MONOCHROMATIC AUTUMN ICON

A Blog Named Hero has a fun challenge this month - Monochromatic!!!  I played around with quite a few ideas because I wanted to use fall leaves and really wasn't coming up with anything that I really liked.  Then my Deco Pattern Stencil arrived, got out my Autumn Icons dies and some Nuvo mousse and it all came together quickly.

I used a very thin layer of the mousse with a palette knife to create the background.  Die cut the ginkgo leaf from gold adhesive backed paper and also from fun foam and put them together for some extra texture.  Added the little sentiment and done!!

Be sure to enter your monochromatic card in our challenge by 10 October for a chance to win great prizes - a $50 and a $25 gift certificate from Hero Arts!

I am also entering this in the SSS Wednesday Challenge which is "anything goes" and featuring Hero Arts.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your comments - they make my day!

GOLDEN LEAVES

Recently, I purchased a few new items for my ever growing stash of dies and other needful things - and, of course, being anxious to use them, came up with a couple of cards for Darnell's Twofer Challenge.

My new die is the maple leaf and the new papers came from a gorgeous pad I found at Target (in the so-called $1 section) a few weeks ago.  For the card on the left, I simply die cut the leaf in black cardstock and also black fun foam.   Glued the two together and placed on that beautiful patterned paper.  Added that to a black card base along with a little sentiment and done.  Also replaced back into the die cut leaf some of the bits.

At first when I bought this pad, I thought the background was black, but it's really a lovely shade of navy and matches the SU cardstock (Night of Navy) really well.  Made a shaker from this piece - couldn't get it to photograph very well, but it's so pretty in real life.  There is matching striped paper also in the pad, so cut a small strip to use for my sentiment.  There you have it - two different cards with the same die, using the same pad of paper and for two different occasions. 

Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.

SEPTEMBER CARD CHAIN CHALLENGE

This month my cards are going to Karren in New Zealand.  Since it is spring in NZ and fall here in NE, I made her two cards.

The colors for this month were chocolate, orange and slate so I used them with my new C & 9th Thankful Leaves turnabout stamp for the fall card.  It is difficult to see but there is "Hello" in raised letters above the little sentiment.  The spring card was made with SSS Even More Spring Flowers and colored with copics - the sketch for the month was used on this card.

It's always fun to send and receive cards from new friends all over the world.  You can sign up for the October CCC here.  You have until 6 October to sign up.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your kind comments.

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Even though our A Blog Named Hero "sparkle and shine" challenge is finished for this month, I decided the Christmas stash needed a few more cards - especially since I just got the new Glimmer Metallic Inks and HAD to play with them.   Hero Arts has eight of these fantastic colors and you're going to want them all!!

I began by just painting a piece of white cardstock with the green ink.  Just played around with it using a wide brush and watering down the ink a bit and then adding more water here and there.  So in the end had a nice variegated piece from which I cut two greenery borders.  Attached these to two creamy metallic card bases, added the sentiments and some red Nuvo drops for berries.  The green ink has a lovely gold metallic shine which I was unable to photograph.

Our next challenge starts tomorrow (15 September) so be on the lookout for it.  

Thanks for dropping by and love to read your kind comments.

HELLO LOVELY

A few weeks ago a friend looked at my Pinterest pages and saw a card that she thought I had made and wanted me to make a card like it.  Talk about a challenge!!!  Norine Borys creates gorgeous cards and I have followed her blog for ages - this is the card I tried to imitate. 

I don't have the stamp she used so chose the Hello Lovely bouquet from Concord and 9th for my attempt and actually made two cards - one with regular watercolors and one with my Zigs (on the right).

I am pretty much of a perfectionist and it's difficult for me to do such loose watercolouring - but now that I've tried it I rather like it.

My friend also wanted a wine label card - hadn't made one in ages and still have quite a few from when that was popular several years ago.

It was kind of a funky label but fun to do - added a few gold sequins to go with gold mat - the card base is a dark navy.

Am also entering the flower card on the left in The Flower Challenge - theme is "anything goes".

Thanks for stopping by today and love to read your kind comments.

WATERCOLOR CLASS

Recently I took a watercolor class from Altenew taught by Jennifer Rzasa.  I was sort of a lazy student and only got three of the homework assignments finished.  Besides making a swatch page for my watercolors, I did manage to make a couple of cards.

For this assignment we were to do a watercolor wash and then overlay a stencil, weight it down and let it dry.  When dry and you removed the stencil, the imprint of it should be visible.  I used the Dahlia stencil but it didn't really show up too much.  So I just stamped over it with the Sketchy Floral stamp and added it to a card base with a little sentiment.

On the next cards we were to put watercolor directly onto a stamp and then stamp.  I used my MISTI with a layered stamp so I could get some variation in colour.  Did some spattering on both cards before adding to a card base.  On all of my cards today, I was using the new Altenew watercolor set.

All the Altenew classes are so good and I've learned so much from their various instructors.  They're worth checking out.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your kind comments.

AUGUST CCC

This month I sent my Card Chain Challenge card to my friend, Cat.  The challenge colors were a bright pink, bright blue and sort of a lime green.  I loosely followed the colors and used the theme of friendship.

I die cut the rose garden background in white and laid that over a piece of blue watercoloured paper.  Stamped and die cut the flowers and leaves, added some Nuvo drops to the centers and attached the sentiment to a strip of vellum

Thanks for dropping by today and always love to read your kind comments.

SPARKLE AND SHINE

This month our challenge at A Blog Named Hero is "sparkle and shine" - so I made two very sparkly, shiny cards for you today.  But first must tell you a little story about them.

I have two teenage granddaughters who live in England. Since it's easier for me (and I'm sure they like it better), I send my son some money and he buys them gift certificates.  So last Christmas I made two really cute slider cards with room for a gift card to be inserted.  Mailed them on 1 December and between the U.S. mail and the Royal Mail, they never ever arrived!!!  So this year I am trying again - only this time I made them in the beginning of July and gave them to my son while the family was visiting these past few weeks.  Now my only worry is that he'll forget where he put them and can't find them at Christmas!!

This isn't an original idea for making a slider card - you can find out how to make it by viewing this video.  I started by die cutting two ornaments - one from gold glitter paper and the other in silver (saving all the little bits).  (BTW, Hero Arts has a new ornament that would work just as well.) Then cut out a circle and attached on the back of the ornament with lots of tape and fit all the silver bits into the gold ornament and gold into the silver one.  Then I followed Dawn's instructions for making the card slider part.  Die cut a red "K" (for Katie) and an "A" (for Anna) and glued to the center of the ornament.  Added some gold twine to the ornaments and attached to the front of the card per instructions in the video - only attached at the bottom part of folded center part of the slider. You can see what I mean by looking at the photo on the right. Stamped the little sentiment on the inside and also added a little strip of double sided tape above the sentiment so Mike could add the gift card inside.  I put two layers of foam tape on the sides and bottom between the base and slider piece so there'd be room for the g.c.  My explanation is probably clear as mud, but hopefully if you are interested in trying this, the video will help a lot.

I had lot of fun making these sliders for my girls - I tried to figure out a way to detach the ornament so it could be hung on the tree, but nothing seemed to work.  Maybe someone out there has a good idea!

Hope you can create a sparkle and shine card for this month's challenge and enter it here.  There are two gift cards to be won from Hero Arts, so be sure to have a go.

Thanks for visiting today and love to read your kind comments.

FUSION CHALLENGE & ALCOHOL INKS

The photo for the newest Fusion Challenge immediately made me think of my new alcohol ink lift pad from Tim Holtz and Ranger.  My card doesn't really have anything to do with "galaxy" but it was inspired by the Fusion photo.

I first created the alcohol inked background piece and while sections of it were still sticky, added gold foil.  Then using the alcohol lift ink, I stamped the "sending you" part of the sentiment - I used my MISTI and stamped several times to get a clear impression. Matted this with some gold metallic paper, added the little "birthday wishes" and mounted it all on a white card base.  Jennifer McGuire and Carissa Wiley each have good blog posts on how to use alcohol lift ink.

Thanks for visiting today and always love to read your kind comments.

MFT SUMMER SCHOOL 2018

MFT Summer School 2018 this past week gave me just the impetus to get creating again.  Each lesson was such a good reminder of the elements of good design or ways to make your cards more pleasing to the eye.  I really enjoyed all of them.  So here goes my homework!

Day 1: Monochromatic

Day 2: Visual Triangle

Day 3: Focal Point

Day 4: Rainbow

Day 5: Ombre

On several I didn't add a sentiment merely because I wanted to save them for a suitable occasion.  Since this post is so photo heavy, I'm not adding any other explanations.

Thanks for stopping by and love to read your kind comments.

AUTUMN LEAVES

The challenge this week from The Paper Players is to use some lovely fall colors.

 

I stamped the background leaves with a variety of inks - used my MISTI so the colors would be nice and crisp.  Die cut the copper metallic leaves and arranged along with the copper sentiment which has a black shadow.  Matted this piece on black and then onto a white card base.  Nuvo drops finished my card.

 

 

Can't wait for cool, sunny autumn days to arrive - how about you???  Thanks for stopping by,

A MIX OF THINGS

My card today for A Blog Named Hero is a mix of ideas from several places - awhile back Laurie Schmidlin did a post for Make-It-Monday called shadow backgrounds and Emily Midgitt has been doing some pencil coloring on Hero Arts layering papers. The coloring on the layering paper is so easy and fast - love love it - am going to need to buy some more of that paper!!!

I first stamped my background with soft brown ink on sort of a medium gray paper, cut it down to 4x5.25 and adhered to a base of the same color.  Then I spattered it with white acrylic paint that I had watered down a wee bit.  Next, I stamped the flower and leaves (from a My Monthly Hero Kit - but any flower would work) - again on the same color paper.  I used my MISTI and black ink leaving the stamps in place.  Prismacolors were used for coloring.  The reason I left the stamps in the MISTI was to again stamp in black when I had finished coloring.  This gives a nice black crisp outline.  Fussy cut the flower and leaves, popped up on my background, added a little sentiment and some black Nuvo drops on the stamen and done!

I am also entering my card in Kathy's coloring contest - she has 3 categories and I'm putting this in the intermediate category. 

A new challenge begins tomorrow (15 August) on A Blog Named Hero, so be sure to check it out.  Thanks for visiting today.

BEEN GONE

Just a little update today - I've been gone for a few weeks and unfortunately my friendly muse seems to still be lost in the north woods of Minnesota - so will just show a few pics of where I've been.

Katherine and John's cabin is in the front and Kevin and Diane's place is in back

 

View from the deck

view from deck

 

lone loon

Will have a post for ABNH up on Tuesday and am going to my craft room this afternoon and see if I can find Miss Muse back there!!

All for now...