Geometric

Another week, another challenge, this time the one over at Addicted to CAS where the theme is geometric. This was an ideal opportunity to try out a recent Ebay purchase of some Clearly Besotted stamps & dies, and another watercolour technique. This time the technique is to emboss with the dies rather than cutting the card, and to let watercolour paint fill the embossed lines.

I decided to cut out one or two of the shapes to let the black background show through, and stamped some of them with a variety of the stamps from the set. The greeting is by Woodware, and the enamel dots were created with Ranger Enamel Accents.

LIM Animal Challenge

A second entry for this week's Less Is More where the theme is Animal. I was feeling a little bit of a fraud as my first entry was so tenuously linked to the challenge theme! The owl is a Dawn Bibby stamp, coloured with Promarkers with the background sprayed with Promarkers.

The "tree" is, of course, embossed kraft cardstock & the sentiment is computer-generated.

There, now I feel better for submitting a "proper" entry!

Summer Seascape

My lovely husband bought me an early birthday present of some "proper" watercolours & brushes, which arrived the other day. And of course, I had to test them out! This was my interpretation of a summery seascape for the "Summer" challenge over at Simon Says Stamp, using a watercolour cardstock offcut. I'm also (VERY tongue-in-cheek!) going to enter it into the Less is More challenge where the theme is "Animals" - well, there are birds!!

Paints: Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolours

Stamps: Inkylicious

Inks: Distress Peeled Paint & Pumice Stone, Hero Arts Charcoal Gray

Third Time Lucky!

This card is for the one-layer challenge over at Less Is More where the current theme is Foliage. 

The greeting is by Clearly Besotted & was stamped in Distress Peeled Paint onto watercolour cardstock. The leaf stencil was a downloaded image (modified in Craft Artist 2 Professional to add an extra branch) then cut on my Sizzix Eclips. As embossing paste is all the rage right now I used my own version which is known in the US as "spackle", but I know it as "One Strike Filler". I mixed it on my craft mat with Distress Peeled Paint ink. A few arty water splashes were all that was necessary to finish it off.

This was my third attempt - the first couple of attempts initially turned out fine but I managed to ruin each card in different ways! Although I could reuse parts of them they wouldn't have been one layer so watch out for them over the next few days as they turn up in modified form.

Glitter Wishes

This card is for a very special young man called Owen, who loves music and is the life and soul of any party he goes to - he loves celebrating birthdays, even if it's not his own!

I'm entering this into the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp, where the challenge is "Make it Sparkle". Although this card doesn't look sparkly, I painted the large birthday letters with clear Wink of Stella as I hope you can see in this close-up -

Stamps: Inkylicious musical background, Woodware Large & Small Greetings

Ink: Hero Arts

Cardstock: Anna Marie Designs

Watercolour Sympathy

Sometimes a card just suddenly comes together after a few false starts; this was just such a card.

I stamped the Hero Arts Delicate Blossoms stamp in Antique Linen onto watercolour paper, then coloured it with Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils.

A few ink splashes completed the watercolour look, and the greeting was stamped in olive Yinks ink. Both the main image & the greeting were mounted onto textured olive cardstock. The cross by Papermania was stamped in mid grey ink.

I'm entering this at "101 Watercolor" and "That's Crafty".

Stripes!

No, not just my new blog background! I've been taking the Pattern Play class at Online Card Classes, and that inspired me to make this quick card for a friend's son. Although I didn't plan it this way, it's also ideal for entering into the current challenge over at CASology where the cue card is "Stripe".

Stamps: Papermania Typography & Clearly Besotted
Ink: Hero Arts

Paper: Papermania

Black cardstock from stash