International Art and Soul Challenge 123

 The theme for the next four weeks, set by my team mate Maggie, is to use dies or punches. Other that, you can do whatever you want to do.

In April this year, I was very happy to take part in a workshop on spring flowers by Susan Tierney Cockburn. I've enjoyed using her dies for some years, and even have a copy of a book she wrote before there were any dies. There, she showed how to use punched shapes to make a variety of flowers which were remarkably realistic. So, for this challenge, I decided to make a floral arrangement using some of her dies old and new, along with a frame die.

I started by colouring card for the frame. I used a range of blue Distress Oxide inks, and did another sheet for the back board. The frame pieces were cut using a die from box Elizabeth Craft. I bought it quite a long time ago, and have often considered buying another similar die which would allow me to make bigger frames than this die is designed to do - up to 8in end to end. But I've always thought it would be possible to extend the Elizabeth Craft die, so that's what I did here. The frame is 11in end to end, so that I could cut it from A4 card. It took me a few attempts to get it right, and I discovered I need to use a score board rather than my usual trimmer to score the extended fold lines, but in the end, it worked well enough.

The central part of the background was stamped (again in Distress Oxide ink) using a Clarity solid frame stamp. 

That done, I cut a range of pieces for various flowers and ended up using about half of them (as usual...) The orange flowers are Kerria Japonica which were included in the April workshop. The large white flower is a Gerbera Daisy, and the cream/yellow flowers are Forsythia and also uses a Susan's Garden branch die.

And another one - this time using a Tonic hexagonal frame in shades of green, and the flowers this time are Cattleya, again from Susan's Garden.

And that's it. I've no idea what I'm going to do with the results, but I'm fairly happy with it. I think I managed to stop myself adding too much - that's my usual problem.

I do hope you can join us for this, our last challenge of 2021!

International Art and Soul Challenge 122

 I've set the theme for this challenge, and it's winter. There are no limits to that theme - if it makes you think of winter, it works, although if the link isn't obvious, it'd be really interesting to know what it is.

I've made a Christmas card, using a style I found on YouTube, courtesy of Jo Rice of Lavinia Stamps, although I've mixed Lavinia with Card-io stamps.

Jo called the technique 'extended landscape', and it definitely makes for an interesting style. The background and landscape shading use Distress Ink, and the silhouettes were done in Versafine Clair ink. I edged the layers with a black Sharpie pen, and the text was from some magazine stamps.

I do hope you can join us this time, and I look forward to seeing what makes you think of winter!

International Art and Soul Challenge 121

 The challenge for this fortnight was chosen by my team mate Sall, and she wants projects on the theme of Remembrance. 

That's a very appropriate theme for this time of year, but I found it hard to come up with a project that I could actually use. It's not normal to send cards for Remembrance day, and while people wear poppies, making your own kind of defeats the purpose of poppies as a way of making money for the Royal British Legion. So, my project has poppies, but no specific mention of Remembrance, beyond the fact that sending someone a card is a sign that you're thinking about them.

I started with Claritystamp stamps. The image and text are from the beautiful Art Deco range, and have the added benefit (from my point of view) of being stained glass style, so they represent two of my favourite styles immediately.

I stamped the image with Versafine Clair, then coloured with Promarkers, although the very narrow borders were coloured with water-based fine liner pens. I simply cannot get Promarkers to behave in that sort of very narrow space. I know they used to supply fine tips for the pens and these were great, but quickly became clogged and unusuable. It's such a pity they couldn't make those work.

The background started with Distress Ink applied to white card. My thinking was a kind of 'out of focus' poppy field, but I'm not sure how well that worked out. I took the result and embossed it with an Embossalicious folder. Then, I used black Distress Ink to pick out the raised areas.

I matted the image on red and then black card, and the background on black, and that's it. I considered adding something (like some poppies) but decided it worked well enough without.

I do hope you can join us this time.

A New Home 'Card'

 I decided to make a 'new home' card for my daughter and her partner, but it had to be bigger than the average card, and as a result, it ended up in a 300mm box frame! 

I started with the letters, and given the town they're moving to, and one of the names, it was never going to be small, so I went a bit crazy. I've blanked out the names, but left the rest.

The background was coloured using Distress Ink in a variety of autumnal shades and using a couple of stencils for some texture.

The flowers are from Susan Tierney Cockburn's Spellbinders collection - the button chrysanthemum and daisy chrysanthemum. All the pieces started as white card, and I shaded, again with Distress Ink before shaping and assembling.

I really wanted a natural wood frame, and Hobbycraft used to do one, but I couldn't get one in the largest size so had to compromise on white. I assume they'll put something else in the frame in the future, but that's fine..