The Sky's The Limit

I've been enjoying a few days off work, as my Dad has been visiting. We've been so busy doing many fun things - we went to Silverstone to see the F1 Grand Prix, we visited Wimpole Hall (such a gorgeous house, beautiful gardens and Shire horses on the farm), and yesterday we spent a day at the Duxford Imperial War Museum. I didn't think I would really enjoy it very much, but I was totally mesmerised by the beautiful planes (but I could not tell you which one is which, even if my life depended on it, I did enjoy photographing them though). We also had the in-laws over for dinner on Saturday (we were going to BBQ but the British summer showed its usual rather wet side, so we ended up having a roast instead) and my father in law brought over the most gorgeous produce box from his garden. And last but not least, we saw baby deer being bottle fed when we went for dinner at a local farm (shout out to Johnsons of Old Hurst, lovely steak house, well worth a visit if you are in the neighbourhood). I don't think I've ever seen anything as cute as those little baby deer. The amount of oooh-ing and awww-ing among the ladies, we all just ran out of the restaurant to see them while the guys sat there, rolling their eyes.

Baby deer with a little bit of milk down her cheek.
Can I hear you say awwww?

That's a lot of buttons!!

Wimpole Hall gardens.

Produce box from the
father-in-law's garden

This is a Lockheed Blackbird,
it's actually a real war plane although
it looks like something from Star Wars!

This is Sally B, the last remaining
airworthy B-17 in Europe. We saw her
take off for a flight!

Today I took Dad to the airport and thought I might as well spend the rest of the day in the craft room as there were a few challenges I wanted to play along with. I wanted to create something inspired by the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches, the colours over at Color Throwdown and the gorgeous inspiration image over at Just Add Ink. I'm also linking up over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is "You've Got The Edge" and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is "We're Seeing Stars". I'm also linking up over at Lawn Fawnatics with the current colour challenge. 

 

I created a background with Turquoise Distress Oxide and Distress Inks with a watercolour brush and lots of layering and splattering. Then I stamped the balloon, stars and clouds from Lawn Fawn Blue Skies. I coloured them with Copics and die cut using the matching dies. Then I die cut the panel using the Stitched Square Stackables, and for the background, I die cut a larger square from Lawn Fawn Watercolor wishes. Then I stamped the sentiment in black and arranged the balloons and stars onto the card. I added some Wink of Stella to the clouds for a finishing touch. 

Card: 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Lawn Fawn Watercolor Wishes patterned paper
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Blue Skies and matching dies
Ink and Colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black, Copics, Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Broken China, Distress Ink Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Square Stackable dies

Sorry I'm Late for the Party

It's been a while since I had a play with the Crazy Birds, so when I saw the card to CASE over at Time Out I knew it was time for them to make an appearance. I feel we crafters are always so keen to jump on the latest bandwagon and I'm most certainly guilty of that quite often. But from time to time it's nice to go back to old favourites, and I think we should do that more often, don't you? This sad little fellow is my absolute favourite in the set, how perfect is that sad face with the deflated balloon for a belated birthday card?

I was inspired by the green bird and grey background in the inspiration card but also by the multiple lines of text, so I also spread out my sentiment over multiple lines (note to self - need to get an alphabet set with smaller letters, any good recommendations?) and continuing on the inside of the card.

Today's card was also inspired by the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and the summery colour combo over at Color Throwdown. I'm also linking up with the CAS challenge over at Shopping Our Stash. I watercoloured the bird and balloon with Distress Inks Mowed Lawn, Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar, and used Hickory Smoke to ink through the Tim Holtz star stencil to create the background. 

Card: 300 gsm white card, 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper
Stamps: Tim Holtz Bird Crazy, Crazy Things and matching dies, Lawn Fawn Claire's ABC
Ink: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Picked Raspberry, Mowed Lawn, Spun Sugar, Hickory Smoke
Stencil: Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Stars
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangles, Cole's ABC, Everyday Banners

Watercolour Butterfly Row

Yesterday I got into the craft room after a bit of a break-up with my crafty stuff for a while. I started by making a few really simple and quick cards to warm up, I published them on the blog yesterday.  Today's card is the second card I made after I had spent some time warming up first. I was inspired by the butterfly theme over at CAS Watercolour. I also managed to play along with CAS Mix-up where the theme is Stamping + Tissue Paper + your choice. I was really intimidated by the tissue paper theme but when I saw Loll's great ideas to adhere the watercoloured tissue paper onto acetate I got the idea to attach my watercoloured tissue paper onto vellum (easier to glue it on!) and die cut for the sentiment. I was also inspired by the rainbow pastel colours over at Daring Cardmakers (although no unicorns this time, weird enough!!).

I started by stamping the gorgeous STAMPlorations Flutter Zen Row stamp onto watercolour paper and heat embossed the delicate butterflies in gold. Then I used my super fine watercolour brush and Gansai Tambi watercolours to colour the butterflies in all the colours of the rainbow. After colouring the butterflies, I added some grey around the butterflies for contrast, and splattered some black onto the background. Then I tackled the daunting task of watercolouring the tissue paper. Again, I couldn't help myself but colour it into a rainbow. I'm really on a rainbow streak! Then even more challenging, I dried the tissue paper using my heat gun, and scrunched it up. Then I glued it onto vellum, and die cut using the CUTplorations Celebrate Word die. I also cut a second sentiment in black to create some contrast. 

Card: Daler & Rowney 300 gsm watercolour card, tissue paper, scrap of black card, Dovecraft 110 gsm vellum

Stamps: STAMPlorations Flutter Zen Row

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Gansai Tambi watercolours

Other: Gold embossing powder

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. 

Mojo Warm-Up Blooms

Do you sometimes feel like you need a quick and easy project to get your mojo going? Kind of like warming up for when you do exercise? I've been struggling to get into the craft room lately (and also to the gym, but that's another story), not sure why but it just felt overwhelming and I tried to start a few cards but they were all just horrible.

Then I saw an amazing card on Instagram, which of course I can't find again... it was a gorgeous flower stamp on a blue background, coloured probably with watercolour markers. I tried to find it again - you know how Instagram always brings up those same donuts over and over again... but I just can't find that card again. Anyhow, long story short I was going to CASE that card as I happened to see that the challenge over at AAA Cards and Less Is More is One Layer with a coloured card base. But then it warped into something different when I had a dig around my huge stash of unused card and I found some rainbow coloured card which looks awesome as a A4 sized sheet but really doesn't work very well when cut down in size... But I thought it would work for this design. I was planning to colour in the gorgeous STAMPlorations Blossom Sprays #1 stamp. After I stamped and heat embossed it I decided to take a minimalist approach instead and just leave it as it is. All it needed was a bold sentiment from Noteworthy 2 and a fashion photo shoot together with my gorgeous hydrangea. If you come back tomorrow I'll show you the card I made after I had flexed my crafty muscles with these "warm up" cards. 

Card: Rainbow coloured card (it doesn't say what brand/make it is, I bought it on eBay...)
Stamps: STAMPlorations Blossom Sprays #1, Noteworthy 2
Ink: Tsukineko Versafine
Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.