSP and the dry embossed piece of whisper white onto my card front. As soon as I’d done this, I decided that I didn’t like where the DSP joined the dry embossed piece of whisper white and started looking at ribbon to improve the look. No rose red ribbon. Naturally.

I recalled that Jen had emailed me a colour wheel and I’d been intending to play with it. According to the wheel, the complimentary colour was a yellow green. Sounds like pear pizzazz. And lo and behold, I have ribbon in pear pizzazz. So I stamped the sentiment again in rose red and cut it out with the circles framelits and also a circle of pear pizzazz for matting. I don’t like the ribbon to show in the inside so I cut my DSP and embossed piece down to 5.25″ by 4″ which had the advantage of trimming the edges where they weren’t quite matched up. Then I wrapped the ribbon over the join and secured it with tape. I then glued this panel to a pear pizzazz card base. Finally I used stampin’ dimensionals to pop up the sentiment.

Since I still had the rose red ink out and a dirty stamp, I decorated the envelope as well. I also lined the outside flap with pear pizzazz.

Stampin' Up! Because You Care