Artistic Inspirations challenge 88 CAS/ Anything goes

Happy Easter Monday to you all. And Happy Birthday to Queen Elizabeth who is an amazing 88 years old today!!!
My DT card for this weeks Artistic Inspirations challenge is from an image by Paper Nest Dolls. The lovely childlike image is probably not one I'd send to Her Majesty, but I'll be using it for my Son's 23 birthday next month as he is a bit of a monkey! Hope you like it. Suz xxx

I printed the image in A5 size on smooth card, coloured it with a mixture of Pitt pens, alcohol markers and pencils. I roughly measured the height and width of the image then used my Cricut mini to make an aperture in a piece of pink paper to fit over. I layed the aperture over the image and marked where it would NOT go over and here I then cut the image to pop over the edge of the aperture. I used the Mini to create balloons and the letter tags to make bunting. I wrote out the letters & edged the tags with green ink. I added the layered card and image onto an A4 sized card, stuck ribbon along the edges and added the coloured balloons. I finished by drawing string from the bunting and balloons with a green pen and used a black micron to create the string effect.

Bottle Bouquet

This months Craft Stamper mag features their free bottles stamp and the challenge focused on using bottle.  This gave me the idea to have a play with a lovely shaped bottle I was about to put in the recycle bin and turn it into a 'bottle bouquet'! I looked at some other challenges for a bit of inspiration on colours, etc. Here it is...products used and steps below.

Will add these to the Craft Stamper bottles challenge, Hels Sunday Stampers (eternal flame - and I've used all the colours though only a hint of red), Country View Challenge (New Beginnings- which both for the bottle I've given a new lift to and the new blooms I've made) and Craftyhands (Anything goes as I missed the Shabby chic). I also think these fit with a monochrome theme as the whole project is based on shades of one colour (orange) to will enter the Crafting Musketeer's challenge which again I've not entered for yonks!

I covered the bottle using a sheet of papermania paper which I tore into strips and glued to the bottle, and some white acrylic paint which I firstly dry brushed but it was too thick so I watered it down to give a wash instead. Once dry I used a stencil and Decoart modelling paste to add flowers which, once completely set, I highlighted with two colours of gold gilding waxes. The flowers were all from Sheena Douglas, which I stamped using a momento ink, coloured with alcohol markers and cut out.I added some Wink of Stella to some too. I then bent a wire coathanger into a diamondish shape, tuned it upside down and stuck it in the bottle. I wrapped bronze jewellery wire around it, stuck on the flowers and some ribbon and hey presto, a 'Bottle Bouquet'!

Lovely workshop: Doodles, inks, sakura pens & super quick gift bags

 So here are the bits we made at my workshop yesterday. I made flower masks on my Cricut. We stencilled through them with various Tim Holtz distress inks then using various doodle patterns I'd shown the girls we decorated the flowers with patterns using fine nibbed permanent markers. We coloured gems with alcohol markers and glued them in the middle with Pinflair glue. We decorated the cards again using masks and dye inks but more faded this time. Then finally drew wiggly borders which we added little daisys too that were coloured with sakura gel pens.

I'll do a blog on how to make the boxes later in the week.
Thanks for looking.
Suz
xx

Artistic Inspirations with Eureka Stamps

Hi all
Here is my latest DT project for the Artistic Inspirations Challenge Blog. This was a lovely detailed image from Eureka Stamps who have kindly sponsored this months challenge.

I water coloured the image then used a black Sakura Glaze pen to go back over the lines, and a white Sakura Glaze pen for the highlights, though I must admit I generally prefer the Sakura Gelly Roll for white highlights. I used pencils to shade the rope frame. A bow and sentiment and a few die cut shapes and voilà! This will be a birthday card for my Aunts Mum who will be 97 next month and still makes her own cards. Inspiration for us all. Suz xxx

Anniversary Card for my parents

I finally found a way of using my Sizzix Flip-it die that was easy. Most would probably have figured it our ages ago but I was trying to cut white card and then decorate with patterned paper, but it never looked neat enough! Simple solution was to use pretty double sided papers of a good weight and then adorn with anything you like. So I used the die to make a cute anniversary card for my parents.

The bunnies were one of a set of free stamps with the Spring edition of Crafters Companion mag. Stamped with Momento then coloured with Promarkers. Nice quick card which was just as well as I had to get it in the post box by 11am!

Mothers Day die cut card

Here's the card I made for Mother's day. Been using my new Tonic dies! Mum loved it thankfully!