February Inspiration Challenge

Looking ahead to spring, I wanted to make a simple card for Altenew's February Inspiration Challenge, which features a beautiful floral bouquet. Although I'm not proficient with colored pencils, I thought this was a good opportunity to hone my skills. This was a pretty bold attempt on my part,  considering that the inspiration was a gorgeous card by the amazing Debby Hughes, but I stamped and colored on!  Besides, I've been looking forward to using the awesome pencil holder that my hubby made for me!

To begin, I cut a piece of Gina K Designs Pure Luxury kraft cardstock to 4.25 x 5.5. I then stamped the floral image from Altenew's Charmed stamp set using Versamark ink and heat embossed the image with clear embossing powder.

Using Prismacolor pencils in Poppy Red, Carmine Red, and Crimson, I colored the largest flower. I wanted the smaller flowers in shades of pale coral, but since I didn't have that color in my collection I decided to use some peach tones. The smallest flower was actually done in Cream and Light Peach.This is where I felt my pencil coloring skills needed a little practice. Since watercoloring is something I've done much more, I'm used to leaving white space for highlights. I'm going to try to do that more with my pencil coloring and see if I like that effect better.  

The leaves were easier to color, just a touch of Apple Green with some shading done in Dark Green. I used Goldenrod for the centers and added a tiny bit of black to the seeds.

Once the coloring was done, I stamped the large sentiment directly on the paper using Versafine Onyx ink (my favorite for just about anything except alcohol markers), then heat embossed it in clear embossing powder. I kind of like the way the original outline of the floral bouquet shows through the sentiment, but if you didn't want that to happen it would be easy to just brush away a section of the embossing powder before heat embossing the bouquet.

I stamped the smaller sentiments on a small piece of Gina K Designs Black Onyx cardstock then heat embossed with white powder before cutting them and adhering with Tombow Mono adhesive, another favorite of mine. 

To finish, I cut the kraft panel using a Spellbinders Card Creator die, which gives it a nice, embossed edge, then adhered it to Neenah cardstock with my Kokuyo dotliner. I think it would also look nice popped up with some foam strips or even a sheet of kraft foam.

I added a few Nuvo Crystal drops and a single jewel from Little Things Rainbow Sparkle mix just for fun.

Have a beautiful day and thanks for stopping by!

Supplies (some compensated affiliate links used): 

All You Need Is Love

There's a "hidden" message in this card I created for the current AAA Cards challenge, code word "All You Need Is Love." With the help of my husband, a trombone player in his former life, I loosely represented the first bar of the refrain from the famous Beatles song. Can you see it?

As I said, it's a loose representation! There are supposed to be only five lines for a real staff, and I got a little carried away with my scoring pad. This is art, right? The notes aren't supposed to have those little flags on the end (I think they're called quavers), but the stamp from my Lawn Fawn limited edition Friends Forever set was the perfect size! The last note is supposed to be a whole note, which is like an open oval. I had a little, open heart from the same set that I was planning to use, but once I did it looked so tiny I decided to use a larger, solid heart to complete the score. I decorated it with a clear jewel from Lucy's Cards rainbow mix.

I began with a plain piece of Neenah solar white cut to 4.25 x 5 inches. Using a piece of heavyweight scrap paper cut to the same dimensions, I made a mask with a mid-size heart from Altenew's Halftone Hearts die set. Next, I taped the Neenah paper to my craft sheet and the new mask on top. With a sponge dauber, I colored in the heart using Distress Oxide ink in Picked Raspberry.



Once the ink was dry, I patted the image with anti-static powder and started stamping the notes in Versamark Onyx ink. This is where it got a little tricky. In order to line up the notes on the same line of the staff I used my MISTI. The grid paper on the MISTI pad came in handy here, because I just had to move the paper over about one-and-a-half grid spaces, with the stamp still in place, to stamp each the successive image. Once that was done, I embossed the notes with clear embossing powder.

I used my Martha Stewart scoring pad to emboss the staff lines. Next, I added the sentiment, which is from Altenew's Cherished stamp set. To finish, I trimmed the sheet using a frame from Lawn Fawn's Large Cross-stitched Rectangle Stackables die set and adhered it to my Neenah cardstock with a Tombow Mono adhesive runner.

Hope you had fun trying to read my "music!" Apologies to all of you real musicians out there!

 

Supplies (affiliate links used at no cost to you):