Butterflies - two different watercolour looks

 Hi there.  Yesterday morning I was not feeling well so decided that a day of rest was required.   I spent the morning dozing in bed and by lunch time was feeling a little better.   I got up when hubby arrived home at 12.30, finished work for the day.  He pottered around outside as it was a nice day and I watched some You Tube videos, sitting on the sofa in the dinning room, with the sun streaming in the kitchen door.   One of the videos I watched was from Katie Partiet (here) using water colour crayons to "paint/stamp" a sweet butterfly.  I have some water colour crayons that I bought man, many years ago - and haven't used them for years!  So thought I'd try the technique -

For my butterfly I used one of the Altenew Dovetail Butterflies.  I used my Gallery by Mungka crayons to "paint" onto the base layer of the stamp. I got a splash of the blue paint onto my base, so ran with it by adding more blue splats and some gold watercolour paint splats as well.  I used black ink to add the outline layer of the butterfly.  I stamped the Gina K -It's all about You" sentiment in the lower corner, then liberally spritzed the whole card with Shimmer Spray - Sparkle.  In real life you can see all the shimmer and shine.  I added a black layer and added to a white card base.   

I then decided to try the same technique but to use metallic watercolour paints.   Quite a different look. 

This time I used the Brights Jasart metallic watercolours and over stamped the line image with Teal Cave Fresh Dye Ink from Altenew.  This time I used the matching dies to cut the butterfly.  I used some gold metallic paint to paint a scrap of card and die cut the Altenew Linear Crossroads die and the sentiment from Altenew's Versatile Sentiments. I stamped the sub-sentiment from Altenew's Sweetest Peas stamp set on the same gold painted scrap.    I used the same gold paint to add splatter to a black panel and then mounted the dies and sentiments together.  Another really shimmery card in real life.

Enjoyed trying out both the crayons and the metallic paints.   Did get to spend a bit of time in the craft room this afternoon, doing a card for Craft Roulette and had a lovely visit from Florence and her Daddy, when he came to borrow his Dad's edge trimmer!  She is growing so quickly, almost 10 months now! 

It's Spring Time at Die Cut Divas

See my earlier post HERE

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Hi there.  It's my turn to share a card for Die Cut Divas... this month our sponsor is RAM Stamps

RAM Stamps is offering a prize of a $10 gift certificate, so please don't be shy and join our challenge for this month.

The Challenge is to "Make A Spring Card".  If we can't tell it's a Spring card, please write something telling us why you consider your entry a Spring Card.

I have bought several digital images from RAM stamps so I chose to use one of them for today's inspiration.  

This one is Little Fairy.  It is really cute and definitely spring-like.   I printed it and used some Prismacolor pencils to colour.  The layers were cut with Gina K Master Layout dies and I added some bright spring flowers from Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms  

Do come and join us at the  April gallery with your Spring creation! Just remember to include a die cut or use an embossing folder in your design &, if it's not obvious, share why your project evokes Spring.

Thanks for stopping by!

Woodblock Wednesday - April 2024

 Amy's April edition of Woodblock Wednesday has started.    Once a month, she has a challenge to use Woodblock Stamps.  I try and play along each month - to give my Woodblock stamps some love. 

Earlier today I watched Jennifer McGuire and Aaron Leventhal from Hero Arts doing a live FB about the history of stamping - and it inspired me to get out some of my Hero Arts stamps.  I must say the majority of my Woodblock stamps are from Hero Arts.  

The focal image for this one was inspired by Shari Carroll.  I remembered seeing her fussy cut the floral image I used so decided I liked the idea. 

The card started with the background stamping of Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain stamp.  I used Altenew Silver Sage Fresh Dye ink.  I then stamped one of the stamps from the Peeking Posies set with Versafine Onyx Black ink and used Zig Markers to colour it.  I then did the fussy cutting using both my craft knife and tiny scissors.  I cut the dark grey piece and scored it every 1/4" for some texture.  Not the best pic, but my usual editing tool is not working today. 

 

Today is ANZAC Day here in NZ.  It's a public holiday when we take time to think about all those service men and women who fought in wars.  It's a bit of a cooler day, as Autumn is truly here now, so a good day to spend some time in the craft room.   Got this one done, plus a birthday card for Finn (it's not till June 23rd but I wanted to get ahead!)  

Craft Roulette #211

I've missed a few weeks entering into the Craft Roulette.  Sunday,  I watched the replay of Episode 211.  An interesting set of parameters -

 

I went CAS with this card.  The greeting is Good Tidings for the recipient - summery sunshine, blue skies and green grass colours, the bike is mechanical and the little bow ties the bouquet of summer flowers together.   The bike is a Kaisercraft stamp and die set called Smile.  I found the little flowers in my stash - think they are from a Spellbinders set.  The sentiment is a Wordie pre printed sentiment. 

The bike stamp and die is being used for the first time, so I'm entering my card into Darnell's NBUS challenge. 

A Blue Kitty...

 My local swap group had a fun challenge this month... sketch with the image to be an animal and should be coloured in colours they normally are not!

I followed the sketch closely and used a Blue Kitty 

I used a pink panel from my stash - think it's the "mop up" of some pink ink.  I die cut it with a Gina K Master Layout dies.  I die cut a white circle and embossed it with a folder called Kitchen Weave from Cuttlebug.  Used two Spellbinders petite circles to cut the frame.  My blue kitty is a a Tim Holtz stamp, as is the matching sentiment.  The cat is from Crazy Cats and the sentiment from Snarky Cats.  Added some blue glitter to the die cut heart for some sparkle. 

It is always fun to see what everyone comes up with each month.  

Happy Birthday to our soccer mad Grandson.

We are back home!  Left a sunny warm  32C Perth and arrived home to 16C and rain!  Feeling a bit chilly for sure!   But had a lovely visit this afternoon with Florence and Grace.  

And spoke with Archie as today was his birthday,  8 years old and growing into the loveliest and caring young man.   We had a family gathering on Thursday night to celebrate for him.  Including a visit from his newest cousin,,, 2 days old!  

Archie is soccer mad... he supports Manchester United - like his English granddad.   So for his card I made a soccer based card

He loved the card and was thrilled with the present we got him.... a little air hockey table.  He and his Pop had great fun playing before we headed home last night.  

Here are some of the pics before we left. 

A fun day at Monkey Mia

 Well I'm back in civilisation in Perth after our 800kms (497 miles) trip North of Perth to Shark Bay area.   We stayed in Denham - a very small little town..  Hubby and I shared an Air A'n'B with our son-in-law's parents... while the kids camped in the caravan park.   We all had an awesome time over the week... despite there being thousands of pesky flies and very warm temperatures.   Plus a gastro bug that worked it's way through the adults.... I didn't get the vomiting but the other end was not so nice.... and to make it worse I've got a second bout with a week!  

We did manage a few things done - a visit to the aquarium for the Shark Feeding experience, an afternoon at the local Visitors Centre /Museum, a swim or two, meeting the local wildlife and the highlight for me was a day spend in Monkey Mia.  It's a conservation area where several dolphins came into the bay to be feed.   You used to be able to get in the water with them, but at the moment, the two who came in have you calves with them so it's not safe for them to have hundreds of people standing in the water,   We managed to get to the edge of the water to watch. 

Here are some of the pics from the day.

Feeding time 

Close encounters with the wild life.  I was lying on the beach and looked up to see an Emu - staring straight at me from about a foot away!  Just lay still and he moved on!

Swimming and kayaking with the little boy and his big brother.  

And just as we were about to leave Monkey Mia, two turtles came into the bay.  Such a bonus! 

Finished the day by watching the sunset off the beach at the Caravan Park in Denham.

Here are a couple more sunset views

and this is us all taken at Eagle Bluff... we could see stingrays and little sharks in the bay below us - to hard to photograph - but we got someone to take a pic of us

there were soooo many flies there!  When I enlarged the photo they are visible flying around out heads!  

All in all it was a superb holiday with the families.. And what a thrill for the boys to have both sets of grandparents with them on holiday!  So special 💖

Thanks for taking the time to wade through my photos.... there are hundreds more on my phone!

 

Happy Earth Day - 22 April

 Hi there... It's time for my Sweet Stampin' challenge card.   I'm away from home so have scheduled this one.  As you read this, I'll heading back to Perth from our trip to Shark Bay - 8 hours or so north of Perth.  We were camping with the family... I should say that they are camping and we are sharing an AirBnB with the other parents... 

Anyway our challenge this fortnight is Earth Day/something recycled.  I manage to get both parts...

The strip of pattern down the left hand side is from a Tissue Box...I added some strips of dark green card down each side of it.   I found the Earth Day Logo on their internet page (here) and printed it out.  I used some dies from a Pinkfresh Studio mini slimline die.  Added some die cut Curvy leaves from Pinkfresh Studio.  Finished with three different colours of Altenew Enamel dots. 

Do come and join us at Sweet Stampin' Challenge.