In the air challenge

The gauntlet has been thrown at the Impression Obsession blog... "In the air" is the theme and apart from the obvious birds, butterflies etc... what to do??? I use butterflies a lot, as for me they are easier than flowers, being suitable for both male and female cards... but I have butterfly fatigue.

This is what I ended up with, well the houses are "in the air" so I hope it fits the theme, and I love this humorous image. As for the title it started as "house in the air" but then all I could think of was the Eye in the sky tune and there it was...

The image is the Pig Bros. Birdhouse (G1028) by Gary Robertson and I colored it with alcohol markers, you can tell I need some practice !
You may not recognise the banner, it is actually the largest die from the Flags die set (DIE015-F) but it has been partially cut (on one side and then the other), overstamped with CAC Canvas (CC073)

Thanks for coming by,

Inspired By France Papillon

This week the Paper Artsy blog welcomes France Papillon for some inspiration. I really wanted to make a spool key ring but could I find a suitable spool... I will keep that idea in mind, but in the meantime I had a go at France's journal cover.

This will not be a cover, but a page inside my samples book, so I made a number of adjustments to make it functional. For instance I have flipped the position of the vellum and didn't stitch the top to create a pocket. The string between the brads will also help keeping pieces of paper on the page, a thin elastic would be ideal.
The vellum is an old piece of printed envelope liner, hence the shape, and I used some scraps of handmade paper, yeah using up some old stash !
For the words, I used bits from the Eclectica Lin Brown 3 set, which I won last week - thank you Paper Artsy - as I haven't had time to play with it yet but still HAD to crack it open...

Thanks for coming by,

In bloom

For this card my first decision was to select a stamp set that came with a magazine which I had not used so far - this is part of my crafting resolutions for this year : use things !!!
I realised quickly that I would need a background and, as I wasn't confident I could colour it with alcohol markers,  I settled on watercolours.

I stamped the clear stamps with Memento London Fog and applied masking fluid before painting the background and over-stamping with some wild grasses stamps inked with markers.
I removed the masking fluid and watercoloured the flowers, using pencils where the brush was too big. I stamped some words as a kind of frame for my miniature painting.
Note: Not sure the whole masking thing was necessary, because against expectations, the Memento ink did not budge at all when I painted over it.

Finally this was my opportunity to place a fence die-cut that so far I haven't used very much, but is entirely appropriate on this occasion, playing with embossing powders mixes to get an aged look.

 

I am entering this card in the Country View Craft's challenge: How does your garden grow ?and the Artistic Stamper's which is all about Words.

Hope you will like this project,

Inspired By Sue Carrington

Paper Artsy Blog welcomes a new set of designer guests and Sue is the first. I have taken inspiration from her canvas (here) to create a new page for my samples book. Not quite as big as Sue's canvas, plus it needs to lay flat so no embellishments... therefore I had to adapt !

 

Both for the texture paste and stencilled areas I have used home made stencils. Loved to use the "bump" technique ! I became unstuck for stamps (need more texture stamps and some of those Eclectica stamps) and settled for a Newspaper print (Hot pick 1207), a saying (Hot pick 1203) and a Wallpaper print from an old clear stamp set. No treasure gold (as yet) so I used wax crayon to highlight the raised parts.

 

Thanks for coming by,