Watercolored smpathy card

Hello there,

I have another sympathy card to show you, this time using my favorite watercolor medium: my inktense pencils. But I think with a different sentiment that would also work for a happy occasion.

I started with wetting my watercolor paper with irregular edges. Then I started out with yellow in the middle, bringing in the colors in rainbow order one after the other. I made sure they blend a little, but not too much. After it had all dried I brought in another layer of color and let it dry again.

Then I die cut the flowers from white cardstock and and also from the watercolored piece, so I could inlay the white ones. I mainly did that to avoid having to glue on the stems, that's always such a mess. At last I stamped the sentiment from a German stamp set.


Have  a nice day
Ela


Challenges:
Simon says stamp: Anything goes
Creative Friday: #112 One layer card

Friday Mashup Glamette

Hello Crafters,

I had such a nice surprise this morning, when I checked my e-mails. I won the Friday Mashup Glamettes badge with this card:

Thanks so much to the team for picking me, you have improved my day so much!

Love

Ela

My imaginary chameleon

Hey there,

hope you're all fine.

We had the best day today, at a local corn maize. Getting lost about a million times. The weather was perfect and the people we met all nice. It was great.

And we even came back in time to finish the card I had started in the morning.

I used my new graphic stencil to apply Versamark ink and heat emboss with clear embossing powder. I love how that looks on craft. I got the idea from Anni, thanks! 

The chameleon is watercolored and fuzzy cut with a small white border, which I had to touch up quite a bit with my white gel pen. I used the wrong sort of watercolor paper for him. It's the cheaper one, which doesn't handle water as well as my more expensive one. 

The sentiment is heat embossed in black on some torn vellum. I really love that sentiment, it says "My imaginary friend said you're special". Because I didn't have any layer to hide the ends of the vellum under, I adhered two pieces of thin, off-white paper with rounded corners to the insides.

For the envelop I sponged on some antique linen and vintage foto distress inks with the same stencil. 

I really like how the card turned out, even though I am not entirely happy with  my coloring, I think I could have done that way better, if I hadn't been in a hurry.


Have a good start in the new week.
Ela



Challenges:
Simon says stamp: Anything goes

Cheers

Hello Crafters,

I treated myself to a cool now graphic stencil, and when I received it in the mail, I wanted to try it out straight away. So I started watercoloring with my inktense pencils, but without a big plan in bright colors. 

 Unfortunately I hadn't adhered it to my watercolor paper and the colors crept underneath a bit. So I decided to outline the colored fields in black, to define them better.

When I was done, I didn't like lower part of my coloring, so I cut it off along one of the white lines and ended up with a rather small panel, that I liked a lot.

So I decided to cut off a bit more to make it square and adhere it to a black cardbase. Then I die cut the word Cheers (Paper Smooches) several times from white cardstock and once from black and stacked them to raise up the sentiment and give it some dimension.

Then I created an envelop with my envelop punch board and sponged on some grey shadow ink with the same stencil. I added faux stitching to the address area to define it a bit more.


Hope you all have a great day.
Ela



Challenges:
Simon says: Anything goes
Paper Smooches SPARKS:  Anything goes
Keep it Simple: #49 Keine Stempel / No stamps

Crazy for CAS: #53 Inspiration picture

My imaginary friend

Hello Everyone,

today my daughters sleep at their grandparents, because their Dad and I have a school appointment. And as I was very tired all day, I thought I'd take a nap after work. But life got in the way, I had heaps of work all day and a bad network performance, so I had to wait a lot, which resulted in a much longer workday than I had planned.

So I skipped the nap and did some crafting instead. I probably just needed an outlet for my work frustration.

I felt entirely without inspiration, until I found the panel with the pink embossing paste, a leftover from the cards I made for the fusion challenge. I wanted to use it up, and found a simple sketch I liked, to go with it.

I cut a cardbase to fit it, because it's slightly smaller than a normal cardbase. I cut out a tag shape and stamped the monsters on it, masking of the ones I wanted to go in front. Then I water colored all the  monsters in grey, except the central one, which I colored in bright pink. Then I stamped the sentiment and I added some googly eyes and a tiny black mat and adhered it all to my cardbase with foam dots.

Hope you have a great day
Ela



Challenges:

Freshly made sketches: #155

A sympathy card

Hello Everyone,

remember my (kingfisher) bird stencil? I have a similar one with flying swallows. And as I myself was surprised at how much I like the kingfisher I wanted to try out the other stencil as well. 

I used it with embossing paste on a grey cardbase, added some faux stitching and a simple stamped sympathy sentiment and that's it.

Very simple and straight forward. I think the birds don't stand out a lot, but on the other hand a sympathy card should be rather subtle, shouldn't it?


Lots of love
Ela



Challenges:
Friday Mashup: Stitching

Merry Christmas

Hello out there,

it's almost Christmas. Ah, well, not yet, but I started preparations. The first cards are made, I have an idea for a mass production family card, we even talked about the first wishes already within the family. I am very resolved, to get it all done early, so that I can for once enjoy the Christmas markets and decorations and everything, without having to worry. 

Well - we'll see...

I created two Christmas cards, with my prepared cardbases. For the first I die cut several different sized snowflakes from contrasting patterned papers (by Authentique) and stacked them onto each other. I added two smaller snowflakes and a few drops of glossy accents and a German Christmas sentiment. I also adhered a snowflake to the inside and 3 to the envelop.

For the second  card I used the same patterned papers and die cut a Christmas tree from the greyish-teal paper. I added a mat and die cut the sentiment from the red paper and also added a few droplets of glossy accents.
For this card I left the inside blank and added embossing paste to the envelop.

They both aren't my favorite cards ever, but I wouldn't trash them either.

I like the idea with the snowflakes, but I think I should have picked different papers maybe...


Hope you have a great time
Ela


Challenges (Karte 2):
Keep it simple: #49 Keine Stemplel / No Stamps

A Fall card

Hi Crafters,

I liked the stenciled embossing paste on white cardstock that I did the other day a lot and wanted to use it some more. So I prepared several white cardbases with it, to use it in the next days (probably weeks) with different focal images. 

I also created two on craft card bases and (on my daughter's request) one teal one on white. 

I haven't used them all up yet, but I already created two Christmas cards (that I didn't photograph yet) and a fall card with these card bases. Today, I am showing you my fall card.

I used a Bo Bunny pumpkin stamp and colored it with copics, once again realizing that I really should do the OOC about copics. Yet I've read that you  need to print out practice images for it and I can't to that, because my printer's ink bleeds like hell with copics and watercolor alike.

Anyhow, this pumpin is pretty busy with all the type and doodles, so I reckon my inexpertly done copic coloring is not so obvious.


I stamped the sentiment in white and black to create a kind of shadow and added a few drops of glossy accents. The envelop is stamped with the same pumpkin in grey.


Hope you have a lovely day
Ela

Another Kingfisher card

Hello Everyone,

I created another kingfisher card with my bird stencil. This time I used embossing paste though the stencil. 
After it had all dried I re-attched the stencil over the bird and colored it with distress inks. This way the bird is raised up just a little. I really like the effect and feel of that.

I also sponged the same bird on the envelop, but without the embossing paste. 

The sentiment says "With best wishes", so it can be used for almost any occasion and it's stamped in Vintage Foto ink to match the branch.

I adhered the panel to a blue card base, to match it with the colors on the bird. I really like how that coordinates. 


Hope you have a great day
Ela


Challenges:
Stempelküche: Schablone / Stencil

Embossing paste and watercolor

Hello Everyone,

I absolutely wanted to try the technique Jennifer McGuire showed a few days ago, watercolor on embossing paste. So I created a panel with blue and green tones, that I liked a lot. But when it had all dried (a day later) I was a little at loss what to do with it.

I decided to combine it with some vellum and die cut feathers, so here it is:

I hadn't planned it, but in the end it turned into a rather free interpretation of the "Make the day special" sketch. 

 I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment on a strip of vellum. The feathers are also cut from vellum. For the first version I had the circle in white and the feathers colored with distress inks, but I didn't like the harsh white circle, so I sponged it in soft pool. But now the colored feathers were quite lost, so I cut them again to have them non-colored. I added some rhinestones for some bling. 

I adhered another vellum feather to the inside and cut the feathers again from fun foam to use as a stamp for the envelop.

To be honest: That's not one of my favorite cards, it somehow just didn't work out  how I imagined. Maybe I like it better tomorrow. Or maybe I should add a small white mat to the colored panel? I'll think about that.
What do you think? Any suggestions? My Ex hubby said he liked it. But on the other hand, we're friends, he'd shamelessly lie so as not to hurt my feelings...


Hope you have a great day
Ela


Challenges:
Stempelküche: Schablone / Stencil
Make the day special: Sketch