March Elemental

It's the start of a new month so Daring Cardmakers has an "elemental" challenge for us - Enfys is asking us to be inspired by at least three elements from her striking picture (it's at the bottom of this post if you didn't arrive here from the DCM blog).

I chose the grid lines formed by the window frames, the various vases and bottles (including some twigginess!), the shiny chrome of the light fitting and the overall black and white/muted colour palette.

The image was stamped first and masked with a Post-It note mask. I used low-tack tape to make the grid and gently sponged on grey ink. The image is lightly coloured with Copics (the tiny flash of yellow is a nod to the yellow book that drew my eye on the bookshelf).

I used Flitter Glu and shiny silver flake for the sentiment which looks pretty but does tend to "disappear" with the light at certain angles which made photographing it a bit tricky!

Stamps:
Vases (Serendipity Stamps)
Sentiment from Big Day Today (Waltzingmouse Stamps, retired)

Ink: 
Soft Granite by Hero Arts
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko

Paper: Bristol Board

Other:
Flitter Glu and Sheffield Steel Mega Flake by Indigo Blu 
Low tack tape
Copic markers
Charcoal pencil

Here's the inspiration picture:

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Anniversary olives

It was our wedding anniversary at the weekend. I chose to focus on something hubby loves (olives) rather than a lovely-dovey theme when I sat down to make a card. I hunted for an anniversary sentiment that would look right and in the end I opted for this quote - not an obviously anniversary-related one but I think it's a nice thought to celebrate a marriage.

The Mixed Media Challenge at Splitcoast this week is MariLynn's "smash" technique. I used Memento
markers in three shades of green and although I think the Pear Tart has come out as the dominant one, the fact there's a mix lends some subtlety and depth to the background. I was aiming for a sort of abstract foliage feel!

I stamped the image with grey ink and coloured with a mixture of Copics and coloured pencils. I gave each olive a tiny highlight with a Posca pen.

Stamps:
Olive Branch by Serendipity Stamps
Sentiment by CHF (retired)

Ink:
Soft Granite by Hero Arts
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko

Other:
Memento markers - New Sprout, Pear Tart, Bamboo Leaves
Copic markers
Prismacolor and Colour Soft pencils
Fineline black marker
White Posca paint pen

Thanks for stopping by!

More Daring L.O.V.E.

As customers were late sending me work, I got a bit of unscheduled play time to have another go with this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge to use the word "love" to make a project by incorporating at least one item that begins with each letter.

I went girly this time with pink and orange and a more floral image. I thought this would be a good card to have on hand to send to anybody who needs a bit of a lift.

One of the things I loved about (the original) CHF was the scrapblocks - 6" square stamps that offered the chance to cover the whole of a cardfront in one go (US card sizes mean that the typical background stamp is slightly short for us Europeans using a standard A6 card and a 6" stamp gets round that issue). Other companies make them now but I think CHF was the first. I pulled out an old one called "love" to use for the "L" on this project and tried to position it so that the word HUGS would be left exposed and other stuff would be guessable if you wanted to go that way!

L - Love Scrapblock stamp
O - Oval and Orange
V - Vases stamp
E - Enamel Accents

The oval was originally just placed on the card but I felt it needed a bit of accentuation so I used a charcoal pencil and smudged around it. The colouring on the vases is a mix of watercolouring with Distress inks and Copics.

Stamps:
Love Scrapblock by CHF (retired)
Vases by Serendipity Stamps

Ink: 
Brilliance Graphite Black by Tsukineko
Distress Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade

Other:
Oval Framelits Dies by Sizzix
Copic markers
Enamel Accents by Ranger
Charcoal pencil
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!