The strength of snowdrops

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Today I made a card for a friend who has been having a tough time lately. 

She likes clean and simple cards, so I kept my stamping to one corner of a card base to leave lots of lovely white space. The image is from Clearly Besotted's Picture It Fairy House, which normally looks like this:

I love stamps that are versatile and I knew that I could use the snowdrops on their own OR go full-on fairyland with this stamp! For today's card, the stamp was partially inked using a Sahara Sand water-based marker from Stampin' Up. There's a fine end to these double ended markers too so that you can easily fill in any gaps when stamping a partial image. The snowdrop was coloured with coloured pencils and I doodled in a grassy ground and crosshatched the pale blue background.

The sentiment is from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks, stamped, trimmed and glued to the card base. I finished the card with some feminine sequins in barely-there iridescent pink and gave the petals of the snowdrop a shimmer with a Wink of Stella pen.

 

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD 

This card was showcased at Less is More!

CHALLENGES

The theme at CAS on Friday this time is Flowers, and I predict a gallery bursting with gorgeousness! I'm also linking up with Less Is More where the them is A Bit of Bling; Mervi has chosen the theme of Feminine at Allsorts so I'm also joining in there; and last but not least, I'm playing along with The Paper Players where Laurie has chosen the theme of Clean and Simple Blooms.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I always think snowdrops are amazing and tougher than they look.  They have such delicate little flowers and yet they push up out of the earth when nothing much else seems to be growing, often in freezing temperatures - it's pretty impressive isn't it. I'll tell you what else is impressive...

... the Lesser Spotted Tree Hound!! This is a huge fallen tree and Eva just leaps up onto it! At seven and a half, she is considered a middle-aged dog but I don't think she got the memo!

Sending hugs,

Dreaming away on a warm quilt

Hello, crafting friends!

I've been seeing dog and cat challenges on the interwebs this week and it has encouraged me to get out a stamp that I couldn't resist adding to my collection at the beginning of the year. Just look at it! Of course I had to have it!

It features my beautiful golden retriever, Madame Floof (one of her many names!) although I can't seem to remember Anita Jeram popping round and asking her to model! I stamped the image on watercolour paper using a neutral, water-based ink, then coloured the quilt and the pup with coloured pencils and gave it a wash of water. I'm afraid I only have a handful of scuzzy old pencils, some of which aren't even watercolour pencils, so that's another thing to go on my wish list! 

The background and foreground were given a wash of neutral-ish colour so that the eye is drawn to the dog and the quilt. Once the image was dry, I added a few details with the pencils and added a Clearly Besotted sentiment on a scrap of watercoloured paper with an enamel heart. Sometimes I look at my darling Eva and I am utterly amazed at how lucky I am to have her - so there we are, dreams do come true!

CHALLENGES

There's a word prompt at Time Out Challenges which is so beautiful: 'In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.' I'm linking up there; I'm also joining in with Allsorts where the theme is Four-legged Friends - or at least I will if I can get this photographed and linked up tomorrow morning! Since this stamp is Never Before Used Schtuff, I am sharing over at the NBUS challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

After a long muddy walk and a shower my gorgeous girl often falls into a deep sleep and dreams, presumablyy, of being a great huntress. I was amused to see her with her face all scrunched up on a paw!

Poor old lady doesn't get a fabulous hand crafted quilt to sleep on!!

Sending hugs,