Essence of Nature

Love the cd I know I will have lots of fun using it for years to come.

White with dangly bits

When I saw the description for this months competition was White I immediately thought of parchment craft, and as the friend I wanted to make this card for loves Butterfly's I used some of your butterfly's from different sets.

I stamped the 2 parchment butterfly's out in black, traced them with a white pencil onto parchment paper, embossed them from the back with a shader and small ball tool then cut them out.

I did the same thing again with the smaller butterfly's front wing leaving a small tab. I cut a slit into the body of the butterfly slid the tab through and glued to the back, then decorated the butterfly's with sequins and glass beads.

The dangly bits are made up by threading with small glass and pearl beads.

The small butterfly and flowers were stamped onto the parchment paper and embossed in white

I then dabbed powdered mica paints over them in lemon and soft green to match the backing paper.

The wording was stamped and embossed in white onto a cream pearly paper which was matted onto a pale green paper from the Peacock CD.

I then finished it off with a white bow and scattered sequins over the paper.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

Resist technique using the Poppy Harlequin stamps

The poppy seedheads and butterfly were stamped in blue and embossed with clear embossing powder, I then painted a wash over it all and painted the poppy heads with gold and bronze mica paints. The poppy was then layered first onto blue then gold card.

The scroll layer was stamped with 3 colours and embossed with clear powder again.

The blue word layer was stamped with versamark and brayered, then layered onto gold card.

The pale layer was painted with Mica paints onto glossy paper for a sheen, and the last layer was daubed with Gold and red paint onto a black card to give a metalic look.

The final touch is a flower embossed with a pearl embossing powder onto velum, a silver punched flower, with a pink gem in the centre.

Graphicus Challenge

This is my August Challenge. Christmas and Complementary colours, and have chosen Blue and Gold as my colours.

I have just bought a brayer and could not wait to play with it, so this is the result.

I used two blue ink pads and brayered onto a Matte coated card from Clarity although it is called matte it has a nice smooth surface, I then stamped and embossed in gold with the Holly stamp from Graphicus Christmas Flourish themeplate, and added a bit of sparkle by useing Gold Stickles on the berries, trimmed card and edged with a gold pen.

On dark blue paper I stamped and embossed in gold again, this time using one of the Clarity corner stamps, I then used the stamp again in blue but this time onto white.

After layering them up, using pads to lift the card with the holly, I stamped and embossed the wording which was again from the Christmas flourish in gold and finished with a navy ribbon. I made this card with my Brother in mind thought the colours would be good for a man card

Exotic Hot Pink and Orange

This is my entry for the June challenge. Exotic hot pink and orange.
I really enjoyed this challenge, although they are not the colours I would usually use, it was also a good excuse to add a bit of bling.

Using a sheet of acrylic paint paper, I painted a wash in pink and orange, the paper has given it some texture, though it doesn't really show in the photo. It was then stamped using two differnt pinks with a stamp from the Damask range.

The Orange backing paper is from the Peacock CD I also printed then cut out the leaves and flowers from one of the pages on the Damask CD.

The Peacock ladies head was stamped onto Acetate. Then the headdress and necklace was glittered used both gold and pink glitters plus gold stickles.

Travel Blue

This is my entry for the Artylicous competition Travel colour Blue.

I have used as a Picture a photo that I had taken in Barbados a couple of years ago, (That's the travel bit) I have played with the photo to give it a watercolour look.

I then printed two pages from the Peacock Summer Party CD that complimented each other.

On the top layer I cut around some of the feathers, and then glittered the edges and eyes of a the feathers that had been cut, adding a few gems to the centre, I then added dots of dimensional glue to the eyes of the remaining feathers, and slid the picture between the cuts, then trimed and layered both pages I had printed onto the card.

Next thing was to stamp the small peacock onto some scrap paper from the first layer and embossed this with clear powder, trim and attached to the corner of the picture with 1mm pads.

Pink and Green

This is my entry for the graphicus monthly competitionBlossom and the colours Pink and Green.

I do not have a stamp that really represents blossom so have used the Morning Glory stamp from Flora and Fauna, I stamped this onto velum with the Moonlight white brilliance pad, and then coloured in the flowers and leaves on the same side I stamped with my Derwent pencils, then used their blending and burnisher pencils, these are brilliant and gave a lovely effect.

I then used a ball tool on the back of the Morning Glory petals to give it lift and some extra dimention before edging the velum with a pink ink pad. The velum was then attached to some pale pink paper, which in turn was mounted onto printable acetate which I had printed in green from the Damask Delights CD.

Using small stamps from the Delightful Damask set I stamped the front of my base card with pink and green brilliance pad.

Then with the butterfly from Just Butterflies I stamped it onto acetate and coloured it from behind with H2o's, to make this stick to the acetate I mixed a little dimensional or clear glue with the paint this stops the colour from flaking off.

I finished off the card using ribbon. I folded this into a few loops at one side and attatched it with a brad, I find that I do not have any problems with this being to thick for the post as the knot in a bow can be.