Always flowers

A huge thank you to everyone who voted for my card in last weeks Muse challenge.
It's a first for me to have a card selected in a challenge and I have been buzzing all week. I could enter more card challenges I guess - but I don't seem to get that organised.

Anyway, moving on. I loved the colours in Anita's card for this week's Muse challenge and how they contrasted so well with the white. I thought she must have embossed it, but when I read her post, it turns out she'd used a stencil ....

I have some stencils, bought in a rush of enthusiasm at seeing the results of others using them - but I've had little real success with them. I decided to give it another go.

So my inspiration from Anita's awesome card was firstly the colours, then the stencil, and also how she had  placed the stencil so the image was off-centre and not fully on the card.

This is what I finally came up with (after 2 earlier cards). I used a stencil I've had for years ... first card I've made with it 😊 - I used distress inks, and the sentiment is from a Jofy stamp set.
When I lifted the stencil I thought there was too much white & it looked wrong so I blended the inks on the white areas and into the stencilling a bit which softened the edges of the stencilling more.

I originally made a tall card but when I went to photograph it & do my blog post this morning I thought it would be better sideways.
So here's my original. Plus there's another where I stamped the sentiment on uppy-downy rather than sideways .... so I have a trio of flowery cards and heaps more practice using stencils.

This afternoon I'm off to a crafting session making a mini album with a masculine theme so hopefully I'll learn lots of new techniques and get lots of ideas for future crafty things.

Cheers, Dianne

Card for Mum

Gosh - every week I think I should get organised and do a few more card challenges ... but somehow the week gets away from me and I'm lucky if I even get a card in for the Muse challenge.

This week's Muse challenge is a super card from Kay Miller.

I played around with a few ideas & inked up some die cut flowers.
I started putting it all together and then left an inky thumb print on my card ... a few words were said and I stomped off to do some housework instead.

Turns out I don't have much stamina for housework so I came back to my card and tried again and this is what I finished with.

It's slightly different from my original plan (but isn't that often the case) and I like it much better. It's Mother's day here next Sunday so I will post this to my mum in a few days time.

It looks quite different from Kay's original, but I took my influences from her spray of flowers and the geometry of her background. The background stamp is an old Kaisercraft one I've had for a few years & I'm thinking I must use it more :-)
Cheers, Dianne

Blues and White

Well - I checked the time difference from here & England & worked out I could just squeeze this card in before the deadline.

So I'm entering it in Muse Challenge 212 where Jenni has given us a deceptively simple card to muse on.

After some thinking that tailed off rather ineffectually I remembered an old Chocolate Baroque background stamp that I've hardly used. I liked it but haven't been comfortable with background stamps really.
Anyway I found some shiny-ish white card in my stash, but decided to white emboss rather than clear emboss then I used a couple of distress inks over it. I'm really pleased with the effect & want to keep playing with it. The distress inks perform quite differently on shiny card

So the parts of Jenni's original card I've taken inspiration from are the format, and the blue & white colours - though I'm calling the soft purple blue in this case.

So - thank you Jenni & Muse for pushing me out of my comfort zone.

Cheers, Dianne

Thank You Card

I love Easter weekend.
It's such a good time to get into some craft and card making -  though once again my intentions, and the reality didn't quite gel ...
Still, I have managed to complete a card for this week's Muse challenge. Tracey's card is light, summery, bouncy and fun.
My husband saw it and reminded me of my first ever Jofy stamp set (n.9), the flowers in it are all circles.
I wanted to keep my coloured spaces light and open like Tracey's so I used chalks for the first time in ages. I kept to the same colours and added some fine glitter to the flowers for a touch of sparkle.
I searched through my whole stash of coloured card (plain & patterned) to frame my finished picture before mounting it on the card.
This took a while and was a great opportunity to remind myself what I had (lots of ideas for later), but in the end I decided it just looked fine on the tall blue card base ... I didn't even ink the edges.

Well - the glitter doesn't show up much- but I know it's there 😊.
It's a nice card but seems like very little to show for the best part of Easter weekend .... there was an earlier card attempt & I still like the ideas in it so will work on that one again later + I have been attempting a triptych, slowly ... and have made some progress but am nowhere near complete.
I've wanted to attempt one for ages to expand from card making (which I love) into other forms of paper crafty-ness.
The best news is there is still one day of the Easter break left ... and a whole chocolate bunny 😊
Happy Easter,
Dianne

Blue card

Hi there,
I seem to have lost a week last week, but I checked out the Muse blog earlier this week and thought about SonjaK's lovely card for Muse challenge 209.



I've had very little success with using craft card, but am often impressed by how others use it so well in their creations. My craft card 'creations' always look like brown cardboard - I have yet to master the art of using it to create an earthy, rustic feel.

However I love blue flowers.  I also love the combination of blue and orange that Sonja has included on her card, and how her hydrangea is framed by the oval even though it's outside the frame.

My daughter gave me some Faber-Castell paper crafter crayons for my birthday last year, not something I would have thought to buy for myself, but I love them. I have been playing around with using them as a resist with distress inks. and this is what I've done with my card.  I used a Jofy stamp and coloured it with oranges, yellows and greens.

Instead of using the blending tool I just splodged some tumbled glass, picket fence & shaded lilac on my craft sheet, flicked on some water & smeared them round with my finger & then pressed my crayoned flower picture into it.

I brushed a little perfect pearls over when the ink was slightly dryer (more noticeable on the card than the photo).

It was at this point that I realised my flower stem created an ovalish curve so I decided to cut it and see what happened. The closest I could get (comfortably) to craft was this pattered paper from my stash adding the twine looked right - and then I realised it sort of mirrored the strip of parchment on Sonja's card. 

I've really enjoyed this challenge - it's given me the chance to play more with a technique I enjoy and also experimenting further ... and finishing with a nice card just waiting for the right occasion :-)

I'm thinking some photography classes would be useful ... I took four photos to get this one & it's still a bit gloomy towards the top.

Easter at Muse

Well - I'm writing my 2nd week's blog post. I was hoping to do more this week, but it's been a busy one ... funny how life gets in the way of crafting :-)
Anyway, I was a bit stumped by the Muse inspiration card this week - and that's absolutely no reflection of Tracey's colourful, fun card ... it's just that in New Zealand Easter is an Autumn event rather than spring. So I took Easter/Autumn as my inspiration. I used similar colours, but more muted to make a more Autumnal image and the woven strips are my nod to the stripes and the woven basket of Tracey's card.

I picked soft pink, green, blue  & mustard/brown papers - cut narrow strips, wove them together & placed them on a white background stamped with a few dots of marmalade and wild honey distress inks. The leaves are from a Bo Bunny set I've had for a while. I've just held them in place with a little double-sided tape in the centre to give a bit more of a 3D feel. I mounted this on Chocolate brown card -chocolate for Easter :-) - and popped it on a soft pink card blank.
Weaving the strips was more of a challenge than I expected , but I'm happy with how they turned out. I think I'll play a bit more with this formula.
Cheers, Dianne

Muse flowers

Hi there,
I'm typing here & feeling a little embarrassed. I started this blog with good intentions a few years ago & haven't written any posts for almost 2 years now.

... but I've kept on making cards & playing with ink, stamps, paper, paints, crayons ... and I've kept checking card and craft challenge blogs.  I discovered the Muse blog in the weekend and decided to give it a go.

I love the idea of being able to take the inspiration I choose from a muse card and Anita Bowden's strong, bright card for challenge #206 led me to this.

I took the colours and geometric shapes of Anita's card and combined them with an old Craft Stamper stamp I've had for a few years now.

I was going to use a white card blank to frame it ... but my family voted for the blue, and it does make the pink and orange pop.

I loved the pink orange & black colour combination and plan to experiment with it further.

Now I need to get it loaded before the deadline :-)

Cheers, Dianne