International Art and Soul Challenge 127

 The challenge for this fortnight has been set by my team mate Hazel, and she wants things on the theme of Light and Dark.

There are a lot of potential ideas for this theme, but I went for one which seems obvious to me - a scene with light and dark within the picture.

I started with a rough area of shading - green shading to blue with some brighter sunshine/sunset colours in the middle, achieved with Distress Ink. I then added a Lavinia fairy - which I got by subscribing to a magazine many years ago - and continued with the overhead brances which use a much more recent Lavinia purchase. The lower vegetation is mainly (or perhaps all) Inkylicious. I must admit, both ranges have some very similar vegetation, and it can be hard to tell them apart. All stamping used Versafine Clair ink in black (for the fairy/toadstool) and green for the vegetation. I then added more depth to the background shading, darkening the edges to create a 'tunnel' effect. Then I added a little water sprinkle to the background sky, and some colour to the overhead berries with a paint pen and sparkle to the fairy with a glitter gel pen. I made the toadstool more opaque using Koh-i-Noor pencils in a variety of brown shades. Finally, I further darkened the outer areas using some Versafine Clair ink for its opacity.

I used similar techniques here, but started with a Brusho background printed from a gel plate. The result was very pale, but I added Distress Ink to define the edge colours. The stamps this time are Lavinia (fairy) and Printable Heaven (extra dandelion heads and fluff) as well as Inkylicious (flowers). As above, I finished the flowers with some paint pen, and added some sparkle to the fairy with glitter gel pen.

International Art and Soul Challenge 105

 The challenge for this fortnight has been set by my team mate CG. She wants us to make a shaped card, and is especially looking for creativity.

Now, this is something I struggle with. I think I have a fairly good sense of colour, but I'm not good at shape and dimension, and that's even worse when we move in to three dimensions. But, with the aid of a die set or several, I came up with this:

The main card shape uses a die set from Marianne Creatables. You need three of the die cuts to get this shape. I added patterned paper which I bought from The Works. 

I decorated the inside with a variety of die cuts. I'm honestly not sure about the dies used for the vases. I suspect they might be Spellbinders (definitely bronze coloured). The flowers were made using dies from Printable Heaven. The sentiment here (and the one on the front) are from a set which I think was Spellbinders too.

As you can see better in this picture, the vases and sentiment are designed to 'pop up' slightly when the card is open.

But everything folds together for posting. The hinges you see are part of the Marianne die set, and they definitely add to the strength of the design.

I do hope you can join us this time.

International Art and Soul Challenge 95

The challenge for this fortnight is on the theme Fairies and/or Elves.

I used a variety of stamps - mainly from Lavinia (the main image was a magazine freebie quite a long time ago), Inkylicious, and Printable Heaven. I combined them on a background which I printed from my gelli plate using Distress Ink and Brushos on to watercolour paper. The stamped images were stamped with Versafine Clair ink.

I hope you can join us this time.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 246

The challenge for this fortnight is to do away with patterned paper. Leave your stash of pretty papers alone, and other than that, any project is allowed!

I made a card and matching box for a friend who retired last month.

I started with some white card which I coloured with Distress Oxide ink in several of my favourite shades.

Then, I embossed two roughly 8in by 8in pieces using an Embossalicious folder. I then added a little more distress ink on some of the embossed areas and finished with a little gilding wax.

I made some flowers using dies from Sizzix's Susan's Garden range, Elizabeth Craft's Susan's Garden Notes range and finally a die from Printable Heaven along with some greenery cut using a Sue Wilson die. To complete both the box and card, I put together a label in Photoshop Elements which I die cut using Spellbinders dies. After photographing, I removed my friend's name from photos of both the card and box because I don't think it's fair to include that sort of detail in public without permission.

And that's it!

I do hope you can join us this time.