Tuesday 26 November 2019

Christmas Poinsettia

Hello Crafters, 

are you gearing up for Christmas? 
Since Thanksgiving is being celebrated much earlier and very differently in Germany, I am concentration fully on Christmas preparations, even though there are a lot of family Birthdays coming up in the next few weeks as well.  I am determined not to let it get as bad as usual, especially since last Christmas was extremely stress full. 

We decided to move at the end of October, used all of November for packing boxes, received the new keys on the 1st of December and then had to paint the place and move. I think we first slept in the new place round about the 20th of December 2018, surrounded by packing boxes and chaos.

So, this year's motto is: get it ready early, I'll fall behind my schedule soon enough anyway.

For my girls I pretty much already have all the gifts I'll need. I may still add small things I find during December, but if nothing comes up I'll be fine with what I have. But I still need lots of things for the advent calendar, and those I will need by the week-end.



All the small children in the family shouldn't be too difficult either. There is now 5 of them between ages 2 months and 4 years. 

I also have an idea for my Ex and my sister and I arranged years ago, not to give anything among the grown-ups, only the children. So that's done. 

But my in-laws and parents will be tough. And I would really like to get most things during Black Friday week.

For my close friends here in our new town, I actually got the present back in May. We went to a sales exhibition and there was this booth of a local board game company, so while we were there we got them an expansion set for a board game they already have. 

My other close friend doesn't want me to spend much money, because she knows about my car which has just needed very expensive repairs. So she is wishing for handmade stuff, a set of cards for herself, handmade pet snacks for her daughter, who volunteers for a local animal shelter. They always have rabbits and guinea pigs in the garden for that organisation. And I thought we might take a walk in the woods and find some natural materials, like large pieces of bark to hide and chew. If the weather clears up anytime soon. And for the boys she'll have to come back to me.

So there is still lots to do, especially since I still need a cartload of cards to send out myself, in addition to the cards for my friend, I better get moving.


This one will certainly not go into mass production, though I like how it turned out a lot. During the process it gave me so much trouble, I almost gave up. 





I used my ZIG markers to colour the image and added some shading with grey alcohol markers, for more dimension. Then I added the gold embossing over the completed image and along the edges and adhered the image to a simple black card base.

I added a Christmas red envelope and embossed the outline on it. 

I love that stamp, I think I might have to challenge myself to try a white poinsettia as well. 

Lots of Love
Ela



Challenges:
Addicted to Stamps and More: #368 Holiday
Creative Friday: #244 red and gold
Always fun Stamping: #138 Anything goes
TCP: #363 Holidays






Monday 25 November 2019

Another 3rd Birthday

Hello Crafters, 

I hope you had a good week-end. I certainly did, I spent the whole of Saturday crafting at the community centre. Paper crafting from 2 to 4 pm and making a Christmas wreath from 6 to 9 pm. 

I picked water colours for the first session and a tutorial Lindsay posted a while back for my inspiration and this is the final result.
 
 
I changed it up quite a bit though, since I wasn't working on water colour paper, I didn't dare use all the splatters, that was just too scary. Also the water colour palette wasn't my own, and it looked so nice and clean, that I didn't dare actually use the mising area, so I picked the colours up directly, which made it all much darked than I had planned. And I also dislike how long I made the path, before it disappears in the distance, and that I didn't make it wider close up. 
I think next time, I'll bring my own palette and brushes to mix.

Despite the fact, that I am unhappy with so many details, I kind of like the overall impression and vibrancy. 

My wreath, I'll have to show you another day, I didn't take a good picture yet, all finished with the candles on (I left those off for the transport home). 

But, to the card: We had another 3rd Birthday boy in my family and since this is the other side of the family, I decided to make it easy for myself and re-create the same Dino card I made a few weeks ago. Those boys will rarely ever meet and certainly not compare cards, so they'll never know. 

Also, I really liked how it turned out. 

So, here is the first version: 



And this is last night's take on it:


Since the images are stickers, I had to use different ones, but otherwise it is much the same.

Have a wonderful day
Ela



Challenges: 
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday

Monday 18 November 2019

But first, Coffee

Hi Crafters, 

I hope you are doing fine. 

Today, I have a coffee card for you. I wanted to try out a stamp set I picked up at a dutch chain store nearby. It was very cheap, so I wasn't sure about the quality. Also I wanted to play with my new Distress Oxides. 

When they came out I decided not to buy them, because I have a tendency to reeeaaally needing every colouring medium I see. I stayed strong, until a few weeks ago, when I decided to try a few colours, that I don't have in the regular distress inks. No duplicates. 

I shouldn't have, now I want them all. 

Since I have quite a few of the bright distress ink pads, my selection of Oxides is very muted, and I really wish I had bought some brights too. 



To balance out the blended strip, I wanted the cups to be bright and shiny, so I went for a rainbowish colour scheme with the cups. 

I am not entirely sure how I feel about this card, except for the sentiment. That is very much how I feel right now, since I barely slept last night.


Lots of Love
Ela



Challenges:
CAS(E) this Sketch: #348
Addicted to Stamps and More: #367 Make your Mark














Wednesday 13 November 2019

CASEing Cactus

Hi Crafters,

how are you doing?
Did I say "all will be well" last week? Turned out there was still another blow to come: my car needs expensive repairs, that ruined my week-end quite a bit and I wasn't much in a mood to create.

But I have recovered from the lack of motivation and created a card last night.

To overcome the block, I remembered this card I loved a lot, that created years ago and decided to use the same concept again.



It was actually a CASE itself, at the time there was a challenge to CAS(e) the Design team of create a smile.

 I really loved how my chameleon turned out, so I decided to re-create it with a different stamp and sentiment. So here is my new take on it:
 

I like the first attempt better, I think I should have used smaller stamp. The way it is, it's mostly just cups of the muted images.


Lots of love
Ela

Friday 8 November 2019

Kunterbunte Geburtstagsgrüße

Hello Crafters, 

how have you been? I am having a bad week. Stressful times at the office, lots of appointments, and caught my self some stupid ear infection that's bugging me. But it's almost the week-end, all will be well.

Today's card came together so easy, once I had started.



I started out by colouring several stamped images, because I was not in the mode for a complete card. Among them that funny armadillo. Since anything that is vaguely stripey sparks rainbow associations in my brain, I coloured his belt in a rainbow. I loved how that turned out, so I wanted to absolutely use that image. 

I gave him his hill to ground him, with just a bit of ink blending. Then I wanted to do a colourful greeting. My go to for individual letters is this Alphabetical die. So I water coloured some pieces of paper and cut out the letters. The compete sentiment means "Motley Birthday greetings", which makes a lot more sense in German. 

I also added a matching envelope with a paler version of the same image. 

What I don't like about that card, is that I didn't think when cutting out the letters, that the same colours would end up right beside each other. I would have wanted that mixed up more. But when I realised it, I didn't want to do all the letters again, so I went with it. 

Also I should have placed them slightly closer to the black sentiment.

Wishing you all a lovely day
Ela



Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Addicted to Stamps and More: #366 Anything goes
Stemelküche: Regenbogen / Rainbow
Always Fun Challenges: #135 Watercolours
Day of the month card club: #9 Look for circles Day




Wednesday 6 November 2019

Metallic watercolour and a butterfly

Hello Friends, 

how are you?

For today's card, I created a striped panel with metallic watercolours, in a rose gold shade. Since I thought that was a bit busy for a full background, I used only a strip of it and added a white panel with a scalloped edge on top with foam adhesive. 




Then I coloured my butterfly with my regular watercolour set, blending pink and grey into each other. 
Since the colour had muted my lines and I already had removed the stamp from my stamping tool, I had to channel my inner Kelly and outline everything. Then I cut out the image and adhered only the body to a grey circle so, the wings can fly up.

I am still struggling where to put a sentiment and in which way. I might leave it as it is. Any suggestions are welcome, since I have been pondering this for over a week now.


Have a beautiful day
Ela




Challenges:
Always Fun Challenges: #135 Watercolours
Simon says Stamp: Anything goes

Sunday 3 November 2019

Birthday Butterfly

Hello Everyone, 

how are you doing?

This is the second card I mentioned a while ago.

I wanted to try out a new pad of water colour paper I got at a rather cheap chain store nearby. They sell a lot of craft supplies, among them the flamingo embossing folder. I got the paper pad because it's very bright white, but I didn't expect much of the quality. And a true water colour artist would most probably not use it. But for my needs it did perform okay. 



I wanted to try the butterfly (also from that store) at the same time, and thought I might practise some no line colouring with my ZIG markers. Finding out that my antique linen ink pad was very dry, I stamped the butterfly in yellow ink, since I originally intended to use yellow for my colouring as well. I changed the plan and used blues and a very pale brown. So now there are still very light yellow and greenish veins visible in real life. I chose a dark brown for the body and also added the sentiments in very dark brown ink. In hindsight I would have preferred only one sentiment.

Since there was no black on the card, I didn't want to use a black or grey card base. I fussed about quite a bit, deciding on the card base colour. I didn't have matching card stock and thought about inking direct to paper, but since tumbled glass and antique linen both need to be re-inked I had to abandon that idea (I don't have the re-inkers at home). In the end I picked vintage photo distress ink and very very lightly blended some of it on a white card base, just enough to achieve a lighter version of the colour I used for the butterfly. I like how that turned out very much.

I had to shorten the card base about half a centimetre from the usual standard card size (German size = 10,5 by not quite 15 cm), because the paper pad is almost but not quite A4 format, meaning it's one cm short. But that truly doesn't bother me. 

By now I have used the same paper for 4 cards, and I really like it. It's surely not good for a true painting, but for background techniques that require water or very simple colouring it's just fine.


Lots of love
Ela



Challenges: 
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Simon says Stamp: Anything goes




Friday 1 November 2019

A fall card

Hey Crafters, 

today I'd like to show you a more fall-like Halloween card. I needed a card to invite our Granddad to our Halloween party, but he is obviously not much into Halloween. For him, it's about seeing his grandchildren. 

So I wanted a card that didn't scream Halloween - or at least not very loudly. 



So I thought this image would be perfect, a Halloween pumpkin, but also with the option to make it more fall themed. Besides, my sister-in-law has a dog like that, who he used to baby sit.
So I added the additional falling leaves and coloured it all with my ZIG markers. 

Initially I had coloured the inside of the jack-o-lantern yellow, to make it glow, but then my daughter pointed out, that if the dog is sitting inside it, it wouldn't be lighted. So I changed it to very dark grey. What do you think? Is he sitting inside or standing behind it?





See the leave up top, that is half cut off? I had to add that, because the liquid adhesive seeped out when I glued the panel to the card base, and it looked really bad. Luckily it's barely visible now. 



The sentiment says simply invitation.

Lots of Love
Ela


Challenges:
Always Fun Challenges: #134 Halloween
Shopping our stash: #407 Halloween
Addicted to stamps and more: #365 Photo