Cricket, Lovely Cricket!

Wonders will never cease - two entries for this week's LIM die cut challenge! The added challenge I set myself at this time every year is to come up with something different on a cricket theme for our nephew's birthday.

This particular card was inspired by Chrissie's cards using Memory Box dies. I downloaded some free cricket pictures from the internet, did a huge amount of editing, welding etc in Craft Artist 2 Professional & Ecal before cutting the finished article on my Sizzix Eclips. My original attempt at clear embossing the greeting then overspraying with Promarkers using my airbrush was a dismal failure, so I re-did the airbrushing then overstamped instead with a greeting by Clearly Besotted. A few brads (coloured with Promarkers) kept the overall look CAS.

White cardstock: Limetree Crafts

Green cardstock: Coredinations Mantis

Promarkers: Pear Green, Olive Green

Ink: Yinks Olive Green

Greeting stamp: Clearly Besotted

Arigatou!

Last week our 14 year old son - after 2 years of extremely hard work - became a 2nd Dan black belt at karate. Not only that, he improved his points score by 6 over his 1st Dan grading score, so to say Mum & Dad are proud would be a huge understatement! He owes his success in no small measure to a teacher called Steve, who notices the little things that make a big difference, so this card is to say thanks ("Arigatou" in Japanese, apparently!) to him.

I downloaded the image as an SVG from the internet & cut it on my Sizzix Eclips. The stamp, by American Crafts, was inked up in 3 colours of Hero Arts ink then embossed with clear embossing powder. Although the ink is supposed to be quick drying I've found that if I've got everything ready beforehand, the ink stays wet just long enough to emboss it. The background was created using various masks & stamps in second/third generation inking.

 Stamps: American Crafts 59006 Thanks Lg,

Inspired by Stamping Guitars (background splats)

Inks: Hero Arts Soft Granite, Charcoal, Black

Stencil: Crafter's Workshop Mini Punchinella

Two for the Price of One!

I normally only post one card at a time, but today I'm posting two cards, which will be the last ones I'll upload to the Online Watercolour for Cardmakers gallery. The first uses one of the background techniques from day one of the course:

The background uses a stencil I cut on my Sizzix Eclips and Cosmic Shimmer Iridescent Watercolour paint. The glasses were also cut on the Eclips, and the greeting was stamped in Memento Rhubarb Stalk. Here's a picture showing the background a little more closely, although you can't see the sheen of the paint, unfortunately.

The second card also uses the Cosmic Shimmer Iridescent paint, this time on a faux handpainted Hero Arts stamp:

The stems were painted in an olive green colour from my Whispers brush markers set, and I think I'll make this my final entry into the challenge over at Stamping Sensations, where "Anything Goes".

Handpainted Poppies

The theme over at Less is More this week is "Flowers" so I took the opportunity to practice watercolour painting again. I've also belatedly realised that I didn't enter this into this week's "Flower" challenge over at CASology as I'd intended to. The poppy stamps are by Inkylicious, one of my favourite stamp companies. I stamped & masked the images in Antique Linen Distress Ink.

Then I smooched Adirondack Terracotta ink onto an acrylic block, mixing it with water then using that to paint the main image. The black is Cosmic Shimmer Iridescent Watercolour paint. The greeting is a Lucy Cromwell for Papermania stamp, stamped in Hero Arts Charcoal ink. Although the card looked too plain without any embellishments I tried to keep them to a minimum, just using a few pearls to finish it off.

Watercolour Love

Among the many things I've learned whilst taking part in the online watercolouring card class over the last week or two is that it's an art form which needs patience. If my husband ever read my blog he'd be laughing hysterically by now as patience is not something I'm known for (I can almost hear him saying, somewhat ironically, "Really? I've never noticed . . . . ")

But another thing I've learned is that it's an art form I love, and that's also the theme of this card:

One of the class techniques was demonstrated using a flower stamp with large petals. Not having any similar floral stamps I searched my stash for an alternative & decided on this Docrafts bear.

He's coloured in Aquamarkers, and he took a couple of hours from start to finish - see what I mean about patience? The patterned background uses another of the techniques I learned, and the flag is cut from card which has been painted with a wash of the same colour as the heart. The embellishment is a wooden button which is floral on the other side but as that didn't match I chose the plain side. I've stamped the greeting onto a piece of vellum. This is my second entry for this month's challenge at Stamping Sensations where "Anything Goes", and I used the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. 

Here's the original sketch:

And here's a little close-up of the bear, I hope you like him -

Base cardstock: Lidl

Watercolour cardstock: Winsor & Newton

Stamps: Docrafts FFS 907117 "Best of British - Great Big Hugs"

Darkroom DoorDDBS003 Floral

Papermania greeting

Inks: Distress Antique Linen (main image), Memento Rich Cocoa (greeting)

Aquamarkers: Mocha, Raspberry, Eggshell

Embellishment: from stash

Homework!

This week I've been taking part in an online Watercolour for Cardmakers class, having a lot of fun trying out loads of new techniques.  An added bonus is that it's made me dig out some supplies I've had for years but never really used. When I saw this week's challenge over at Less is More - one layer "thanks" - I decided to combine a couple of the techniques from the class to create a card for the challenge. The  challenge over at Keep It Simple is watercolour so I've decided to play along there, too.

The word is part of the Pretty Words Set by Miss Kate Cuttables, which I "wrote" using a Derwent Outliner Pencil with my Sizzix Eclips. The finished result is a little more vibrant than my usual style, and very probably not CAS enough for Less is More, but I really quite like it.

Watercolour Grunge

I'm taking part in an online watercolour class at the moment, and one of the techniques on day 1 was using stencils with watercolours. This was my second attempt and it ended up looking more grungy than I intended, but as I needed to make a card for a teenage boy that was a happy accident! I had intended the finished card to be a little more CAS than it is, but a not-so-happy accident was getting some stray black ink where I didn't want it, so I had to cover that up with grunge stamps.

My first attempt had turned out too pale, so this time I dug out my Whispers brush markers which I haven't used for a couple of years as it belatedly occurred to me that they could be used for watercolouring, and they worked really well. 

Stencil: Mini Punchinella by Balzer Designs

Ink: Hero Arts

Stamps: Greetings - Woodware Large & Small, guitar & grunge - Inspired by Stamping
Backing paper: Bazzill

CTS #74

I needed to make a couple of cards for my father-in-law's birthday this week, and I really liked the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch so I decided to play along. This is the sketch:

I've also decided to play along at this month's Stamping Sensations challenge blog, where the theme is Anything Goes. The focal image is a stamp by Papermania which I coloured with Promarkers; the background swirl is created using an airbrush I bought recently. I discovered it's the same one that Stampin' Up used to sell; this was my first attempt to use it properly & I think I need a LOT more practice! It seemed like a lot of hard work just to get any ink out of it at all, but I eventually succeeded.

The greeting is by Clearly Besotted & it was inked up in Memento Tuxedo Black.