Nature's Beauty

 It's such a dreary day - overcast, damp and cool.  After the rain of the last few days most of the colourful autumn leaves are on the ground, creating a curtain on sidewarlks and road ways, and clogging up storm drains  With each breeze more leaves rain down, movements that fascinate my 2 kittens watching through the back door.

You can just feel that winter is coming and in this part of the country that means snow. 

Which brings us to Christmas......

Today I pulled out "Nature's Beauty" stamp set focusing on the little bunny.  Sometimes I will do that ie. focus on one stamp and make as many different cards as I can with it. Today it was the bunny's turn.

For the first card I also pulled out the "Touch of Frost" DSP which has been carried over from last year.  One nice thing about this DSP is that there is plenty of open space in the bottom to stamp directly onto it. 

The bunny and the twigs of grass were stamped using Black Memento ink and then coloured with Watercolour pencils and a blender pen. The DSP was then added to a Seaside Spray card stock base.

To make the card look more 'wintery' I added some Dazzling Diamonds to the trees and to the shadows in the snow.

Sentiment is from Itty Bitty Christmas which is added to some Scallop Edged Purple Posy ribbon.

Supplies Used:

Stamps:  Nature's Beauty, Itty Bitty Christmas

Inks:  Black Memento, Watercolor Pencils

Papers:  Seaside Spray, Whisper White, Touch of Frost DSP

Accessories:  Dazzling Diamonds, Blender Pen, 1/2" Scallop Purple Posy ribbon, dimensionals

 

New Home

Today I pulled out the Pop up Home stamp set with its coordinating die.  I did not however attempt the pop up house on the card inside.  I'll leave that for a later date.

I used the stamp set and the stamparatus to create the following card:

The image of the house was stamped and coloured with watercolour pencils and an aqua painter on a separate piece of whisper White card stock.  It was then cut out and set aside.

On a 3 3/4 by 5" piece of Whisper White, the stamparatus was used to stamp a fence that looks like it extends across the paper, but only part of a fence was stamped what would be to the left and the right of the house, The fence was coloured with Stampin' Blends.

A pebble path was stamped to extend from the house and then the grass stamp from "Sheltering Tree" stamp set was used to randomly stamp grass around the fence posts  and other areas.  The larger grass stamp was also used to fill in grassy areas in the fore ground and back ground

Branches were stamped on both sides of the house and again coloured with Stampin' Blends.

The house was adhered to the card front on the created scene.  Once adhered, the sentiment was added near the bottom of the house, and a window box with flowers with small dimensionals on the lower window.

Supplies Used:
Stamps:  Pop Up Home, Sheltering Tree
Inks:  Black Memento, Stampin Blends, Watercolor Pencils
Papers:  Bermuda Bay, Crumb Cake, Whisper White
Accessories:  Pop Up Home Framelits, Dimensionals, Aqua painter

Summer Hummingbird - Paper Players #398

At Paper Players this week the challenge is a clean and simple one with a theme - birds.

The bird I used - a Summer Hummingbird.

The image was stamped with Black Memento ink and colored with Watercolor Pencils after which it was die cut with a stitched circle framelit.

This was adhered to the card front using dimensionals.

The card base is Pear Pizzazz, layered with Whisper White which has a piece of Daisy Delight DSP (retired) adhered to it.

The sentiment is from "Best Birds" - punched with a 1" circle punch and layered with a 1 1/4" circle punch.

Supplies Used"

Stamp:  Summer Hummingbird, Best Bird

Inks:  Black Memento, Watercolor Pencils

Papers: Pear Pizzazz, Whisper White, Daisy Delight DSP (retired),

Accessories:  Stitched Circle framelit, 1" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, dimensionals, Wink of Stella, Blender Pen.

A Shaker Balloon Card - another catalogue sneak peak

This shaker card is more of a traditional one in that it uses window sheets.

It is non traditional in that the entire image, from the hostess stamp set "Hand Delivered" is fussy cut and the shaker element is part of a bunch of balloons.

The image was stamped on a 2 1/2 by 5" piece of Whisper White card stock. Before coloring the balloons with watercolor pencils and an aqua painter, I punched a  1 1/4" circle in the lower middle balloon. This I covered on the inside with  some window sheet.

This stamp set has various options for different skirts, so I chose the stripes and used a Rich Razzelberry water color pencil to fill in just the stripes.

The entire image was fussy cut and adhered with foam tape to a 4 by 2 1/4" piece of Whisper White card stock matted with Rich Razzelberry card stock.  I used the retired "Sprinkle Embellishments" for the shaker elements.

The base card is Rich Razzelberry card stock layered with Whisper White followed by a 2 by 5 1/4" striped piece of Perfect Picture Party DSP.  Over the seam I adhered some 3/8" mini chevron Bermuda Bay ribbon.

The focal image was added to the card front slightly off center.  On the right side some Bermuda Bay enamel dots were added.

I die cut the sentiment using the retired "Bitty Banners Framelits"  and added it just handing under the balloons.

As a final touch some 3D enamel lacquer was added to the balloons to give them that shiny appearance.

Supplies Used:

Stamp:  Hand Delivered

Inks:  Black Memento, Watercolor pencils

Papers:  Rich Razzelberry, Whisper White, Perfect Picture Party DSP

Accessories:  ! 1/4" circle punch, Window Sheet, Sprinkles embellishments, foam tape, Bitty Banners Framelits, 3D lacquer, Bermuda Bay enamel dots, 3/8" mini chevron Bermuda Bay ribbon, blender pen

A Catalogue Sneak Peak - Wild About You - Paper Players #390

Finally today I get a chance to play with one of the new stamps in the upcoming Annual catalogue (launch date May 2).  I actually received this stamp set as part of the prize patrol at On Stage London in early April and was really excited to get it. If you ever get a chance to go to any of the local On Stage events put on by Stampin' Up go!!

I decided to use one of the images from this stamp set for the sketch challenge with the Paper Players 

A strip of two patterns of the Crumb Cake DSP was placed across a piece of Whisper White cardstock adhered to a Soft Suede card base.  All the edges  were sponged with Crumb Cake ink before making this base card.

The kangaroo with a wee baby in its pouch was coloured with water color pencils and blended with a blender pen. After die cutting this image with a circle framelit it was matted with a larger Soft Suede circle and adhered to the card front with dimensionals. For interest I added a small branch at the upper right and fussy cut a tiny frog which I placed on top of the branch.  I know you can hardly see him but he was so cute I could hardly resist.

On the right side of the focal point, a strip of burlap ribbon was placed underneath the sentiment "Wild About You" and the card was complete.

Supplies Used:

Stamp:  Animal Outing

Inks:  Black Memento, Watercolor Pencils, Crumb Cake

Papers:  Soft Suede, Whisper White, Crumb Cake DSP

Accessories:  Layering Circle Framelits, 1/2" Burlap ribbon, Dimensionals, Blender Pen

I missed the link up deadline but am posting anyway.

Friends Fur-ever

I love my Stamparatus so much!  It  makes my stamping so much more precise!  Not that it wasn't precise before, but now the worry about a number of things are gone.  Like - is the stamping straight, what if the image doesn't stamp well?

I used the Stamparatus to stamp the image from "We Must Celebrate", a stamp set from the Occasions Catalogue, then coloured the image with watercolor pencils and an aqua painter.  I was most upset to see that the Blendabilities are unorderable until the end of May, so it's back to the basics of colouring- for now anyway.

The image was stamped onto a 4 3/4" by 3" piece of Whisper White cardstock, and as I mentioned, the image was coloured with watercolor pencils and a blender pen.
Before adhering it to a 5 by 3 1/4" piece of Soft Suede cardstock, the rabbit was die cut using 2 sizes of oval framelits (Eclipse technique).  The focal piece was then adhered to the Soft Suede layer, and the "O" added to the aperture with foam tape.  The bunny was adhered to the inside using some tombo glue

The card front is Whisper White card stock, layered with Crumb Cake embossed with the Cable Knit Embossing Folder.  Some Soft Suede DSP cut at an angle was adhered to the lower left of the embossed crumb cake layer, and a 1/4" strip of /Crumb Cake card stock adhered to the edge of this DSP overlapping it slightly with the crumb cake layer.

The focal point was added to the card front using dimensionals.

Supplies Used:
Stamp:  We Must Celebrate
Inks:  Black Memento, Watercolor Pencils
Papers:  Whisper White, Soft Suede, Soft Suede DSP, Crumb Cake
Accessories:  Cable knit Embossing Folder, Blender pen, Dimensionals, Layering Oval Framelits, Stamparatus.