PaperArtsy Blog - Topic 19 - Cute Critters

Hi everyone, I'm contributing on the PaperArtsy blog today where I'm sharing Party Cats card for the cute critters topic.

You couldn't get cuter or more fun than Elena's Zinski Art Christmas stamp set ZA50, the purrrrrrfect party animals! 

My background is a mix of Infusions, they are Olive Tree and Frankly Scarlet.

I did my paint splatter with Iceberg and Snowflake Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics and I also used the Snowflake to stencil in the background through Sara's Christmas stencil 114 with a stencil brush.

Intial colouring is with Inktense watercolour pencils, I've used a dabbing action to achieve the mottled appearance of the fur. You can see the stenciled pine leaves here, they make a nice border around the card. 

I added a touch of coloured pencil over the watercolouring here and there but I didn't need much. These two Infusions colours are gorgeous in the background and perfect for Christmas colour schemes.

There are more close up photo's and steps on the PaperArtsy blog and lots of inspiration over the two weeks of this topic if you love stamping cute characters.

Have a lovely weekend!
Chris

Paperbabe Stamps Challenge 44

Hi everyone, it's the start of a new challenge at Paperbabe Stamps and this time we have a great inspiration photo to work from. As always there's a voucher to be won and you don't have to use Paperbabe stamps to enter so I hope you can join us.

I made a Halloween tag using the Dillon Batwings image stamp and then stamps from the great design building stamp set Design a Tweed to bring in the hounds tooth element from the inspiration photo.

I've got some of the beige colour in my background too.

Dillon is coloured with watercolour and pencils and other stamping is done with pigment inks.

Hope you have a great weekend.
Chris x

Paperbabe Stamps - MayLeeDee Kimono Canvas Sneak Peek

Hi everyone, I hope you had a good weekend. I'm here today with my sneak peek for Paperbabe Stamps and this week I've made a canvas with the gorgeous MayLeeDee Kimono with sentiment stamp. The full reveal is over on the Paperbabe Stamps Blog if you'd like to see more. Thanks as always for your lovely comments both here and on the Paperbabe Stamps Blog, they're much appreciated.
 

Colour Create Challenge 8 - Navy, Turquoise and Lime

Morning everyone and Happy Mother's Day to all the blogging Mum's out there in the UK where we celebrate at the beginning of spring. I hope you'll have a lovely day and good amount of spoiling! Colour Create Challenge day today and challenge number eight is a lovely colour combination of Navy, Turquoise and Lime chosen by my extremely talented DT friend Sarita who makes the most amazing and beautiful cards. The option Sarita chose is no designer paper as she mainly stamps her backgrounds with the prettiest of background stamps. I really enjoyed using this technique so thanks Sarita for a great challenge. I hope you can join in this week and there's some fantastic inspiration from my design team friends for ideas on how to interpret the challenge.

The image is by Alota Rubber Stamps and is water coloured with distress inks and decorated with stickles so it's very sparkly IRL! The card base of a dark turquoise card is stamped using some Stempelglede scroll stamps and navy ink. The layer over the card blank is made from white card stamped with a flower stamp and versamark ink which has been heat embossed with clear embossing powder, sponged all over the paper with faded jeans and broken china distress inks and then the embossing ironed off to reveal the white paper under the stamped flowers. The flowers are then coloured with lime green sparkle gel pen. I've used this method again on the lime paper layer and added the ribbon and green gem to finish. TFL. Chris x

Kadoodle Snail Wagon

Hi everyone, a card today for Stamp Something where the theme this week is think spring. I love the fresh spring colours, pinks, blues and greens and I've used these colours in the card, buttons and water colouring of the image. The Snail Wagon image is my Kadoodle design available at the Craft Barn and I've water coloured it with Ranger distress inks, added some stickles and glossy crackle accents to the snail shell. The background is blue core'dinations card which has been partially embossed at angles with the Argyle cuttlebug embossing folder and then sanded and distressed on the edges. To decorate I added the three colours of ribbon, buttons and Woodware sentiment.

I'm doing a colouring technique demo tomorrow at the Craft Barn from 10am-4pm so if anyone from blogland is in the vicinity and has any time to pop in it would be lovely see you. Take care and see you tomorrow with my BasicGrey Challenge crad. TFL. Chris

Flower bunch

Hi everyone, a card today for Mojo Monday Challenge and another really lovely sketch to follow and also for The Cuttlebug Challenge where this week the theme is 'water colour'. The image is 'Flower bunch' which will be available soon on my digi-stamps blog and I've coloured it with markers and then overpainted with Twinkling H2o water colour paints in green and gold. I've embossed all the card layers with either the swiss dots or stylised flower folders, the large white panel stylised flowers have also been water coloured with the H2o's. At the top of the white card blank I've scored some lines but I don't think they're showing up to well in the photograph, I've punched and glittered some butterflies for three elements at the side of the sketch and added the woodware sentiment and stickles to the bow on the flower bunch to finish. TFL. Chris

Snowflake

Hi everyone, a card today for Stamp Something with a challenge of 'snow somethings', ABC with a challenge of 'T is for three's', Dutch Dare where the challenge is 'scalloped edges', Sketch Saturday where there's a really great sketch by Mariska and Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge with a challenge of 'embossing - dry or heat'. I think I'm only just in the nick of time for two of these, there aren't enough hours in the day at the moment, I know we're all pretty much the same. I've used the lovely Whiff of Joy Charlotte and Reindeer image which is water coloured with distress inks and there's a tiny bit of a teal marker in there too. I've cut out the image and the scalloped square of teal bazzil with nestabilities and mounted on foam tape over a scalloped and CB embossed panel for the centre part of the sketch. I have modified the shape of my card and the elements but the original sketch is still there. The background paper is Bo Bunny and the three snowflakes are cut from ivory bazzil bling with a sizzix die and covered in Cosmic Shimmer glitter jewels inspired by Rach who did some a week or so ago and I loved the idea. Rach's blog is in my sidebar if you'd like to look at her gorgeous creation, she has a link to a tutorial on how to make them. I didn't do the sponging around the edges but used the wet glue and then lightly pressed them into the jewels as per the tutorial. I had to use a different product too. Added some doodling with a marker for stitching, the snowflake sentiment in blue versafine ink and some jewel gems to finish. Hope everyone's Christmas preps are going well, I've barely started and must get on with it while there's still things left to buy!!! TFL.

Back soon,
Chris

Elzybells Christmas

Hi everyone, a card today for Dutch Dare where the challenge is to 'put a hole in your card', Secret Crafter with a challenge of 'decoupage', ABC with a challenge of 'snow' and Everbody Art Challenge with a challenge of 'winter/Christmas', lots of lovely challenges to put together!
I stamped the gorgeous Elzybells girl with her sledge from the Dinky Christmas set and water coloured with Ranger Distress inks then cut out using the nestabilities label one die, edged and dotted with glamour dust. I stamped the image again, water coloured and cut out the presents and layered with gel glue on the image. To add the hole element of Dutch Dare I die cut a piece of ivory bazzil bling with the labels die one size up from the image size, sponged the edges with black distress ink and layered this on the beige card blank over a piece of snowflake patterned paper, not sure of the brand it was an offcut but might be DCWV Christmas stack. The image is mounted on dimension tape in the centre of the aperture I did a bit of doodling, punched some snowflakes, added gems to their centres and stamped the Woodware sentiment to finish. TFL.

Back soon,
Chris