A green and blue B'day card

A tic-tac-toe was the starting point for this challenge. As I am always looking to double challenge myself, I chose to make a birthday card with my chosen row, which is blue and green - layers - die cut. 

I haven't had my leaf dies out for a while and I recently made a batch of gelli papers in several colors, so I was itching to do some creative die cutting.

 

I wanted to make a veritable greenery with some exotic - blue - flowers. Several layers of leaves are placed over one other, in the final layer I raised some of the leaves and all the flowers. 

The sky was made with finger daubers over a torn edge of printer paper.

The birthday wishes kind of disappear in the jungle. In order to draw more attention to the sentiment I chose to make it in glitter paper.

Entering this in:

TTTC Challenge: #tttc216 

 

Die Cut Divas: A birthday-themed month

HLS Die Challenge: July AG with dies

Bastel-Traum: #btchallenge124 Pflanzen / Blumen -- diesmal Planzen zum Geburtstag!

Summer flowers for birthday

 Do you like plain paper or patterned paper for your projects? I would have answered this question with "plain", as I practically never buy patterned paper. Then I started my project and grabbed my favorite papers, made with gelli plate. I had to decide that they were not plain, not even those where I had used one color.  The color creates texture and thus a pattern, and I also use old books as a substrate.

Summer flowers are so pretty, especially those unassuming field flowers. I picked poppy, chicory and a simple nameless flower and stamped them onto some gelli prints, then  heat embossed them with a transparent embossing powder that gives the outline a nice shine.

The background papers are from my snippets box.
 

Entering in:

AsYouLikeIt Challenge: Favorite Patterned or Plain papers (and why) - it would be pattern, but one that I have created myself

Make My Monday: #204 Birthday 

Try It On Tuesday: Summer Blooms

Happy Little Stampers: July Birthday AG

SimonSays Wednesday Challenge: AG 

 

Thank you for stopping by!

Rainbow leaves

 Today I took inspiration from a couple of challenges and created a rainbow card. Something I have never done before. As nice as a rainbow of colors looks on other people's cards I have never really taken to it. But there's a first for everything and a lot to be said for challenging yourself!

Here is the process. I was considering using a sticker for greeting, but in the end they were too big, even the smaller ones, so I wrote my own.

And the finished card:

Entering this into the challenges that inspired me:

Addicted to CAS: #240 Rainbow colors

Sparkles Forum Challenges: #165 No stamping allowed

Happy Little Stampers Die Challenge: AG with dies

CAS Colors and Sketches: #514 sketch 

Thank you for your visit! 

Pretty in pink

 I love challenges for the inspiration they give me. Today's picks were "pink - roses and butterflies - watercolor - hello".

The background was done with watercolor. The rose and butterfly were stamped and colored in with watersoluble crayons.

The word was die cut from a holographic silver card stock.

Entering this in challenges that acted as my muse:

Happy Little Stampers: Watercolor

Just Us Girls: #683 "Hello" 

 Sweet Stamping: Pretty in Pink

Triple B: June Challenge - Inspiration board.  -  I loved that red butterfly!

Daring Cardmakers: Everything coming up roses

Thank you for your visit!

Oh crap! it's Christmas - again!

 Today I was inspired by several challenges that collided nicely. Enter die cuts, critters,  Christmas, coloring pencils and 'juvenile'...

I started by stamping a crocodile and then coloring it in, Christmas-like. It is an old stamp, but new to me, this was its first outing so to speak.

I then die cut a garland and some Christmas baubles and a snowflake.

I couldn't resist an irreverend speech bubble: Oh crap! It's Christmas - again!

Entering it in:

Critter Crazy Challenges: #68 AG with a critter

Crafty Animals: #67 AG with a critter 

SoSS: 222 J is for Juvenile 

Crafters' Challenge: #291 Dies or punches 

HLS: November AG with dies 

Daisy Chain Challenges: #69 Christmas is coming

Kleuren met potlooden: November alles mag (AG) 

Mix It Up: #62 AG+optional open technique  I like water color pencils, they give such a great coverage.

And since e verything I used today was new to me and used the very first time, I need to link this with NBUS again.

 

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

Something yellow

 I just love challenges that, well, challenge me. At Frilly and Funkie the brief is to do something or use something that you find challenging.

For me it's the color yellow. I like to use many other colors but not yellow.

So I used it, and found out it needs rather strong colors as counterparts, but even when combined with a riot of colors it still manages to hold its own.

All leaves are cut from papers that I first made with a gelli plate. I used acrylics and printed paper as my substrate. I find the print gives the color a nice structure.  The flax twine is from my knitting stash, it miraculously matched the color of the yellow twig and brings a whole other dimension to the mix.

The sentiment was stamped and then heat embossed.

 

 I'm entering this card into:

Frilly and Funkie: A rather blustery day

Fab 'n Funky: #546 Dies or Stencils - dies!

Creative Artiste: #80 Anything Mixed Media 

HLS: Anything goes with Dies Challenge 

Pink is a strong color

 A simple card where the text is in the foreground was needed. 

I started by making the background. It used a lace stencil and a soft pink ink spray, then added some haphazard stamping with soft brown.

 The text was die cut from charcoal grey paper and assembled onto die cut vellum.

Lastly I stamped, painted and fuzzy cut two butterflies and adhered them on.

The text says: Together we are strong.

 

I am entering this in the challenges that inspired me:

Paperminutes: #712 Sprüche

Cut it Up Challenge: #236 Pink 

Sisterhood of Crafters: Stencils

Happy Little Stampers: Anything goes with dies 

Sending happy thoughts

This sympathy card was inspired by several challenges which helped me set my design: prompt with color, geometric elements and the use of a die cut.

Entering in:

Crafty chicks: #578 All occasions

Perfectly CAS: #19 Geometric - I chose ovals

Colour and sketch challenge:

Happy little Stampers: AG with dies

A Place to start: #9 Patterned paper

It's time for clean & simple

 I have been skirting the issue of clean and simple - not sure if it's really me? I don't like to overload my cards, but I think they are usually far removed from the CAS aesthetics: lots of white empty space and one focal point.

So I just had to try it. Luckily there are a couple of challenges that kind of play together and got my creative juices flowing.

Craft card stock in a one inch strip, one skeleton leaf die cut (Craft Emotions) and TH Tiny text remnant rubs for the sentiment.

Entering this in:

Allsorts challenge: #639 CAS - clean and simple

Bastel-Traum: #104 Pflanzen Plant

Happy Little Stampers August CAS challenge: Off the edge

AAA cards: #197 One inch strip / optional colored card base 

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything goes

   

For you

 I have a new stamp set from which I selected one stamp. I stamped it several times with Distress ink (Dried Marigold), then painted the flowers with purple watercolor. To make them look really crisp I painted first every other petal, then went in and painted the petals in between. That way every petal had its own watercolor outline, too. When you combine orange and purple you get brown - look at the overpainted Dried Marigold, it's so gorgeous.

I fussy cut the flowers and adhered them onto a background that I made recently with my Gelli plate. The card needed little else. I wound a length of silver thread around the card base and added "For you" in black die cut letters.

Entering in:

Happy Little Stampers: August Watercolor Challenge AG

Try it on Tuesday: Keep it simple

Addicted to Stamps and More: #411 Make your mark 

 NBUS Challenge: #29 August