WWC261 - Kath's Challenge: Anything Goes With a Feminine Twist

My favourite Designer Paper offered by Stampin' Up! in their Annual Catalogue remains the stunning Pressed Petals Specialty DSP.  The photographic images of the flowers truly look as if one can reach in and lift them from the paper.  Coupled with the lovely Wonderful Moments image, the paper helps to lift an ordinary Birthday card into the extraordinary.

For my base I used the Heavy Whisper White cardstock.  To compliment the Stampin' Blends which I used, I added a matte in the Balmy Blue cardstock.  I followed that up by adding a layer of the lovely Pressed Petals.

On a scrap piece of Whisper White cardstock, I stamped the image of the girl walking away.  I carefully stamped the bouquet image into her right hand and then drew a cell phone into her left hand.  After colouring my images using the Stampin' Blends, I fussy cut the image and attached it to the centre of the floral wreath.  After stamping my sentiment on a scrap of Balmy Blue, I hand-cut it into a banner shape and added stitch lines with my journalling pen.

I hope you enjoy my card as much as I enjoyed creating it.  Have fun with our challenge!

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Dragonfly Dreams Challenge: Make it Feminine

Lemon Shortbread Challenge #114 - Anything Goes

Creative Moments Challenge #185 - Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog - Feminine

WWC215 - Donna's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I have a confession to make.  I don't always plan ahead.  Lots of times I decide I want to use an image or two or more and I go ahead and stamp them and/or fussy-cut them  and colour them.  And I put them aside.  A week or more may go by while I'm allowing my subconscious to "incubate" ideas.  For me this system works.  Suddenly I'll know what I want to do and it's full steam ahead.  That's what happened while I was creating this card.

I love the sweet images from the Fairy Celebration set.  I've used them in many ways before but I keep coming up with new ideas.  For me, this has definitely been a worthwhile purchase.  Being a glutton for punishment, I stamped the sweet little fairy on a scrap of Whisper White by inking the stamp with my Basic Black Stampin' Marker.  That gave me a chance to eliminate the flower which the fairy is actually holding as well as the other flowers in the image.  I had a different idea in mind.  Since it's the beginning of Spring and I'm just dying to see some daffodils, I wanted her to be holding one.  There was a perfect image in the You're Inspiring stamp set.  Of course that daffodil was one of two on the stamp and so, again, I inked only the one which I wanted.

As if that wasn't enough work, I decided to fussy-cut the images as well.  Have you noticed the detail, especially with the grasses and those little arms and legs?  Besides my little "snips", I had to use my special kraft knife and mat.  But I had an end goal and that was that.  To tell the truth, the hardest part of all was cutting those tiny hands and fingers so that they could curl around the stem of the daffodil.

My base is the Heavy Whisper White.  Then comes a matte of Mossy Meadow.  The next couple of layers actually have ovals cut into them and then the splattered layer was attached under those layers with the base of the fussy-cut Fairy image between.

I decided that I needed a little something to balance the die-cut and stamped sentiment at the right bottom and so I fussy-cut one of the butterflies from the Sale-a-bration Botanical Butterfly DSP.  I think it worked out just right.  It echoes the colours in the fairy and the Floral Romance Specialty DSP.

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

I've entered my card into the following challenges:

Classic DT Open Challenge #4 - 3rd Birthday Anything Goes

Lemon Shortbread Challenge #90 - Anything Goes

The Creative Crafters Challenge #14 - Anything Goes

WWC190 - Gail's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I love our wonderful feminine challenges and had the best idea for a card.  Of course what I had in mind called for an awful lot of masking and planning, but you know what they say.  Where there's a will, there's a way.

You can see that I've used two of my favourite stamp sets.  I love the fairy from the Fairy Celebration set but didn't want to use the branch which was part of her image.  I also love the dandelion clock with the blowing seeds from the Dandelion Wishes set and wanted my little fairy to be hanging from that; flying along with that, actually.  What I had to do was to cover all the unwanted lines of the branch with Washi tape and then I inked up the stamp, removed the Washi tape and stamped the remains of the fairy where I wanted her.  Then, since the dandelion stamp, like the fairy stamp, was rubber, I couldn't stamp the full dandelion clock.  Again, I covered the unwanted stem with Washi tape, inked the stamp, removed the Washi tape and stamped the clock image approximately where I thought it should go with the fairy holding onto it.

After that it was easy-peasy.  I drew in the remainder of the stem for the dandelion clock, fitting it between the fairy's hands and extending past them.  I stamped several more additional seeds to fly behind and beyond the images.  Then I coloured my images using my Stampin' Markers and watercoloured a soft sky.

My base is the Heavy Whisper White and then I've used a matte of Crushed Curry for the image.  After stamping the sentiment from the Dandelion Wishes set, I cut it out using the Taylored Tag punch.  After trimming it down slightly, I cut a matte from the Mossy Meadow.  My little fairy is, after all, wearing fall colours and her girdle is Mossy Meadow.  I hope you like it as much as I do.

I hope you'll check out the awesome cards by our Watercooler Artists over at ourWatercooler Wednesday Challenge Blog. 

I've also entered my card in the following challenges:

Moving Along with the Times Challenge 81 - Autumn/Fall

Addicted to Stamps & More #312 - Make Your Mark

The House That Stamps Built DCC103 - It's Up In the Air

WWC177 - Charlotte's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

Oh, so much happening today.  First of all, Happy Birthday to our neighbours to the south, celebrating their 4th of July.  Second of all, we have a brand new Watercooler Artist who is joining our team this week, Crystal Komara, who many of you may already know from her Super Stamp Girl blog.

Last but definitely not least, Charlotte is hosting our awesome Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge this week.  I'm dying to show you the card I designed!

I'm still sorting through my all-too-horrifically large stash of stamping products.  Of course it's a lot of work but every once in a while it's like striking gold.  (Okay, I'm easily excited.)  This time I found a sheet and a half of some Designer Paper which I absolutely LOVED when it came out and stashed away so that it wouldn't all be used and disappear.  (How sad is that?  Paper should be used.  Right?)

Well this retired paper inspired the entire card which I created.  You can see, it's all about the dandelion seeds in black, floating across the white background.  Simple, yes.  Striking---oh my goodness, yes!  And so I took my Fairy Celebration stamp set and stamped the little fairy sitting on the toadstool, surrounded by flowers.  Once the ink had thoroughly dried, I used my stitched oval framelit to cut it out.  Then I used my scalloped oval framelit to cut out a piece of Basic Black cardstock as a matte.

Because I wanted the card to be predominantly black and white, I coloured only the top of the toadstool and the little fairy, leaving the rest of the image black and white.  Because I'm still in love with the colour pencil/Gamsol technique of colouring, I turned to my set of Derwent Colourself pencils and had a ball bringing the little fairy to life.

For my sentiment I did much the same as I did with the image, using a sentiment from the Beautiful You stamp set matted on a Basic Black scalloped oval.  That pretty coard under the sentiment is black and as shiny as can be.  It's in the new Annual Catalogue and is simply called Black 1/8" Cord.  Its impact is not so  simple.

I hope you'll check out the cards created by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.

I've also entered this card in the Just Us Girls Challenge #447 - Anything Goes

And also the Try it on Tuesday Challenge - Things with Wings

WWC168 - Helen's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I'm so glad that we're having a Feminine "Anything Goes" challenge this week.  Helen Finlay is our host and we have some absolutely awesome samples over at the challenge blog.  But this post is all about my card.  I had such fun creating it!

I think everyone has heard about some of our returning colours.  For this card I turned to two of them, since they're featured in the Specialty Designer paper which I've used.  I'm in love with the paper!  Many of the designs have a pearlized finish to some of the images and the shine is wonderful.  For that very reason I've included some silver foil in my card, to match that wonderful shine.

I've had fun including a couple of the new stamp sets and thinlits, too.  This wonderful butterfly, for example, which I've heat embossed in white on Blackberry Bliss is from the Painted Glass Bundle. To add some shine I've used the Clear Wink of Stella in places.

I've used the thinlits from the same bundle for this dainty frame, cut from Rich Razzleberry and attached over a layer of Silver Foil.  The sentiment in the centre is heat embossed in white on a piece of Blackberry Bliss and is from the new Enjoy Life stamp set.

Of course the lovely floral background is from the new Share What You Love Designer Series paper which, as I've mentioned, has a wonderful pearlized finish in places.  Some of those flowers which appear white are actually blue but the light has caught them and they shine as brightly as the silver I've used elsewhere.  In person this is stunning!

My base is the Heavy Whisper White and then I've added a layer of the returning Mossy Meadow, then a layer of Silver Foil and finally the wonderful printed piece.  My butterfly and the sentiment square are both raised on Dimensionals.  As for any other embellishment---well, simply put, I don't think I needed any.

I can see many more projects being created with these products.  I'm in love!

I hope you'll check out the awesome creations created by the rest of the Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  And then feel free to link up your own creation for us to enjoy.

I'm also linking my card to the following challenges:

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenge #18 - Lots of Layers

Fab & Funky Challenges #392 - Wet or Dry Embossing

Double "D" Challenges - May Flowers

Crafting by Designs - Anything Goes May Edition

WWC#156 - Penny's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

It's a Feminine "Anything Goes" challenge which Penny Hanuszak is hosting this week.  Such fun!  I'm so happy for the excuse to use a stamp set which I've been anxious to try out.

Which stamp set am I talking about?  The Sale-a-bration "Beautiful Peacock" of course.  I've seen some fascinating projects but each time I thought about using it I either came up blank or needed to make something totally different.  Not this time.  This time I'm going all the way.

I began with a piece of Mixed Media paper onto which I scattered some Yellow Brusho crystals and then let them work their magic as I sprayed them with a bit of water.  I love the varying shades of colour which come from one colour of the Brusho.  You never quite know what to expect and that's part of the magic.  Once I had heat dried the colour, I was ready to stamp.

There are some interesting pieces to this particular stamp set.  The peacock is a solid stamp, so you're stamping the colour instead of colouring an outline in.  Since I don't always get a perfect image the first time with a solid stamp, I hauled out my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform so that I could restamp if necessary without having the headache of trying to totally match my initial stamping.  I'm glad I used it because I had to restamp another two times after my initial stamp in order to get the saturated Bermuda Bay colour for my image that I had in mind.   While I had the paper on the platform I chose to stamp the "feathers" that way as well.  I wound up restamping each one so that was a good move.

As you can see from the card, the "feathers" are almost like flourishes or vines.  They do look wonderful, however, especially when you add several together.  I chose to have two Bermuda Bay "feathers" and then added one between them which I heat embossed in Copper embossing powder.  Don't you simply love the contrast?

As you can see, I also stamped a few of the tiny flower images along the "feathers" using Calypso Coral.  I thought the tiny flecks of warm colour in the Yellow Brusho were quite similar in colour to the Calypso Coral.  It doesn't hurt that the warm tones look great next to the Bermuda Bay.

Since I had the one "feather" heat embossed in Copper, I decided to heat emboss the crown and the wing in Copper as well.  As it happened, I had a negative bit of a die-cut lying on my table and it looked almost like the wing.  A couple of snips and it fit perfectly with a band of copper embossing around it.  Serendipitously, the piece had been the retired Bermuda Bay Glimmer paper.  It was clearly meant to be.

As you can see, I also added a few little copper foil hearts.  To finish off, I added tiny pearl embellishments to the centre of each flower as well as to the peacock's eye.

I simply love the finished card, don't you?

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

I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:

Always Fun Challenges #44 - Anything Goes

Crafty Gals Corner #158 - Anything Goes

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #75 - 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.