Miniature Floral Notelets

Hello again, fellow crafters, how has your week gone? I can't believe we are well into July and I'm having to think about getting ready for heading off to Scotland to visit my parents and sister at the start of August. Be nice to get away - and into the sea for some chilly swimming!

A while ago I was commissioned by my mother in law for some cards, birthday and others. I've finally finished my commission with this lot of little notelets. I've been so taken with the Clearly Besotted miniature florals collection, I've been inking them up and colouring them in at every opportunity!

These were the panels I had created, each with three of the images stamped in Versamark onto half a piece of Tim Holtz water colour card stock, embossed with Wow! Bright white embossing powder and coloured in with various Spectrum Aquas. I did have one panel I coloured in using  my new Zig Clean Color Realbrush pens, but I'm not having a very happy time with them - I prefer my Aqua markers - and so I redid it.

It was simply a case of trimming the edges to fit across the front of a 4x4" card (cut down from my 6x6" pre-scored cards) and adhering them with fun foam covered in red tape.

As I didn't have any envelopes small enough, I got out my WRMK Envelope Punch Board and had fun making my own. I think they look really rather sweet as a set.

Supplies: Clearly Besotted Miniature Florals Stamp Collection; VersaMark Ink; Wow! Bright White embossing powder; Spectrum Aqua Markers - Floral, Primary, Essentials; WRMK Envelope Punch Board; Bazzill Basics card stock; Fun Foam; Red Tape; Pre-cut and scored card blanks

I'm pleased to say that my mother in law loves them and has commissioned another set. Hard work pays off!

Thank you so much for reading and following my crafty journey so far. Enjoy your weekend :)

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 :)

 

Thank You and Notelets - playing with Spectrum Aquas

Hello everyone! Hope you've had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. I've three cards to share with you that I made using my new Spectrum Aqua markers - my subscription present from Simply Cards and Papercraft.

The first is a Thank You card for my in laws - they bought some beautiful clothes for the little ones and helped keep them occupied when they visited last week, which deserves a card at the very least!

I used three shades of Spectrum Aquas floral set for the outer panel (Blossom, Begonia and Rose Pink), rubbing the pen onto an acrylic block, then adding water and painting it onto my water colour panel. After letting it dry, I splashed water onto it with a brush and dabbed it with some kitchen towel leaving splatters. I love this technique! I then got a bit bokeh and used a star stencil (I got this free with my first ever purchase of Simply Cards and Papercraft!) with some Ranger Glacier White pigment ink and got busy dabbing it all over the panel. I then left it to dry whilst painting up the inner panel with three of the Spectrum Aquas essentials set (Spice, Tan and Peach), leaving it to dry and then splatter painting it too.

Once they were both dry, I made a frame of the outer panel using two of my Lawn Fawn large stitched squares, and a panel of the inner one to fit into the frame. I adhered the inner panel to the middle of a square card blank and then the frame using a lot of foam tape. The sentiment I stamped onto some pink card and heat embossed it with my Wow! bright white embossing powder before cutting out the flag. I added some stick on pearls for a bit of bling.

To the notelets!

The pink notelet was made from the inner panel of the above with another Thank You flag, adhering it with fun foam - two cards for the price of one! I made a 4x4 card blank for that one.

The other notelet was a different technique. Basically I got some water colour card and drew some very basic flowers on it using Marigold, Sunflower and Leaf Green before brushing over it with water and smudging it. I think it looks like old wall paper and I love it. I then cut out four little squares and adhered them with fun foam to another 4x4 card blank. I also made a couple of little envelopes for these with my WRMK Envelope Punch board and some Bazzill basics - they look so sweet!

I love the markers for making backgrounds. They blend well. I'll continue to practice and try different techniques - there are loads of great videos on YouTube.

Thank you for getting this far. Have a great weekend!

More Bokeh!

Hello again! Hope your weekend is treating you well? I got a bit carried away with bokeh and now I can't stop! I realised I had a birthday card for a friend to make, and so I got my little girl's paints out again and went with a green theme this time.

It's the same technique as in my previous post, but with a few additions. The dragon fly is the Simply Cards and Papercraft free gift from issue 134, embossed using my new bright white Wow! Embossing powder. It's so fine compared to my other powders and gives a lovely result. The sentiment is stamped in Lily Pad Ranger dye ink and is from Clearly Besotted's Sweet Little Sentiments set. I added a few of my new Lucy Abrams' sequin mixes. This one is Phosphorescence and the colours just went beautifully.

Hope you like it, I think I'll enter this one too into House of Cards Challenge!

Thanks for reading, enjoy what remains of the weekend :)