Weekend Sketch Challenge #50

This is my card for Beate's WSC50. I made a couple of changes, but hopefully still enough of the sketch there to count. I didn't have much time for putting a card together today, so used an image that was already coloured in, hence the use of an oval instead of a rectangle. The image didn't look as good on the right side of the card, so switched it to the left. The colours do look better together in the flesh than in this picture. Anyway . . . enough excuses!
The image is a Penny Black - Bees and Bunny. Coloured with Twinkling H2Os and watercolour pencils. Oval cut with a Nestability Classic Oval. Hand drawn lines with the fine end of a pink watercolour marker. The daisies are a Woodware daisy punch - two layers of white petals with the tips coloured with H2Os. The centres are a 1/4" circle punch also coloured with H2Os
Pink gingham ribbon, on a strip of white card punched with a Woodware Cross Star Ribbon border punch along both edges. The two backing papers are both sides of a double sided design by Imaginisce called For Peep's Sake/Pretty New Dress. The outer blue layer has lines drawn with the same pink marker as around the oval.
I may put a greeting in the space above the ribbon strip, but am not sure if I want to cover up any more of the lovely yellow paper! Each of the little white daisies in the grid have a blue twinkly glitter centre that doesn't show in the picture. The card measures about 12cm x 16cm.

Orchids and a Fuchsia

I have no card to show today - instead I spent a very rewarding and relaxing day at The Glitter Pot making flowers with Jane Gill and a lovely, fun group of ladies. It was a class on Orchids and Fuchsias, and an extra little flower as a bonus for being good! So here they are (click on the picture for a closer look) -

No Tools Lily

This lily, including the leaves, was made using the no tools method. I coloured the petals and leaves with Whispers watercolour markers, using a photo of a lily as a guide. The ends of the stamens have flocking on them.
The backing uses Bazzill card, with the ovals cut using Nestability dies, and the embossing done with a Cuttlebug and the Textile folder. It's ridiculous how long it took me to tie the bow and get something I was prepared to put on a card - now I remember why I don't normally do them!

Be Inspired #15 Card

Beate's Be Inspired Challenge this week was a challenge indeed! There is nothing about the dress that I like, and on my first look I gave up. But then I decided not to wimp out, and went back for a second go.
My first step was to see what card I had that matched the colours - does anyone else sit in front of the computer holding pieces of card up to the monitor? Anyway - I don't have anything approaching the grey in the dress, but did find a piece of bluey/grey that is very similar to one of the dress colours. Then I took the picture into Photoshop so that I could enlarge it and see more of the detail of the main circular design - which is flower-like!
As I don't have any stamps that would fit in with the look, I fished through my punches to see what I had to mimic the overall feel of it. I have one punch that broke recently - a bit of the cutting part snapped off. So it punches a swirl with a fat end. Worked out just fine for my 'flower' medallion! I punched out 12 white swirls and stuck them to a punched sun shape. Then added 12 brown swirls around the outside of that. The centre is made with a larger sun shape punched out of the blue/grey card, with 12 little brown 1/8" spots stuck on the tips. Finished with a 1/2" circle in the middle, and then mounted the whole thing on a green Nestability scalloped circle.
The card base is white linen textured card, and measures 15x10.5cm (4x6" approx). The blue/grey panel on the card is cuttlebugged with Divine Swirls and matted onto brown Bazzill Basics card. The background is Bazzill Bling Sunset. Pebbles Inc Rub-On greeting on a white linen card strip rounded with my corner rounder punch. Brads to finish.

Paper Pieced Flower

The image on this card is done using the paper piecing method as per Beate's Back to Basics tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. The stamp is an old one (ten years+) that I haven't used before. I found it recently on a sort through of an old box of crafting things. I really like the design of the stamp, but it's a swine to use! Needs just the right pressure otherwise you either get an incomplete image or ink where you don't want it. It is a Pergamano stamp PS-6.
I stamped the image first on the white linen textured card, and then the relevant parts of it on the patterned papers. I used black pigment ink, and then embossed with clear embossing powder. Cut out and glued the coloured paper pieces onto the image. Trimmed the image piece square using a Nestability die, and then cut another scalloped square out of the same white card to mount it on. Drew a black line around the plain square with a marker.
The strips of patterned paper were pleated and pinched in, with the pleats held together with a spot of glue. Wrapped around the edges of the pink Bazzill card to mimic ribbons. The Happy Birthday is a Pebbles Inc rub-on.

Little Pot of Violets

This little pot of violets was made using Woodware Leone Em punches. (Country Basket and Iris & Violet Combination.) The flowers and leaves were punched out of white printer paper, and coloured front and back with Whisper watercolour markers. Still need to work on my technique for colouring the violet centres. Once the leaves and flowers were dried and shaped, I stuck them on narrow strips of green paper before arranging and fixing to the back of the pot. The pot was already shaded with grey chalk, and shaped.
I used foam tape behind the pot to fix it to the backing paper, which is by Papermania and called Regal. Matted on to dark green Bazzill. The lilac card is also Bazzill. Finished with cream organza ribbon and Papermania pearl centred brads. I don't have a corner punch for the shape taken out of the patterned paper corners - called ticket punch? - so I used a 1/2" circle punch instead. The card is A6 size (15x10.5cm or very approx. 4x6").

Doodles Sun Flower

The flower on this card is made from eight 4cm x 5cm pieces of a burgundy/red handmade paper. They are folded using Christian's Two For One Fold. I punched little suns out of a yellow version of the same paper, and inserted them in the openings of the inner squash folds. A slightly larger sun for the centre, finished with a flat backed pearl which I coloured with a green permanent marker.

The stalk is a stamp by Tracey Miller from a set called Doodles.

I inked the stamp with a water colour marker, and used an aqua brush to wash some of the colour over the leaves. Two little orange gems in the curls. Finished off with a ribbon, and doodled lines around the edge. Matted onto the same red and yellow handmade paper as used for the flower.

Polka Dot Flower

Trying something a bit different today - nice and bright to counteract the dull, wet bank holiday weather. Maybe a bit too bright!LOL! I used my no tools method to create the main part of the flower from Doodlebug Lilac Swiss Dot paper, and a couple of snowflake punches and a single hole punch for the stamens using orange paper. Freehand cut the leaves and stem from Bazzill Bling Emerald. Cuttlebugged the orange Bazzill Basics card with the Swiss Dots folder, and hand doodling on the Magenta Purple Gingham paper. Three purple buttons to finish. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, but purple always comes out more blue in my pictures. The buttons are a much closer colour match to the flower 'in the flesh'.

Here's how I made the flower:

You may like to refer to these entries if you haven't seen them before -
No Tools Flower and Tool Substitutes
As usual - click on any picture for a larger view.

Cut out 6 fat petal shapes from the Lilac Swiss Dot paper.

Curl with the character shaper tool from the pointed end to the middle on the right side.

Flip the petal over and curl from the fat end to the middle on the wrong side.

This is the side view of the shaped petal when finished. I am holding it by the pointed end. This is also the way that I shaped the two leaves on the finished card.

Punch out two small snowflakes. (I know - the eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that my shapes are a six petaled flower, but I did them before deciding to use a snowflake for the stamens. It doesn't really matter - six arms is what you're after.) Stick three shaped petals to each as shown. Then glue one assembly on top of the other, alternating the petals. I forgot to photograph this next stage - but after you have glued the two layers together, you need to go around the flower and adjust the petals so that the left side of each petal sits on top of the next one round. You can see what I mean in the finished flower picture at the end.

Punch out two different sized snowflakes and six 1/4" circles - I used a single hole punch of the kind you can buy at a stationers. My small snowflake is an EK success one, and the other is an X-Cut punch.

Stick the six little circles to the tips of the smaller snowflake as shown.

Emboss the circles with a circular movement to curve them up in a saucer shape.

Draw an imaginary circle around the base of the snowflake spokes with the embossing tool to make them all cup upwards.

Glue this cupped shape on top of the larger snowflake, alternating the spokes, and making sure that it is nicely centred.

Glue the stamen assembly into the centre of the flower.

Weekend Sketch Challenge #49

This is my version of Beate's sketch for this weekend's challenge.

The flower is made from linen textured cream card. I used one of my No Tools flower petal shapes as a template, and drew round it on the back of the card as I couldn't fold it to cut them out. Still didn't take too long to do. I left the cream card plain, and just shaped it before sticking the petals on to a snowflake. The centre is a 1" Woodware Blink Blink punch, and a mini Woodware punch which they just call Flower. The leaves were punched with a Leone Em (Woodware) Evergreen Punch. The two plain colours of card used in the backing are Bazzill, and the gorgeous patterned paper is K & Co Smitten Paisley Glittered Paper. Click on the picture above to enlarge it so that you can see the detail and the glitter better.

Two Ways with Funky Pink Hearts

I have used my regular tools for this tutorial. For alternatives see my post on Tool Substitutes.
This flower uses a long heart shape. The punch I used is by X-cut and is called Funky Heart. Woodware do a similar one, EK success also has one called Folk Heart, and I am sure there must be others. You also need something to stick the hearts to. I have used a snowflake punched with an EK Success punch. Any small snowflake shape will do, or a six petaled flower shape. If you don't have either of those, then use a circle as per the No Tools Flower instructions.

Here are the supplies needed:

• Shaping mat
• Scrap of coloured paper
• Pva glue
• Funky Heart punch
• Snowflake punch
• Ink pad
• Embossing ball tool
• Character shaping tool
• Flat backed pearl or other embellishment for the centre

Punch out 12 hearts and two snowflakes.

Swipe the ink pad around the edges of the petals. (This looks nicer than the photo shows!)

Use the character tool (or teaspoon etc - see tool substitutes) as shown in the No Tools Flower tutorial.

The petal will curl up like this.

Glue two petals opposite each other with the tips touching in the centre of the snowflake. Like a strange little bug! Only use a tiny spot of glue on the very tip of the heart.

Continue sticking petals around the snowflake, spacing them evenly for best effect. On the second snowflake, stick the petals slightly further out as shown on the left hand layer in this photo. (Click to see closer.)

Place each layer in turn, right way up on the shaping mat. Using the character tool, draw an imaginary circle around the base of the petals, applying a little pressure as you do so. This will make the flower cup upwards.

Apply a spot of glue in the centre of the layer with the more widely spaced petals, and fix the other layer on top. Align the layers so that the petals of the top one are between those of the bottom layer.

Glue the pearl in the centre to finish.

By doing a different shaping you can get a totally different look. After punching out the shapes, do not curve them, but just stick them to the snowflake. Then turn the assembly upside down on the shaping mat and use the embossing ball tool to shape as per the Nestability Flowers.

Emboss the tips.

Emboss a line down the centre of each petal.

Turn the whole thing back over to the right side, and 'draw circles' around the base of the petals to pop them up.

Stick the two layers together, and then, with the flower on the shaping mat, press with the embossing tool in the centre to 'fluff' the petals up.

Add the pearl.


Two very different looks.

This flower was done with the second method, but using a crinkly thin tissue type paper. I used a Leone Em Stamens punch with Emerald Bazzill Bling for the centre.