random reflections

Seize the Birthday: Anything Goes

I haven't spent much time at the crafting table this week, but I did get a few cards made for upcoming birthday for some little ones. In May, both my grand-nephews have birthdays. (And both are named Finn! One on my side of the family, and one on Tracy's.) I made identical cards for them.

I love the Simon Says "Picture Book Love Bear" die. It takes several runs through the die cutting machine. In this case the body in kraft cardstock, and scraps for the tummy and nose, the inside of the ears, the eyes and nose, and the little red heart. I started by running the Reverse Confetti "Stitched Rays" cover through the die cutting machine in Bright Buttercup. Then I die cut a circle from that. After sponging some Altenew "Sea Glass" ink on the white card underneath, I assembled the little bear just below the circle on the white card.

Then I used two Spellbinder circle dies to cut a frame from Aqua Mist cardstock to frame him. The sentiment from MFT "Birthday Bears" was white embossed on black cardstock, and added to the front of the card. I think it makes for a bright and cheery card! I'm posting this to the Seize the Birthday Challenge: Anything Goes just under the wire.

The Card Concept: Cottage Florals and CAS on Friday: Spring

I love this inspiration photo for the current Card Concept Challenge:

Rather than poppies, I have some lovely peonies to offer. 

Once again, the lovely image from Papertrey Ink was watercolored with the Altenew 36 pan watercolor set.

The sentiment is from my favorite, "Penned Elegance" by Papertrey Ink, stamped and die cut. One of the challenges for the Card Concept is to identify the style of the card. I'd put this one in the Clean and Simple category, or perhaps, the Clean and Graphic one. You can see the definitions of the different styles here.

I used the wet on wet technique when watercoloring this image and love how the colors blended together on their own. 

This card also fits well with the CAS on Friday challenge: Spring.

It's a dark and rainy Palm Sunday here, but there's hope in the future for some beautiful peonies in the yard.

 

 

More Spring Flowers

I have another card for the spring flower challenges. Seize the Birthday's Optional Twist is Spring, and Simon Says Work it Wednesday's challenge is Spring Flowers.

I've had a lot of fun imagining spring while making these cards. Hopefully, spring will soon no longer be a figment of my imagination!

The image is Papertrey Ink's Bold Blossoms on watercolor paper. They were colored with Altenew's 36 Pan Watercolors--my favorite for watercoloring flowers. The paints are so vibrant.

The sentiment was stamped and die cut with Papertrey Ink's "Penned Elegance."

After the watercolor dried, I added some depth to the flowers with Polychromos colored pencils, and added some white gel pen to the stamens. The final touch was a few black pearls.

Flower Shop

This card took a bit more time than usual, but I did all the coloring and fussy cutting while watching the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament this weekend. I missed most of the two games my team (UConn) played as we were out to dinner Friday night, and at a Lunch & Learn event at church yesterday. I did catch the end of both games. Yesterday's was particularly exciting, and UConn advanced to the Final Four. I'm likely to miss both the Semi-Finals and the Finals because I'm headed to Washington, D.C. for Ecumenical Advocacy Days. I've never been before, and I'm looking forward to it. There are seven of us from our Presbytery headed there on Thursday. I'm also looking forward to seeing some real Spring there. We got a rather harsh (in my opinion) April Fool's joke this morning, waking up to 2" of freshly fallen snow. (More on that to come in the next post.)

At any rate, here's a toast to Spring via Hero Arts January Card Kit. I was inspired by two things: first this post by Vikki, and then by the Inspired By Challenge this time: Windows.

It's hard to see in any of the photos, but I fussy cut the window from the Flower Shop and backed it with acetate to mimic a real window. The Flower Shop was die cut from Simon Says "Fog" cardstock, and adhered to a Weathervane (PTI) card base.  I restamped the awning onto X-Press Blending paper, colored it with Copics, and fussy cut it before adding it to the shop with dimensional tape. All the flowers and containers were also stamped on X-Press and colored with a variety of Copic markers.

You can see a slight reflection on the acetate at this angle. The sentiment is a fave from Papertrey's "Birthday Bash" set. 

I decided not to use any dimensional tape with the flowers as there were so many individual pieces that I didn't think it needed anything else.

I'm linking this card to these challenges:

Inspired By . . . 

Seize the Birthday with an optional twist of SPRING . . . 

Simon Says Work It Wednesday: Spring Flowers . . .

And last, but not least, Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes . . .

Hope Spring has shown up where you live!

Butterflies

Butterflies seem to be on the mind of people choosing card challenges this week. I love butterflies and have several sets that would work for either of these challenges, but this is what I've come up with. First off, the Time Out Challenge. It's a photo challenge, but the image in the photo that caught my eye was the large butterfly painting over the couch. As soon as I saw it I had an idea for the challenge.

A close look at the photo shows a butterfly in grays and blacks with very interesting gold framing. Although I've used Papertrey Ink's "Butterfly Folk" in the past, I've never used this (quite large) image before. 

I stamped it in black on Simon Says Fog cardstock, one of my favorite grays. Then I placed one of Altenews "Fine Frames" die cut in gold behind it.

The sentiment is from Simon Says "Let's Party." Finally, I thought it needed just a bit of sparkle so I added some gold rhinestones.

The next card is for the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge.

This time I reached for another Papertrey Ink set, "Life is Beautiful." 

I stamped the butterfly on Tim Holtz watercolor paper with my MISTI. It took multiple stampings to get a sharp black image. I then watercolored it with Altenew's 36 pan watercolor set (still sitting on a table in my craft room since our return from Wisconsin," and die cut it with the coordinating die.

I couldn't decide what to use for the border in the sketch, but settled on a thin strip of patterned paper from Sunny Studio's "Striped Silly" paper pad which I backed with a piece of black cardstock as well as a very thin piece of cardstock down the center. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Birthday Bash" set, a set I return to over and over again.

I used some three-dimensional tape to attach the butterfly, and pulled its wings up a bit. This is probably a card that would be better hand-delivered than sent through the mail.

 

 

Spring Flowers - Take Three Thursday and Two Challenges

It warmed up yesterday afternoon, and we were out for a walk, but there aren't really any spring flowers to be seen. A few snowdrops peeking up, a few crocus, and not much else. I'd be more encouraged if there wasn't snow in the weekend forecast. Maybe they'll be wrong for a change!

Last week I went to a local garden store to pick up some new pots for my African violets. They had a special display of primroses for $3.50 apiece so I brought three home. One for the kitchen:

One for the coffee table in the living room:

And one for my desk:

I'm joining Mary-Lou today for Take Three Thursday with three things you've noticed this week. Actually, these are three things I've truly enjoyed this week. Almost all my time at home is spent in one of these three rooms, and they've brought some joy and a touch of spring into my week.

Speaking of spring flowers, that's the challenge for Work it Wednesday at Simon Says for the next several weeks. The Simon Says weekly Wednesday Challenge is "Anything Goes," so this springy card will work for both challenges.

Of all the images I watercolored while I was away, this is the most colorful. Here's to Spring! The image is another Papertrey Ink "Bold Blossoms" for watercoloring.

Like the others I've posted, I used Altenew's 36 Pan Watercolor set. This time I added some details with my Polychromos pencils and a white Signo pen when I got home. Before mounting it on a card, I used the W+9 "Gift Card Layers Die" to create a stitched edge. 

The sentiment was stamped and die cut with Papertrey Ink's "Penned Elegance" set.

 

Time Out: Birthday Celebration

The Time Out Challenge is celebrating their 5th birthday. I'm late to the party, but just in time with a birthday card to celebrate.

I'm sharing another card with a watercolored panel I worked on while we were away. This time it's Papertrey Ink's "Peonies on Parade."

The beautiful peonies were watercolored with Altenew's 36 pan watercolor set.  

I used a combination of pinks, orange, and reds and love the way the colors blend into one another using a wet-on-wet technique. The sentiment is from Papertrey's "Penned Elegance." The only embellishment was the addition of a few black pearls.

I did add a bit of dimension by using a black Glaze pen on the center of the peonies. 

 

Watercolored Blossoms

While we were in Wisconsin, I watercolored some images for cards. As usual, the first few days after returning from a trip were very busy, but finally while I watched the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship games last night, I had time to put the images to good use. I have one to share today for three challenges. The first is The Flower Challenge where "Anything Goes" is the theme.

The second is for AAA Cards. The challenge there this time is One Image plus an Optional Twist of Spring. We awoke to another fresh coat of snow, so despite the encouraging forecasts the only sign of spring is right here in my craft room. 

And, finally for Less is More where the challenge is "Take Three." Although there are three main blossoms in the cluster, it is just one image, not several that have been masked, so I think it works for both the AAA Card challenge as well as Less is More. 

The image is from Papertrey Ink, "Bold Blossoms" that was printed on watercolor paper. I used Altenew's 36 pan watercolor set which is perfect for traveling as well as having great colors for flowers. That's no surprise since Altenew excels in creating beautiful floral stamp sets. 

The sentiment is also from Papertrey Ink. I love the "Penned Elegance" stamps and dies. Before I owned a set of the dies, I borrowed them from a friend and stamped and die cut a bunch of them. They were in my stash just waiting for the right occasion, and this was it.

To qualify for the AAA Card Challenge, no embellishments can be added. I did die cut the panel with the large rectangle from W+9's "Gift Card Layers" die, and added a few white dots to the flower centers with a Signo broad white pen. I'm hoping that doesn't disqualify the card from the challenge.

Here's hoping I'll soon be able to post some photographs of spring flowers!

 

The Flower Challenge: Take Two

There's a gorgeous gallery of cards up on The Flower Challenge: Anything Goes.

I have a second card to add to the gallery, another card created with my recent favorite: Pink Fresh Studio's "Fleur 1."

After coloring the two floral images with Copic markers, I die cut them with the coordinating dies and added them to a Papertrey Ink Shape Shifter Circle #1. This time I used just two of the the dies: the outer scallop and the "stitched" border. On the last card I posted for this challenge, I used all three. You can see it here. The versatility of the Shape Shifter dies is one of the things I love best about them. The sentiment is from an older Papertrey set, "Floral Frenzy," that's been in my collection for years. 

The bow was stamped in Hawaiian Shores to match the card base, and I added five yellow Nuvo dots to complete the card.

An "Irish" Birthday

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day and Tracy’s birthday. We’ll be spending it at Sarah’s church, a lunch out afterwards to celebrate the birthday, back for chocolate cake and ice cream, and before dinner, heading home to Rochester. We’ll drive a few hours Sunday and finish the trip Monday.

So it’s unlikely that I’ll have time to write a blog post or even link to a challenge tomorrow. The Card Concept Challenge is just perfect for a St. Patrick’s Day birthday card: Shamrock Blessings.

 

One of the stamp sets in the Simon Says March Card Kit, “Wooly Lucky,” was also perfect, and I made a shaker card thinking Caleb and Hannah would appreciate the cute llama and the shaker. I also know Tracy won’t mind not getting a sophisticated card for his birthday.

I started by coloring the llama with Copic markers and fussy cutting him. Then I used a Spellbinder’s oval to die cut the center from patterned paper, “Really Rainbow Scallops” by Lawn Fawn, that came with kit, backed it with acetate, and after filling it with a sequin mixture that also came with the kit, added a foam backing to create the shaker.

I couldn’t decide how to add the sentiment to the card, but finally decided to cut a shamrock with the Cameo and then embossed the sentiment in gold. It still needed something, so I cut a second shamrock from metallic gold paper to use as a border. I popped up the llama with some dimensional tape and adhered the piece to a top-folded white card.

The kit also included a gold envelope and a set of stickers, and I used two of them on the envelope.

And in honor of St. Patrick, an Irish Blessing:

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life’s passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!