Double the sunshine

Hello, crafting friends!

The sunshine continues here in the heart of England and I'm enjoying it so much I've extended it to the craft square metre - twice!

I used Clearly Besotted's Sunny Days stencil in these two cards. It is such a favourite of mine partly because it has proved to be so versatile and if you're interested in seeing some more fun ways to use this stencil just click here :)

CARD ONE

For this one, I positioned just the bottom of the stencil over the top of my card panel.

I blended an ombré effect into the stencil using an orange red, an orange and a yellow ink. That was masked off and I blended blue ink out to a fade beneath it to represent a sea.

The sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Greetings, and the boat and birds from Waffleflower's Lighthouse, were all stamped together in black ink using a stamping platform.

CARD TWO

It occurred to me that I could ink up one part of the stencil, then turn it 180 degrees and ink it up again to make a whole sunshine - tada!

In fact it left a narrow white strip in the sun's centre but I sponged that in seamlessly. But it didn't matter in the end because I decided to add a banner sentiment over the top. This one is from Winnie and Walter's Sugar Rush, stamped in orange ink. I was so happy to find that a new sentiment from Uniko's Floral Vines fits perfectly inside it!

In interior design and fashion, they're always talking about 'disruptor colours' - the idea being that a tiny bit of something that doesn't seem to  'go' jolts the eye and adds excitement to a scheme or outfit. It works for cards too! Here, I added three non-matching embellishments - an orange enamel dot, a blue sequin and a gold gem.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

Delighted that Card Two was the Designer Choice at Tic Tac Toe challenge and that Card One won an honourable mention at Seize the Birthday AND was a Festive Friday Fave! 

CHALLENGES

I'm linking both these cards up with this month's Twofer Challenge where the challenge prompt is Sun or Sunrays. In this challenge we must make two cards using the same stamp, die or stencil, making sure that the cards are for two different occasions, and are two different designs.

I'm also linking CARD ONE up with Festive Friday where I've chosen CAS, blue and boat from the inspiration list; and Seize the Birthday where the challenge is to create a birthday card and I've gone for the optional twist of nayutical.

With CARD TWO, I'm also joining in with the Tic Tac Toe challenge, where I've chosen the middle row Hello/friend/sun or sunshine; Day of the Month Card Club, where they're celebrating Best Friend Day; and Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where anything using stencils goes.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Despite closing all the windows and blinds upstairs during the day, it's still too hot for my fluffy girl to sleep comfortably - and she'll put up with anything rather than go downstairs by herself and sleep on the cool kitchen tiles! But I have come up with a cunning plan! I get a couple of her dog towels, spray them lightly with water and pop them in the chest freezer, and get them out just before it's time to settle down. She is delighted!

Sending hugs,