CAS on Friday challenge - guest designer

Hello friends and welcome to Friday.  I hope you've had a great week so far and you've got some exciting plans for the weekend.  

I was lucky enough to win a recent challenge over at CAS on Friday and was offered a guest DT spot.  I excitedly accepted and today is the day that I can share my project for them.  The theme for this challenge is 'watercolour'.  I was going to go down my usual route of a background wash of colour and an image over top but decided to try something different.  After watching a couple of YouTube videos showing simple watercolour flowers I decided to give it a try myself.  My efforts are definitely not exceptional but I am over the moon pleased with the final outcome.  I hope you like it too. 

Here is my card:

A closer look at my flowers:

I decorated the inside:

I began by cutting a panel of Bristol smooth heavy weight card to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2".  I used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi palette and chose a pink, blue and green pan to use on my card.  Following one tutorial I saw on YouTube I added 3 small dots of concentrated colour with a small paint brush and dragged the colour out with a clean damp brush to create the petals.  I created 2 pink and 2 blue flowers in this fashion.  I know I should have done 3 or 5 flowers for perfect design but I liked the way my 4 flowers looked (and I didn't want to mess up my panel by adding one more lol!).  I added the stems using the green paint and added some leaves (although some were a little wonkier than others!).  I took a gold pan and added the centres to my flowers and also some splatter (spatter?) all over the background.  I stamped my sentiment and heat embossed with gold embossing powder (I did a little stamp surgery as the original sentiment was happy birthday bestie but I cut it apart between the birthday and bestie).  I then added the panel to an A2 card base using double sided tape.  No embellishments or anything extra as I loved it the way it was.  For the inside I took another panel of the Bristol card and stamped a sentiment in the centre with black ink.  I had practiced my flowers on a scrap of card and as they looked so pretty I didn't want to throw them away so I cut them into triangles and added them to the right top and bottom left corners with liquid glue.  A really simple card but a one-off original made by yours truly lol!

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

A Place to Start challenge - ATG

Beautiful Blossoms challenge - anything florals goes optional mood board

Creative Inspirations challenge - ATG

Halloween and Other Occasions challenge - always birthday

Incy Wincy Designs challenge - round/circles and/or hand drawn/sewing (my flowers are hand painted)

Moving Along With The Times challenge - CAS (clean and simple)

My Time To Craft challenge - summer florals

Scrapping4Fun challenge - birthday

Simply Clean and Simple challenge - CAS optional use a heart (happy 1st anniversary)

Triple B challenge - use at least one bloom, bird or butterfly optional mood board

I hope you will be able to join in with the challenge over at CAS on Friday but remember it must be a CAS creation and you are allowed one entry only. You can read the definition of CAS here. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Love and hugs, 

card ingredients:

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi 36 colour paint palette

Strathmore - Bristol smooth heavyweight card

MFT - inside and out birthday greetings

Limetree Crafts - 250gsm silky smooth white card (for card base)

Cosmic Shimmer - detail bright gold embossing powder

Versamark - watermark ink pad

Versafine - onyx black ink pad

Summer Crush Wednesday Week 4

Hello and happy Saturday friends.  Apologies that this post is late this week; we went away at the beginning of the week for a couple of days to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary and I've been playing catch up ever since!  Welcome to Week 4 of the Summer Crush Wednesday IG hop organised by my good friend Kelly.  The hop will run for 6 weeks (this is week 4) and we will have some fun themes and even some techniques I've never tried before!  If you would like to join us just use the hashtag #scwcardhop23 and we will find you (you can also see all the other participants of the hop using this hashtag).  This week is 'salt life' and this is a technique I've never tried before; water-colouring and using salt to create interesting and original backgrounds.  I hope you will give it a go as it's really fun.  

Here is my 'salt life' card:

here are some close ups of the salt effects:

and I had a small piece left so decorated the inside too:

I began by water-colouring my panel with my paints using pinks and purples.  I watched a tutorial on YouTube so that I knew what the process was when using salt and apparently the secret is that the paint has to be almost dry for the effect of the salt to be more dramatic.  I was pressed for time so blasted my background with a heat tool until almost dry and then sprinkled some regular table salt and some salt crystals onto my background.  Ideally I think you would leave it for quite a few hours or even overnight to react with the paint but again I was strapped for time so left it for 2 hours and then again blasted it with heat to make sure it was completely dry.  I then rubbed off the salt to reveal the reaction.  I was pleasantly surprised with the result and it looked really good.  I didn't want to cover up my background too much so decided to make a slimline card (which I don't do very often).  I die cut some flowers and a butterfly from black card and adhered them with liquid glue onto the water-coloured background.  The sentiment was a pre-made strip and I added that with foam squares.  A very simple card but I think it looks dramatic and perfect for a sympathy card.  I'm looking forward to creating more salt backgrounds in different colours.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Creative Knockouts challenge - finish the inside

Unicorn challenge - no design paper

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge - ATG/option Christmas

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge - any occasion

Please pop over to Instagram to see what the other participants of the hop have created; we cannot wait to see what you create.  Don't forget to stop by again next week for more summer fun creating.  

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.  

Love and hugs, 

Card ingredients:

Sizzix/Tim Holtz - wildflowers #1 thinlits

Clearly Besotted - butterfly duo die collection (retired)

Gina K Designs - Mixed messages sentiment sheets

Gina K Designs - sentiment strips dies

Gina K Designs - so many sentiments (for inside sentiment)

Strathmore - Bristol smooth water-colour pad

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi water-colour palette

AAA Birthday challenge - DT card

Good morning lovely friends and happy 1st of June.  I can't believe we are already in the 6th month of 2023 - where has the time gone?  

I am here today with my DT card for this month's AAA Birthday challenge.  This month our hostess is Deekshita and she has chosen 'water colours'.   The challenge lasts from 1st June - 30th June and it is for birthday cards only.  

I started my card with a completely different plan in my mind but I changed it after finishing my water colour background; the final result is not what I envisaged but I think it turned out ok.  

here is a closer look:

As I say I began by water colouring the background using my Gamsai Tambi water colours.  I was originally going to add a little critter image over the top but I didn't like it so searched through my stamps and found this beautiful Gina K Designs stamp which fit the shape I'd created perfectly.  I did use some clean water and 'bleached' out the flowers a little so that there would be some colour difference from the background.  I haven't made a circle card for such a long time and I thought it would be perfect for the wreath shape.  I used an old Go Kreate XXL circle die set but had to trim the black circle as the size difference was too big but don't look too closely as my border is a little wonky in places lol!  I finished off by adding a scripty sentiment and some black pearls.  The card base was created with the same larger circle dies and I added some extra interest with an embossing folder.  The finished card is 5 3/4" diameter.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Craft Rocket challenge - use dies

Krafty Chicks challenge - stamp act

SSS Wednesday challenge - anything goes

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge - ATG (option bright colours)

Can you handle the pressure challenge - ATG (option bird/birdhouses)

Double D challenge - flowers

Allsorts challenge - anything goes (option use a stencil)

I hope you will have a chance to join in with our challenge this month.  Please pop over to the blog for all the details and to check out the wonderful creations from the rest of the DT.  We also have Ana as our guest designer this month.  

I cannot wait to see your amazing creations. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Crafty hugs and love, 

Card ingredients:

Gina K Designs - Kindness wreath stamp set (not sure if discontinued)

Gina K Designs - Spring floral BG stamp set (for sentiment)

Strathmore Bristol smooth watercolour card 

Gansai Tambi watercolour palette

Go Kreate XXL circle dies 

Gina K Designs - embellishment pearl mix

We R Memory Keepers sunburst EF (discontinued)