Love Begins

I've just started my mixed media journey and I've wanted to begin the year creating more mixed media pieces. To help with this goal I want to get my creativity moving by entering more challenges. I've enjoyed all the inspiration from the The Mixed Media Place Creative Gym and so I decided to jump in and take the challenge. At this time of year, new beginnings brought to mind new love and valentines. This is also perfect for Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Love is in the Air + Red.

Lots of diecuts, stencilling and a distressed strip form the background texture for the card. The heart is the result of months of work! Most of it trying to find the special type of clay I wanted- super light, air drying and a little flexible. It was very quick to make the actual embellishment (cutting and stamping) and it dried overnight. Now for even more fun with lots of spraying.

Next I added embossing powder, gold and rust mica powder, crackle accents, stamping, spray droplets and a heart cut from the packaging I saved from some flowers someone special gave me.

Finally I felt ready to add my special heart embellishment plus some microbeads, Stickles and distress glitter.

Challenges:

Mixed Media Place Creative Gym Exercise #16: New Beginnings...

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Love is in the Air + Use Red

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

 

Supplies

Stamps: Prima Finnabair Honey Comb, Vintage Vanity Harlequin, Clearly Besotted Brushed Poppies 
Dies & Stencils etc: Prima Finnabair Bubbles, Stars, Simon Says Stamp Falling Snow stencil, My Favorite Things Equalizer Stencil, Stitched Fancy Flourish, Lawn Fawn Stitched Hearts, Hearts Lawn Cuts

Ink: Stazon Jet Black, Ranger Archival Ink Potting Soil

Paper: White Linen Card from stash

Highlights: stickles, translucent embossing paste, glitter, micro beads, white gesso, gems, crackle accent, glossy accent, fibre wrapping sheet, Artista clay.  

Colouring: Dylusions Postbox Red, Lemon Zest, White Linen, LuminArte Ginger Peach, Heidi Swapp Gold, Finnabair mica powder gold, rust

Hope you're enjoying my creative paper learning curve.

Smitten

Clare Buswell's fabulous quilling inspired me to try my hand at a simple quilled heart. Clare's quilled creations are amazing and this is my very simple version of quilling. I acquired a quilling tool a few years ago, but never used it. I still haven't as I couldn't find it and had to fashion one out of a toothpick! Not the best start, but it was very enjoyable, I love the tightly coiled pieces of paper. I probably coiled them too tightly as I was enjoying it too much!

This card is very CAS, one layer of cardstock with one graphic image/embellishment made from one thin strip and lots of white space. I had to resist all temptation to keep adding layers- not an easy task for me. I loved it, as a result of my first attempt at quilling a wonky heart. But was it enough? I had my doubts, but I slapped my hands away and I'm proud of my restraint. I now love it because it's so CAS, plus my SIL said it was nice too. We all like to hear nice things.

Challenges:

CASology Week 134: Monochrome

Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge February 15-21: Anything Goes (Wk3)

Supplies

Stamps: Paper Smooches Good Gab

Ink: Memento Luxe Tuxedo Black

Paper: Whitecard from stash

Highlights: Quilled heart

Hope you enjoyed your visit & see you again soon.

PS Fun & Cute With A Heart

Here's another little valentine card that I think is fun and cute, to make and to receive. I love giving small sized cards to children with lots of little details, like the die cut vellum vase over the stamped blue one and the tiny label tied with a twine bow. This is such a cute stamp set, great for making little scenes.

I stamped the flower head multiple times to get a fuller bloom, coated it with clear Wink of Stella and used a pink heart gem as the flower centre.

Even this card fitted in with my children's theory about the last card as "you get flowers when you're in hospital".

Challenges:
Paper Smooches Anniversary Celebrations: Fun & Cute
Papertake Weekly Challenge: With a Heart

Supplies
Stamps: Paper Smooches Crystal Clear, Chit Chat

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Bahama Blue, Rose Bud, Cottage Ivy

Dies etc: Paper Smooches Crystal Clear 3

Paper: White card & vellum from stash

Highlights: Wink of Stella, twine, pink heart gem

Happy Valentine's!

Paper Smooches Fun & Cute

Paper Smooches are continuing their anniversary celebrations and have challenged us to create something that is Fun & Cute! You have until Sunday 16th February to participate and win acrylic blocks and a stamp and die set of your choice.

The heart beat die immediately sprung to mind and the cute little mouse expressing his love as a cute valentine for one of my children. I love the texture of the felt and the fun mix of fonts I achieved by mixing and masking the sentiments from Chit Chat. This is one of my favourite stamp sets, probably as a result of the heart used for the 'o' in love.

Such a cutie and my kids had great fun guessing who he was from. They loved the heart beat and it made them wonder was it from someone in a hospital. I love how their minds work!

Challenges:
Paper Smooches Anniversary Celebrations: Fun & Cute
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: We Love Stamps








Supplies  

Stamps: Paper Smooches Great Chemistry, Chit Chat

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Dies etc: Paper Smooches Borders 1

Paper: White card from stash

Highlights: Felt

Colouring: Promarkers/Flexmarkers

Hope you enjoyed your visit and see you again real soon!

Wplus9 Step Up Bold Pink

Embossing paste: how did I live without it? I love the depth and texture of the paste which has been coloured with Memento Luxe Love Letter and the jagged edges of the bold stripes which provide drama for the softer graphic image and coordinating sentiment. Glitter de rigueur!

Wplus9 are celebrating their birthday with lots of challenges, this week the focus is on dimension. I've used embossing and die cuts to achieve this. I've kept the embellishments to a minimum to allow the image and sentiment to take centre stage.

Challenges:
The Card Concept Challenge #3: Use Monochromatic Pink
CASology Week 82: Bold
Wplus9 Birthday Celebration Week 2: Step It Up

Supplies

Stamps: Wplus9 Love Birds, Onesie Two-sie
Ink: Memento Angel Pink, Rose Bud, Tuxedo Black, Luxe Love Letter

Dies & Punches etc: Wplus9 Love Birds, Xcut Nesting Heart Dies, Simon Says Stamp Diagonal Stripe Stencil

Paper: White card and vellum from stash

Highlights: white embossing paste, Wink of Stella, Glossy Accents

Hope you enjoyed your visit and all your valentine cards are appreciated tomorrow!

Hearts & Dots

This card started life as a bit of fun background building, messing about with hearts and dots. I tried a bit of generation stamping with the hearts, misting the dot fade stencil, using gelatos on the stencil, using gelatos with the dauber and flicking the solution from the stippling brush. Flicking was my favourite, even if it was a tad messy!

Once I had the background stamped I really wanted to use it as a one-layer CAS card. I covered a small area with gesso and stamped the post box. I used some more gesso under the letter but didn't want to wait for it to dry so I used my heat gun for added texture (My story and I'm sticking to it!). I coloured the image with the gelato/mist solution adding more colour or black ink as required.

This was a lot of fun and I hope to find more time to experiment with all the textures.

Challenges:
The Card Concept Challenge #3: Use Monochromatic Pink
Lawnscaping Challenge #75: Dots & Hearts
One Layer Simplicity Challenge #2: Can You Repeat That?

Supplies  
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love, You've Got Mail, Into the Woods
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Luxe Love Letter
Dies etc: Tim Holtz Dot Fade Stencil, corner rounder
Paper: White card from stash 
Highlights: Glimmer mist Pink Poodle, Wink of Stella, white enamel, gesso, Blood Orange Gelato


Hope you enjoyed your visit and see you again soon!

WMF#10 Widescreen Over the Edge Heart

For this card I've used Waltzingmouse Fanatics sketch in widescreen!, tried my had at looping some thread beneath an embellishment and created part of the constellation Orion with Stickled fussy cut stars. For my first attempt at controlled mayhem, I'm surprisingly pleased!

My over the edge heart is Stella'd to within an inch of its life and coated with copious amounts of Glossy Accents. The stars and moon are liberally coated in Antique Linen distress Stickles.

Challenges:
CAS-ual Fridays Challenge CFC127: Over the Edge
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Have a Heart
Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge #10: Sketch

Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge #10

Supplies

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps Half Pint Heroes, Teeny Trees, Hero Arts Starburst background

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Peacock Feathers, Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire, Picked Raspberry, Versamark, Encore Silver

Dies etc: Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Heart Dies

Paper: White card from stash

Highlights: White gel pen, glossy Accents, Stickles, Wink of Stella, Glimmer mist, White embossing powder, twine

Hope you enjoyed your visit and come back soon!

Love, Muse & Sketch

This card was inspired by my Lawnscaping muse, Yainea's Thank-you card. I've used lots of glitter, tags, cord, a central die cut shape, white embossing and glimmer mist spray.  I love Yainea's cards and find great inspiration on her blog: My Paper Journey.

My layout is taken from CTS#61 and the Lovey Dovey theme from Sentimental Sundays Challenge #191.

To make the card for the tags, I brushed white card with gesso and allowed it to dry. I then applied and blended Black soot distress ink and Memento London Fog onto the card. Lastly I liberally sprayed with glimmer mist to add lots of shine. For a fabulous example of this technique see Gayatri's gorgeous card on her blog. For the background, I randomly stamped 3 solid hearts from different Lawn Fawn sets in Picked Raspberry, stickle-ing and stella-ing some of them.

My next challenge is to decide if this is a valentine's card or a bride to be on her hen night's card and choose an appropriate sentiment for the inside. What do you think?

Challenges:
CAS(E) this sketch #61 
Lawnscaping Challenge #74: Inspired By
Sentimental Sundays Challenge #191: Lovey Dovey

Supplies  
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love, You've Got Mail, Into the Woods, Winter Gifts
Ink: Tsukineko Versamaek, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Black Soot, Picked Raspberry, Memento London Fog
Dies: Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Heart Dies, Tag You're It
Paper: White card from stash 
Highlights: Glimmer mist, Silver Sparkle Cord, Wink of Stella,  white  embossing powder, glossy accents, stickles



Thank you for visiting, looking forward to seeing you again soon.

You are loved

Paper Smooches set us a special challenge this week to create a project with a heart on it. I've used this weeks designer draft sketch, die cut a foam heart, & Stickled the heart in my sentiment. My fur ball is coloured with Cool Grey Promarkers & left hanging on some washi chevrons atop my mini card.

Top Tip:

Washi not wide enough, you can line up strips side by side to get different widths and as it's repositionable you can more it around without ruining your project until you get it right.

 

Challenges:
Paper Smooches Special Challenge: PS project with a heart
PS Sparks Designer Drafts Challenge: Sketch
Allsorts Challenge Week 193: Valentines
Sentimental Sundays Challenge #141: Love is in the Air
Top Tip Tuesday Challenge: Let Me Call You Sweetheart 
Stamptacular Sunday Challenge #202: From the Heart (with Sentiment)