Valentine Background

I am taking the opportunity with my background #2 DT sample for Country View Challenges to make a Valentine card for my hubby.

I began with ivory smooth cardstock and stamped the Valentine words from Tim's Valentine Silhouettes set using antique linen distress paint and heat dried it.

Next I took festive berries and fired brick distress inks and blended them across the card and over the paint.

Take a damp cloth and gently wipe over the surface lightly to remove the ink from the painted surfaces and then spritz with water to activate the ink and allow it blend and create distressing. You can see the water marks in the photo below.

Then scuff, distress and blend ground espresso ink around the edges and ... eh voila the background is finished.

 

Now let's see what I did to finish the card.

Using the same set of stamps I stamped the hearts in antique linen and fired brick, cutting some out not knowing which ones I wanted to use at this point. I needed something brown so I found a scrap of card that had been altered to look like rust and I stamped the set of hearts again in clear embossing powder and clear embossed.

With the rust one I added a red and an antique linen one stamping them all with text using Tim's ledger set.

Using the friendship words thinlits I die-cut the words I wanted found a black star and a customer fastener in which I put a clock face.

With a piece of coloured hessian the design now came together.

Fairly simple but quite effective I think.

I'm now ready with hubbies card for Sunday and looking forward to a quiet day.

I see Frilly and Funkie have a 'Love is in the Air' challenge so I am entering their challenge again this month.

Thanks for stopping by again today, I hope you have been able to take a look at the new backgrounds challenge at CVC and maybe you have even entered.
Enjoy the rest of the week and happy Valentines Day to you all.

hugs Brenda xxx

All you need is love.......

 But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.

Charles M. Schulz

Tim Holtz - Valentine Silhouettes	Ledger Script Stamp Set by Tim Holtz	Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Festive berries	Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Fired brick
Tim Holtz distress ink pad - Ground Espresso	Ranger Archival ink pad - Jet black	Tim Holtz Distress Paint Antique Linen	Tim Holtz - Crescent moon & stars Bigz die
Thinlits Die Set 16PK - Friendship Words: Script by Tim Holtz	Idea-Ology Custom Fasteners

InLinkz.com

Caged Butterfly

Firstly I chose five challenges from Wednesday's challenge list to create this card. Color Throwdown where the colours to use are pink pirouette, melon mambo and baja breeze. Stampavie and more want you to use flowers. Flutterby Wednesday challenges us to use flowers with a butterfly, fairy or angel!  Fab 'n' Funky challenge us to make our own embellishments and Gingersnap Creations have asked us to create our art around our favourite quote. I knew I wanted to play with the TH birdcage again and this is what I ended up with.

I heat embossed the cage with a sparkly embossing powder and decided that I would put a butterfly in the cage rather than a bird. Quite inspiring for me I thought!! I made and added my own charms from beads and I made my own flowers.

 The swirl and quote are also by Tim and I printed out a tiny bird to add to the overall effect with another small MS butterfly.

The coloured papers fitted the colour challenge and I have used more of my music paper, sewing them all together. The card and baja breeze backing paper were edged with copper Adirondack acrylic paint dabber, the pink paper was distressed and edged with cotton candy stickles and the quote was distressed and edged with stardust stickles. I added glossy accents to both butterflies and the bird, and sprinkled some glitter into the glossy accents on the large butterfly. I have also used the Sakura glitter pen in places.

We are off to Walsall tomorrow to stay with some friends and I am so looking forward to going to see Rod Stewart on Saturday night. Can't wait.

Have a wonderful weekend yourself. The forecast is good for the UK so hopefully we will see some extended sunshine.

Love and hugs. Brenda xxxx

Other challenges

Papertake Weekly - Say it with flowers

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Your favourite colour combo and glitter

Digi Doodle Shop - Sparkle, glitter, glitz

Shabby Chic??

Wow, busy day today. I have been to see my sister and off to the hospital again soon, but just wanted to post this card.

This started as a simple card following the sketch at Pink Elephant and I wanted to add some polka dots and plaid to enter Frosted Designs and If the Shoe Fits challenges and some embossing for the Sophisticat challenge, but I couldn't leave it and added the embellishments so that it became more shabby chic in style. I have dry embossed some card and some DIY silver pipe lagging tape for the back layers. The stamp is from Personal Impressions, I coloured it using the Whispers pens and then edged it with MS glitter glue and misted it with Tattered Angels Vanilla Breeze and Rose Tea. The scalloped border is MS punch which I edged with Scattered Straw and Worn Lipstick distress inks. The 3 roses in the bottom left corner I handmade, the others are ones from my stash but I have altered them with inks and mists adding other embellishments etc to them. The black swirls ared cut on the Cricut using the Home Accents cartridge.

I am starting to see the finished card in my mind when I begin, but this didn't end up exactly as I had imagined it. But I think it is better, so I am pleased with the colours and the end product. Hope you like it too.

Take care and don't work too hard, have some fun when you can.

Luv Bxx

Challenge List

Frosted Designs - Polka dot and plaid challenge

If the shoe fits - Mad for Plaid

The Pink Elephant - Sketch

Sophisticat - Embossing
Simon Says Stamp challenge - Simon says vintage with flowers
Just Buggin - Emboss it
Crazy for Challenges C4C26 - It's all about texture
Theme Thursday - Flourish

Distressed flowers

Happy Sunday

I am really into making flowers as embellishments at the moment and when I came across the sketch with a twist of flowers at The Sweet Stop, I just had to have a go. Totally Gorjuss and Pile It On also have a flowers theme and Saturday Spotlight's is MESSY, wey hey that's what I like. So this is it, what do you think?

This type of flower is totally new to me and they have been made with roughly torn cirles of card which have been curled around the edges and I added sparkle (of course) with the Cosmic Shimmer Aqua twinkles. There's lots of glitz on here as the nesties labels (used on my Big Shot) have been edged with Stickles Waterfall and Holly as well. I used the distressing tool on the flowery backing paper from K&Co and it has been misted with Glimmer Mist Blue Skies and Cosmic Shimmer Mist Golden Mint. Two of the corners have been distressed with Pine Needles ink and printed with a leafy twig stamp from Art Impressions. I added the ribbon and backing paper (edged with Lime Zest Pearlidoodles) to complete the look.

Experimenting with colours in the same range seem to be a thing for me at the moment and I enjoyed putting these together.

Challenges I am entering -
The Sweet Stop - SSS44 Sketch with a spin on flowers
Totally Gorjuss - Flower Power
Saturday Spotlight - Doing the Mess Around
Pile It On - Let us see flowers
Our Creative Corner - Try a new technique
Lots to do - Use a machine
Anyone For Anya - Something completely different

Peace

It's been a very busy week going up the hospital twice a day to see Mum. She seemed quite a bit better again yesterday but healing 2 broken ribs and a punctured lung is going to take some time.

In-between times I have been working on this card for my very first challenge. I hope to submit it on Craftbubble today as I used the sketchie challenge layout which also has a little twist of 'wings'. I wanted a distressed look and have tried out the Tim Holtz distressing tool which worked well, the stamp is one from my stash and I used the nesties labels to make the frame. The flowers were made from ordinary photocopy paper and aged mahogany and antique linen distress inks. Papers have been edged with gold stickles and vintage photo distress stickles. It's another different style for me - I am learning so much and enjoying all the experimentation. Thanks for looking. Bx