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


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

Happy Easter and another bunny

Hello Crafters,

Just a very quick note from me:  one of my girls was ill last week, therefore I had no time for anything much. But at least I created another one of the little gift wraps, because as you know, I have two daughters...

So I did the other one the same way, only in different colours and stamped the other way round.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter!

Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #37: Bunnies

Hello Crafters,

it's time again for another Challenge at: 

Ready for Easter, we are looking for Bunnies for the next two weeks.

Challenge #37 Bunny

Of course I used my favourite Bunny, from Purple Onions Design, and I wanted to use my brand new set of  Polychromos pencils. Yeah, I know, I said I would make do without. But my sister-in-law gave them to me for my Birthday a while ago. And I love them, THANKS!

I thought a little gift box for Easter would be nice, so I picked a bright orange card stock, die cut the pillow box and stamped and coloured directly on the box, without a belly band this time.

I thought blue would go well with the bright orange, and I think I was right.

So, show us all your bunnies, and don't forget to check out what the other ladies created.

Hugs

Ela  

Wild horse

Hi Crafters,

today I have an entirely handmade card to show you. My daughters are invited to a birthday party tomorrow, and their friend likes horse riding. So I wanted to create a card with a horse. But I didn’t have a suitable stamp and didn’t find a digital image I liked. So I decided to try my watercolour skills.

It didn’t turn out the way I had imagined it, so when I was done I didn’t like it at all and went to bed rather frustrated. The mane is rather a bit too wild, and I had imagined more shadows and structure on the face, but didn’t dare paint them in.

But when I saw it the next morning, I thought it wasn’t all that bad. Rather messily painted, but still recognizable as a horse and watercolour needn’t be perfectly realistic. I like it after all. And I think so will the Birthday child.

I decided to keep the card simple and not even use a sentiment. I thought maybe she'd like to keep the image and that way she can frame it without the sentiment spoiling the effect.

Have a nice week-end

Ela

Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
(Hope that's ok, even without a Birthday sentiment, because it is intended as a Birthday card)

Challenge up your life: Challenge #36 Die Cutting

Hello Crafters,

welcome to the new Challenge at

This time we are challenging you to use one of my favourite techniques:

Challenge #36 Die Cutting

I love die cutting, you can create all kinds of cool effects with it. For this challenge I wanted to use a die that I actually had for a year and never used. Having disregarded it so long, I now really wanted to put it to work...

So I went for an inlay background grey on white and white on grey. That was one fiddly bit of work, whatever made me go for inlaying with such an intricate die? I must be losing it...

When it was all done I had two panels and no idea of how I wanted to continue. Besides I didn't like the backgrounds as much as I had thought, so I wanted to cover up a bit of them, but not too much.

I found a gorgeous digital stamp of a robot with a balloon - robots being the obvious choice with the clockworks - but unfortunately it was out of sale.
Looking for an alternative, I found myself a great collection of digital stamps at Prettygrafikdesign, with some very cute toy robots and combined them with some balloon stamps I had in my collection.

I coloured all images with water colour pencils, doing only very simple shading. Then I fuzzy cut them out and adhered them with foam tape.

I placed both robots on a strip of coloured card stock to ground them. The red one is water colour paper, coloured with the same pencil I used on the robot and balloon. And the green is a just normal green card stock, but layered with a torn strip of vellum on which I heat embossed the sentiment. 

I picked Birthday sentiments for both cards to go with the cheerful balloons. Besides you can never have enough Birthday cards. As I make my cards for friends and family I gravitate towards German sentiments whenever I can.

To finish them off, I added strings and Glossy Accents to all of the balloons and adhered the front panels to coloured card bases (grey and green). I like the little surprise, when you open the card, and the inside is in an unexpected colour.

Now, go ahead and create a project using your dies. And please also check out what the rest of the design team created. Those ladies are so talented!

Have a nice week-end
Ela


Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: No toppings
Laura's Loft: Watercolour

Thank you card

Hello crafters,

I found a photo of a card on my phone, that I hadn't posted yet. The photo was taken in the car, just before we gave away the card, because I had forgotten to take one at home. So please excuse the background...

I love this image it reminds my so much of one of my daughters and her obsession with her teddy. That is the only reason why I bought that sleepover girl's night stamp set in the first place.

I water coloured the image on water colour card stock. After it had dried, I die cut the word from yellow fun foam and from the image itself. Then I layered the two die cuts, pieced them back in and glued the whole panel to a yellow card base.

I don't think you'll be able to see it in the picture, but I also added glossy accents to the eyes, to make them shiny.


Have a great day
Ela

Sketchy condolences

Hi Crafters,

 today I'd like to show you a card that was inspired by a brilliant technique  video I saw on youtube the other day. Unfortunately today I don't remember where exactly that was, I've been searching the web for an hour. If anyone recognises the design, please let me know, so I can give credit.

I really wish I could draw, but I just don't have that talent, so I have to fake it.

I went to my local art supplies store an got two shades of grey Polychromos pencils, special for this technique. I already had a white one and I used the black outliner pencil from my Inktense set. With those I set out to try it myself.

I stamped one of the flowers of a Tim Holtz stamp set. Then I sketched in my shadow areas with a light grey at first, darkening the deepest shadows layer after layer.

At first I thought I didn't like it, but then I put it aside and looked at it with a little more distance and suddenly I did, so I decided to make it into a card.

I cut it down and used a border punch on the top edge. Then I cut an off-white card base and a black matte, also with a punched border.

For a sentiment I picked a German sympathy sentiment just because of the non-colour scheme. 

Have a nice week-end

Ela

Birthday Polaroid

Hi out there,

how are you all?

I managed to squeeze in a bit of creative time last week-end, which made me really happy.

I managed to finish two cards I had started during the week for Challenge up your Life. But I can't show you these yet. 
The third card is a Birthday card I needed a for my friend's 4 year old daughter.

I had planned to do pink and glitter for her, because she has two older brothers, so she gets plenty of non-girly stuff... But when I started creating, my card somehow went in a totally different direction.

I often see those Polaroid cards, and I really like that idea, so I really wanted to make something like this for ages. I started out by picking two of my new  Purple Onion Designs stamps, the large flower and the squirrel, stamped and water coloured them with my Inktense pencils.

While the images dried, I created my own Polaroid frame and the shaker element. Then I fuzzy cut the squirrel and picked the part of the scene I wanted to show.

After the shaker was all done and closed, I started thinking about the card base, and nothing seemed to make me very happy. So, I let myself be inspired by the "Less is more" texture challenge.
I applied white embossing paste through a stencil on a white card base. That was the point when I was really unsure if this card wasn't a bit too white for a little girl. But in the end I went with it, because of the shaker and the cute squirrel.


Have a great day
Ela



Challenges:
Laura's Loft: Watercolour
Seize the Birthday: No toppings 
The daily marker: 30 days coloring challenge
Less is more: #264 Add some texture
The cat's pajamas: #308 Animals