Beautiful Day - Hello Beautiful and a bonus birthday card

 It's the final day for our challenge at Die Cut Divas.   

FLOWERS

Our sponsor this month is Altenew. They will be giving our winner a $50 gift certificate to their online store. Thank you Altenew for this very generous gift.

I am a real Altenew fan.... and have A LOT of their stamps, dies and stencils.   And today I've used one of my earliest purchases.  - Beautiful Day stamp and die set.   I've had this one for over 9 years!  

I stamped the focal flower and then lots of leaves and branches.  I used Shades of Purple ink set and Freen Fields inks to add the stamp layers on the flower and leaves.  I used some watercolour pens and Copic markers to add colour to the smaller branches and berries.  I then die cut all the pieces.   I made a frame with Gina K Master Layout 18.  I added some soft brown inking with whatever ink was on my blending brush.  I layered all my elements and added a sentiment from Hello Beautiful stamp set.   Added some home made enamel dots made by adding clear packing tape to some purple card and die cutting with my dotty background die.  

I also made a bonus card - because Altenew are a FAVOURITE company for make floral cards... so much choice. 

This card was inspired by Natasha Foote in her video #1171.  I used Altenew Sweet Spring Stencil.  It's an older stencil - just two layers.  I chose to used teal colours.  Fresh Dye inks in Aqualicious and Teal Cave.  Something a little different.  I cut the panel with a Pinkfresh Studio die - Folk Art Rectangle and then used Hero Arts Arches die to cut out the centre panel and also the next size up to cut a white arch.  I used the Teal Cave ink to add colour to the matting layer.  I stamped a sentiment from Altenew's Just a Number stamp set.  Added some of the Teal Cave to a scrap of white card and cut out with my dotty background.   Added to the card and added Glossy Accents to make my own enamel dots.  Loving doing this at the moment. 

Our challenge is open till 9.00pm Pacific US time  - Just remember to make use of your die cutting machine to die cut/emboss.   

AECP - Beautiful Details...

Well my good intentions to get my level 2 accreditation done quickly this year have fallen by the wayside!  Life and other obligations seem to have side-tracked me.   I recently purchased some Altenew Academy classes which prompted me to review some of my older classes and get another class project done for the AECP.  I chose to review the "Beautiful Details" class lead by Marika Rahtu.  Marika is a beautiful colourist and her class was enlightening.  I learnt alot about different ways to use your stamps and colouring mediums.

I chose to CASE Marika's day two card.  The emphasis on this day was about detailed leaves.... She used Zig Markers to stamp and add detailing to the leaves from the "Beautiful Day" stamp set.   I took the outline leaves stamp and used a Gray marker to "paint" onto the stamp and add to some watercolour paper.  Next was using two other gray makers (Light Gray and Blue Gray) with a little water to add the detail.

The best tip from Marika was to ensure you worked in layers... and let the layers dry in between each one.  I really enjoyed doing this and love the darker blue gray layer.  It really popped.  These colours were quite different to the ones Marika used.

For my base card, I chose to use blues for my sponging

I used two different blues - Altenew Caribbean Sky and Persian Blue to sponge the card with a bit of an ombre look with more colour in the lower left hand side of the card.  I also added some splatter ith the Persian Blue ink.  I liked the blue as it tied nicely with the Blue Grey in the leaves.  I chose to use a sentiment from "More than Words" set at the top of the card, and like Marika noted, added a stripe of some bright blue card at the bottom to balance the card.   In order to have the focus on the detailed leaves I left the flower uncoloured.   Some blue and clear sequins finished the card.

Although I CASE's Marika's card, I feel that I added my own touch with my colour choices.  I will be using this idea again as it really produces an elegant card. 

Here's one last view of my card.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Hope your weekend is going to be crafty.  I'm enjoying my Saturdays as Rugby season has started and hubby heads out to watch the Senior team from his club play, giving me the afternoon to myself!

Beautiful Day flower

I have managed another quick card with the  Beautiful Day flower from Altenew.  The other day I picked up a set of watercolour paints - in the kids section at Kmart - for $3.  It has lovely pastel colours.  I thought that the colours would look good as a flower and I'm pleased to say they do!

 

 I die cut the leaves and flower and spritzed with Shimmer Mist.  It's hard to see on my photo but in real life it's very shimmery.   The PP is from a pack I also picked up at Kmart.  The stamped part of the sentiment is from Altenew's Label Love set and the die cut Friend is from CAS-ual Fridays. 

Entering into the Spray Mist and Splatter challenge at Virginia's View.    

Also the Photo Inspiration over at City Crafter Challenge.  The flowers inspired me with this one and the yellow stripes (my golden dots)

and Happy Birthday challenge at Crafting when we can. 

Poor little Archer has got a cold... he is not feeling very well at all.  Coughing and snuffling and very unhappy.  Hope he is better by tomorrow night when they all fly off to spend time in LA and San Diego.  11 hours on the plane with a grumpy baby isn't going to be fun!

Thanks for stopping by.