Wee Memories Colour Inspiration

(Second post of the day).This is my second entry for the current 50th Challenge over at Wee Memories.  I am  probably a person of extremes, so where my previous card was composed of very soft colours, it's also true to say that I like some rather bold colours.

Paper: PTI cardstock; Neenah Solar White
Ink: Copic Markers; Black Soot DI
Stamps: The Greeting Farm (My Guy Ian); Hero Arts
Other: Corner Chomper; Glossy Accent

And black, white and red are some of those bolder colours.

What to do when you do not own the fabulous "Magical Background" stamp by Hero Arts?  Well, you improvise!  I bought a stamp set from HA a long time ago that has lots of retro circular designs on it (CL124), and I used one of the designs to create the background!  I really like it a lot.

The "dude" is coloured in with copics, and I applied some Glossy Accents to the peak part of his cap and also to his shoes.  He looks really serious!  If you enjoy colouring and "people" images then I highly recommend these stamps, there is such a huge variety and so many to fall in love with, you can find all of them HERE at The Greeting Farm.

I am off to the movies with my friend Lisa, we are going to see the "Lincoln Lawyer".  I hope you are all having a great day so far!  The weather here is superb today!

Sketches and Colour Challenges

So last night I decided to try another sketch from Hero Arts current April contest with some of my favourite colours.  Wee Memories is currently having their 50th challenge and it's all about the colours that inspire us!

I have many, but this card showcases some of them.

Paper: PTI cardstock; Neenah Solar White
Ink: Soft Leaf shadow ink (HA); Vintage Photo DI; Memento Tuxedo Black; Versamark
Stamps: Hero Arts
Other: Glittered Skittle (My Next Stamp); White EP

On the vertical strip I stamped the Fern stamp using the Soft Leaf shadow ink.  On the horizontal strip I stamped the Envelope Pattern stamp with some Vintage Photo DI and stamped and coloured the sentiment. 

My favourite is that flower!  It's from the Hero Arts "3 Dotted Flower" set, I used all three sizes of flowers and stamped them with Versamark on Sweet Blush cardstock and then embossed with white embossing powder!  When I layered the flower I used some little dimensional dots to make it more real!  And do you see that beautiful pink glittery gem in the centre?  It's called a "glittered skittle" and you can find it HERE at Your Next Stamp! (I actually won these from Karen's blog)! They are ultra light and not really bulky, so realy nice for cards or layouts!

I also inked all the edges with some Vintage Photo DI. I just love these soft feminine colours.  To think that I had no pink in my wardrobe until the day that Natasha was born!

Lawnscaping Challenge #7 - Make your own Patterned Paper With Stamps

Go on over to the Lawnscaping site and participate in their current challenge!  It's fun!  You don't have to use Lawn Fawn stamps if you don't have any, and as I only have two sets, the Bannerific & Sophie's Sentiments sets, I needed to do some serious thinking about how I was going to go about this challenge!  My sister is celebrating her 20th Wedding Anniversary, and hopefully her young spirit will appreciate a non-traditional card!

Paper: PTI Cardstock (Beryy Sorbet); Neenah Solar White
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; CTMH Dye ink (Sorbet); Copic Markers
Stamps: Lawn Fawn
Other: Gems (Kaisercraft); Stickles

As you can see I simply created the "patterned" background by repeat stamping the sentiment in Sorbet ink, at a slant.  I added a few gems here and there.  The little birdies are coloured with Copic Markers, popped up with dimensional dots and I also added some stickles to their wings.

I have been trying to figure out what my style is when it comes to card making, I seem to be leaning more and more towards the more clean and simple style!

I should be back later with one or two more cards, but right now I am off to the Optician to see if my prescription needs reviewing or if it's simply old age!  I'm sure it's not age!  Right.......

April Hero Arts Contest

The April Hero Arts Contest details are out, go and take a look!  This month it's all about sketches, masculine cards and stamp layering.  For my first entry I decided to go with one of the sketches and the masculine theme.

Paper: Cardstock (PTI); Patterned Paper (Making Memories)
Ink: Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo & Shabby Shutters DI
Stamps: Hero Arts
Other: Brad (Recollections); Nestabilitie star die; Gem (Hero Arts); Butterfly (Making Memories)

I first stamped the background with the Envelope Pattern stamp using Vintage Photo DI and then added the strip of patterned paper. I stamped and embossed the "branch" on the star with Walnut Stain DI, inked the edges with Shabby Shutters & Vintage Photo DI and applied a die cut butterfly with some dimensional dots.  The gem was clear, but I coloured it in with a Copic marker.

Then it was just a matter of adding the sentiment strip and the corduroy covered brad.

I hope the butterfly and the gem does not take away from the masculinity of the card?!

What a weird weather day today!  I went for a run at 5am and it was 76F, it was so hot, and now it's down to 66F and apparently going to be in the forty's tonight!  Very strange!

Hoping you are all having a great day!

Colour Challenge - A Touch of Red

The new challenge for this week over on Less Is More is to use a little red.  I like that, not complicated, just nice!  I immediately thought of my Hero Arts "Life of the Party Dots" and the little "Fox"! 

Paper: PTI Cardstock; Neenah Solar White; Hero Arts Layering Paper (red)
Ink: Black Soot DI; Versafine Onyx Black
Stamps: Hero Arts; PTI
Other: Corner Chomper; Clear EP; Black Gem (HA)

I stamped my white note card with "Life of the Party Dots" in Black Soot, added some clear embossing powder and applied the heat tool to it.  I then stamped the fox twice, once on white paper and once on red and I stamped the red paper with my Envelope Pattern stamp.  Then I cut out the red pieces I wanted and paper pieced them onto the white fox. Finaly adhering the fox to the card base.

The sentiment strip is made using two different PTI sets, one being the Mat Stack 4 Collection for the banner an the other the Fillable Frames #11 for the tiny sentiment. The banner strip was adhered with some dimensional dots.

The funny thing is that I wanted to make this into a birthday card, but once I adhered the fox onto the card, and I looked at him/her against the black dotted background, he/she looked kinda sad, so an "I Miss You" sentiment was required.  Boy, small sentiments are so hard to come by, and I find that "I Miss You" is particularly hard to come by.  There are a lot of "Thinking of You", but sometimes you want to tell someone that you actually miss them, it's more than just thinking about the other person, it suggest that you actually want them closer.

Enough philosophy, I am sure you just came here to see if you could be inspired by a card, not get a lesson in the actual meaning of words!  Thank you for making the time, and thank you so much for more new followers, what fun!  I always try to see if my new followers have blogs so that I can pop in and say hi, but not all of them have one, so if that is you, Hi!

Asian Flowers

I made this quick birthday card with PTI's Asian Flowers stamp set, it's such a pretty set.  The card is a very simple and clean design really.  I wanted to play with craft and blue.

Paper: Cardstock (PTI); Patterned Paper (CTMH)
Ink: Desert Sand (CTMH); Tumbled Glass DI
Stamps: PTI (Asian Flowers & Fillable Frames #11)
Other: Glossy Accents; Dimensional Dot

I added some Glossy Accents to the centre of the flowers in the vase, I like the cool effect it gives.  And then I popped up that little blue flower on the vase!

Just had a great 10 mile run with a friend, so my day can only be good from here on!  I just love my morning runs, it sets me up for the day!  Going to take my daughter to see the movie Hop this morning.  Also going to go and get some fabric and hair clips and glue (hope I can fing all this at Hobby Lobby) and I am going to try and make my daughter some of those cute hair accessories that Kelly talks about on this HERO ARTS post (with a video demo)!

Hubby will be home tomorrow morning, yeah!  Wishing you all an awesome weekend!

Less Is More

I decided to participate in the current Less is More  challenge, especially after yesterday's grid card, I just wanted something simpler!  (Less taxing on the brain!) It looks like quite an interesting challenge site where each week of the month they challenge you with something different (colour; one layer; theme; sketch or recipe; lucky dip).  This week it was a sketch.  Here is the sketch:

It's what they call a DL (double length) card, where the length of the card must at least be twice the width.  I don't really do these shaped cards ever, but I had a go and it was fun.  The only challenge for me was photographing it, especially seeing as I decided to turn the sketch on its side!

Paper: PTI (Cardstock & Patterned paper) ; Neenah Solar White;
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; CTMH dye ink; Copic Markers
Stamps: Hero Arts
Other: Corner Chomper; Glossy Accents

I used the Starfish in the stamp set to create that background strip.  I then stamped and paper pieced the fish and just coloured his head with Copic markers.  After stamping the bubbles I simply added some Glossy Accents for a little bit of dimension.

Thank you for taking a peek!