Happy Wedding Day

Still playing with the Altenew Sketched Florals stamp, which is great for a, erm, sketchy floral background!

When I saw this Letter Message Board die set from Sugar Pea Designs, I had to have it (got mine from Seven Hills Crafts).  It's perfect for personalising a card with names, or just creating your own message.

I added a couple of Magenta flowers for balance and called it done.

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I'm over on the STAMPlorations blog tonight with a spotlight post on rainbow colour blocking.  Pop on over!

Purple and Magenta

I just got this fabulous Clearly Besotted sentiment set, and had to play with it straight away.  I die cut the Tim Holtz gift from Core'dinations, added the ribbon diecut in the same Core'dinations, then popped it up with foam tape.  No sequins.  No splatters (a rarity for me!).  No nothing.  I just liked it exactly how it was.

I'm entering it into Time Out where the challenge is Christmas with a twist of either pink or purple.

On another note, I took part in Magenta's ATC swap with the theme of Nature.  The full reveal is here, but here's a closer look at the ATCs I sent to Cassandra:

The poppy petals are covered in Glossy Accents, the centres in black and gold Stickles.

Watercoloured dragonflies on the background, white-embossed butterflies on the top panel which was mounted onto black card and doodled around.

I stamped and coloured the fox, masked it then stamped and coloured the background.  The red moon was inspired by the real red moon that occurred a few days before I made the ATC.

I just love this stamp!  Distress-smooshed background, stamped over, added extra colour, splattered with gold spray, distressed the edges then mounted onto black card.

Thanks again for organising the ATC Swap, Mariette!

Autumn Splendour

A quick post from me before Downton Abbey starts :)

Shades of autumn, going into the following challenges:

Simply Create Too - Autumn Splendour

City Crafter - Fall Has Arrived

Magenta - Autumn

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - No Designer Paper

Becca's Birthday Bash

My fun teamie at STAMPlorations, the wonderfully named (and immensely talented) Damsel of Distressed, Becca Cruger, is having a birthday week bash.  A girl after my own heart, she doesn't just confine her birthday celebrations to one day but extends them to a week.  Don't hold back, Becca, go for the month!

So she's having a party.  She's created this mood board of the things she loves and has put the challenge out to celebrate with her by creating a card based on the board.

Let me break it on down for you. Here are a few of my favorite things (represented with pictures of course). 

>Purple and teal color combos

>Watercolor washes

>Fun, bright, eclectic clean and simple cards 
>Polka Dots 

>PUNS!! :)

>Typography

>Distressed, vintage cards full of texture

...You can use one, two, all of these things... 
Whatever inspires you!

So, my card started off with a purple and teal watercolour wash across a card-sized panel, then I ghost-stamped a flourish background with water.  What do you mean, you can't see it?  Well.  On another piece of card I had stamped one of my favourite Magenta stamps several times, then sloshed a bit of teal or purple onto the petals, cut them out, placed them on my washed and stamped background, then cleared everything off the base card ready to stick everything together.  Three of the flowers had escaped and fallen onto the white card, and they just looked so pretty and CAS that I wanted to make that card instead.  I added some splatters (of course!) and a Tim Holtz sentiment die.

I've still got the watercolour wash panel - I might be back!

I'm also entering this into Magenta Style's challenge, Use Your Favourite Magenta Stamp.

I love all of my Magenta stamps, so it's very difficult to choose just one!  All I can say is that this is ONE of my favourite Magenta stamps :)

Taking Flight

There's a new challenge on the blog, hosted by my lovely teamie Shery, owner of STAMPlorations.  The challenge blog is called The Mixed Media Card Challenge and it's aimed at a bit of a gap in the challenge market: more messy than CAS, with a focus on using mixed media.  Oh, yes please!  Shery's having a design team call so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring.

I used the colour scheme from the latest ColourQ challenge:

And some stamps by Magenta where they are having an Anything Goes challenge.

The clear stencilled card panel was a leftover from the Online Stencilled class.  I watercoloured some Evergreen Bough and Shabby Shutters over it, then used a fan brush to drag some extra colour over the Shabby Shutters and added splatters to the Evergreen Bough.  Stamped the images onto spare card and splodged some colours on (Ripe Persimmon, Dusty Concord, Shabby Shutters, Evergreen Bough) and cut them out.  That was when I decided to stitch them - would probably have been easier before fussy cutting.  The sentiment is from STAMPlorations Sentiment Builders: Happy.

Butterfly Garden and Magenta ATC Swap

I'm playing along with Make It Monday for the first time (now that I own some Papertrey Ink stamps - thanks, Maria!).  The theme is watercolour splats - how could I refuse?

I'm also playing along with CASology where the theme is Garden:

And with Simon Says Wednesday Challenge where the theme is Clean and Simple:

Butterfly by Clearly Besotted, all other stamps by Papertrey Ink

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I took part in an ATC swap on the Magenta blog, and Mariette posted all the swaps on Wednesday.  Here are the ones I submitted - take a look on the Magenta blog to see what I got in return, and all the other gorgeous ATCs in the swap.

Clematis Fence

I've been making woodgrain backgrounds again.  This time, it's a fence with a clematis growing up it.    Or trailing down it, depending on your point of view.  Online Card Class has been covering inlaid die cuts but mine is definitely more than a one layer card.  I was also inspired by Gayatri's fabulous DT card for CAS(E) This Sketch where she also used inlaid die cuts in vibrant colours.  I've gone for a less vibrant palette and taken a small liberty or two with the sketch.

I also had the inspiration photo from Curtain Call in mind when I made the card.  See the wooden barrel and the flowers.

I've used a Magenta stamp for the flowers, so I can enter it into Magenta's March challenge, Spring Is Coming.    Think Clematis Montana Rubens -ish.

The challenge at Simon Says Monday Challenge is D for Distress.  Distress Inks and distressed edges for me.

And at Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, it's Mother's Day or Special Girl:

Usual procedure for making the fence: score, smooch Distress Ink (Antique Linen) in a random fashion but following the grain, buff with kitchen roll, smooch Distress Ink (Walnut Stain) to fill blank areas, buff with kitchen roll.

Diecut Clustered Leaves from white card, stamp text with Versafine Smoky Grey, smooch with Distress Ink (Bundled Sage).  Die cut Clustered Leaves from distressed fence, replace with green leaves die cut.  Stamp flowers on white card with Versafine Onyx Black, colour with Distress Inks (Milled Lavender, Shaded Lilac, Dusty Concord), cut out.  I added some pink to outline the flowers and give them a bit more oomph.  Speech bubble from X-Cut.  Sentiment from unknown.

ETA:  I forgot to link it up to FUSION!  I've used the sketch:

Magenta Christmas Tree

This Christmas tree stamp by Magenta is one of my all-time favourites, so it's only fitting that I use it for their current challenge, Simply Christmas:

The current challenge at CAS-ual Fridays is to use a tree or trees on your project:

CFC122: Show us your Clean And Simple projects that feature a tree or trees.

And the challenge at Less is More is to use a metallic element plus one colour.

My metallic element is silver embossing.  My first instinct is always to go for gold (!) and the silver embossing powder tends to get neglected, but it got a run out today.  I paired it with Evergreen Bough Distress Ink which I used with varying intensity.  Because I wasn't adding a sentiment I painted a bit of ground under the tree to anchor it.

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Day 11 Advent Village

Magenta Autumn

I'm playing along with Magenta for their November challenge, which is Autumn Colours.

I had a leftover piece of distress-inked paper from when I did Tim Holtz' Creative Chemistry classes, so I stamped one of the panels from Nature Silhouettes 41.001.Q.  I love how the autumn colours are on the background instead of the image.

Butterflies and Dragonflies

I've been playing with my Magenta butterfly and dragonfly stamps for their July colour challenge:

I stamped the small butterfly cluster in Versamark and embossed in white, then smeared Distress Inks over the card and spattered with water.  Once dry, I stamped the cluster again in Dusty Concord in the top-right section, then in Victorian Velvet in the bottom-left corner.  I stamped the large dragonfly in Dusty Concord then highlighted it with a Sakura white Gelly Roll pen, and added a few white dots to the small butterflies.  I stamped another large dragonfly on white and softened the colour in with a water brush.  There's another butterfly stamp which you can just make out under the white dragonfly.  Added a few sequins in the colours of the challenge.

[03.101.F] 4 Bold Flying Butterflies 

[23.090.F] Butterfly

[23.151.I] Most Famous Dragonfly - Large

Sequins - Neat & Tangled

Butterflies, Dragonflies and Bees

Magenta have a monthly challenge, and this month is a colour challenge:

Here's my card:

I stamped the image twice in brown, and cut out the three butterflies from the spare image to layer onto the main image.  I just stuck the bodies down and lifted the wings for dimension.  I coloured everything in with Tombows and added some Stickles.