Expectant Father

I haven't got around to making any Father's Day cards this year but this one is inspired by my son who falls into this category at the moment!

This is a simple, one layer, computer generated card using a digi image from Helen Laurence and using Caitlyn and Brubeck AH fonts. It's simply coloured with watercolour pencils blended with a water brush and with a little Wink of Stella added.

It's for the challenge at Paper Players

As you see it Challenge


Simon Says Stamp

FATHER’S DAY/FOR A GUY 

Challenging commission!

As a card maker I sometimes get asked to do some interesting commissions.

Here is a case in point. I have a friend who will be embarking on Cunard's Queen Victoria this week for a cruise to the Med to celebrate her husband's 65th Birthday.

She has suffered from Rheumatoid arthritis for many years and they have a bike, lovingly called Dotty, which they use for many excursions. It has a wheelchair-ish bit at the front for Gill and Rob sits behind and pedals.

She gave me this photo to work with!

I turned it into a pencil type drawing and then adjusted the light so that they didn't have black faces. 

The other things she wanted me to reference on the card were his love of  the double bass, singing and caravanning... quite a collection and it was somewhat of a puzzle to work out how they could be incorporated!

As the line drawing was very different in texture and style from the other images I had to work with, I decided to use this picture as my backdrop.

I created three opening doors behind which I added images of the things important to him... a double bass, our choir's logo and a caravan (rather an older version than the one they have, but I'm sure he won't mind)

The letters and numbers are cut with Cuttlebug Olivia dies and sadly I don't remember where I found the opener dies!

 For the inside of the card I found picture of the Queen Victoria, changed it to black and white and superimposed the sentiment over it!

I'm happy to say that my friend was delighted with my efforts and is looking forward to giving it to him this week!

It was fun to do!

Whaddya think?

A little purple

At Less is More this month we have a couple of fabulous sponsors... Dies to Die for and Stamplorations!

Shery at Stamplorations has been really generous in providing the DT with some yummy Stamplorations products. I have belonged to the Bi-monthly club for quite some time and so have accumulated quite a few stamps and stencils. Here I used a fab heart stencil, which I combined with embossing paste and and some Glamour Dust.

The purple card was made by smooshing some Distess Inks with Inka Gold Paste, which when dry I die cut with the butterfly from Memory Box and the sentiment from Craft Essentials Creative Dies.  The ivy die is a Signature Die from Joanna Sheen.

For this I used the faux bleach technique. I covered some card with distress inks using sponger daubers. Then I stamped with some Stamplorations stamps using just water, which reacts with the inks and removes some of the colour! The joy of this technique is that if you're not happy with the result, you can re-ink the card and then re-stamp with water.The butterfly is from Memory Box and the sentiment from Die'sire. I altered a Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle to fit the tab shape.

This week I have been on a tour with my choir in Derbyshire and Nottingham singing in churches in both venues.

Ghosting

This technique is known by a few different titles. Here it's an example of the Ghosting technique, but it's also known as the Faux Bleach technique.

To begin I inked a piece of card with Distress Inks using sponge daubers, making sure I had good coverage. I then stamped, just using water on the stamps,which as it reacts with Distress Inks, removes some of the colour!

To accentuate some of the shapes, I stamped again slightly off from the first stamping using the same distress inks.

The 'thank' part of the sentiment from Memory Box, is inlaid and then triple layered. The 'you' is from Simon Says Stamp.

This fun technique is the challenge this month at Happy Little Stampers.

This challenge is sponsored by

Tutorials:
Ghosting with Sprays by Dyan Reaveley (4:06)
Water Stamping by Shery Russ (4:05)

Versamark Resist (Ghosting) Technique by Seasons of Stamping (4:15)

I hope you'll have a join in the fun!