Wild Thing

Hi All,

Three posts in as many days must be a bit of a record for me I think.  Last night we had a belated birthday celebration for my friend Jo at my most favourite Indian Restaurant called Ruby Raja's.

Jo's favourite thing is Tinkerbell, although I had many stamps similar I didn't have anything exactly right.  Then at the BBQ we had last weekend Jo pulled out her jacket in the late afternoon which had a Zebra pattern on it and I knew exactly what I wanted to make for her birthday card.

Wild Tilda from the Sweet Crazy Love Collection was just perfect for the paper I had.  I have had this paper for ages, when I used to make 12 x 12 layouts I had planned to do a zoo album at some stage, then when I moved onto cards it has sat in the draw waiting for its opportunity to be used.

Such a cute little stamp.  I took the following photo with the flash which really shows up her sparkles :)

Finally some photos of the finished product.

The flowers, a mixture of Prima and Kaisercraft, are so pretty and matched in just perfectly with her bow.

Thanks for looking

xx

An interstate delivery

Hello again,

Two posts in one night, this is almost unheard of for me!!  Second tonight is another commissioned piece, this time for my friend Mandy who lives in Melbourne, so it's on its way to the post office tomorrow.  

This card is for Mandy's Mum who is having a special birthday.  

This was the second Tilda in Cotton Dress I painted in the last 24 hours.  The first one I had painted completely, and then at the last minute I thought I am going to give her black eyes, so using intense Black Soot ink I coloured in over the brown ones.... then I realised I had forgotten to paint her cheeks.  As I was blending in her cheeks my brush swiped over the edge of her eye and I streaked black ink over her face.  Oh boy was I annoyed... I was so angry with myself, frustrated!!!  I tried to fix it, I tried everything....  This little Tilda ended up in pieces in the bin and I had to start again... So incredibly NOT HAPPY!!!  and note...no black eyes in the pictures below ;o)

So I started on version two...

At the recent papercraft fair here in Adelaide I finally came across a store that stocks Maja Papers.  I have drooled over these gorgeous papers countless times on Camilla's blog but never found a shop in Adelaide that stocks them.  The stall I bought them from had them all lined up in two beautiful bookcases and I stood there looking in awe at all these gorgeous papers, not knowing what to buy.  I finally made some quick decisions and got out of there before I weakened and bought everything!!  So this is my first card with one of these gorgeous papers....I'm in love ;o)

The gorgeous purple strip in the picture above is the other side of paper, and I hid the join with that cute as pink flower ribbon.

I hope you like it Miss Mandy!!!

Thanks for looking

xx

The Spanish Reveal

Good evening all,

Tonight I bring you a card I made for one of my colleagues at work.  He had very secretly arranged and bought tickets to Spain and organised Spanish language lessons as a present for his wife's birthday, and he asked me if I was able to make a Spanish themed card to go along with the surprise.

The gorgeous little Tilda Learning to Dance from the Turning Leaves collection was absolutely perfect for this.  To sort of tie in with the theme I also used the background Vienna Magnolia stamp from their With Love collection, not Spanish but this Vienna stamp was as close to Spain as I could get.

I took quite a few pictures this time so I could keep my mate updated on the progress of this special project.

Firstly the two images masked and stamped together.

Apologies for the next photo - a lot fuzzier on the computer than it looked on the camera screen.  The first thing I do when colouring with bold red is paint Tilda's skin, otherwise I risk pulling in the red when trying to blend around the edges.  When doing a bold red I firstly paint a thick layer of barn door, and then leave it overnight to make sure it is completely dry before blending over with a darker colour.  

Normally I would use Black Soot to add the shading on the red, however as I have stamped my image in Coffee Archival Ink I thought I might try this technique using Walnut Stain instead, and I really like it!! Then as you can see in the following photos I slowly painted the background in.  This is one of those pictures where about halfway through painting I felt like I had 'bitten off more than I could chew', all up it was about 5 hours work to get the picture completely coloured!!  and people say I have no patience ;o)

 I asked my friend what his wife's favourite colour was, which is blue, thinking that I could use that for my background paper colour.  I spent about an hour trying all the different blue papers I had.... I just could not make it work and kept coming back to this gorgeous Kaisercraft paper called Recollect from an old collection called Reminiscing.  The Much Love stamp is from my new Lili of the Valley Just for you circular Sentiments set.  Such fantastic stamps, great quality and even better free postage :o)   Finally to finish up a picture of the finished card..

Thanks for looking

xx 

Spring Beauty

Good evening bloggers,

Tonight I am stopping in to show you a card I made for my friends Mum.  You may remember seeing this picture from an earlier post

The stamp is a Penny Black Cling Stamp called Spring Beauty. With pictures like this where there are pieces going everywhere I try and do an initial 'wash' of distress ink to separate the parts and make it easier on the eyes when going back to add the shading.

Lets move straight on to the finished product.

The tulips have 4 distress colours all layered in to give that beautiful purple pink colour. Spun Sugar for the base, Worn Lipstick for the initial shading, Picked Raspberry to brighten the pink and finally Seedless Preserves for the shadowing.  I was so incredibly happy with how they turned out.  The paper is from Kaszazz and called Summer Blooms, it is my absolute favourite!

A couple more pictures to look at

That Ribbon is supposed to be tied in a pretty bow, but I took my photos while the liquid pearls and stickles were drying and didn't want to chance getting the ribbon in them...as I have done on previous cards!!

Finally a close up picture of the gorgeous WIld Orchid Craft Flowers, so beautiful and the perfect colours to match in!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges

2 Sisters Challenge #138 - Anything Goes
Penny Black and More April Challenge - Blossoms and Bows


Thanks for looking 

xx