Birthday flowers with Polychromos

Hello everyone, 

Debby posted this wonderful flower card last week, and I instantly fell in love with it.

As always, my first thought was "I need that stamp", but you can't have everything... I decided to use a child free evening and find something in my stash to make it work without spending money.

I stamped the image with Versamark ink and coloured in the flowers with my Polychromos pencils in a similar colour scheme as Debby. 

My craft card stock was a bit too smooth, so I had a hard time laying down as much pigment as I wanted to, all the while thinking it's wouldn't turn out good. And while it certainly cannot compare with Debby's original, I am still rather pleased with the end result. 

I had to fidget quite a bit with the final card design. I couldn't use my stitched rectangle dies, because the stamp is so large and I didn't want to cut off too much. I decided to go for an over-sized card base and just a white border on both sides. The stitching is a wonderful detail, but I simply didn't have the supplies. 

The sentiment reads "Today is your Birthday". The first part was stamped with brown ink, the second part was die cut from a scrap piece of paper, that I coloured with the same pencils. I quite like the ombre effect. 

Due to the unusual size of the card, I had to use patterend paper to create an envelope, because my normal cardstock was too small.

As I had some more spare time the next day, I went ahead and did the same again, only with white and yellows on grey card stock. I wanted to try my other idea and adhere the panel at an angle. Also that card stock has bit more of a tooth.

For the card base, I used white wood structure card stock and rounded corners. The sentiments reads "for your Birthday".

So, if you like, tell me which one you prefer, because I am still undecided. 

Lots of love

Ela

99 nine not-so-red balloons

Hello Crafters, 

how are you? 

My daughters' Birthday was last month and we're having a rather big party every year. This year, it was even bigger, because of the new school and new friends and we celebrated with another girl who's Birthday is only one week later. So we needed heaps of invitations this year.

This is, why I wanted to keep it very simple, but I still wanted them to look really good.
 
I picked this lovely balloon background stamp and heat embossed a whole bunch of water colour card panels. I love this stamp, doesn't it just remind you of that old Nena song? 

While I was stamping and embossing, my girls helped me by colouring the balloons with my ZIG markers. We had chosen several colour schemes beforehand, because I didn't want them to use too many colours and create mud. 

Then we spritzed the panels liberally with water to make the colours run into each other and set the panels to air dry. We did 2-3 layers of colour on each panel.

Next we created vellum strips with nice torn edges and layered them around the lower third of the panels. On the top layer, I stamped and embossed the sentiment, which of course means "invitation".
In the end we embellished the panels with sequins and little heart die cuts and adhered them to white, black  or grey card bases, depending on the colour scheme.

I personally like the first card (the blue one) best, but my girls preferred the pink and yellow colour scheme. 

Hope you all have a great day
Ela


********************************************************
Edit:
The balloon stamp is by Create a smile, if anyone is interested.
********************************************************




Challenges: 
Simon says Stamp: Anything goes
The Paper Players: Sketch 

Two Doggie Birthday shakers

Hi Crafters, 

it's been a while, live was rather busy for me lately. 

However, today I'd like to show you two cards I created for two dog lovers.

I created the green card first. I really like that bright apple green at the moment, so I picked that colour for the card base. For some interest, I added white embossing paste through a brick wall stencil.
 

Then I stamped the dog and about a million bones and tennis balls. I coloured all the pieces with my alcohol markers. Just very basic colouring, nothing fancy.  

As the tennis balls and bones were meant to go into the shaker, I covered them with clear embossing powder, to make them slide better. 

I didn't invest in the matching dies for the stamp set (I generally don't), therefore I had to cut out all the pieces by hand, but that wasn't too bad. I also die cut the Polaroid frames and stamped the sentiment on the bottom of the frames. 

Then I assembled it all with foam adhesive.



The red card was created several weeks later, after I had given away the first one. 
I totally forgot about the stencilled brick wall, which I actually just realise right now, while I write this post. That explains, why it seemed so wrong to me, at the time. Seeing them side by side I think I would have liked the stencilled background on the second card as well.

For that card I needed a dalmatian, so I used the larger dog. Instead of clear embossing powder, I used transparent liquid glue, to seal in the bones. For me, both methods weren't really worth the bother, so next time I'll probably just leave out that step.


I arranged the Polaroid frames a little differently, because the dog was taller and facing the other way, and ended up with a lot of empty space. Therefore I chose to stamp the sentiment on two banners and tucked them behind the dog. I also added a paper clip arrow to the top left corner. 

I apologise for the bad photo quality, I only took a few snapshots with my mobile before I gave away the cards. 

Hope you all have a great day
Ela 




Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday