Two cards, two inspirations...

I have two cards to share today: one I made on Friday for a retirement party we attended, and another I created on Saturday for Amy’s Woodblock Wednesday Challenge.

First up is the retirement card. It was made for a woman who had worked with my husband for nearly 30 years. She is heading to Vietnam for a holiday, with a friend,  in a few weeks, so that became the inspiration for the design.

I used Pingwing to find a beach scene, printed it onto an A2 card, and then trimmed it down with a Gina K Master Layout die. I had recently purchased a jandals die, which was perfect for the theme, so I cut the jandals from gold glitter card from Altenew and some black card. To finish, I created the sentiment on my laptop using Word.

My next card came about on Saturday while I was doing a bit of tidying up. As I sorted through some of my woodblock stamps, I realised I was still in time to join Amy’s Woodblock Wednesday Challenge.

For this card, I used a Penny Black stamp called Gossamer. It is such a pretty image, and I came up with the idea to ink blend around the flower, then paint the flower in a lighter tone of the same colour.

I stamped the image and die cut it with a Pinkfresh Studio Folk Edge die. After masking the flower, I added Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass and Broken China, blending the colour all around the image. I then used a light wash of Tumbled Glass as paint, with a little Mowed Lawn for the leaves and flower centres.

The sentiment is from a Penny Black photopolymer set, Je T’aime Paris, and I finished the card with a little die cut butterfly from Monte’s Craft Supplies Layered Butterflies die. 

I'm entering this into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes - optional Things with Wings. 

I was really pleased with how this one came together — it turned out just as I had imagined. Thanks so much for stopping by to see today’s cards.

A Crafty Weekend of Watercolour, Florals and Sweet Little Wings

It’s been a wonderfully crafty weekend here. On Saturday afternoon, Grace, Florence and Kieran came round, and naturally Grace wanted to head straight to the craft room. We played with watercolour powders and each made a background before Grace spotted a panel I’d created with Altenew’s Dreamy Daylilies.

I embossed a panel for her with the folder, then she set off with the stencilling. She did such a beautiful job of ink blending, using pinks with three colours on each petal. And lovely soft greens for the leaves. I only wish I had taken a photo of her finished project! I did find a frame for her panel, which made it feel extra special. After she left, I managed to make one Christmas card too, but I’ll share that another day.

Today I headed back into the craft room and decided to join a few challenges. My first card was intended for Time Out Challenge #391, which asked us to use two ideas from a list. Somehow, I misread the theme and only used one, so that card will have to wait for another post!

Once I realised my mistake, I changed track and chose three ideas from the list instead: monochromatic, stitching — faux stitching in my case — and floral.

The pink background is part of the watercolour panel I made yesterday. I die cut it with Gina K Master Layouts 2 to create the stitched panel, then die cut Simon Says Stamp Iceland Poppies from white card.

For the colouring, I used the leftover ink on my blender brushes in shades of pink, with just the tiniest touch of green — hopefully that still counts! I arranged the flowers on the panel and finished the card with pre-printed sentiment strips.

This second card is for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge for August: “Anything Goes” with the optional theme of "Things with Wings" 

I have a few older Penny Black stamps from when I first started card making, so I pulled out Hedgie Friends, a stamp set from 2012.

I stamped one of the images — Hedgie with a butterfly — along with two of the sweet little dragonflies, then used my Scan’N’Cut to cut them out. The colouring was done with Altenew Woodless Watercolour Pencils. For the background, I chose a pretty teal patterned paper, then added a white strip across the card with the sentiment from the stamp set.

To finish, I layered the circle panel over the strip, added the little dragonflies, and included a few white dot embellishments. It was such a lovely weekend of simply playing, experimenting and enjoying time in the craft room.

Penny Black Saturday - Anything Goes - optional Stitching

 Hi - managed to get a bit more crafting done this long weekend.   Including a card for Penny Black Saturday Challenge. - June challenge is Anything Goes - with optional Stitching. 

I have quite a number of older Penny Black stamps and love getting them out again to play.  It's been awhile since I've played at Penny Black Saturday. 

The Penny Black stamp I used was Tiny Wishes (circa 2009) so a bit of an older one!  My stitching is a Stitching Oval from Cottage Cutz and once I had die cut it...I stamped the image.   I used my Altenew Woodless Watercolour pencils to add the colour.  Added some gold glitter pen to the flower and added dots to her dress.  I found the gorgeous patterned paper in a pack from Kate Knight.   Love the pretty flowers and the colours.   I took a second sheet of the paper and fussy cut some of the flowers and the little butterfly to add around oval.  Added some little dark teal dots to the flower centres.  

Back to work tomorrow!  I'm still not 100% - my cough is still bad, rattling around my upper respiratory tract.  I'm soooo over this cold. 

Woodblock Wednesday - February 2024

 Hi.  Time to pull out my woodblock stamps for Amy's Woodblock Wednesday challenge for February.  

My card uses a Penny Black stamp - called day-dreams (circa 2009)  and I've paired it with a little sentiment stamp from a NZ company called Montarga. 

This is a combination of new and old products.   Last week I got an order from Scrapbook.com.  It included Penny Black Background Basics Stencils and an Altenew ink set... Sea Shore so I taped my stencil onto some watercolour card and then ink blended the Dew Drops, Aqualicious, Teal Cave and Galactic Stream inks.  Splashed with some water and once it was dried, stamped the Penny Black stamp and the Montarga stamp in Altenew Obsidian ink.  I used some Prismacolor Pencils to add the colours to the PB stamp.  A few iridescent confetti from Nuvo Drops finished the card.  I just realised I used the same stamp last month!   Totally forgot that!  

Entering this one into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes.  

Hello - enjoy your day! (Penny Black Saturday Challenge)

 It's a cool Sunday afternoon and I headed into the craft room for a bit of a tidy up after Grace has been in here.   I was looking through my blog reader and saw that Helen had posted a gorgeous card for the latest Penny Black Saturday Challenge  It's Anything Goes -Optional Masculine.  Helen's card inspired me to pull out some of my PB stamps - all very old now.  

I was trying out making a torn paper stencil to make my clouds.   My friend Suna has set this as the monthly challenge at our NZ swap group.  I wanted to suss it out before making my card to sent to my recipient.  So started by tearing some copy paper, and then using a very light blue ink (Altenew) I went over the entire panel.  I then took the Hello Dear Cling stamp by Penny Black and stamped in Versamark Onyx Black ink straight over the light inking.  I heat set the ink as I remembered that alcohol markers can bleed with this ink.   Grab my Tri-blend markers and started colouring.   Happy to say- no smearing. I have the Extended Collection - so the colours are not quite as bright as the original sets but turned out perfect for this one.  I used a Winnie and Walter die cut Hello and added the sub-sentiment from a PB set called Sunny Days.   The card was mounted into some dark blue card and then the white base.   A fun hour or so in the craft room.  And think I've got the cloud background sussed, even if they look a bit peaky!  

Thanks Helen for inspiring me to enter the challenge.  I would say it's a bit masculine!