Keep Smiling Watercolour

Happy Sunday!

I am so happy that I had a little time to create for the awesome 

Watercolour Blog hop that is being hosted by Pretty Pink Posh and all of the above generous sponsors!!!

Here she is...

I made this card for my dear MIL and it is headed her way.  The flowers are a new flower trio and I stamped onto vellum and heat embossed with SU espresso ep.  I used TH Abandoned Coral and Fossilized Amber. Some PPP sequins are scattered here and there and the flower centers are shining with the sequins too! 

The inspiration is from the current CASE this Sketch #126...such a good one!

Thanks for stopping in and have a great Sunday!

A watercolour with collage stamp

Just for fun today, I tried a watercolour technique.  Probably the simplest one, where you use ink pads or drops of ink on an acrylic stamp block, spritz with water (I used an aqua painter to add my water) and lay your card stock sheet on top and let the magic happen!  I saw this on a Magenta stamps site and I have some of this company's beautiful stamps that I thought might be a creative and quick image to stamp in black over the dried watercolour art that your acrylic block created!

I don't know if you can see in the photo, but i happened to use the raised "grid" side of an acrylic block and I like how the inks pooled in the grid and you can see the grid lines.

 I don't see a name on the packaging of the stamp that I used, but it has this product # C09231-M .  I am pretty sure that I purchased this one from Ellen Hutson, but when I visit friends and family in Montreal, I usually try to go to a local stamp shop and take a peek at the Magenta stamps :)  I know that you can also now order directly from Magenta here.

This was so easy and I am so, so pleased with the outcome that I will be making some more of these ...today!  On my first card, I used PTI Aqua Mist, 

SU Marina Mist and Starfruit.  The other colour combination that I used was Aqua Mist and SU Calypso Coral.  Here's a pic of a small group that I made in less than an hour.  The Aqua combo matted on the black card stock layer was misted with Mr. Huey's Blizzard mist...crazy sparkly! Thanks for taking a peek!

Chriss

ETA : I was a selection on the Magenta Style blog for this

Thank You!

Moxie Fab Holiday Cards -Tag Challenge

Hello lovely people.  It has been a while since I have played in a Moxie Fab World challenge and I getting this little tag entered with not too many hours to spare!  This is the Holiday Cards and more Week challenges for a holiday tag.
I created this tag with some birch straws that I saw earlier this year at HomeGoods.  They are paper straws and the detail is quite authentic to the birch bark trees.  I started by cutting some little lengths of the straws and glueing them to a white PTI card stock tag I made and added some impressions along the edges with an embossing tool.  The little birdie is one of my fave cardinal stamps from Magenta that I stamped directly onto dp and cut out.  A hole at the top was punched and I used a length of SU Cherry Cobbler seam binding and gathered together with a bit of the bakers twine.  I then made another tag with PTI Avocado cs used a border punch to create the scalloped bottom and sewed on a pice of chevron patterned B/W paper and then layered the back with some SU Cherry Cobbler cs.  I added a sprig of holly and one solitary sparkly "holly berry".  Quite pleased with how this turned out and I quickly made a half dozen more!
Thanks for taking a peek and have a wonderful week!
Hugs-Chriss

Simply Sweet

Hi there!,
I have a very simple card to share today.  I don't often crate with Blue, but I wanted to use this piece of lovely Damask with this chevron that I cut according to the pattern and I had this Pink Paislee postage stamp that was begging to get in on the picture.  I added a stamped Magenta birdie and coloured to suit and then cut out and adhered to some foam pops.  One of the easiest cards I have made yet!
What do you think?

Layered feather fantasy echinacea

The Moxie Fab World
Fascination with Feathers challenge...have you participated in this one?
I couldn't pass this one up.  I had a great time making this fantasy echinacea flower in shades of blue and green feathers and added a smaller ring of yellow feathers to mimic what I think a feather echinacea flower would look like.  The flower base is a stamped image from a Magenta stamp that I have.  I cut out a portion of it, coloured the leaves with a Copic marker and added some stitching down the centers of the leaves.  I added a fun aqua center that I think is perfect for this whimsical flower!   I placed the decorated flower onto a cut up doily with some green stitching around the center of it and wrapped a fun polka dotted ribbon with the same greens and blues in the feathers.  The stickers are from Cosmo Cricket and the sweet label die is a Memory Box.
Do you have plans for this week-end?  I hope to have some time to create some more cards for the other challenges going on in the Moxie Fab World, and, I hope to get into the garden too.  We are supposed to have such great weather here in Austin.  Until next time,
thanks for taking a peek today!
Chriss
  

Happy Birthday Ros

Happy Saturday all!  How is your week-end going so far?
Mine started off today with a trip to IKEA, bought a couple of cream coloured pillows with a nice black leaf outline print on them...great pricing.
I saw over on the City Crafter Challenge Blog that it was Ros's birthday.  Well, this gal is such a sweet and dear blog friend, always quick to post a comment (there are a few of you out there and I appreciate each one of you!) that I really wanted to make a card for her.  I am joining in with the blog team members in wishing Ros the very best year ever!
For my card, I started with this K and Co. cream and black vine print paper that I have treasured for a couple of years now.  I think it is quite elegant and fitting for Ros, she makes such beautiful cards!  Herb log banner has some bluebirds in it and I wanted to incorporate that element with this tiny bird from Magenta and simply coloured with Copics.  I placed a rather large cork heart on the front panel and added my stamped PTI sentiment onto a cream Memory Box die cut that I found on my desk.  These dies from MB (a set of 3 I believe)are really darling and I have misplaced or lost them.  I am hoping that they will turn up one day.  The stamped flower is from an older set that I purchased from Technique Tuesday.  I cut this out from the kraft cs and layered it onto a Memory Box die cut wreath that I cut from a very thin sheet of cherry wood.  To finish off the flower, I added a crocheted cotton flower and topped it with a Stampin up flower and a lacy button with a blue feather tucked under.  The buttons in the left hand corner are some vintage-y ones that I had in my stash and I simply threaded them with a length of black twisted thread.  
That's my card for Ros...hope you like it sweet friend!
Wishing you a truly fabulous year filled with all good things!
Thanks for stopping by,
Chriss

Friendly Miss Ladybug

A simply friendly card today, just because and poppies are a Springtime thing, so I am entering this for the SCS challenge! 

 I am feeling a little under the weather...what I thought were chigger bites turn out to be shingles.  Not the end of the world, just a touch uncomfortable and to be truthful, a little painful, but it's a beautiful day here today, 84 and sunny so I will keep calm and carry on, as that poster says.  

The patterned paper is a K and Co from a couple of years ago, still one of my favourites.  I love seeing this cream and black with a pop of colour and I chose to use red for the poppies.  I need to make a card like this with blue poppies for a friend that loves everything blue ;

  The poppy stamp is a new one that I bought at Ellen Hutson's, from the  Magenta Company.  I just stamped right onto the PTI kraft cs, coloured with a Copic marker, added some black Atyou Spica pen to the centers and layered onto this black cs frame that I made with a MS punch around set.  I removed the little ladybug from a tiny clothes peg and glued her onto the black and cream paper that I had placed on the oval frame back.  The oval frame is from Maya...love the little embellishments that they offer.  The cream and black alpha stickers are Cosmo Cricket.

Hope your week is going well and thanks for taking a peek,

Chriss

A second post...this morning :)

Yep, here's a couple of more cards, using the same stamps on my desk.
For this first card, I stamped the magenta image in Memento Tux. black on PTI vintage linen and coloured with Copics and then added white enamel to the bells.  Glued onto black cs and closely trimmed, adhered to foam and mounted to the Labels One die cut.  I embossed the PTI kraft card front with a CB EF and made another for an extra center panel strip.  I made a wider panel with the vintage linen and used a MS border punch on either side.  The sentiment is Verve from the Great Friend set.  Love the simplicity of it!  I used SU seam binding for the simple ribbon.  I made this card for the SCS Spring challenge, the Card Patterns Sketch #107 (2nd entry) and also for the Verve "Get your Diva On!"
The next card is a CAS version using my little Lockhart chicklet...simple!

Easter cards

A couple of Easter cards...have you noticed the later date this year?  Seems like far away, but we all know how very quickly 5 weeks can speed by...right ;)


This first Stampendous Easter bunny card is such a sweet image.  I made it for the challenge going on over at SCS here.  I love the sweet little bunny face and love paper piecing the letters.  I chose to use Graphic 45's Once upon a Springtime 8X8 pad ...again.  Love this collection and I have almost completely exhausted it!  I used PTI ivory cs for the card base, embossed the front with a CuttleBug polka dots EF and stitched the gingham panel with zigzag and straight stitching in peach thread, added a length of lace and adhered the bunny panel with foam.
As for my next card, this year's version of one of my all time favourite Magenta stamps.  I have had this stamp for a couple of years but I saw that Ellen Hutson is now carrying it.  Ellen has great taste!  The Springtime floral tiles with the French and English Easter script as background are truly a joy for me to work with.  I enjoy colouring the images and this year I used a white enamel on the lilly of the valley bells.  The background PTI kraft cs is embossed with a PTI metal embossing plate, you might have to click onto the photo to enlarge and make more visable...
I used PTI harvest gold cs for the Paper punched border (EK Success border punch) and stitched some machine zigzag across.  The sentiment is an older Stampin'Up from ..well, I am not sure what set.  I orphaned the stamp from it's family a couple of Easters ago I think and have not re-united.
The weather has been so beautiful here in Austin.  I have been in the garden every day this past week cleaning/pruning/amending and planting.  Still have a lot of mulching to do...and then onto the back yard :0)
Hope it is warm and bright where you are and Thanks for taking a peek today!


Cheers,
Chriss

Easter Tuesday Trigger

Another little post here inspired again from the MoxieFab blog. One of my favourite colour combos. black/cream/green, a classic (imho).

I immediately thought of an oldtime stamp that I don't get to use that much because it is an Easter stamp, but I love the style of these images.

I stamped the image in Memento Tuxedo black onto a cream card stock and coloured the leaves with a pale olive Copic marker. The flowers were filled in with an opaque white acrylic from Jaquard that I have had for several years. It is similar to a Lumiare product, but without the shiny pearliness, more of a soft glow. I applied it with a blender pen. I did some very sparse shadows on the tulip base with another very pale Copic marker, just to give a little bit of depth. I then cut out the "tiles" and mounted with dimensional foam to some black squares that I cut with a Spellbinder Nestability frame. I have always like to see portions of a stamped image jut out on a different background, as shown above.

For the actual card, I adhered a cream and black dp from K & CO. to the entire front and then a panel of cream card stock that I embossed using a CB Damask folder. I backed this with the same black card stock and applied to the center front. I cut out a strip of old olive card stock and used a MS border punch on both edges, applied that to the embossed panel and then arranged the floral tiles to the center of that. Very easy, but I like the effect that the layering adds to this card. I like the simple structure of this layout and can imagine making some other cards with this easy layout...maybe Valentines ;)

Thanks for peeking in,

cheers!

chriss

My bashful deer

Another one for WCMD, this one was a colour challenge from Sharon Harnist over on Ellen Hutson's, The ClassRoom.  We were to use blue, brown and ivory.  I used Su Soft Sky, Close to Cocoa and an ivory I have from a Neenah ream.  The stamps are Magenta, stamped with basic brown.  The little deer is coloured with Copic markers and cut with the petite oval Spellbinder dies.I stamped the tree image directly onto the patterned paper (from a baby boy pack) and cut out.  I made the borders with my trusty MS punch and layered a ribbon over that.  The dewdrops are from the "Cowboy" mix and the brad is a velvet one I picked up from Archivers.  Thanks for stopping in!  I am off to make another card ;)

DTGD09 a sketch, tole and a R&B&W colour challenge

Back again with a 3 challenge post inspired by the Dirty Girls!  I absolutely LOVE this sketch!  The classic colour combo lends very well to this too and I embossed the image and coloured to satisfy the "Tole" painting challenge.

Here is what I did.  ~Stamp the image in Versamark and emboss with fine detail black.

~Coloured in with Copics

~Cut out the petals and inside "stamens"

~Cut out the two circles with my Nestability dies and ran the white one through the Textile CB folder

~positioned the petals, center & added the tiny rhinestones (13 of them)

~Cut the damask dp from MM to fit 4&3/4" card

~Cut the horizontal panel and layered it with RHR

~Placed over the card front, adding the larger polka dot circle under the horizontal panel

~add the white circle panel w/ "Poinsettia" (from Magenta)

~add the sentiment

~add the poinsettia eyelets that I double mounted on dimensionals (I punched a hole through the centers of the dimensionals so that the flowers would sit better and added a small rhinestone to the center)and then made some black bases from a poinsettia looking flower from one of the smaller folders in the Petals line.  Thanks for looking!  Have a great day

Chriss

Baja deer

Hi everyone!  Hope you are having a great week-end so far.  I had some time this afternoon to have a go at the Ways to Use it challenge on Splitcoast from Thursday.  Julia issued the challenge to make a Christmas card. I wanted to make one in non-traditional colours, and this is what I came up with.  I used last weeks SFYTT from i{heart}to stamp as my layout.  Great versatile sketch!

I stamped my image in SU basic brown on ivory card stock and coloured the little deer with Copics.  I had also stamped this image onto an acrylic sheet in Stazon and cut this out as a mask.  I placed the mask over the coloured image and sponged on some Baja Breeze to give the deer a little depth.  I layered the panel onto a Baja Breeze panel and then onto a Bazzil textured brown.  This panel was placed onto another larger panel of Baja that I ran through the CB distressed stripes folder.  I used the small corner rounder on this and made a little tab out of the small and medium oval punches from SU.  I used one of my "wood" buttons from Papertrey Ink and put a little piece of twine through it.  The sentiment is also SU that I have had for a couple of years and have just got around to using and I thought the little rhinestone on the top of the tree was a nice little touch of sparkle.  The deer stamp is a Magenta cling stamp that I think is quite cute!  Thanks for taking a peek!

chriss