The Wacky Watercooler May 2017 Blog Hop - Celebrating the Carry-Overs

The end of a catalogue year isn't entirely sad.  Yes, we're losing a lot of products but there  is a nice, long list of products which carry-over and continue into the new Annual Catalogue.  Some are from the retiring Annual Catalogue, some are from the retired Holiday Catalogue, and others are from the retiring Occasions Catalogue.  This blog hop is our celebration for those products which are continuing and which we are happiest to see continue.  Choosing what I was going to use took more time than creating my projects.  But finally I narrowed down the list of what I planned  to use.  I wonder if my choices are in line with your own.

As you will remember, if you've wandered through our blog hops before, our blog hop is presented in a circular fashion.  What does that mean?  Wherever you begin in our blog hop, whether you go forwards or backwards through the participants, eventually you will wind up precisely where you began.  I hope you'll take time to visit all the participating blogs and, perhaps, leave a short message letting us know  what you've thought of our posts.

If you've been moving forward in this blog hop, you'll have arrived here from Judy Markowitz blog, a brand new "hopper" from New Mexico whom we are welcoming this month.

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For my first project I've created a masculine card using several of my favourite stamp sets.  At first glance it's clear that I've used images from the One Wild Ride set and the Lovely as a Tree set, but if you look more closely you'll see that my background has been created by using several stamps from the Timeless Textures set.  I used the Soft Sky, Smokey Slate and Crumb Cake inks and stamped those colours in layers.  After they had dried, I added a very light wash of each colour over the stamping to soften the effect and am happy with the results.  There is a suggestion of far-off mountains and an open range which makes a good background for my stamped trees.  Of course I masked the motorcycle to keep the image clear and uncoloured. 

If you look carefully, you'll see the suggestion of shadows coming forward from the trees which I think really helps add depth to the scene.

To add some interest to the inside, I also added some of the images from One Wild Ride.

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My second project is a birthday card which I made for a family friend back in British Columbia.  She loves roses.  She's also turning 70.  The perfect card for this lovely lady is one with the beautiful rose die cut which is part of the Rose Wonder bundle?   I combined one of the brand new In-Colours with one of my favourite continuing In-Colours and added a green.  Surprisingly enough, all the colours really compliment each other beautifully.  What are they?  The brand new Berry Burst, the continuing Sweet Sugarplum, and the classic Old Olive.  I used the Large Numbers Framelits to cut out the "70" and then used Tombo liquid glue to attach everything to the piece of Berry Burst which I had first embossed using the Sparkle embossing folder.

For the inside I decided to use the pretty die-cut hexagonal piece from the Window Box Thinlets dies to cut out a template which I used as a template to add the pattern to the Whisper White.  I sponged on Sweet Sugarplum, Pear Pizzazz, So Saffron, and Peekaboo Peach inks and then stamped my sentiment over the pattern using Basic Black ink.  

I don't usually use a coloured base but for this card I really think that the Pear Pizzazz looks great with the other colours.

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My final project is a take-off on the Double Z fold card which I've made several times.  This time, however, I chose not to have the additional narrow folded cardstock but instead, just went with the basic fold.  I also added a surprise to the card and, seeing how well this one turned out, will probably use this particular fold again in the near future.

I combined the Best Birds bundle with the Sheltering Tree stamp set.  To begin, I watercoloured the background.  Since I had decided to use Shimmery White cardstock for this layer, I knew the watercolouring wouldn't warp the paper.  I began with a strip of Pool Party and then changed to Pear Pizzazz for the lower portion.  To add some texture to the green, I stamped over the watercolouring with the same Pear Pizzazz using a texture from the Touches of Texture set.  I attached the stamped and watercoloured Shimmery White cardstock to a base of Soft Suede cardstock.

When the card it closed it looks as if the birds are right next to each other on neighbouring branches.  The tree in the background has the same pink blossoms stamped among the leaves.

When the card is open, however, you can see the distance between the branches and also that there are actually three blossoming trees in the background.  I just had to add the swing to the centre one.

In this view you can see why there is a piece of the Copper Trim ribbon showing in the other views of the card.  The surprise is that there is a tag inside with a sentiment and upon which one can write a note.

There is enough space in the pocket in which the tag rests to add a gift card as well.  

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And that's it for my projects.  I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I've enjoyed creating them.  

From here you'll be visiting another wonderfully creative stamper, Penny Hanuszak.