random reflections

Blue Watercolored Florals

Seize the Birthday's challenge is watercolors this time around. I had several (missed) opportunities to get a card up on their challenge site, but finally got one of the watercolored florals I created for the #100DayProject made into a card.

For my birthday, I received a couple very generous gift certificates from my children to Pinkfresh Studios. In my first order, the "Keep Going" stamp set arrived with this beautiful floral image:

I watercolored the image with the Karin brush markers. I've discovered, that for me, swiping the brush on a palette and picking it up with a brush or a waterbrush works much better than applying the watercolor directly on the image. I didn't purchase the die for the set, so I fussy cut it before adding it to a Mix and Mat Oval frame by Papertrey Ink.

Recently, in one of my perpetual reorganizing efforts, I came across this beautiful, subtly striped gray cards. I'm guessing they are from Memory Box, but I can't be sure. I loved the blue and white against the gray. A simple sentiment strip from Taylored Expressions finished it off.

One Corner

AAA Cards has a new challenge: one corner.

I was coloring some more Simon Says "Spring Flowers" for my #100DayProject, and decided to design a card with the floral elements in one corner. Here's what I came up with:

I colored the images with Copic Markers and fussy cut the flower. I used the accompanying dies to cut out the leaves. The sentiment is from Altenew's "Floral Frame."

I ended up needing to take the photos in two different locations which explains the difference in lighting and backgrounds. Not ideal, by any means. 

Happy Father's Day

Today is Father's Day in the United States and I'm happy to honor three absolutely fabulous dads. I had a lot of fun making these three cards. Tracy's card was inspired by one I saw on the Minted website. It wasn't possible to link to the specific card, but it was a lot less colorful than the one Tracy gets today. It did incorporate the retro feel and an arrow that I knew was part of an older Papertrey Ink set. In the end, I didn't use the arrow at all, but used both Retro sets: "Retro Style: Graduation," and "Retro Style: Birthday."

In fact, I ended up using more than my usual number of products: The background was created with My Favorite Things "Radiating Rays" stencil, and the cityscape from MFT's "You're Super."

The sentiment came from the"Retro Style: Birthday" set as well as W+9's "Super Star" set. After trimming down the focal image panel, I adhered it to a Hawaiian Shore card base, and die cut a narrow black frame with Simon Says "A2 Thin Frames."

Both Matt and Adam's cards are very similar and use the same products.

I used Distress Oxide inks to ink blend a background, and then added some water drops to simulate stars and objects in the sky. I also applied a heavy coat of glitter with the Spectrum Noir clear glitter pen. I tried several angles, but couldn't get a good photo of the glittery effects. After die cutting circles from the top panel, I adhered a slightly larger circle cut from the ink blended paper behind it. The top layer of letters is also die cut from that paper  with Papertrey Ink's Block Alphabet dies, and layered on two more die cuts from dark blue paper. 

The images, colored with Copic markers and fussy cut, and the sentiment are from My Favorite Things "Out of This World" stamp set. 

I hope these three guys have a great day---they all devote a LOT of time and give a LOT of love to their families!

One Layer: Take Two

There are actually two challenges that overlap by just a few hours that are both featuring a one layer challenge. This will be my second entry to AAA Cards, and my first to Addicted to CAS.

I actually needed two anniversary cards and altered them only by the color of the cardstock I used. Only one of them qualifies as one layer, though, because I added a few pearls to the pink card.

After stamping Altenew's "Flower Vine" in light ink, I colored both images with colored pencils, and then embossed the images in gold. This works as long as you keep the stamp in your MISTI. I'm always a bit nervous that the card won't be in quite the same place.

The sentiment from The Greetery's Sentiment Suite: Love was also embossed in gold.

I'll be back tomorrow with the Father's Day cards I've been working on this week.

 

The Flower Challenge: Navy plus One

I have a sympathy card to share for The Flower Challenge--Navy + One. In my case, it's navy plus gray---a neutral (white) is also allowed.

Aside from the stamped image from Pinkfresh Studios, everything on the card was die cut.

And all of the die cuts come from The Greetery: Nordic Frames, Inside and Out Berry Branches, and Fit to be Tied. 

I layered the Nordic Frames, cut in white, on one another, and then adhered to a dark navy card. The berries and leaves were die cut from the same navy cardstock and two colors of gray card stock, with some shading done with colored pencils.

It's always a challenge to create a sympathy card. I'm averse to bright florals for sympathy cards, but don't want the card to be too dark either. This seems to hit a good balance, and I can see using the design again.

A One Layer Card

It seems like it would be easiest to make a one layer card, but actually it's pretty difficult not to put a simple frame, layer, or embellishment on a card. I was playing around with colored pencils a few nights ago for my #100DayProject and ended up with a card that worked for me, so I'm entering it in the AAA Cards Challenge for one layer cards. I'm not using the optional photograph for inspiration.

It had been awhile since I used colored pencils on kraft cardstock, so that's where I started. I stamped Altenew's "Needlework Motif" in black ink on a kraft card base. 

The next step was to color the entire image with white pencil so that the colors will appear bright as well as providing some highlights. Given the nature of the stamp, choosing colors was clearly personal preference, and I liked the pinks, oranges, and bright greens together.

The final step was to choose a sentiment. I wanted one that would balance the design on the top a bit since I had decided not to stamp anything from the opposite corner. Papertrey Ink's two-step sentiments from "Scripted" worked well.

Time Out: Let Us Be Grateful

The quote for inspiration at Time Out is one of my favorites:

In the top five things I'm grateful for are a list of friends, some of whom I've know for over 40 years now. This card went to one of those long-time friends.

She's a country girl at heart and decorates her home with lots of country-themed accessories so I thought this mason jar and the gingham check would be perfect for her. I die cut the gingham paper from My Favorite Things with the Papertrey Ink Shape Shifter Oval, and tied a piece of twine around it, finishing with a bow. 

I fussy cut the flowers from Simon Says "Mandy's Flowers" and popped it up with some dimensional tape. The card base is PTI's Summer Sunrise. Tulips are done here, now, but we're blessed with lots of flowers both in our yard and in pots in the front of our house and around the patio. Here's a peek at some near the front door.

The sun is out, and although it's exceptionally cool today, we've had lovely weather and have spent a lot of time outside walking, hiking, and sitting/eating on the patio.

Color Throwdown---Week 3

For the third week in a row, the Color Throwdown Challenge has called my name. I love these bright party colors:

And it was a perfect opportunity to play with some new products from The Greetery's latest release. Admittedly, I'd change a couple of things about this card if the challenge didn't end in just an hour or two, but it's colorful and cheerful, and I love Betsy's new pinwheel stencils. I purchased the dies as well, and have lots of things to try with this set as well as the "Birthday Blooms" set which I used for the sentiment.

I added just a couple enamel dots as embellishment as well as using some dimensional tape for the centers of the orange pinwheels and the die cut sentiment. Betsy's die cut designs for the sentiments in "Birthday Blooms" are sheer genius!

Hope your week is off to a good start! The weather here is cooler than it's been, but just about perfect in my opinion---warm enough to eat on the patio, but not too hot to walk a couple of miles without sweating.

 

Five in Five on the 5th: Peonies in the Park

Today is June 5th, and time for Sandie's monthly challenge, 5 in5,  to take five photos in five minutes. With that challenge in mind, I took a series of photos in Highland Park of the gorgeous peonies. Although we live just a short walk from the park, our peonies are just budded. Sadly, there aren't a lot of buds on our peonies again this year despite applying some fertilizer twice this spring. Not a problem for the peonies in the park which are just gorgeous.

And finally, my favorite.

And as always, thanks to Sandie for hosting this meme which has sent me off with my camera every month for several years now.

 

Card Concept: Bright Flowers

The Card Concept photo inspiration is bright and colorful. 

I had stamped all the flowers and the vase from Pinkfresh Studios Fleur 2 and decided to pull them out, color them with Copic markers, and arrange them in the vase for a friend's birthday card.

I arranged everything on a Nordic Frame from The Greetery and then to an Aqua Mist (PTI) card. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips.

The Card Concept identifies a series of card styles from which to choose. I think this one falls under Clean and Layered. There's still lots of white space, but there are a lot of flowers layered as well as the beautiful Nordic Frame layered on the card base.