W&W belated 2nd birthday bash

Winnie&Walter are celebrating their second birthday this month with a huge giveaway and 10 fun challenges. Since I had quite a bit of play time this week, I let myself be inspired to play along and once I got started, the inspiration kept flowing. Such a rare and wonderful feeling for me, since normally my crafting sessions are short and far between. But maybe I should simply loosen up and go with the flow.

For my first two cards, I was inspired by Taheerah's inpiration image challenge, but I combined it with elements from several other challenges. After seeing the floor covering in the inspiration image and Taheerah's use of the yet to be released stencil, I just had to play along using this exact same stencil, which was included in Catherine Pooler's first Stamp of Approval collection (the Friend collection).

On the first card, I used Hero Arts soft granite ink and the Ranger mini blending tool to apply the ink onto a soft stone cardbase (Papertrey Ink). For the flower panel, I heat-embossed the flower image from the W&W In Bloom: Anna's Flora set in white embossing powder (SSS) and then applied a heavy coat of distress inks (Dusty concord and Chipped sapphire) and then bleached out the flower image using a water brush. After that, I dropped in a little Picked raspberry. You can find a detailed explanation on this technique, including a video, on Jennifer McGuire's blog.

I cut the strip right up to the flower and then fussy cut around the top and bottom of the flower. I finished my design off with two small strips of lime green cardstock, a heat-embossed sentiment (W&W Winter Woodland and The Big, the Bold and the Merry), and a few sequins. And clear Wink of Stella on the flower of course.

I really liked how the flower turned out, but I really wanted to make a soft pink version to mimick the decorative element on the table in the inspiration image.

Therefore I decided to make a second version, this time using Memento Smoke blue ink for the background and Memento Elderberry for the narrow panel. I stamped the flower image onto a separate piece of cardstock and used softer pinks this time around. The sentiment (from the EH Mondo Magnolia set) was heat-embossed in Ranger silver pearl embossing powder to tie in with the smoky blue background. As in the first card, I used strips of lime green cardstock, clear Wink of Stella and a few sequins as a finishing touch.

W&W - Taheerah's inspiration challenge

W&W - Lydia's floral challenge

W&W - Gayatri's background challenge

I'm also entering my cards into the following challenge:

Seize the Birthday - no toppings for me

Stamping Sensations - Anything goes

Kathy's 4th 30 day colouring challenge