Floral Congrats :D

This bright and cheery card is mostly inspired by Leonie Pujol's new stamp and stencil range and also by the MFT colour challenge #43. I saw Leonie demonstrating her new products on Hochanda last week, and loved the concept, so I give it a try with things I already had... I started off by cutting some really thin acetate with the Lawn Fawn scripty Congrats die, I then sprayed the back of this with Crafter's Companion Stick and Spray so it would stay in place on the card. I cut a piece of white card using the large stitched rectangle die from the MFT Blueprints #13 die-namics set (absolutely love this die!!!) and stuck down the congrats die cut. I then pulled out three Distress Inks, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron and Broken China (as these went with the MFT colour challenge) and I blended these onto the background, starting with Mustard Seed, then Twisted Citron then Broken China (however most of the broken china has gone a little bit green :D). I then pulled out the Docrafts Floral Folk stamp set which contains tonnes of little stamps with are perfect for this technique!! I chose Butter Bar, Tide Pool and Cornflower Hero Arts inks for the stamping as I wanted to get a crisper impression than using Distress Inks, I also used my MISTI so that I could easily and quickly stamp images multiple times to get a good impression :D I then peeled off my homemade congrats mask, and the edges weren't as crisp as I wanted them to be, so I ended up cutting a Congrats out of white card and layering it on top, although the stencil didn't quite work the way I wanted, it was good to have there as it gave you an anchor for all the little stamps :D The final touches were adding a little bit of white pen detail and also some glitter, I think I used Crystal and Turquoise Stickles and Scattered Straw Distress Stickles...

I'm entering this card into

The MFT colour challenge #43
 http://www.cardchallenges.com/2016/04/theres-still-time-mft-color-challenge-43.html

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge - Make it Girlie
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-it-girlie/

Springtime Steampunk Card Duo :D

For the first card of this card duo I was inspired by the MFT colour challenge #43, the colours to use were white, yellow, blue and green, so here's my attempt... I love this stamp! it was from a really old Kanban stamp set, and I wanted to try and use it in a completely different way than I have before, and thought this colour combination would be a perfect time to try it :D I started off by stamping the image (onto a piece of card cut with the large stitched rectangle die from the MFT blueprints #13 die-namics set), and then I painted over it with Pebeo drawing gum (this stuff is brilliant!!!!) and I also added some splats of it in the background too. I then let this dry and used Broken China distress ink to gently blend around the image giving a soft almost sky effect, to add to this I used the cogs stamp from the same set and stamped that in a pale turquoise pigment ink from Hobbycraft and also in Tide Pool Hero Arts ink to give extra depth. Once the background was finished I peeled up the masking fluid with my finger (making sure I removed the excess ink from on top of it first) to reveal the white image underneath :D The next step was colouring the image, I did this with promarkers, almond, blush and vanilla for the 'skin', soft lime, lemon and canary for the yellow parts and meadow green, leaf green and bright green for the green areas :D The finishing touch was the sentiment, I decided to go for Happy Birthday as I seem to be running out of Birthday cards, and for the sentiment I used a cute little set which I got in Tiger where each letter is separate and you press them into 'pegs' which enable you to stamp them :D I'm really pleased with this card, and I'm so glad to have used an old stamp set again and to have used it in a completely different way than I have done before :D

I'm entering this card into:

The MFT colour challenge #43
 http://www.cardchallenges.com/2016/04/theres-still-time-mft-color-challenge-43.html

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge - Make it Girlie
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-it-girlie/

Here's the second card of this card duo using the other stamp from the Kanban stamp set, I did the exact same thing for this card, however I used the following Promarkers for the colouring... almond, blush and vanilla for his 'skin', cornflower, china blue and midnight blue for his jacket, cool aqua and marine for the turquoise accents and cool grey 3,4 and 5 for all the grey areas :D I'm also really pleased with this card too, I and expect I will be experimenting with different colour variations too :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch my Youtube video below:

Thanks for checking out my blog!! :D

Bird Crazy Birthday Card :D

This is a really simple, almost one layer 25th Birthday card, my main inspiration for this card was the #128 sketch from the Lawnscaping Challenge blog. I know the main image isn't from Lawn Fawn, but the alphabet stamp set I used is the Lawn Fawn Claire's ABC set. This is the first time I've entered a Lawnscaping challenge, and I really wanted to use this little crazy bird and I thought it would go perfectly in this sketch :D I started by stamping the bird using Onxy Black Versafine ink (I know this isn't supposed to be compatible with alcohol markers, but I love the crisp black image, and anyway it doesn't seem to bleed :D). I then masked off the 2 stripes using some cheapy washi tape, and I blended Twisted Citron distress ink from the right and Mermaid Lagoon from the left. While the white areas were still covered I also used the same ink to stamp the 25 multiple times, and to make one stand out I drew over it with a black Pitt pen as a finishing touch, as well as giving a sketchy outline to the inked stripes. The 25 and the Happy Birthday sentiments were stamped using the Lawn Fawn Claire's ABC set, I love the way Lawn Fawn make their alphabets it makes it soooo easy to line up the letters nicely!! :D For the bird I coloured the beak with Gold and Pumpkin promarkers, the tummy with Bright Green and Forest Green promarkers and the head and wings with Cyan and Aegean promarkers. To give a little shadow around the edge of the images and around the edge of the speech bubble (which I sketched in again with a Pitt pen) I added a little Cool Grey 1 promarker :D For the final touch, I added some googly eyes (in 2 different sizes to match the stamp) and also a little bit of sparkle and gloss gel to the beak. I really like the simple almost one layer look of this card and I hope the recipient will like it too!! (p.s. I think this would look great in different colour ways too :D).

To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube video below or on my channel :D

I'm entering this card into the Lawnscaping Sketch Challenge #128
http://lawnscaping.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/lawnscaping-challenge-sketch-sponsored.html

Girly Thanks Card :D

I decided to make a really girly and pink thank you card today, and my main inspiration was the creative dies nested hearts die set (which I got in my recent order from Craftstash :D) and the sketch from the MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge Sketch 277, I didn't know MFT had challenges on their blogs, so I was very pleased to find it!:D This card went through a lot of changes, I had the idea for the layout and what to use where, but deciding how to use colour i.e. do I ink blend, or use solid colour card or patterned papers was a bit of a nightmare, but in the end I settled on patterned papers, and these ones were from the Me to You Springtime 12x12 paper pack from Docrafts. I started off by creating my focal elements, I used the smallest die from the creative dies nested hearts, and then wanted a white circle to matt this on, and the only circle I could find that looked right was actually the middle of a cog from a Spellbinders die set lol :D The main background panel was cut using the large stitched rectangle die from the MFT Blueprints #13 die-namics (this has to be my most used and favourite die of all time!!). The panel to the left of the card was created by cutting multiple Lawn Fawn scripty thanks and laying them on a piece of card to fill a large area, once the words were stuck in place I then used an MFT vertical stitched stripes die-namic die to create the panel, I like doing it this way round as you get the stitched effect over the top of the thanks die cuts :D After laying out the three focal circles I then thought the background needed a little more, and so cut both remaining dies from the creative dies nested heart set out of the same solid pink patterned paper as the focal elements and added them to the background panel. To finish it off I stacked up three white die cut thanks to create a thicker element and added this to the card, I then used a few hearts (which were the waste from the middle sized heart ring die) as embellishments, and added some Spectrum Noir clear overlay sparkle pen to the focal negative hearts and three tiny hearts too :D Considering what this card went through as I was making it, I really like the finished design, and I think this would also work well in different colour ways too :D

I'm entering this card into:

The MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge Sketch 277
http://www.cardchallenges.com/2016/04/wednesday-sketch-challenge-sketch-277.html

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog - Make it Girlie challenge
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-it-girlie/