Saturday 26 March 2016

Happy Easter and another bunny

Hello Crafters,

Just a very quick note from me:  one of my girls was ill last week, therefore I had no time for anything much. But at least I created another one of the little gift wraps, because as you know, I have two daughters...

So I did the other one the same way, only in different colours and stamped the other way round.




Wishing you all a very happy Easter!
Ela

Sunday 20 March 2016

Challenge up your life: Challenge #37: Bunnies

Hello Crafters,

it's time again for another Challenge at: 






Ready for Easter, we are looking for Bunnies for the next two weeks.


Challenge #37 Bunny


Of course I used my favourite Bunny, from Purple Onions Design, and I wanted to use my brand new set of  Polychromos pencils. Yeah, I know, I said I would make do without. But my sister-in-law gave them to me for my Birthday a while ago. And I love them, THANKS!



I thought a little gift box for Easter would be nice, so I picked a bright orange card stock, die cut the pillow box and stamped and coloured directly on the box, without a belly band this time.

I thought blue would go well with the bright orange, and I think I was right.



So, show us all your bunnies, and don't forget to check out what the other ladies created.

Hugs
Ela  

Friday 18 March 2016

Wild horse

Hi Crafters,

today I have an entirely handmade card to show you. My daughters are invited to a birthday party tomorrow, and their friend likes horse riding. So I wanted to create a card with a horse. But I didn’t have a suitable stamp and didn’t find a digital image I liked. So I decided to try my watercolour skills.

It didn’t turn out the way I had imagined it, so when I was done I didn’t like it at all and went to bed rather frustrated. The mane is rather a bit too wild, and I had imagined more shadows and structure on the face, but didn’t dare paint them in.

But when I saw it the next morning, I thought it wasn’t all that bad. Rather messily painted, but still recognizable as a horse and watercolour needn’t be perfectly realistic. I like it after all. And I think so will the Birthday child.

I decided to keep the card simple and not even use a sentiment. I thought maybe she'd like to keep the image and that way she can frame it without the sentiment spoiling the effect.


Have a nice week-end
Ela

Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
(Hope that's ok, even without a Birthday sentiment, because it is intended as a Birthday card)

Saturday 5 March 2016

Challenge up your life: Challenge #36 Die Cutting

Hello Crafters,

welcome to the new Challenge at

This time we are challenging you to use one of my favourite techniques:


Challenge #36 Die Cutting


I love die cutting, you can create all kinds of cool effects with it. For this challenge I wanted to use a die that I actually had for a year and never used. Having disregarded it so long, I now really wanted to put it to work...



So I went for an inlay background grey on white and white on grey. That was one fiddly bit of work, whatever made me go for inlaying with such an intricate die? I must be losing it...

When it was all done I had two panels and no idea of how I wanted to continue. Besides I didn't like the backgrounds as much as I had thought, so I wanted to cover up a bit of them, but not too much.

I found a gorgeous digital stamp of a robot with a balloon - robots being the obvious choice with the clockworks - but unfortunately it was out of sale.
Looking for an alternative, I found myself a great collection of digital stamps at Prettygrafikdesign, with some very cute toy robots and combined them with some balloon stamps I had in my collection.

I coloured all images with water colour pencils, doing only very simple shading. Then I fuzzy cut them out and adhered them with foam tape.

I placed both robots on a strip of coloured card stock to ground them. The red one is water colour paper, coloured with the same pencil I used on the robot and balloon. And the green is a just normal green card stock, but layered with a torn strip of vellum on which I heat embossed the sentiment. 

I picked Birthday sentiments for both cards to go with the cheerful balloons. Besides you can never have enough Birthday cards. As I make my cards for friends and family I gravitate towards German sentiments whenever I can.

To finish them off, I added strings and Glossy Accents to all of the balloons and adhered the front panels to coloured card bases (grey and green). I like the little surprise, when you open the card, and the inside is in an unexpected colour.


Now, go ahead and create a project using your dies. And please also check out what the rest of the design team created. Those ladies are so talented!

Have a nice week-end
Ela


Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: No toppings
Laura's Loft: Watercolour

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Thank you card

Hello crafters,

I found a photo of a card on my phone, that I hadn't posted yet. The photo was taken in the car, just before we gave away the card, because I had forgotten to take one at home. So please excuse the background...



I love this image it reminds my so much of one of my daughters and her obsession with her teddy. That is the only reason why I bought that sleepover girl's night stamp set in the first place.

I water coloured the image on water colour card stock. After it had dried, I die cut the word from yellow fun foam and from the image itself. Then I layered the two die cuts, pieced them back in and glued the whole panel to a yellow card base.

I don't think you'll be able to see it in the picture, but I also added glossy accents to the eyes, to make them shiny.


Have a great day
Ela