Joyous Moon ATC

I made this ATC for the Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge last week, but I forgot to post about it and missed the deadline to link up.  But I think it's really pretty so I'm going to share it anyway.

I started with watercolour card and painted stripes of blue - from light blue to blue black - across the card with acrylic paint.  When that had dried, I used a circle die as a stencil and used white paint to make the moon.  I used a stencil brush and was quite liberal with the paint.  It gave a nice textured surface which I thought represented the moon quite well.  When dry, I inked a stamp from the Sizzix Winter Charms collection with silver ink and stamped over the moon.  The text is an extract from the dictionary definition of joy.  Finally I stamped the grassy silhouette along the bottom.

Eat, Drink and be Merry ATC

The theme over at Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge this week is "Picnic or Food/Drink".  This is my entry:

I went with a picnic scene.  I started with a piece of watercolour card, and added a rough band of blue and green using my new water-soluble wax pastels.  I then created the corner of a picnic blanket with Washi tape and stuck on small food motifs that I had cut from various patterned papers that I have.  Finally I stamped the sentiment "Eat, drink & be merry!".   Quick and easy this week.

My First Shaker Card

This is a straight-up CASE of a card by Vicky Papaioannu..  I've never really felt compelled to make a shaker card, but I loved the softness and the diffused effect that using vellum gives, so I decided to give my own a go.

To start with I cut three rectangles 12.85cm x 8.5 cm from patterned paper, plain white card and vellum.  To make a frame I measured 1.5cm in from all sides on the back of the white rectangle and then cut the middle section out using a craft knife.  (I may use my Silhouette to make up a load of these rectangles and frames for future use, as I'm pretty rubbish with a craft knife and even this simple task was a bit of a pain!)

I stamped the image and sentiment onto the vellum using silver pigment ink and then covered that with silver embossing powder. Heat embossing happens quickly on vellum so keep the heat tool moving to avoid bubbling.  Then placing the embossed vellum face down, I attached double-sided foam tape around the four edges of the vellum, sprinkled in some sequins then placed the patterned paper rectangle on top (also face down).  And that's the shaker compartment done.

I had intended to use the same patterned paper as a mat for the shaker compartment, but forgot!  Instead I used a lovely bright blue paper, which matched the colour tones of the sequins.  So there you go - my first shaker card!  I don't think it'll be the last...

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and The Paper Players Tic Tac Toe challenge (any shade of blue / Embossing / Patterned paper).

Celebrate

I created this card using the sketch from CAS Colours and Sketches and the recipe from CAS on Sunday (choose any three items in a straight line from the grid).

I went for the diagonal - top right to bottom left. That meant using heat or dry embossing, twine/ribbon and I decided to interpret Male or Female as a unisex card.  This is what I came up with:

 To start with I flicked mica powder paint onto the card blank to get an interesting background.  Then I made the bunting by wrapping washi tape around a bit of string and then cutting the shape.

For the sentiment I dry embossed the word "Celebrate", went over it with a Versamark pen and then heat embossed with gold.  The edges of the sentiment and two ribbons were also embossed with gold.

Spread Your Wings and Fly

The challenge this week on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is to use an inspiration colour swatch.

Isn't it delicious?  This combination of colours seems to be really popular at the moment, and rightly so because it's lovely.

Whenever I use paints, if there is any left over I brush it over watercolour paper to make backgrounds for future use.  It just so happens that some of the backgrounds matched this swatch beautifully.  So I stuck two of the watercoloured panels to a card front.  I recently bought a new stamp  - a butterfly surrounded by the words "Spread your wings and fly" and added small butterflies from the Hot Off The Press "Dressform" mini stamp set.  I added some gems in teal and light blue as butterfly trails, and then added a sentiment to the top left corner.  The edges are inked with a light pink pigment ink.

L is for Lilac ATC

While searching for images of lilacs for the latest Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge - Lilacs or Daffodils - I came across this image:

The gorgeous, rich blue-purple, the turquoise (which I'm particularly fond of at the moment), and freshness of the water droplets all sang to my soul!  So much so, that I felt the need to make another lilac-themed ATC with this image as my inspiration.  

So I put down a wash of colour on watercolour paper.  I used Azurite Luminarte Silks Acrylic Glaze and turquoise mica powder.  I painted rough lilacs onto the background as well but it's difficult to see underneath all the embellishment.  I did the colour from memory, and so it's ended up more blue than purple, but still OK.

Then I cut out some lilac shapes from watercolour card and painted both the front and back with the same colours as the background, adding a bit of brown to the centres.  I used the acrylic glaze and mica powders because of the shimmer, which I hoped would add to the illusion of moisture on the petals.  I used the rounded tip of my paintbrush handle to shape and curl the flowers before sticking them down.  For the water droplets I applied blobs of glossy glue with a toothpick and left to dry.  I think that the water droplets are my favourite bit.  Then I stamped "L is for Lilac" and heat embossed in white.  Et voilà!

Lilac Bouquet ATC

Well, I was thrilled to find that I'd won the last Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge with my Capture Joy ATC!  How fabulous - my first challenge win :-).  The latest challenge is entitled "Lilacs or Daffodils".  I know I didn't have anything daffodil related, but I didn't know what a lilac looked like.  With the help of a Google image search I discovered that they are really sweet, four-petalled flowers usually in pinks and (surprise, surprise) lilac, with the occasional blue and white.  And as luck would have it, I had a lilac-esque four-petalled die as part of the Sizzix Flower Vases Thinlits set.

To start with I coloured white card with watercolour pencils in rows of graduating colour and then spritzed and blended the colours a bit with a paintbrush.  Then I applied a layer of white gesso over the top to mute the colours a little, but I also like the distressed look that it gives.  After than I stamped butterflies randomly over the ATC in light blue ink.  I love script in backgrounds, but as I didn't have a stamp I simply wrote over the whole surface with a white gel pen for a really subtle effect.  (For those of you interested I have written down part of the poem "Lilacs" by Verna Sheard.)

Then I cut out lots of flowers with my flower die from pink and blue paper, and a vase from gold mirror card, which I then embossed.  I also cut some leaves from green mirror card.  They are not lilac leaves, but I think that I am allowed some artistic licence.  I also added shading and highlights to the flowers and then stuck everything down in a pleasing arrangement.