Colour Q #301

Hello there!

Did you manage to have a play with the Colour Q palette last week? If not, then why not have a play with these ones instead:

It was a bit of a struggle to find the colours in my stash for this one - my Midnight Muse is almost dry and I only have a very old (and almost empty) Cameo Coral marker from SU. In the end I opted to sponge a masked background using More Mustard distress ink, together with the marker and an apricot-like ink from Versamark.  At least I managed to squeeze just enough ink out of the Midnight Muse to stamp the Penny Black blossoms!

There's some really gorgeous cards by the rest of the DT this week - why not pop along to these lovely ladies blogs for some more inspiration:

Lisa

Jen

Sylvia

Amy

Kim

Happy stamping!

Claire x

All Lined Up!

G'day!

Quick post today for Casology  - the cue word this week is 'line':

I white embossed a triple line stamp from Mama Elephants Basic Borders, then coloured them in with  a variety of markers. The 'hello' die cut is from MFT.  The hardest part was the colouring...so difficult to keep within the lines!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Claire x

Papertrey Ink - July Blog Hop

Hello!

The cards are getting few and far between at the moment - we have family arriving from the US next week so most of my time seems to be spent cleaning rather than inking. So not happy about that - but all worth it when I get to meet my youngest little nephew for the first time!

I did manage to squeeze a card in for Papertrey Ink's July blog hop, based on this pretty inspiration photo:

Apparently 'blue and green should never be seen' but I think they look quite pretty when combined together, don't you? I used Butterfly Kisses (the first PTI set I ever bought) together with some die cut Circle Scribbles, courtesy of the lovely Anita. I covered a couple of them with Versamark and embossed them in pewter embossing powder.  It doesn't show up too well in the photo but they almost look like spun metal in real life.

Hope you get time to get inky for PTI today - thanks for stopping,

Claire x

Colour Q #300!

G'day folks - hope you're having a great Tuesday!

Can you believe we're having our 300th Colour Q challenge? What better way to celebrate than with a fun, bright palette - great colours for celebrating that special day:

I thought W Plus 9's Fresh Cut Florals would fit perfectly with the colours and with their latest sketch challenge. Inking them up was the easy part but it seemed to take ages to work out how to place them along the diagonal cut.  Don't forget, you can use a small amount of neutral colour - in this case, I used a strip of black patterned paper so that the flowers would look a little more vibrant.

Over at Seize the Birthday there's an 'Anything Goes' challenge so I'm going to link up over there too.

You've got until 12 midnight CST on Monday 27th July to join in with the challenge - why not go and check out the rest of the DT for some more inky inspiration?

Thanks for stopping by,

Claire x

Nature's Call - Again

Hello again,

Here's my second Time Out card for their latest challenge - this one features flowers rather than critters and is based on this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

Now this was a difficult sketch! Circles always throw me and it was a struggle for me to find something that worked - in the end I opted to make a square card as it seemed to be a better balance. I used a combination of Camelias from WMS and the leaves are from a Penny Black set called Blooming Garden. I've used a combination of Copics and Spectrum Noir markers which I love , but I do find they don't blend particularly well together. The Spectrum Noir's always seem to look a little patchy- which is probably why they are about a third of the price.  Does anyone else find this?

That's all for tonight...time to put the big kidlet to bed!

Thanks for popping by,

Claire x

All Things Nature

Hello folks!

Hope you're enjoying what's left of the weekend.

I've got a couple of quick cards to show with a nature theme - both are for Time Out's latest challenge which is 'nature with the optional twist of animals:'

Super CAS this one - I die cut one of SU's butterflies from Papillon Potpourri and used some distress inks to mask a background. I then added some embossed vellum butterflies and a sentiment from PTI.

Since I'm entering a couple of cards in the same challenge, I've had to create a second post. Scroll down if you fancy taking a peek!

Claire x

Colour Q #299

Hello bloggers!

Did you manage to play along with Colour Q last week? A week just never seems to be enough time for all these challenges does it?

Not to worry if you didn't manage to use last weeks colours - the latest hues are a gorgeous combo of rich and vibrant with soft and pretty and are sure to whet your inky tastebuds:

I received a lovely piece of happy mail from France last week, sent by the super talented Anita from My Papercraft World. I've always loved the card stock she uses and I mentioned a long time ago that I liked a certain die she had used for one of her cards. So she very kindly sent me some blank cards using said card stock, together with some die cut panels using said die.

I  made a very simple card by colouring a couple of die cut feathers using a combination of distress inks, an SU marker and dye ink. The colours haven't blended brilliantly but it's kind of worked. (The feather was a surprisingly good freebie with one of the Aussie paper craft mags a couple of months ago.) I'm sure all those little die cut squares are meant to be popped out of the card stock but I quite like the look of them like this...it adds some detail without overpowering the card.

Anyway, this little card will be winging its way to France at some point in the near future. Thank you Anita for your lovely goodies and for enabling me further in my obsession - that card stock is currently on order in the UK!

Enjoy your week!

Claire x