Birthday fish

Hey Crafters,

today I have another very quick water colour card with one of my new stamp sets. It's my first Dylusions set, so and I LOVE it. The sea creatures are so hilarious.

I stamped the fish on water colour card stock and coloured it as usual with my Inktense pencils. After it dried, I covered the image with masking fluid and sprayed on some Dylusions spray mists in watery colours. Then I coloured a strip of paper with some yellow alcohol markers, shading from dark to light and die cut the sentiment from that strip of paper. 

When it all had dried well, I doodled some white lines  and dots to make it look even more sketchy.

Have a nice Sunday
Ela




Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Make your own background

Honorable mentions at Freshly Made Sketches

Hi guys,

I am so proud and happy, my card below has been picked for one of the princesses at Freshly made Sketches.

Thanks to all the team and of course especially to Jen who picked me.


Love
Ela

Reminder for the CUYL challenge #13: Watercolour succulents

Hello Crafters,

you still have a week to create water colour cards for our Challenge over at

I've been in a true water colour  frenzy these past two weeks, so this Challenge was right on time for me.

 A few days ago, I got a set of 5 different Acrylic effect mediums at ALDI (South). the set includes gold, silver, pearlescent,clear and white structure paste. I only have white embossing paste, so I decided to try them out. 
They are more liquid than the original, but they were much cheaper, so I am happy I got them.

I used the clear paste to stencil some accents on my craft card base.

Then I stampt the pots and succulents from the Simon says Stamp set. Aren't they lovely?

As usual I coloured the images with my Inktense pencils. When they had dried, I covered them with masking fluid and created the background with more water colours. 

In this case, I really like how the coloring turned out.


Lots of love
Ela



Challenges:
The Paper Players: Clean and simple water colour
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday

Birthday card with alcohol markers

Hello Crafters,

I really enjoyed colouring with my alcohol markers the other day, so I created another card. This time I used one of the new Tom Holtz flower stamps (flower garden).

I stamped it several times in grey on a stitched panel. Then I outlined it with shades of neutral grey, to give them some depth. I matted the panel with some black card stock and embossed the sentiment on another strip of black card stock, which I popped up with some foam tape.

Then I adhered it all to a grey card base.

At last I stamped the flower again in black ink and coloured it in shades of red, to create a pop of colour. I added the flower flat to the banner, so it's popped up from the main panel.


Have a great day
Ela



Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Virginia's View: Layers and Dimensions
Simon says Stamp: Make your own background 
Stempelküche: Monochrom / Monochromatic

Copic no-line colouring

Hey Crafters out there,

hope you're all doing well. 

Today I'd like to show you another card I made with the same Penny Black stamp as before.

This time I used my my alcohol markers and had another go at no-line colouring. I cut the focal panel smaller this time and used a second panel in black and a grey card base with rounded corners.

I liked the doodled border I did the other day, so I did that again. But I think there's still something missing. 




 
See you soon
Ela



Challenges:
Stempelküche: Design Team Call

Just a Note

Hello Crafters,

I created another card with the Ori Kami set from Altenew. 

Once again I used Inktense pencils and a lot of water to colour the image... I also added some sequins and a sentiment in grey. Very simple but I like it.

Have a great day
Ela



Challenges
Just add ink: #259 Sequins

Challenge up your life: Challenge #13 Water Colour

Hey Crafters,

it's Challenge time again, over at

Matching my current water colour frenzy, we're challenging you to use your water colours:

Challenge #13 Water colour

 

I wanted  to try water colouring with some bright neon markers by Stabilo I had. I am not a big fan of neons, but I just wanted to give it a try. So I picked the humming bird stamp from Create a Smile and stamped it 5 times on a panel of water colour paper.

Then I did some very simple colouring and combined the panel with a black card base and black sentiment banner. 


I hope you'll join us and grab your own water colours as well.


Love
Ela

Water colored thanks

Hello Everyone,

it seems to be watercolour week for me - or maybe rather month. I created another card with my Inktense pencils. This time I stamped the image in black and did some very simple water colouring.

Then I added the sentiment and adhered the panel to a black card base. Very simple.

I hope you like it anyway, have a great day
Ela




Challenges:
Freshly made Sketches: #182

Monochromatic Flower

Hello Everyone,

the week's almost done, I am looking forward to the week-end a lot. The weather is wonderful here in Germany right now, and I love to see the sun.

Today I want to share a card I created for the Muse challenge.

I stamped and black embossed the flower on watercolour paper and coloured in in tones of blue with my Inktense pencils. The image is so intricate, that shading is rather difficult, but I tried to get in at least a little shading. 

When it had dried, I wet the background and coloured that too, in a lighter shade. Then I cut it to a panel with my new stitched rectangle dies and adhered it to a blue card base.

For the sentiment I chose a Paper Smooched die and used the same blue card stock. Then I added some bling. 

 I didn't create an envelope  yet, because the watercolour paper is off-white and I've run out of off-white envelopes.


Have a sunny week-end
Ela



Challenges:
Just add ink: #259 Sequins
Stempelküche: #17 Monochrom / Monochromatic
Muse: #113

Tall and skinny Birthday card

Hi Crafters, 


I spent a happy evening crafting last night. I really want to get back to doing more challenges. They are such a nice starting point and inspire me a lot...  

And of course there are all those new supplies I received during the Easter  holidays.

So, I grabbed the same Penny Black flower stamp as before and went for some no-line colouring. I really want to master that technique someday. I inked up the petals in pink, the rest in light green distress ink and stamped it off once before stamping it to watercolour paper. This way the impression wasn't too bold and I could cover it up with my colouring.

Then I water coloured the image with my Inktense pencils. I usually take the pigment directly from the tip, I find that easier than dissolving it when it's been applied directly to dry the paper. 

After the colours had dried,  I stamped the sentiment, dropped on some black splotches and doodled a black border with a Copic Multiliner. Then I cut the panel to a  tall and skinny size and adhered it to an off-white card base.

I did not yet create an envelope, because of the unusual size. But I surely will soon.



Love
Ela



Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Tall and Skinny
Less is More: One layer and splatters

Just a note

Hey Crafters,

I played some more with my new Dylusions and used the panel I created to cover my card base.

Then I stamped the flower stamp with archival ink on a piece of water color paper. I wanted to try out how the spray inks work if used as a water color medium, so I wet the petals and dropped in just a bit of the inks, letting them spread naturally. I ended up helping them along quite a bit with my brush in the end. They do spread out on the wet paper, but I like my Inktense pencils better.

I cut the flowers to a narrow panel, added a sentiment and some faux stitching and adhered it to my bright card base.
Not my favorite card, but I am still in the process of trying out my new Dylusions and for that it was quite fun and instructing.



Love
Ela 

Hello there

Hello everyone,

how are you? I hope you're doing well.

Today I'd like to show you another card I created last Saturday, with the Ori Kami set and my Inktense pencils.

As before I stamped and embossed the image and used my Inktense pencils to color the images. This time I picked blue and green and created an ombre effect, letting the water do most of the blending.

Then I stamped a simple sentiment and added the panel to a blue card base. As a finishing touch I added three sequins as if they were bubbles.


Have a great day
Ela

Water colour baby card

Hi Crafters,

As I told you the other day, I am glad to be back home from my Easter holidays. And one of the reasons is, that my order from Simon's finally came in while I was away, which was SO unfair! I'd been waiting for it so long (the first parcel got lost and it had to be re-shipped) and then it would arrive while I was away.

Well, now I am back, and unpacked everything, and I am sooo happy with what I got. I feel like I don't know where to start and what to use first. But I wanted to create something on the day we arrived back, when I was very tired from the drive and also a little ill. So I chose the Altenew Ori Kami set and did some simple water coloring with it. Others have used the set in similar ways, it's perfect for it.

I stamped the image on watercolor paper and embossed it in white. Then I wet the elephant with plain water and dropped in some color along the folds and let the water do most of the blending work.

When the elephant was done, I wet the area around it and added some blue and let that bleed out naturally. Then I added the sentiment and cut the panel with my new stitched rectangles die and added it to a grey card base.


Hope you have a good day
Ela


Challenges:
Fusion Card Challenge: (I used the colors)

Holidays and art journaling

Hey Crafters,

my girls and I have just returned from a week with my parents in the Alps. We had wonderful warm and sunny weather most of the time and spent a lot of time outdoors near the creek, which is our favorite place there. My daughters even complained that I "forgot" their Bikinis.

My parents are moving to a smaller place, where there isn't enough space for us to stay next holidays. So we also booked our summer holiday there at a local farm and now we're looking forward to it so much. They have cows and horses, cats naturally and I think sheep too. The girls are all crazy for it already.

Back home here, the cherry tree is in full bloom, and I admit I am glad to be back. I enjoy staying there, but it's always rather tiresome, because the kids need to be quiet and behave around my parents (my mother is ill and my father has always been one for calm and quiet).

Well, enough about my holiday plans, here's some crafty news:

I did it, I allowed myself the guilty pleasure of ordering twelve of Dyan's Dylusions spray mists.

I love to finally have them, I fell in love with them the moment I first saw them. And again a few weeks back, when I re-discovered Dyan's journaling for myself.

I also created my first page, just to try out some techniques with them...

I picked tones of pink, red and orange for the base, did some ghosting with stencils and a bit of regular stenciling. Then I covered the top and right edge with black and tried out the bleaching technique with my WPlus9 butterflies.

To do that, you stamp the images with black archival ink onto the black. Then you lift up the black color within the stamped images with  a wet brush and remove it with a paper towel. You may have to do that several times. Then you replace the black ink with another color, in this case I used pink and some orange for color variation. Dyan filled water brushes with her spray mists and uses them, but I didn't want to invest in all these water brushes, so I just dropped a bit of the color onto a slick surface and used a regular brush to pick it up.

I stamped another butterfly on a separate piece of paper, colored it, cut it out and adhered it with the wings lose. Then I stamped some weeds along the bottom and added some faux stitching. The text is handwritten an cut out crookedly.

I am not really all that happy with it, I think the paper may have too much texture for this technique, and I feel like I don't have enough space to leave different pieces out to dry and work on several backgrounds at once.

I share my craft desk with my kids and there is the box with all the pens, pencils, tools and stuff on the desk as well, so I don't really have that much space to spread out on.
This has been bothering me for a while, because I'd really like my crafty area better organized, but I also don't want to spend a lot of money on new furniture or ruin the look of my living room even more.

Well, I'll keep pondering that problem, maybe I'll find a solution eventually.


Happy crafting
Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #12 Embossing

Hi Crafters, 

another two weeks have passed like nothing, spring should be serious about its business now, but it's letting us wait. It's been cold, wet and stormy the past week. 

Anyway, it's time for another challenge over at

This time we are challenging you to bring texture to your cards:

Challenge #12 Embossing

Heat or dry embossing or embossing paste, that's completely up to you, just have fun with it.

I decided to create another mad doodle card, with lots and lots of bright colors and combine it with black embossing paste.

After I defined the areas with a black Copic Multiliner, I filled them with different patterns. Then I colored all the patterns with bright Copics. No shading, just plain bright! Same patterns always get the same colors. After all was colored, I outlined the areas again, first with the Multiliner and then with a white gel pen, to make them more defined. I also added a sketchy white outline around the card panel. 


Then I colored a tiny bit of embossing paste with black paint and stenciled it on thickly. Here's a close up:




While the paste dried, I created the card base and handwritten sentiment, which I deliberately cut out quite crooked. When all was done and dried, I added sketchy white lines to the black bird, to define it and make it stand out more. 

By the way, my daughter also liked the bright colors, so she created something very similar, though without embossing paste. And her dedication to her projects even inspired her friends who we've had visiting the other day, to join in. Soon we had 5 kids coloring with full concentration, while my friend and I had a very calm, relaxed cup of coffee.

I hope you’ll all join us this week and create something with embossing.

Love

Ela