haiku cards

In fact this card looks SOO much better in real life – I just can’t capture in a photo the richness of the colour (or the fact that the SMILE is actually perfectly straight!)

This one was various sized heart die-cuts (all white card, and all found in my bits box!) coloured via the splash watercolour technique – distress oxide inks Fossilised Amber, Wild Honey and Abandoned Coral popped separately on acetate and spritzed with water, then the die-cuts smoshed through them, with drying between each colour. The Stampendous Agapanthus was then stamped in Abandoned Coral and Nuvo Jewel drops added in yellow and orange.  The sentiment is Uniko Simply Said Blocks in good old Memento black. I’m liking the blocks: may get the other stamp set in the same range.

It’s entered into:

CAS Mixup July challenge:  Coloured die-cut, plus stamps, plus watercolour of course

CAS Watercolour July Challenge Splash Watercolour

And of course, because of the SMILE – Time Out’s Words challenge #113

This  second card uses the same colours. The distress inks were sponged on this background though, and then spritzed, and the Mackintosh roses stamped in Abandoned Coral. The matting panel was coloured with the coral too, by direct ink to paper technique.

It is entered into The Library Challenge: “The Rose Garden”, as I immediately thought of the Mackintosh roses when I saw the book. It’s an old stamp though – one of the first non-rubber, and I find it rather coarse, with the lines too thick for a lot of what I want to do. But for smudgy watercolour effects it works best.

The Nuvo Jewel drops were inspired by the icepop theme at House of Cards, and some of the colours there as well.  Time for an orange ice lolly after all that!

Haiku:

Let me taste sweet ice
Summer has never tasted
so good in England!

I’m loving these colours as an alternative to my turquoises and blues and purples that I use so much…  I love the fieriness of them. There may be quite a few cards in this colourway coming along – I had a great time trying the splash watercolour technique (and a few others) to make similar coloured backgrounds on a variety of paper types.  As it’s so hot here at the moment it was a perfect time to try a technique involving letting the card dry between layers.

I used Fossilised Amber, Wild Honey and Abandoned Coral Distress Oxides, with Stampendous Agapanthus in Mememnto black embellished with Jewel Nuvo Drops, and a Uniko Simply Said Blocks sentiment. Simple in the end.

Entered into Muse’s challenge #273 this week where Anita’s inspiration card is in colours I’m more likely to use normally, but this time I used from her card the limited blended colour background, and the silhouette flower.

And CAS on Friday’s Challenge #136 Splash – Watercolor

Haiku
Do not wilt, my dear
I will water you with tears
To save your beauty

I loved the picture of the bright yellow flowers at Time Out. It’s accompanied by blue in their photo but I found myself sticking to the same side of the colour wheel rather than the opposite. I wanted to echo the cheerfulness of the bright yellow.  The lemons and the bottles in the picture have inspired me to drink some lemon gin (Malfy) while I craft. Does that count? Very nice Easter treat.

So this one is simply entered into:

Time Out  Challenge #106  with this lovely inspiration

and Just Us Girls Challenge #434 Wild Card Week: CAS

Haiku:

Yellow as the sun
Brightly filling my vision
Blooms illuminate…

Happy St Patrick’s Day! There are consequently quite a few green challenges around at the moment. I have a St Patrick’s Day set, but it’s unmounted rubber and of course I have run out of mounting foam and accidentally bought cut-and-dry foam so the stamps aren’t stamping very well…

So this is a watercoloured background, blending three colours of my Caran d’Ache watercolour paints, with bird,  blossom and sentiment stamps from a magazine.  I painted over the flowers with dilute white gouache just to pick them out a bit.  It’s also very green – not turquoise as it looks in the photo!

I am entering this one in:

Cards in Envy: Green Things

Simply Create Too #136: Use Green

The Card Concept #88 Monochromatic Green. I was inspired by the many different shades of green in the picture to create this Clean and Layered card.

My second card is one-layer, created by masking off a square and colouring it in virtually every green ink I have:  Docrafts green dye ink, Lime Pastel and Olive Pastel chalk ink, Distress Cracked Pistachio and Distress Oxide Peeled Paint. Then spattered with water. Amazing it has worked!  Stamped trees and birds from Inkadinkadoo Delicate Branches and an Irish Blessing from my St Patrick’s Day set (very old Club Scrap?).

It isn’t as skewed as it looks in the photo!  (Snowing hard when I was taking the photos so not easy to get right!)

CAS-ual Fridays: Going green

Stamplorations: Spring and Faith. a nice fresh spring green with a St Patrick’s Day blessing – nothing more spring than that!

Addicted to CAS #132 – Birds

And the Haiku for today:

It’s snowing again!
Spring blossom nearly popped out
But we’ll have to wait…

I thought the photo inspiration at Inspired by All the Little Things (Inspired by #81 {with Kelly Lunceford}) was gorgeous this time, and I loved the grungy labels and the green and white flower feel particularly – and the jars and bottles but I have left those out in this one.

It is Distress Oxide background (Wild Honey, Fossilised Amber, Peeled Paint and Hickory smoke) created as described in my previous post, but also with a stamped label-type text (L’Aquarelly) in Peeled Paint. Then embossed flowers from the Uniko Organic Wishes set and a Uniko Simply Said sentiment.

Entered in the Inspired by All the Little Things (Inspired by #81 {with Kelly Lunceford} challenge.

Here’s the picture: