Technique – ink blending

Featuring ink blending

Autumn Cattails

Hi everyone!

Today I’m playing along with one of my favourite challenges –Freshly Made Sketches. They are celebrating their 500th challenge this week – what an inspiration! I think it’s wonderful that the challenge is still going strong and I’m so grateful to the Challenge administrators and DT members for all that they do in making this challenge blog such a fun and happy place. THANK YOU Freshly Made Sketches team!!

Anyway, this week’s sketch is a fun one! I was originally tempted to pull out my stems dies to create that left hand side panel but then I remembered that I have some ‘awkward’ dies that I never used because I can never come up with a decent design to showcase them! I was CONVINCED one of those dies was a tall tree, but it wasn’t in my ‘tree’ section so instead I used this beautiful Graceful Cattails die by Memory Box. I don’t think I’ve ever used it before, even though it’s five years old!

Anyway, I created a blended background using Distress Oxides – it’s been a while since I blended with them and I forgot how wonderfully they blend! I used the die to cut some brown card and then adhered image to the blended background. I layered it to a couple of panels and added a Hero Arts sentiment to complete my take. It’s not a totally autumnal card, but as it feels like autumn here today, I felt it was the right  one to go with!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Vase of Turquoise Berries

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge  where the combo is red, turquoise, green and grey) using Altenew products.

I cut the large berry branch from the Branches and Berries die set and as I wanted to do something a bit different with the combo, I decided to just colour the berries with my Twinkling H2O paints! Next I cut a vase from the Mantel Decor – Spring Die Set and coloured it with some distress ink. That just left green and grey to incorporate…. I used a circle mask and lightly blended mowed lawn distress ink and then added a couple of thin circle frames from the Fine Frames Circle die. The sentiment is from the Helftone Hearts stamp set.

I’m also going to share this on the Altenew Ultimate Challeng Blog Hop link up.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Seaside Thank You

Hi there everyone!

I loved the last Paper Players sketch challenge and had an idea for it all set up in my head. Then life got in the way so I missed the challenge deadline, but decided to go ahead with my idea anyway using Penny Black products.

First of all, I stamped the beachy wreath from Seashells set (30-843) in a light ink and coloured it with my Twinkling H2O paints. Then I put the coloured image back in my MISTI, stamped it with Versamark and heat embossed it using white pearl embossing powder! I fussy cut the wreath before starting on my tag, which is from the Tagged die set (51-007). I sponged it lightly with distress ink and them popped the wreath on top to work out where to place the sentiment. After stamping the sentiment from the Ever Thanks set (30-813), I adhered the wreath to the tag and then the tag to my card base.

I felt like the card was still missing something and so I decided to add some small shell embellishments. I had so much fun creating these with shrink plastic! I haven’t used it for years! I ended up using the same ink for the shells and sentiment as lighter inks just didn’t seem to show up at all, which was odd as colours usually intensify when you heat shrink plastic.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Beverly Vine

Hi there!

Next up today is my card using the current sketch from the Tuesday Morning Sketches Challenge!

I had a lot of ideas for the sketch but when I sat down at my craft table, I saw the fabulous Poppystamps Beverly Vine die that I took out a couple of weeks ago but I ended up not using! So today was its chance to shine!

I coloured the image with distress inks and added detail with a Prisma pencil. The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.

I’m also entering this into the current Poppystamps challenge where the theme is anything goes!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Smiles across the miles

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with the sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches. When I saw this week’s sketch, I started thinking of a couple of oval dies that I thought would work perfectly! In the end, I chose the Memory Box Fairhaven Oval die which I coloured with my beloved Twinkling H2Os.

I added a few die cut butterflies from the Poppystamps Fern and Daisy Pop up Easel die set – I love how that set has so many different dies! The sentiment is a combination of two companies – Hero Arts and Whimsey Stamps.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Totally Amazing Poppies

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along with the colour challenge at The Paper Players and the sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

When I first saw the sketch challenge, I struggled with it a bit and it was only when I saw the colour challenge that I thought that tall poppies could work perfectly for both challenges! So I cut my Memory Box Prim Poppy die and coloured it with distress ink and added a bit of detail with a coloured pencil. Next I cut two yellow strips from some of my patterned paper mountain and added a Whimsy Stamps sentiment and a few die cut stars to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.