Life is wonderful, says the cat

 There are a few challenges again that collide in the nicest possible way and provide a lot of inspiration. The basic idea for the card comes from a tic-tac-toe row of die-cut / stencil / own choice (=stamping). Now when it came to the die cut I remembered another challenge which wants to see four-legged friends (my choice is a cat). And because Humor is always high on my list I chose to stamp fish and a sentiment that gives a humorous spun to the card.

Both the sentiment stamp and the fish stamps were purchases from two years ago. The speech bubbles are much older. When you add up everything this is what I got:

The text reads "Life is wonderful".

Entering this in:

Retro Rubber Challenge: #211 Tic-Tac-Toes! - I selected diagonal "your choice - die cut - stencil"

Friendship Challenge: #89 Tiere / Animals

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Four legged friends

The Alphabet Challenge: H is for Humour 

Addicted to Stamps and more: #450 Die cuts and/or stencils- I used both

Inspired by...

Inspirational challenges are plentiful - it is always a pleasure to choose a few as base ideas for a card. Today's ideas circle around World Conservation Day and include animals, kraft card stock and foliage. I pulled out my woodland animal stamps.

 They are of different scale, the squirrel being larger than the deer, so I opted for a postage stamp approach. I also chose to make this a Christmas card ("Hyvää joulua" = Merry Christmas). I masked the postage edges and stamped with Versafine Clair brown ink and colored the postage stamps in with Distress Oxides.

 Entering this in:

Festive Friday Challenge: #FFO138 I chose: animals, kraft card stock and foliage

Friendship Challenge:  #89 Tiere / Animals

Inksprinational Challenge: Word prompt "Christmas in July" 

Get Creative Challenges: #123 Christmas in July

Thank you for your visit!

What if...

 When I read through challenges I tend to be on the look-out for ideas that can be combined for maximum effect. Today I came upon a few and thought, what if ---?

What if one could do stencil with watercolor and create one's own background with dots or stripes? That's four lovely challenges right there and as I see it, they can only enhance one another and make me go out of my comfort zone. 

I selected a stencil that had both dots and stripes and went to town.

I stamped butterflies with dark blue, colored them in with copics, then stamped the sentiment also in dark blue ("congratulations") and added some clear higlights.

Here is the finished card:

Entering this into the challenges that inspired me to create it:

Simon Says Monday Challenge: Watercolor

Allsorts Challenge: week 730, Use a stencil 

Cards4Galz: #199 Backgrounds

Friendship Challenge. #87 Punkte oder Streifen / Dots or stripes --- I went with both!

Papercraft Challenges: #94 Things with wings

Male greetings...

 ... are the hardest for me to make. I don't know men that enjoy getting cards with tools or beer bottles on them, as I don't do cards for women with lipsticks or perfume bottles on them. So something more neutral, while still being fun, was the order of the day.

I started by making my own background with Yupo paper and alcohol markers. I used two shades of grey for the background and a dark brown for the 'matting'.

I then stamped leaves with two colors with Distress inks, then went in with the outline stamp and stamped it a bit offset from the leaves. The stamp set has coordinating dies and it took some fiddling to get them to die cut properly.

 

Here is the finished card. I added a birthday-appropriate sentiment and a small paper flier to bring in some movement and add a fun factor, both recently purchased from the wonderful Perlenfischer company.

I am entering this into the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge: 671/2 Masculine

Friendship Challenge: #76 Die Natur wird grün

Stamping Sensations Challenge: April - I love...   - I love that leaf stamp set by Altenew!

Craft Rocket Challenges: #91 For the boys/ men - This card is for my son

Mod Squad Challenge: April anything goes

Sweet spring

 I was inspired to show my favorite color which is pink. Anything pink will do. If, like today, pink is playing the lead role the results are overly sweet. The sweetness may be even underlined by the fact that I used neon watercolors from the 90's (a great thrift store find).

Pink combines well with green, and i do like the two together, it is a very natural combination. To that end I underlaid the sweetness with craft paper which was stenciled with a lightly shimmering paste.

entering in:

AllSorts Challenge: Spring is in the air

Alphabet Challenge: Y is for Your favorite color combination

NSS Challenge:  #10 Bekennt Farbe - Lieblingsfarben

Friendship Challenge: #75 Alles geht 

Happy Stampers March Watercolor Challenge: Anything goes