Monday's Projects

 I am really enjoying having a little more daylight after work now a days.. so, Monday afternoon I seen the Clean and Simple challenge was to add in a bird... and so, I picked up the already colored images envelope on my table and flipped through it and found this sweet Penguin and thought why not. ( it was colored with Polychromos and Prisma pencils last fall some time) and has just been waiting. The stitched edge is a Simon Says Stamp wonky die and this one is A2 in real life. that sentiment is out of the Altenew Birthday greetings set.

 A closer look at the coloring this guy is from the Unity Stamps set called Little by Little. I wasn't sure really what color to make him so there are a lot of shades of grey. you can see the brownish "french" ones along with some cool and warm tones.

 Now this was an unexpected bonus. I had not looked at the try a new technique challenge ( the instructions are here) and I had come across some samples in the gallery of others who had combined the two and thought what the heck. ( I had changed out a toilet paper roll that morning before work and knew it.) it was still daylight here So, I tried this ( I have 3 pale shades of cheap acrylic paints and maybe an off white so, that made it a limited supply right off the bat, I did like the burst patterns I made and it had the best contrast with these shades on a darker sheet of cardstock and when it was done it really looked like a Christmas wreath to me. so, I started looking in the previously colored Christmas images envelope and found this mouse. and thought if you add a few more sprigs, it looks like he ran that wreath through the paint and all over the place haha. So, that made the sentiment ( SU) a no brainer.

A closer look at the coloring. done with pencils and a little bit of white gel pen over the top. You can't really see it but there is a piece of wide pale green sheer ribbon that runs under the bottom edge of the stamped panel and wraps around the painted panel. I probably should have wrapped around the red Corrugate too but, such is life. Thanks for stopping by.

Kind Words

Just a simple one that I had originally started coloring this big butterfly from Impression Obsession for the last weeks color challenge ( which was a soft green, blue and lilac type colors) and I got the green a little too on the yellow-y olive side and the purple too pink, and I set it aside. The pencil has some clear wink of stella over the top of the wings and body. So, it was sitting on the table when I seen this weeks featured stamper was revealed to be Michele who happened to have this cool butterfly thank you card with 3 colors popping through the veins of the wings on the butterfly and I thought well, why not... so other changes were to move the sentiment up onto the butterfly panel and not do fancy corners in the matting. The kind words sentiment are from the sugar pea set called Kindness Matters and the thanks is from the Lil' Inker designs set called Just Sayin. This one finished out at 6" in real life.

Inspired by {Spoonflower}

I had come across this Mermaid Tails Print inside the spoonflower site that Angie has directed the Inspiration Challenge to this week and my brain seen Easter Eggs...
So I started flipping through my hanging file folders of prints and looking for mostly solid colors with some texture or pattern to them and picked a handful of old textured mulberry papers, gelli prints, mixed media backgrounds and regular printed papers that worked together and made a row of eggs. ( Spellbinders nested egg die) and I thought I don't want to do a whole panel of these and the stark backgrounds I tried the row on were just too plain so, I grabbed this heat embossed resist background I had done with an old Stampin' Up! fine lace background embossed with some Ranger Verdigris powder and then inked with broken china & cracked pistachio oxide inks and thought OK this is a little better.  wrapped on a scallop edged vintage lace for another "row" and a ha ha almost straight line to follow while gluing the eggs. The mat is a piece of Minty handmade (bits of dried floral in it) Mulberry paper. The base is some SU pear.  This sentiment is a dollar bin Hampton Arts one. (its old) and was cut with a Lawn Fawn banner die. This finished out at A6 in real life.

My Inspiration piece which can be found at Spoonflower here.  I think I missed the yellow/copper colors but, it still has that bright textured vibe for me and I am happy with this one. Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 453 {timeline}

Happy Desk Peeking day to play along or see more check out 

our hostess Miss Julia's Blog here.

 So the image on the far right was colored with just the two distress markers and I added a white gel pen over the top later this was done messing around for the Valentines challenge that started last thursday. this is a friday evening shot. the rest of the blooms were colored at work on friday ( there was a whole lot of hurry up and wait going on)

 On Monday I had happy mail from Simon Says Stamp, I did order two of the AI storage tins and one is completely full and one is mostly full ( no duplicates) I moved all the duplicate colors to the closet and I think there are "new" colors out now that I dont have so there is room for them. The adhesive in the back is supposed to be perfect for vellum ( I have not tried that yet) I did get a SSS stamp set and a card wrap die and 4 of the newest Oxides. ( pink, burgundy and two more greens)

On Tuesday at work there was more hurry up and wait and I have you know maybe 40 pencils there a mixed bag of things so, coloring is like having my own little limited supply challenge.
The rose was stamped with either Distress antique linen or SSS beige ( a long time ago) so I was working on a no line look with pencils.

 My desk this morning. after the nice clean shot of the new things they were all opened and I mostly cut the card wrap die a few times. I do have wax paper in it and I also am using a metal shim to get the cuts, It is going back and forth through my big shot at least 4 times, because I keep turning the die to get the center to cut. ( do you know what I mean so the die feeds into the rollers a different angle each time.) So, I have not take this to work and tried it in a cuttlebug. (but, I think it would be difficult to get a wrap card in that machine because you don't have the landscape of a big cut pad to turn it horizontal. The one video I seen of it being cut was done by Jennifer McGuire and she had run it through an electronic machine. (a small one and it cut for her with one pass like that)

 So a few cards were finished and a few pieces are waiting,

 first card (closed)

 First card open that sentiment is from the SSS stamp set that was in mondays happy mail its called.
Best ever. The background is alcohol inks on Yupo.
Closed this card is 4 1/4" square so the inside card is 4" square.

 The second trial this one is closed with a vellum belly band that hugs die is from Papertrey Ink.

The inside sentiment on this one is from Impression Obsession. so, that is what I have been up to. no new lambs yet but, the other ewe is looking closer. Thanks for stopping by.

Purple Poinsettia

Just a simple one for the Dirty Dozen Christmas card challenge for Feb. 

You can find the details to play along here.

 

 

 A closer look at the poinsettia, this was colored at work last week with the ( duplicate) pencils I keep there so really its a limited supply challenge for me when I do that because, I do have full sets of both Polychromos and Prisma pencils. when I first started buying them I picked them up a handful at a time at a couple of art stores. (before I found buying sets online haha) so, when I did have all the colors I took my duplicates to work and left them there. This is the Penny Black Christmas Pride bloom heat embossed with SU pewter powder on Neenah solar white and cut out with scissors. Its flat in real life. (one layer bloom) I tried to add more shadows to the lower spots when coloring this to give it some depth.

The finished card. the silver glimmer paper is from Micheals and was cut with a Waffle flower lacy squares die. the sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted Message me set cut with a Spellbinders labels trio die. this finished out at 6" square.

A few more Challenge Cards

 two weekends ago Featured Stamper was Karen who had this gorgeous fern card in her gallery that I just loved. I hardly ever use the same stamp someone picked so that I can have one change right off the bat but, for this one I realized that I have the same exact fern stamp and I cannot remember inking it before this. So, I followed her footsteps with distress inks but, in different colors. flipped the fern to horizontal and moved the sentiment down and popped it up. This fern is from Justrite and the sentiment is from the Altenew Thinking of you set.

 And while I had it out figured I may as well stamp it again. this one went vertical with a Happy Birthday tucked in.
The ink colors on the fern are evergreen bough, cracked pistachio & lucky clover.

 This week the ways to use it is to make a "love is in the air" "Valentines" card... I didnt really need a Valentine card but, I had embossed this Simon Says Stamp Emma Background in some SU pewter powder last week while the embossing backgrounds marathon was going on in my space and thought what the heck just color one. the red is Distress candied Apple and the other marker was black soot. there is some cream pencil on this and some white gel pen. the Sentiment is from the Hero Arts many messages set.

 This week's featured Stamper is Amy who has this gorgeous card seen here that I just loved the depth of color on this both the floral panel and its main matting. So, changes were to use a heat embossed Penny Black awaken flower that was colored with some polychromos & prisma pencils and added in that just so useful Altenew sentiment instead of a diecut one. there are also less matting layers on my version. The crackled over the moon press paper here has an actual texture to it in real life it's not flat.

A closer look at the coloring. which is kind of subtle so it did not want to photograph very well.

 A few weeks ago now the color combo challenge was two shades of pale pinks with some pear green. and I tried to color that kissing frogs image and ended up with too many "extra" colors in the end so, I tried it again with this Frantic Stamper marshmallow bunny die. the grass was cut with some martha stewart fringe scissors and inked with a few shades of distress green inks to give it some contrast from the pear base. that sentiment is from Lil inker make a bunny set.