MFT Card Design Superstar - Clean and Simple Genius

Hello crafty friends. I'm back with another card for the 2020 Card Design Superstar contest at My Favorite Things. This time, it's a card for the Clean and Simple Genius Category.

The inspiration for my design came from an older video by Jennifer McGuire where she used repeat sentiment stamping and the MISTI to create a simple background for her images. I decided to take her idea one step further by stamping the sentiment in a masked circle. I used the second smallest die from the Single stitched line circle frames to cut out a circle from masking paper and then created masks for my seagull and clouds (Seaside Seagulls). After stamping my images in CP Black Jack ink and placing my masks, I did some soft ink blending using Tumbled Glass DI and a jumbo dauber before stamping the sentiments. To enable me to stamp the sentiment in black (Versafine) in two lines, I did some stamp surgery by cutting up the stamp. After that, I put the sentiment together again on the lid of my MISTI so that I could stamp the entire sentiment repeatedly in Stoneblue CP ink. 

After removing the masks, I coloured my images using Copics and used a brown coloured pencil to add some woodgrain texture.

MFT Card Design Superstar - Colouring Virtuoso Storybook Scene

Hello crafty friends. Thanks for stopping by.
It's that time of the year again when My Favorite Things is hosting their Card Design Superstar contest.

When I recently purchased Sandy Allnock's Colored Pencil Course: Storybook Scenes, I thought this would be perfect to jumpstart my creation for this year's MFT contest in the Coloring Virtuoso category. I originally intended to use my Polychromos, but then my eye fell on my Spectrum Noir ColourTint graphite pencils, that I had only used once before. These are water soluble, so I used a paint brush and water to do my blending instead of gamsol or odourless mineral spirits.

After sketching out my scene onto a Canson Mixed Media panel and adding a first layer of colour, I stamped the sweet woodland critters (Friends in the Forest) and butterfly (Sow Much Cuteness) in Antique linen distress ink. I coloured my critters before going back to the scene and left the butterfly until the very end, since I wasn't sure yet which colour I would use and then settled for lilac/mauve. To finish off, I stamped the Hello sentiment (Seaside Seagulls) in Elderberry Memento ink and adhered my panel to a brown card base, leaving the slightest border. I also used a white Polychromos coloured pencil to clean up the white parts of the critters.

Thank you, MFT, for encouring me to get colouring. This was not only my first attempt at creating a storybook scene, it was also my first attempt at no-line colouring.

First gel plate card

Hello crafty friends! Hope you are keeping crafty as well as safe and healthy!
Yesterday, I finally took my 6x6 inch gel plate out of its packaging (after several years!) and had some fun pulling some prints using distress oxides and stencils. I found this video tutorial by Teresa Morgan very helpful to get started. It may have taken me a long time to actually use my gel plate, but I know I will be playing some more very soon...

I really liked this monochromatic print and decided to use it to create a quick card for a couple of challenges. I inked up the birds and sentiment (STAMPlorations) using ombré ink colours (Catherine Pooler). After die cutting my panel using my favourite stitched rectangle die (SSS), I did a little ink blending around the edges (Tea die DI) before adhering it to my kraft card base. And then I decided I wanted to add a little more interest and texture. So I grabbed a few stamps and did some light stamping around the border.

I'm playing at:

We Love Chocolate Baroque - Wings with an Anything Goes option

This is a new challenge and is the sequel to 

the former Penny Black and More challenge.

To celebrate the launch of the new challenge, 

there are weekly prizes to be won this month. 

Check out the challenge blog for more details.

Allsorts - #589 I love ...

... my inks (both distress inks and CP inks), 

stencils, stamping and my stitched rectangle dies

TCP Tuesday - #372 Animal

Crafty Animals - #42 AG with animals

STAMPlorations - Summer challenge AG

STAMPlorations - Never-ending AG with STAMPlorations

And since I have used plenty of NBUS to create this card (For the Birds stamp set by STAMPlorations, my Gell Press, and I'm also pretty sure I have not used this stencil KSD296 by Stamperia before), I'm also linking up my card at:

NBUS #18 Anything goes with NBUS

Tuesday Morning Sketches #570

Hello crafty friends! I'm back with another card using the August Love from Lizi kit, inspired by this week's sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches.

I die cut one of the PPs from the kit using a large circle die (Lifestyle Crafts) and adhered it to another PP panel before die cutting them together using a stitched rectangle die (SSS). I adhered this to one of the soft gray card bases from the kit and foam-mounted elements from the ephemera pack and added some sparkle to them using my sparkle pen (SN). To finish off, I added a puffy sticker sentiment. 

I"m linking up my card at:

TMS - #570

Craftyhazelnut's PP challenge - AG with patterned papers

Aud Sentiments - #259 AG + a sentiment