STAMPlorations Inspiration

How are you today? Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Are you starting to accommodate to this new normal of isolation and social distancing? I have not left the house for anything else than my daily walk/jog for a few weeks now. I'm ever so grateful we have a big garden and our house borders on fields with footpaths so I can go out for relatively isolated walks, although I have to say I have never met as many people on my walks/jogs as I have in the last few weeks. It seems like the whole world has suddenly taken up walking. Luckily I get to see my colleagues every day on video conferencing too, and we have online boardgames nights, Friday drinks and daily coffee breaks. And of course, there is always the craft room.  

And talking of crafting, it's time for another STAMPlorations Inspiration post. I was inspired by the daffodils in the garden to create this springtime card. I started by stamping the Narcissus - Large twice, masking for the second round of stamping. I then coloured the flowers with watercolour pencils and added a green sentiment using Everyday Sentiments dies. 

Stamps: STAMPlorations Narcissus - Large
Dies: CUTploratoins Everyday Sentiments
Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versafine Onyx Black, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils

March STAMPlorations TAG challenge - Spring

Welcome to the STAMPlorations March TAGplorations challenge. Our theme is spring, with an optional twist of birds. Is it getting spring-y where you are? I love March as spring starts to show just a little bit with nature turning green and early spring flowers shyly make their way above ground. Thank you for playing along with our February Love challenge, you certainly made it hard to pick our favourites! 

I started by stamping Hummingbird - Large onto watercolour paper and coloured him with Gansai Tambi watercolour and pearl watercolours. For the background, I watercoloured through the Honeycomb Delight Mini stencil and then went a bit overboard with splattering lots of watercolour onto the remaining tag for interest. The sentiments are from Bold Sentiments: Hashtag Authentic and Noteworthy 2.

Stamps: STAMPlorations Hummingbird - Large, Bold Sentiments: Hashtag Authentic, Noteworthy 2
Stencil: ARTplorations Honeycomb Delight Mini
Dies: CUTplorations Luggage Tags Nesting Dies

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.

STAMPlorations Things With Wings Spring Blog Hop & Linky Party

I'm so glad you stopped by my blog as I'm thrilled to be part of the STAMPlorations Things With Wings Blog Hop & Linky Party which starts today. We are celebrating spring! Isn't it wonderful when the flowers come out and the sun is warm enough so you can enjoy being outside. I love spring. It's my favourite season, I love it more than summer. I love watching the garden come to life, the beautiful spring greens and the daffodils which are then slowly making room for other colours in the flower beds. I love watching the buds turn to blooms on the fruit trees and the seeds starting to germinate in the greenhouse. The simple pleasures in life!

As usual Shery is generously giving out lots of prizes to all of you who want to play along with us to celebrate spring. You can play along by commenting on the main blog post and on the designer's posts. You can also link up your wing-themed art projects to our gallery, you don't have to use STAMPlorations products but we would love to see you use them if you have any. Both commenting and linking will be open until April 30th. You can see all the wonderful prizes on the main blog post. You can find all the gorgeous new spring themed STAMPlorations products under the New Release category in the STAMPshop. And you can get a 20% discount by using the discount code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout!

For my wing-themed card I used the new Dragonfly Layering Dies. This is a set of dies I was looking at and thinking I don't really know how to use this, and maybe I don't really like it. How wrong was I!! After playing around for a bit I just totally fell in love with this die. The dragonflies are so gorgeous and you can play around with so many different looks. White borders on colourful dragonflies, vellum dragonflies with colourful borders, white against black, any combination really! I chose to go with rainbow colours, because as you know, rainbow is my favourite colour. I used a piece of watercolour card I had created previously using Brushos to die cut the dragonflies an a piece of sparkly white card for the top border to accentuate the colours. I created a rainbow coloured background using the ARTplorations Bubble Dance stencil by blending Tim Holtz Distress inks using foam applicators. Finally, I die cut the sentiment using the new Be Kind Phrase Die. All the bright colours on this card make me smile, I hope it will inspire you to also create something spring and wing themed for the linky party. Don't forget to hop around to see what my incredibly talented DT colleagues have created for the hop as well.

I'm linking up with the following challenges: 

AAA cards - Shiny Spring

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Make a Rainbow

Time Out - Be inspired by the phrase "When it rains look for rainbows, when it's dark look for stars"

Card: 250 gsm white card, 160 gsm watercolour paper, white and grey glitter card

Ink and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Brushos

Stencils: ARTplorations Bubble Dance 

Dies: CUTplorations Dragonfly Layering Dies, Be Kind Phrase Die