HLS January Watercolour Challenge

Wow, we're already into a brand new year!  I hope that 2018 is a wonderful year for everyone.

This month it's Anything Goes for the HLS Watercolour Challenge but you may like to play along with our optional twist of sequins.

I'm so excited to be part of the Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge Design Team.  As you all know, I love watercolouring and so I'm looking forward to pushing the limits for this challenge.  

For my image I went slightly oversized and wound up with a 4 1/2" x 6 1/4" card.  But bigger is better, right?  My base is white followed by a layer of Pacific Point.  My image is stamped on a piece of Mixed Media paper and heat embossed using white embossing powder.  After that I went a bit wild with my new Brusho watercolour crystals.  What fun they are!  Truly, you always wind up with something a bit different since each colour is made up of many different coloured crystals.  For this gorgeous Penny Black image I used Scarlet and Ultramarine.  Instead of wetting my image first, I tapped a few crystals onto the image and then sprayed it with water.  Lightly.  I didn't want the red spreading everywhere, after all.  Around the image, I used the blue and added a few red crystals to the mix.  

When it came time for my sentiment, I doubled up.  I used one at the top left and heat embossed it using white embossing powder.  For the second sentiment, I heat embossed it using copper embossing powder.  Finally I added a few sequins and my card was done.

As always, there is lots of inspiration over on the Happy Little Stampers Blog, and don't forget that you could win the prize this time!

And guess what!  Our winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop.  Check out all the details HERE

IF YOU USE STAMPS BY HAPPY LITTLE STAMPERS AND YOU ARE OUR RANDOM WINNER, YOUR PRIZE WILL BE DOUBLED!

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #150 - Heidi's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

This is a two week challenge since we're getting closer and closer to Christmas.  I have so much left to do!  Thank goodness for some extra time to begin doing it.  In the meantime, I'm hosting this challenge and it's all about the men in our lives--no matter what the age.

This challenge couldn't have come at a better time.  I have my nephew's birthday coming up in January, after all.  I decided to use the Eclipse Technique for  the card as well as the new and exciting stamp set free with a qualified purchase for Sale-a-bration.  Yes, that's coming up in January, too.  Of course the Epic Celebrations set can be used for both guys and gals, but for my over-abundance of guys in the family, it is perfect.

I used the image of the sneakers as well as the headphones.  Perfect for the techie in my life and it also fit beautifully on the large numbers from the Number of Years bundle.  I kept to just a few tones for my colours, using Whisper White, Smoky Slate, Bermuda Bay and a background from the wonderful Wood Textures Designer Series paper stack.

I hope you'll find time to play along and create a card for our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

I'm also playing along with the Party Time theme over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.

Addicted to CAS #126 - Sparkle

When I saw the theme for this challenge, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  After all, the brand new Myths & Magic Specialty Designer Series Paper has more sparkle built into the heavier-than-normal sheets than any I've seen before.  It's gorgeous!

I chose to fussy-cut the dragon from one of the sheets.  He has major sparkle and a real attitude.  Perfect for his job protecting the huge jewel which I stamped using the images from the You're Priceless set.  I didn't have to hand cut that image since, luckily, it uses the die from the Oh So Eclectic bundle.  For some major sparkle I pulled out my retired Crystal Effects, painted that onto the jewel, and then covered it with the incredible Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  You almost have to wear sunglasses when the light hits that glitter.

I'm playing along with the Addicted to CAS challenge #126 with this card.

I'm also playing along with the HLS December Anything Goes With Dies challenge.

Less is More Challenge #359 - You Are Amazing

I've been looking at the Hostess stamp set, Feathery Friends, for quite a while now.  I liked it enough to add it to an order some months back but until now inspiration escaped me.  With this challenge, however, I got the glimmer of an idea and decided to run with it.  Keeping it clean and simple opened the door for me.  Funny how that works.

The main reason I bought this set is because I thought it would be fun to play with my Stampin' Blends colouring all the little bits and pieces of the images.  I decided to make a 4" x 4" card with a Whisper White base and added a die-cut cross-stitched circle in Whisper White for the stamped and coloured images.  Fitting it all into the circle worked out perfectly.  Using the Stampin' Blends was a pleasure.  I'm happy with the results.

I'm playing along with the Less is More challenge for this card.

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #149 - Marsha's "All About Occasions" Challenge

Marsha is hosting a brand new challenge this week called "All About Occasions".  When you think about all the occasions which one celebrates during the year, you can imagine how many different card themes are possible.

Since Christmas is just around the corner and I still need some more Christmas cards, that's the occasion for which I created my card.  My husband and I were in Calgary at the end of last week and I found a small but absolutely packed-full-of-goodies crafting shop and spent some time (and money) discovering and buying new treasures.  One of those is the Cling Fox Friend stamp by Stampendous.  I love snowmen and I love foxes.  How could I have passed it up?

My base of Soft Sky followed by a piece of vellum which I embossed with the retired Northern Flurry embossing folder.  I topped that with a frame of Real Red to hold the vellum down without showing the glue and also for the effect of the red frame.  My images are all colouring using the Stampin' Blends (love them!).  The "Let it Snow" is an off-brand die-cut and the snowflake is cut using the Seasonal Layers Thinlets.  A scattering of rhinestones, and the card was done.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by our Watercooler Artists at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge this week.

I've also linked up my card to the {PIN}spirational Challenge #205 which  is all about Winter and snowmen, etc.

I've linked it up to the Cardz 4 Guyz Challenge which is all about snowmen.

And, finally, I've linked it up to the HLS December Christmas Challenge which is anything goes.

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - Let it Snow!

It's an Anything Goes challenge over at the HLS Watercolour Challenge and as a twist, it can be all about Christmas.

I had been thinking about using one of the new dies I bought some weeks back.  This one has beautiful script saying "Let it Snow".  Now I'm not wishing more white stuff on the ground, but that die really is asking to be used.

I love watercolouring, as most of you know, and so I decided to take a piece of Mixed Media paper and used some of my Distress Oxide Broken China on it.  As usual I smooshed some ink on a plastic mat and added a spray of water.  Rather than dip my paper into it, however, I took a wide brush and painted it on in streaks.  When I was satisfied with the look, I took my heat gun and dried it.  I took the piece, cut it with an oval die, and then cut another oval from a piece of Bermuda Bay cardstock.

I took a scrap of Bermuda Bay cardstock and a scrap of white cardstock and cut the sentiment out of each colour.  Then I added some Tombo glue to the back of the script and put it aside to get tacky.  While that was happening, I made a stencil of a tree by cutting it out of a scrap and keeping the negative piece.  I took a dauber and "smooshed" some Distress Oxide Peeled Paint into that to get the tree onto my painted oval.  After using my heat gun to completely dry that, I used my Aqua Painter and some Mossy Meadow ink to get some texture and dimension to the tree.  After that I used my Softly Falling embossing folder to add the illusion of snow.  Then I mixed a bit of Modelling Paste with water and "painted" on some white texture to make it appear as if there was a bit of snow on the branches.

You can see what I did with the die-cut script sentiment.  I attached part of the Bermuda Bay piece to the painted oval, part of the white piece to the Bermuda Bay oval, and then the rest of the Bermuda Bay piece to the base of Whisper White.  It makes me think that snow has fallen on the script.

As well as adding this card to the HLS Watercolour Challenge,  I'm going to add my card to the following challenges:

SIP Challenge 128 - Let it Snow

CAS Watercolour Challenge Dec. 2017 - Anything Goes

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #148 - Heidi's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

Woo Hoo!  I get to host this week's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge!  I think it's such fun to come up with something distinctly feminine and this time I decided to make it Seasonal as well.

I love using the Beautiful You stamp set.  It's become one of my "go to" sets, especially when I'm thinking "feminine".  It's no surprise, then, that this card features one of the lovely ladies from this set.  As much as I've used the Beautiful You set, however, I've as good as ignored the Hang Your Stocking set which carried over from last year's Holiday Catalogue into the current Annual Catalogue.  I'm making up for lost time with this card.

I decided to make this a gate-fold card because it made it easy to feature my Beautiful You lady in a pretty oval.  Since she's the featured image, she gets to overlap both sides, keeping the "gates" shut.  As a background I heat embossed the stockings using White embossing powder on Basic Black cardstock.  I love the sharp contrast!

Because I used black, white and red for my featured image and for the ovals, I continued with the colour theme by having a base of Heavy Whisper White and then layers of red and black.  You'll notice my lovely lady has a stylized "Santa" hat.  Well, that's thanks to some fancy fussy cutting and then colouring with my Stampin' Blends.  I cut the stocking she's holding free-hand from some retired Christmas paper that fit my theme perfectly.

Of course I carried the same colour theme inside since the "gate" opens and shows it off nicely.  Onto my Whisper White base I attached a layer of Real Red and then a layer of Whisper White, after it had been stamped.  The sentiment, in Basic Black ink, is from a retired set called Christmas Messages.  The stocking, off-stamped once, in Real Red ink, is from the Hang Your Stocking set.

I had a lot of fun creating this card and hope you enjoy it, too.  I invite you to check out the other awesome cards created by our Watercooler Artists at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

Remember, we're having a Design Team call.

I'm also entering this card into the Addicted to Stamps & More challenge, #271---Anything Goes.

And I'm entering it into the Moo-Mania & More Challenge since it's all about heat-embossing.

Another challenge I'm entering is the Merry Christmas Challenge #46.

Ch# 46  Anything Goes + Christmas

Optional: Fun Fold Cards

Last but not least, I'm entering it into the Inspire, Create Challenge #006 which is all about fancy folds.