WWC174 - Gail's "All About Occasions" Challenge

Oh what fun!  This week's challenge is hosted by Gail Allen and is "All About Occasions".  I love this challenge because there is such a wealth of occasions to choose from during the year.

I had been playing around with an idea for a while and decided it was time to see  if reality could come close  to my imagining.  It all began with the gorgeous Share What You Love Specialty Designer Paper pack.  Those of you who have it will know exactly what I mean.  This paper is enough to inspire anyone.  And while I absolutely love the weight  of it and the indescribable look of the translucent and pearlized finish on the one side, it is the other side of one of the designs which set me on the road to my design.  The pattern which I used has no addition of shimmer but it makes me think of someone watercolouring the series of small circles.

There are some awesome colours in this particular designer paper and so it was easy to choose the colours I used for both the watercolouring and the mattes.  My mattes are Mint Macaron and Rich Razzleberry.  For the die-cut birthday and the paint "dripping" from it, I used Mint Macaron, Rich Razzleberry, So Saffron, Pear Pizzaz and Grapefruit Grove.  Those colours are all echoed in the background designer paper.

I've been  going through my retired stamps and came across the Talented Trio set (which I've decided to keep) and realized that I hadn't yet stamped with the little artist.  Well this card took care of that omission.  For her I used the Rich Razzleberry and So Saffron for her smock and the Mint Macaron and Rich Razzleberry for her paint brushes.  I really enjoyed using my inks and AquaPainter for this card.

I hope you've enjoyed checking out my card and reading about the materials.  You'll find more when you visit the blogs of the other Watercooler Artists featured in our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge post.  I look forward to seeing your awesome cards linked up to the challenge.

By the way, you'll see we're also having a Design Team call.  Sadly we lost two of our team members because of personal and family responsibilities.  I'm really going to miss Penny Hanuszak and Tenia Nelson.  Now it's time to see who wants to be part of our awesome team.

WWC161 - Helen's "All About Occasions" Challenge

This week's challenge is being hosted by Helen Finlay and it's all about the special Occasions in our lives.  You can see a few listed in the challenge icon, but you can probably think of a bunch more.  Let's face it, special occasions are one of the reasons we create our cards.

Here in Canada it's still quite a while before Mother's Day occurs in May but it was my mother's birthday last week and I've been thinking of her a lot lately.  Making a Mother's Day card just felt totally natural under the circumstances.

I kept this card very simple.  In fact it's a one layer card except that I matted the one layer and then adhered it to a base.  But you know what I mean. After stamping it, I masked the pretty stone wall image from the Hostess set, "Cosy Cottage".  Then I stamped the trees from the retired "In the Meadow" set so that they would appear to be behind the wall.  The sizing of the two sets is perfect.  They appear to be made for each other.

The scene I've created and watercoloured reminds me so much of a pretty garden to which we'd frequently go for a little picnic when I was growing up in Victoria.  After a snack, I'd weave together the little wild daisies so I could wear them like a crown in my hair.  Most of the time both my sister and I wound up wearing the daisy "crowns" which our Mum had made.  For some reason mine seldom held together properly.

While the outside of my card is rather simple, without embellishments or surprises, I had to do something special for the inside.  So I took the Sale-a-bration "Blossoming Basket" set and stamped the basket in the centre of a piece of 8" x 5" Whisper White and then watercoloured it before carefully cutting around much of it using my craft knife.  I left enough attached so that it would "pop out" when the card was opened.

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

I've also entered this card into the CAS March Watercolour Challenge which is all about Gardens.

I've entered this card into the Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge #283 - Holidays.

I've entered this card into the That's Crafty! Challenge - Spring Into Action

And, finally, I've entered this card into the The Crafty Addicts Challenge #46 - All About Mums