Flowers for sisters

Hello again! I've been busy making cards not just for the various birthdays this month, but also for the commission of 10 cards that my mother in law asked me for. I've been enjoying the challenge - and the opportunity to buy new stamps and other goodies for it! One of these cards is for my sister, the other for hers (I'll let her choose which she prefers!) and thanks to The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge, I've been trying out new techniques. This one is water colouring with an embossed image using a gorgeous flower stamp set from Clearly Besotted - Just Darling.

[Supplies: Spectrum Aqua Markers - Floral; Versa Mark Ink; WOW! Bright White Embossing Powder; Ranger Dye Ink Grape Soda; Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black; Wink of Stella 8mm Tip Pen; Bazzill Basics Paper; Clearly Besotted Just Darling] 

 
I absolutely loved doing these cards. It made me feel like I was a real artist - even though I am most definitely not! I also definitely need more flower stamps in my life...

I stamped the images onto water colour paper with Versa Mark ink and heat embossed with WOW! Bright white embossing powder. I then simply used my Spectrum Aqua markers directly onto the paper and blended with water. The embossed image saves colour running too much onto the blank space.

This is mounted using fun foam and lots of tape onto a card blank with has two 2cm strips of Bazzill basics paper at either side - it's a cheat and saves me paper! The sentiment is from the set stamped in Ranger Dye Grape Soda. I wrote over the sentiment in Wink of Stella and also added a little to the flowers - a card is not a card without Wink of Stella!

This card is simply mounted onto a Kraft card blank with fun foam and the sentiment stamped in Ranger Archival Jet Black. I held back on the Wink of Stella!

Thank you so much for reading, hope you have a great weekend - can you believe we're nearly in July??

Home - again!

Hello, Crafty Fans! This latest project I can finally share with you as it made its way to its destination - sunny Switzerland!

It's gone to my best buddy and her lovely partner and family as they have recently moved to a new apartment with some much needed space.

I was inspired by a post from a member of the Sugar Pea design team, SemSee's Sparkly Scribblings, and decided to make a picture for their new wall. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and they like it too, so double yay!

[Supplies: Water colour paper; Spectrum Aquas - Floral and Essentials; Papermania Capsule Collection 6x6" paper pad; SugarPea Designs Homescape SugarCuts; Daler Rowney Graduate mount board]

I originally planned to frame it in an IKEA Ribba box frame, but frankly that was a silly idea given it had to fly to Switzerland, but I kept to the same dimensions, should they want to frame it. I started with a square of water colour paper around 6.25" - I wanted to have some overlap so it was slightly less than 6" framed - and did a wash of orange and pink Spectrum Aquas, so it would look like an evening sky now they have a better view from their window ;). I then got on with die cutting out the Homescape die. This die is great, because each end of it matches up so you can cut a continuous scene, and this means you can place it off one end of the paper, then match it to the end and cut again so that you get different orientations of the scene, making it much easier to create my scene above. I chose colours to match the sky.

I then took some mount board and made a frame to fit - there are lots of videos on YouTube and it was surprisingly simple. I shall try that again!

I also made a New Home card for them using the same colours of Spectrum Aquas:

[Supplies: Water colour paper;  Spectrum Aquas Floral; SugarPea Designs Home Sweet Home SugarCut; Clearly Besotted Sweet Little Sentiments; Versa Mark Ink; WOW! Bright White embossing powder; Stick It!; Lawn Fawn Large Stitched Square Lawn Cuts]
 

This was my first attempt at emboss resist. I die cut out the Home Sweet Home SugarCut with some Stick It! on the back and adhered it lightly to the middle of my water colour panel. I then stamped the 'new home' sentiment from my CB Sweet Little Sentiments set multiple times in Versa Mark and embossed them using WOW! Bright white embossing powder. I then washed the panel using three of my floral Spectrum Aquas (I think Marigold, Sunflower and Rose Pink). I carefully removed the now soggy paper 'HOME' to reveal it on the paper - I really like the effect. I simply trimmed the card and mounted on a 6x6" card blank. With the other one I die cut out a panel using my LF stitched square dies.

A little close up:

Thank you so much for reading. Hope the sun sets in beautiful colours wherever you are :)