Saturday 30 September 2017

School robot

Hi Crafters, 

how are you all? 

I am fine today, over here the fall holidays started and I am  more than happy to be rid of all the homework for two weeks. The last few weeks were really tiresome. 

So, today I am showing you a school related card, even though we're already 5 or 6 weeks into the new term. 

A few days ago, I found to photos of cards I made on my mobile, that I had totally forgotten. Here's the first of them. The school bag is a digital freebie and the robot is from a digital stamp collection. Both are printed on watercolour paper. I coloured the images with water colours, but I am not sure anymore, which medium. Probably my Inktense pencils.



Then I just adhered the panel on a green card base. No sentiment this time, I wrote a personal message on the inside. 

Also, I am proud to announce, that my card with the little dog made the top 3 over at Night Shift Stamping.


 
Hugs
Ela




Challenges: 
Less is More: #348 Water Colour
Simon says Stamp: Anything goes
Addicted to Stamps an More: #261 Anything goes
Always Fun Challenges: #25 Anything goes

 

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Flying Hearts

Hello Everyone, 

how do you do?

A while ago, I received a pad of patterned paper as a surprise gift from a friend, which made me sooo happy (thanks again!). And as you may know, I struggle a bit, with letting go any patterned paper, so I decided to use the first sheet right away, just to make a start on the pad.

And I wanted to send her a card in return, so I combined both ideas. I created a small envelope with my envelope punch board and punched out some tiny hearts from a scrap of red card stock. I adhered it all to a white scalloped panel, so the hearts would fly out of the opened envelope.


Then I mounted the panel on a craft card base with a strip of the same patterned paper peeking out. I also embellished the inside and the envelope with some more hearts and covered all of the hearts in Glossy Accents, except those on the inside.


That's it from me, have a great day!
Ela


Challenges: 
Addicted to stamps: #261 Anything goes
Always Fun Challenges: #25 Anything goes

Sunday 24 September 2017

Birthday cat

Hello again, 

here's another Birthday card for you. You can't ever have enough of these...

As you may know, I love cat stamps, and when I found this fish bone stencil, I knew I had to have it. 








To try it out, I wanted to create an ombre effect with embossing paste. Unfortunately that didn't work out as intended, but I used the panel anyway. 

I stamped, coloured and fuzzy cut the cat and embossed the sentiment on vellum. I adhered the cat to the card front, so that it looks like it's hanging off the sentiment strip.


See you soon
Ela




Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Just add ink: #378 Texture

Saturday 16 September 2017

Challenge up your life: Challenge #75 Sketch

Hello Crafters,

it's challenge time again at




This week, we have a beautiful versatile Sketch for you:


Challenge #75 Sketch



I personally struggle quite a bit with sketch challenges, I usually tend to leave them out. But this one I liked so much, I couldn't stop myself and created three cards - with the intent to do a whole series with all my critters and washi tapes. 

I have been playing with my Polaroid frame dies a lot lately and this sketch made me reach for them once again. So I chose a cute doggy and a few accessories and coloured them with alcohol markers. Then I added just a few strips of Washi tape and a slim sentiment strip and that's it. Very clean and simple.



After a day or two with this card still sitting on my craft desk, I decided to go back and create a second card. This time I chose two fish stamps by Dyan Reaveley, because they are just so hilarious. I coloured them in greens and yellows and added yellow and aqua Washi tape. For a pop of colour I chose some Washi with Flamingos and added a sentiment strip in the same Flamingo pink.


For the third card I picked one of the cats in the Tim Holtz set and coloured a bit of a background scene  to ground him.




For all three envelopes I just added strips of the same Washi tape under the address area.

Now it's over to you, what will you make of this sketch?

Hugs
Ela



Challenges: 
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
The Daily Marker: 30 days colouring Challenge 
AAA Cards: Creatures Great or Small
Nightshift Stamping: For boys/men (the dog card)
Simon says Stamp: Clean & simple

Saturday 9 September 2017

Tiny Polaroid Frames

Hi Crafters, 

How are you? Hope you're having a better week-end than me. 

I am suffering a bit from lack of sleep and worry right now, because last night my older cat Phoebe had some kind of epileptic seizure. We had to go see the vet in the middle of the night and afterwards I sat up all night with her, because she was under strong medication and I had a bad feeling about her condition. I didn't want to sleep and not be there fore here, in case anything more happened. 
It all looked pretty bad at the time and even though she is better now, she obviously is still not well.

To balance my worrisome news, I have a quite cheerful card for you today. For this one I used some supplies, that usually make me struggle a bit: patterned paper, a border punch and alcohol markers. 

I love patterned paper, but I really really don't know how to use it. I find it a bit scary and on top of that, if I like it a lot I really struggle letting it go. Cutting  into it is really hard for me. 
Therefore I have decided not to buy any paper packs anymore, with few exceptions. One of them is paper I can use as a backdrop for my card photos, which I keep separately in a pizza box, to avoid accidentally using it. A bit paranoid really, as I am so reluctant to cut any patterned paper.
The other exception is a crafty outlet I visit every now and then. If they have papers I really like, I get several sheets of the same patterns. This way I am not so worried of using them, because I know I have enough. That's were I got this paper as well. I love the cheerful colours.

Punches are not so scary to me, but as I store them in a box, I tend to forget them. That is why only recently I moved the most versatile ones to a drawer, where I can easily access them. Otherwise I would probably not have used the scalloped border...

And as for alcohol markers: I own hardly any Copics, I use a German brand which is much cheaper, but most of them have bullet tips and I struggle with them quite a bit. But I am trying to get more accustomed to them.



I started out on this card, with several ideas I wanted to combine. I knew I wanted to use a row of tiny Polaroid frames with some small critters and I also wanted to use that paper again. I made another card with it only recently and loved how it turned out. And of course I wanted to use my alcohol markers for some very simple shading. 

So this time, I pretty much did what I had planned. The sentiment means Congratulations (actually we congratulate) in German. It got lost a bit on the pattern, therefore I stacked it up to give it more dimension. 

I also embellished the inside of my card, with a strip of the same pattern and a few circles, which I cut out from the backside of the same paper.


I didn't create an envelope yet, but I think I will just go with a vellum envelope. They look wonderful with almost any card. Besides I probably hand over this card personally, because of the bulk. 

That's it from me for today, have a great day. 

Hugs 
Ela


Challenges:
Stempelküche: Haustiere/Pets
AAA Cards: Creatures Great or Small  
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Simon says Stamp: Stamp it
The Daily Marker: 30 days colouring Challenge 
CAS on Sunday: #116 Color me Pretty, use Pencils or Markers
 

Tuesday 5 September 2017

Schorschi the donkey

Hi Crafters,

how are you today? I am feeling fine, though already pretty fed up with school. It's been only three weeks, I wonder how I will ever make it through the year. 

Today, I'd like to intruduce you to our newest familiy member Schorschi, isn't he adorable? I think he is so cute!



He originally is a Freebie digital stamp, and you can get him at Birka's. She had a few of her freebies made into actual stamp sets, Schorschi among them, and I won him last week at the Task for Two Panda Challenge. Thanks again Birka!

When he arrived I was having a rather tough day, and by the time the kids were in bed, I really needed a  bit of me-time. So, I coloured him with alcohol markers, in cool greys and neutral greys, and a bit of peachy pink for his ears and belly. Then I cut the panel to look like a torn page from a notebook and added the small happy Birthday sentiment strip, which is heat embossed, as usual.

For the background I wanted to imitate some of the beautiful pattered paper with water colour stripes that are out there at the moment. I chose a skin colour and mixed in the tinyest bit of red to match the pink on the ears and belly. As the panel is regular cardstock, I used only very little water. Then I die cut the panel to a convenient size and adhered it to a black card base.

Schorschis panel was popped up with foam tape and I also added a star shaped paper clip.

So, that's it from me today, I hope you have a good day
Ela



Challenges:
Stempelküche: Haustiere/Pets
AAA Cards: Creatures Great or Small  
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Simon says Stamp: Anything goes
The Daily Marker. 30 days colouring Challenge




  

Saturday 2 September 2017

Challenge up your life: Challenge #74 Moodboard

Hello Crafters,

it's challenge time again, so please check out





This time we have a colour / moodboard challenge for you. Isn't the image adorable? I love the fog between the trees.
 

Challenge #74 Moodboard

 

 

However, this was a real challenge for me. I generally find colour challenges difficult and with these colours, beautiful as they are, even more so. 

In the end, I decided to stick very close to the image and try my masking and ink blending skills. They can do with quite a bit of practise. I used worn lipstick, shaded lilac, dusty concord and black soot to create the circle area and stamped some wildflower silhouettes over the circle.

Originally, my intention was to keep it very simple, with just a sentiment, but when I had the panel finished, I felt it needed a bit more. So I chose a purple card base, which was just a touch to pale for my taste, so I blended a bit of black soot over the whole card front. Not much, just a tiny bit. Then I cut down the panel, rounded the corners and used a border punch to create the top edge. Is there a name to that kind of border?


I did the same with a piece of vellum and adhered both panels on top of each other at an angle. As an embellishment I added a pink paper clip arrow. 
For the sentiment, I punched two small tags from vellum and the same purple card stock (darkened again with black soot) and chose a small German sentiment, which I heat embossed in white onto the vellum. 


Now it's your turn, I'm curious what you will create.
Ela



Challenges:
Simon says Stamp: Anything goes