Spring Challenge

Just as the snow fell, February Crafty Individuals' challenge takes us to spring !

For this card I have resisted any type of distressing, collaging, grunging (if there is such a word), to let the beauty of the stamp shine. The quality and the detail of this set (CI- 259) is such, that I felt inspired to create a mini painting, one that could not be achieved the traditional way ! It was also a bit of a technical stamping challenge as it involved inking the stamps with 2 inkpads and a marker (for the trunks) and some nifty positioning.

In the foreground I used some stamp & bond with white flock and Flower soft to give texture. For the white flock to appear white (or nearly white) I had to first resist stamp with versamark  before brayering my background and then overstamp with white pigment ink on the flower heads. To finish the card I framed it with some die-cuts and a title.

All the foreground elements are from plate CI- 207 including the small butterfly and dragon fly.

See a close-up of the trees :

I am really pleased I tried these techniques even though this took me forever !

Thanks for coming by,

Mass production

Some of you will look on this with incredulity - is she mad ? Christmas in February ? - and some will be impressed at my organisation... But when the next season comes around I want to get enough time to create a few special cards rather than rushing to produce lots of cards or buy some - perish the thought- like last Christmas.

In all there are 12 cards and envelopes with a design for boys and one for girls.

I have designed the set to minimise effort and cost. I used the "free" papers from magazines to make envelopes using the largest die from the Grand square dies from Spellbinders. I added a small die cut to make a label from white paper for the address. With the smallest die from the same set I cut the card bases using some bristol board.
The design on the card has been stamped with "free" acrylic stamps from another magazine and coloured with Coloursoft pencils and solvent. - I originally wanted to use markers but the colour showed through the bristol board.-

That's it ! No bling, no glitter, no fussing, and a minimum of punching (I rounded the top triangle of the envelope).

Thanks for coming by,