Tuesday 16 April 2013

Finally Spring

Hello hello everyone.  Thank you all for your very kind comments.  They are little rays of sunshine in my day.  Finally Spring appears to have arrived.  Hurrah.  Yesterday was wet and wild but with the storm came some warmth and today suddenly there's crocus and I even saw some daffodils in a sheltered spot.  Not in my garden yet but soon, soon........

Everybody seems to be thinking spring and flowers and April showers and I have been playing around with a project or two.  Felt I wanted some bright colours and motifs and what brighter than a balloon.


This is Distress Chipped Sapphire on glossy card, spritzed with water and then blotted.  I used this as my base card.  Usually I blot with tissue paper but I wondered if I could use a piece of paper instead and grabbed a piece of watercolour paper.  The result is below.  


A much more open effect.  I added a variety of Distress inks working in stripes from the corner in the colours of the rainbow.  Then I edged with DI Ocean Spray and mounted it on the base card leaving a small amount of the base card showing.

 
  
The balloon was cut from gold mirror card and free paper from a magazine using DoCrafts Vintage Balloon Dies and Cheery Lynn Pixie Guardian die for the basket.  The saying is from the same free papers and seemed appropriate.  I got a bit stuck here until I saw the challenge over at Ett Trykk where they are looking back at various techniques and wanted us to use homemade or bought foam stamps.  I decided to cut a butterfly stamp from funky foam using Cheery Lynn Mini Dimensional Butterflies.

Here's a photo of three butterflies I cut from foam.  The one I used in this project I mounted on an offcut from a rubber sheet and used on an acrylic block.


Very pleased with my stamp.  I really should cut myself some more from all these lovely dies I have.  I stamped the butterflies in DI Dusty Concord.

Entering this for the following challenges
Ett Trykk Jubileumsutfordringer - Skumstempler (used foam butterfly stamp)
Simon Says Stamps - April Showers
Stampotique Designers Challenge 95 - April Showers Bring May Flowers
Dies to Die For - Spring

 Happy crafting everyone.  Thanks for dropping by.

7 comments:

Reflective Art Studio said...

Nicely Done... I love your Rainbow... Thanks for joining us at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and hope to see you again soon.
Best
sarinda

Redanne said...

Love your gorgeous background and the balloon is beautiful. A very uplifting card! Hugs, Anne x

Kay Wallace said...

Bravo, Gail! I admire that you are talented enough not only to create this lovely work, but to create those intricate foam stamps! I also love how you created the background for this fun hot air balloon card! Each of these elements would stand nicely on their own, but together form a magical greeting!

Melissa Bove said...

Very pretty card!! Love how you made the background!

Thank you very much for joining us this week at the Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog!

Hugs...
Melissa

Oss i Ett trykk said...

What a fresh card, lovely background! Thank you so much for your contribution to our challenge at the Ett Trykk blog:)

Sue said...

This is lovely Gail, fabulous rainbow background, and I'm a firm believer in making foam stamps from dies lol. Thanks for sharing with us at Stampotique. Sue xx

Unknown said...

Very pretty!

Thank you for playing along with our Designers Challenge at Stampotique. Hope to see you again.

Jenn
DT