Yellow/Blue Flower

I made this card for the Sketch and Stash Challenge using a (new-to-me) freebie from Fred, She Said. I love the colours in this so much. I used them to make a couple of backing papers and used one of them for the main card and I cut a flower out of the other for a simple addition to balance the card. I really struggled with this sketch, and played for a long time before I realised I'd be much happier with the layout if I rotated it - which is what I finally did. And apart from adding a little ribbon from my ever-increasing collection, and a couple of stick-on gems, that's about that. An A4 sheet was big enough to print enough bits for two of the main flowers, so I'll have to try something different with the image next time. I suspect there'll be glitter.

A Couple of Challenges!

Haven't done any of these for a while. I think the whole business of getting back to work after the summer kind of got in the way.



There's a new challenge blog that Vixykins pointed out - Crafty Catz and they wanted a card with a green/blue/brown colourscheme. Then there's Sketch Saturday which is what I based the layout on.

The image is a freebie from Squigglefly which I've watercoloured with marker pens. I printed the image onto matte coated ink jet paper which, while it keeps the ink outline more intact during watercolouring than any watercolour paper I've tried, sometimes seems to 'grab' colour and refuse to let it go. I'm still working out the best way to use that paper, and I did manage some fairly even colour gradations. The overall effect is a little fussier than I usually go for, but that's one of the things about sketches - they get you to try things you wouldn't otherwise.

The border is done with a lattice borderability die from Spellbinders and the background paper is from a Papermania set.

A Wedding Card

I was asked by a colleague to make a card for a couple getting married in Barbados at the end of the month. There weren't many other details available - no colour scheme, for example, so I had to work with what I had.



I didn't have much stash with a suitable theme, so I hunted for a permission-free stock photo of a beach sunset, and printed it directly onto A4 card at 30% opacity along with some wording. Then, I picked a tone from the card and printed a silhouette of a palm tree onto polyester film.

I did buy some stamps of a stylised silhouette of a wedding couple and I stamped the largest of those onto shrink plastic in cocoa Versamark. I attached the resulting charm to the polyester with a gold jump ring and finished the outside with a cream ribbon and bow.

Blue Green Swap Card

The image is one of my Dover images - this is one of the flower set I bought a while ago. I printed it on my preferred Ryman matt coated paper then watercoloured it with marker pens - something I'm practising at the moment. The problem is that I like solid blocks of colour, so getting myself to consider shades is hard work - and that's before I start on my lack of skill.

The backing papers are both made by me using my trusty Photoshop Elements.

I was going to put up another one, but I've just searched for the photo and can't find it. Why do I take multiple photos of some cards but forget others?

My next challenge is to make a wedding card at the request of a colleague. The wedding's taking place in Barbados, and she's going to get me information on names, date, colours and/or photos, but the venue's really throwing me. I get the feeling I should reflect that, but it seems very unwedding-y to me. (But then, beaches and a hot climate really don't appeal to me at all.)

Another Christmas Card

I make a lot of Christmas cards. Well, for a start, I don't buy any, and I give cards to all the staff at the school where I work - and that's over fifty before I consider anyone else. Because of that, a lot of the cards are done on a production-line basis - but I still do some one-offs, and this is one of those.

I stamped Father Christmas' sleigh in graphite Versacolor and embossed with clear powder. I then stamped the trees in evergreen and watercoloured them with the same ink. Then, I used an embossing pen over the whole area of the trees and embossed with clear. I added some 'snow' dots with the embossing pen and embossed them, then masked the lower area of the paper with some scrap to make the ground and brayered the sky using a mixture of regal blue and lagoon ink. I added some shading of the white ground.The paper came from my collection, and the ribbon from Hobbycraft. The snowflakes were cut and embossed on my Wizard.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Thanks,Vix! (But I doubt there are seven people I could pass this on to.)



The instructions are as follows: 1) Thank the person who nominated you for this award
2) Copy the logo and place it on your blog
3) Link the person who nominated you for this award
4) Name 7 things about yourself people might find interesting
5) Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers
6) Post links to the seven blogs you nominate
7) Leave comments on all 7 blogs letting them know you nominated them

Seven things about me ...

1. I'm a Scot, despite having lived south of the border for longer than I lived north of it.
2. I'm a mum to three with ages ranging from 20 to 15.
3. I work in a special school with autistic children.
4. I have some strange sensory issues - especially around wet skin and hair. *shudder*
5. I've been married for 23 years.
6. I'm a scientist by background and can't help looking at colour that way. That makes it easier to work with web colours (hexadecimals), which I still do even if I'm putting something together to print on paper.
7. Apart from cardmaking, my interests are around Science Fiction, and Fantasy and I love reading.

Nominees: Toria
Lizzie
Teresa

(I'm pretty new to blogging, and just don't 'know' that many people And I'm not going to go posting on everyone's blog - that seems kind of pushy to me! Livejournal background - you can tag someone on your own journal, but if they haven't got time to read that, they also get out of doing whatever you're asking them to do!)

Christmas Cards

I've done a few already, but I've still got lots to do. So, when this week's challenge on the Crafty Cardmakers blog was for a card with complimentary colours, I immediately thought of red and green. And then there was a sketch on Sketch and Stash.



I printed some papers I got on a CD from Crafts Beautiful a while ago, and added a image of a tree that came from a See D's set I bought recently. I coloured it with a mixture of Sakura Stardust and Glaze pens and fibre tip markers. I finished it with a dome sticker, some ribbon and holly leaves from my collection.