DV #205 Use The colours Yellow and Black

For our last challenge before the Summer break at Dream Valley we would like to see your creations using yellow and black. We are sponsored by All Dressed Up and were very lucky to be provided with a couple of their gorgeous images to work with. I chose Busy Little Bee.

I first printed her onto IndigoBlu’s ricepaper which I put through my printer by attaching it at the top to an A5 sheet of reasonable weight paper with a glue tape pen.

I coloured her with Koh-i-Noor watercolour pencils, but actually tried to avoid adding any water. I chose them because they were the softest to use and I didn’t need to make small circles like you might with say Polychromos to get a decent coverage. As the rice paper is soft I didn’t want to overwork it. Now it will take a certain degree of abuse but I still wanted to work a bit more lightly than I would on plain cardstock.

When she was coloured I wet around her and pulled her off the sheet and then flipped her over and added a thin layer of white gesso so that she would not merge totally into the background I had created using a couple of colours of That’s Crafty pearl paint in both yellow and orange, although it’s the palest orange I have ever seen and definitely looks like yellow to me! I also splattered this background with the paint less diluted than I used to create the background.

I stuck her down with decoupage glue and then did some extra stamping. I also added a few diecuts from both Xcut’s Bee Keeping die and also I think the bees themselves are a Memory Box die. I also edged around her with a black poly pencil once she was stuck down. This wasn’t the best way of doing this and as the rice paper was so difficult to colour and not bleed into the areas I didn’t want the colour to go I might just use a decent photo copy paper, or go back to my tried and tested Talens Printer paper if I want to add a digital image again. She does look much better in the flesh as it were and looks cute in my Art journal.

I am entering this into:-

2 Sisters On The Blog – #28 Things With Wings
All Dressed Up – June: Anything Goes with an ADU image
Country View Challenges – June: It’s A Bug’s Life
Crafty Gals – #194 Polka Dots and/or STRIPES
Creatalicious – #165 Anything Goes with Optional Spots or STRIPES
Cuttlebug Mania – Tic, Tac, Toe Top Line
Ellibelles Crafty Wednesday – June/July: Summer Scene, Treats or Colours
Happy Little Stampers – June: Anything Goes with Dies
Mix It Up – #26 Anything Goes + Inlaid Die cut
My Time to Craft – #399 Watercolour
Papercraft Challenge – #39 No Cards
Sweet Stampers – #33 Anything Goes

CCM #236 Anything But A Card

Good evening everyone. Finally some sunshine, but I suspect it won’t last!

Anyhow to today’s challenge at Crafty Cardmakers where we would love to see your creations that are Anything but a Card. We don’t mind what it is, just as long as it’s not a card. Do please enjoy the Team’s creations and pop by and give them some love. They work hard for us.

My creation was for a friend’s birthday. Her husband is a beef farmer and I know how she loves to look out of their cows from her kitchen window so hoped she would enjoy this embroidered and painted piece.

The fabric design is from Pink Ink Designs, and I coloured it with posca pens. I did some stitching on it, around the image itself, and also on the 3d elements attached, the daisies. The ears are 3d as well, but it’s not so obvious from my poor quality pic! The butterflies I had gone over with sparkle paint, but again, not showing up so well here!

I did make a discovery which might help anyone else in future. In order to cut the elements out without fraying, after painting (and in the case of the daisies) and embroidering you go over the back with a pva wash of approx 50% PVA to water ratio. Anyhow, I managed to make a mess of a couple of the daisies and decided I would use nail polish remover to remove the splodged paint! BIG, BIG MISTAKE. It took out the pva wash that I had used and immediately the cut out daisies started fraying. So if you screw up, either find a way to cover it up, or live with it, because removing your mistake makes a more costly mistake.

The embroidery hoop has been painted with two colours of sparkle paint, a gold and a green to match the colours in the image itself.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #27 Anything With A Critter Goes
A2Z Scrapbooking – June: Anything But A Card
A Inky Mess – #31 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Alphabet Challenge – F for Flowers
Colour Crazy – #23 Anything Goes
Crafters Castle – #18 Anything Goes Option Mixed Media
Crafting From The Heart – #245 Anything Goes
Crafting With An Attitude – #52 Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #27 Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #50 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Creative Moments – #170 Anything Goes
Digi Choosday – #24 Anything Goes
Papercraft Challenge – #39 No Cards
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Three Bs (Butterflies and Bees and I know it wasn’t in the list but Bovine!)
We Love2Create – #6 Anything Mixed Media Goes

DV #204 Summer Colours

Good evening from a cold and rainy Hampshire! Flaming June is NOT living up to it’s name.

Anyhow onto something warmer, our challenge at Dream Valley. Today we would love to see your Summer Colours. We are sponsored by Di’s Digi Designs with a $12 voucher for their wonderful online store.

My project is a Journal page, the first one in my lovely square Studio Light Journal. When I was making this I had my Daughter in mind. She is struggling a little with self esteem issues and so I created this with her in mind.

The image is from PipArt and is called Layla, and comes with the two little birds which I stamped and then fussy cut and stuck on her shoulder and along the edge of her top. I coloured her with Polychromos pencils, but with a couple of small touches of foiling, to her 1920s style headpiece and also the leaves dangling just in front of the smaller bird, which has been foiled in purple, but is a little difficult to see on this image. In fact in order to catch all the other foiling I have had to take a brighter picture which has bleached out the colour a little. I did try to get a better picture but really struggled with light today. The real colour is somewhere between the pic above and the one below!

The background was created by stencilling with versamark and then embossing in white, and then I smooshed a few distress oxides in spun sugar and squeezed lemonade, with just a touch of wilted violet.

I also drew along the embossed white edges in spots with a gilding pen and then foiled it in rose pink, the edges were foiled with rose pink and just plain gold after applying some gilding glue with a sponge.

The sentiment was from a combination of different sentiment stamps and also alphabet stamps to create the word Just as I couldn’t find a suitable one ready made.

I am entering this into:-

A2Z Scrapbooking – June Anything But a Card
A Bit More Time to Craft – #93 anything Goes
A Inky Mess – #31 Anything Goes
Art Journal Journey – Words to Live By
Colour Crazy Challenge – #22 Anything Goes
Crafters Cafe – #220 Feminine and/or Embossed
Crafters Castle – #18 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – #64 Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #50 Anything Goes
Just Add Ink – #460 Emboss Resist
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #107 Anything Goes
Love to Craft – #35 June: Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #16 Anything Goes
We Love2Create – #6 Anything Mixed Media

CCM #235 Masculine

As it’s Father’s Day on 16th June we are celebrating with a ‘Masculine’ challenge.

Sadly I no longer have a Dad so my card was made for my lovely Son-in-law’s recent birthday.
I used a CD from Peerless Designs. It’s from their Tangletastic range. I am lucky enough to have the 4 CD Set of these CDs.
All of the elements, apart from the plain blue matting layers and the feathers come from this CD.
The Feathers are from Spellbinders, a stamp and die set, which I stamped onto shrink plastic and then shrunk to create the corner piece.
The plain blue layers were created on my pc so that I could pick out the tones from the original artwork in the patterned layers to match,.
I am entering this into:-
Addicted to Stamps – #175 For a Boy/Man
CD Sunday – #11 Anything Goes with a CD
Crafts Galore Encore – June: Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – June: Masculine
Cute Card Thursday – #584 Masculine
Die Cut Divas – June: Birthdays
Dragonfly Dreams – For a Man/Boy