Happy birthday!

 ... called the gnome excitedly and made a jump in the air. 

I took inspiration from a few wonderful challenges and gathered my supplies: stamps (ferns by Marianne,  Queen Anne's lace by Kaisercraft), colored pencils and the Hopping gnome die (also by Marianne).

 

I had long wanted to make a double layered card where the background and foreground images match and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I wanted to create a scene from a woodland garden, complete with a gnome.

 

I had a rounded square left over from a recent make (I only used the frames for this one). I stamped the images on both surfaces, then colored in the parts that would show. I die cut and colored the gnome. 

 

I am playing with this card in these lovely challenges:

Inkspirational: #369 Visual prompt: woodland gnome 

Cardz4Guyz: #387 Gardens/ gardening 

Pearly Sparkles: #120 This makes me smile 

Kleuren met potloden: Alles mag / AG 

 

Two adventurous fish

 After 'three of something' there is now a challenge with 'two of something' - how fun. I paired it with a sketch and got ideas for it via two other challenges.

 

But first,  I pulled out the fun stuff I thought I would need: two embossing folders, dies, stamps and gelli printed and ink smushed paper in suitable colors. I sketched the outlines of the wavy pieces, then tore them. The sun was die cut. The fish were first stamped with pale blue an a pink gelli print, then stamped again with grey and when that didn't look good enough and it was still wet, I sprinkled some clear embossing powder on them and heat embossed.

 

The bottom blue layer was dry embossed with a seaweed kind of pattern - not that you can really tell. (It is Weeping Willow by Creative Expressions.) The 'sky' part was embossed with a ray pattern.

 

Entering this in these lovely challenges that inspired me today:

Freshly Made Sketches: #740  

Cardz 4 Gyuz: #386 Squash it 

The Sisterhood of Crafters: Fish / Sea creatures 

The Alphabet Challenge: D is for Double 

And because this was the first time using the seaweed dies, I am showing this in the

NBUS: # 87 June