Impressionist flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

 

And hello June - yikes, isn't that half of the year already gone?!! At the Flower Challenge, we have a brand new theme for you:

 

This month we're challenging you with a sketch:

 

 and, as usual, we want to see flowers headlining in your creation! Here's what I came up with:

 

I was really intrigued by that central panel and chose to interpret it with two embossed lines on my card front inset with a piece of a favourite designer paper trimmed to fit. Before attaching the paper, I sponged it lightly with a blue-green ink, fading out towards the top.

 

The flowers and foliage are from The Greetery's Fleur Impressions. I stamped the pretty blooms in pinks and yellows and fussy cut them, positioning them over the panel and popping the largest up on dimensional pads. The sentiment was placed in my stamp positioner and inked up with blue and grey markers for an ombré effect. It was cut into a flag and tucked under the large flower. I emphasised the dreamy look with some delicate sequins from my stash.

Okay, so now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Flower Challenge blog and check out all the wonderful cards my team mates have made to inspire you. When you've made your own, you can share it with us by using the Linky Tool at the bottom of the challenge post. Have fun - we can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm joining in at We Love Stamping, where the optional theme is Fabulous Florals and where the team are celebrating 15 fabulous years! What an amazing milestone! I'm also playing along at Allsorts where Anything Goes or there's an optional Many Layers challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Forgive my absence over the past week; I have been celebrating my birthday and have had lots of visitors and treats and days out! The giddy social whirl has now calmed down much to my golden girls' relief. There have been some 'You're not going out and leaving us AGAIN are you?' looks on their little faces. They are happy to have me back doing my chores around the house and garden - although they prefer to have me sat down crafting, where they can keep their eyes on me and remind of their great need for sustenance or exercise, depending on the time of day!

Sending hugs,

Congratulations to the tassled one!

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Thank you so much to those who sent me messages of support and encouragement as I recovered from the various illnesses that tripped me up over the last couple of weeks! The main thing on my mind was that I really, REALLY wanted to go to my youngest son's graduation ceremony but luckily I bounced back to full fitness for that. (I'm still wanting to know who thought it would be a great idea to do graduation ceremonies a couple of weeks before Christmas though... it's got to someone who has never had to organise a Christmas event in their lives hasn't it?!)

 

Before setting off on a beautiful frosty morning, I rustled up this graduation card. I started by sponging yellow ink into a diamond-shaped stencil Inkylicious, taped at an angle off the top edge of my card base, and adding a little red ink on one side to add a bit of depth.  This stencil was a gift from a lovely friend and is SO useful!

 

 

I used a tiny snippet of blue card to cut the numbers using a die from The Works, glueing them to the card front. A congratulations sentiment was stamped on a white off-cut of card in red, snipped out and layered over the top. I thought I had a graduation cap stamp but I couldn't find it, so I had to draw one! It took a couple of tries (and a few more snippets!) but I think it passes as long as you don't put your specs on!! I added a few enamel dots and stars to distract the eye ;)

CHALLENGES

I turned to CAS Colours and Sketches for colour inspiration for this card, so I'm linking up there. I'm also sharing this card at The Snippets Playground - I used blue snippets and white snippets for the numbers, the congratulations sentiment and the grad cap.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Poor Eva was not impressed when she saw both of The Staff getting togged up in frocks and suits - she knows what that means!! But then she discovered that her human sister had come to look after her and airily waved us away.

 

This photo arrived on my phone while we were en route and I would say she wasn't missing us one little bit!

You'll be glad to know that the graduation ceremony went very well and that my son doffed his cap to the chancellor at just the right moment. Afterwards, we kept our strength up with a slap up meal before returning home to the girls.

Sending hugs,

Slimline sweet peas

Hello, crafting friends!

 

The benefit of having a dodgy knee is that it has to be rested a bit and what better way to rest it than to do a spot of crafting?!

 

 

The Sweetest Peas stamp set by Altenew has been a recent addition to my flower stamp collection, and I've been dying to have a go at water colouring some of the flowers. This card is the result!

The flowers were stamped along the side of a thick slimline card base in a pale green ink. I coloured them with water and inks in blue, pink and purple. When it had dried, I added detail to the stems and sepals (is that the word?!) with a dark green coloured pencil.

 

The card was finished with a navy blue sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Greetings.

CHALLENGES

I followed the sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches so I'll link up there; I'm also joining in with the new Watercolour challenge at Happy Little Stampers.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Today, I saved a bee from the clutches of a spider. It was like that scene from the Lord of the Rings film where Shelob comes out of her lair and attacks Frodo (I had to watch through my fingers!) I don't think that anything else I do today will be as worthwhile as rescuing the bee so I shall just take it easy for the rest of the day!

PS. I was going to add a video clip of Shelob wrapping Frodo up in sticky web but I don't want to traumatise anyone!!

Sending hugs,

The lesser spotted greetings card

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Another Saturday has whizzed around and we have another fun challenge to entertain you at Addicted to CAS! We loved seeing your stripy creations last week and now Vicki wants to see what you make of the code word DOTS!

 

I wanted to make my dots the focal point of my card and one way to do that is to highlight them with colour.

 

 

I tore some sticky notes and positioned them on a card base so that I could blend inks in the gap they made. The same ink blend was used on a scrap of white card and I used a small circle punch to cut my dots out. These were arranged over my ink blend and trimmed where they overlapped the white areas of the card base.

The sentiment was put together from a new-to-me set from Altenew called Sweetest Peas. I stamped it with black ink in a curve of the ink blend.

Finally I stamped one of the sweet peas in the set using black ink. The one I chose has a long stem which I curved around the sentiment. After stamping, I used a fineliner pen to fill in any blank bits and darkened some of the parts of the flower.

Okay, so now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Addicted to CAS blog and admire all  the gorgeous dotty cards from the design team. You will find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to link up your own creation. Don't forget to keep your card clean and simple with lots of lovely blank space - and have fun!

CHALLENGES

The colours from Color My Heart Color Dare 499 inspired this card - I chose Flamingo, Capri and Lemonade; I'm also sharing this card at Darnell's NBUS challenge where we are challenged to use our Never Before Used Schtuff.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

In the summer months, the stream at the bottom of the fields behind our house runs low enough for us to cross over to a footpath on the other side. That's the route Eva and I took the other day. As we made our way through the undergrowth that leads to the ford, we met a man coming the other way with his dog. We greeted each other as dog walkers do. 'It's quite sniffy down there,' he said. 'It's because it's been raining,' I said and he nodded. 'That always brings up some interesting smells!' I added. As Eva and I crossed the stream, I thought about the way the man's expression had changed to one of surprise and suddenly realised that he had actually said 'It's quite slippery down there.' Aaaargh!

Sending hugs,