Mosaic II + Colour Throwdown 184

I'm trying a new challenge this weekend with Colour Throwdown.  The sun is shining and the snow is melting, so this combo was perfect to match the spring mood.  I don't use the subtles all that much, so using so many of them here was certainly a challenge for me.

Yesterday I discovered the mosaic technique, and this morning I made a HUGE mosaic.  It's got to be 5" X 6".  This might not seem very big, but cutting and gluing all of those little pieces in place was no small task.  It took me the better part of an hour to do it, but I'm happy that I've got one now.  I think that I will be using it a lot.  Next week I'm going to try using different inks on it to make backgrounds.

In keeping with the spring mood, I chose Simply Soft for my stamping.  The flowers are lovely, and they lend themselves nicely to messy colouring.  I stamped the images in Certainly Celery, and then used my So Saffron and Marina Mist markers to fill in the petals.  Elegant Eggplant was used to make the mosaic.

It took a little bit of playing, but I finally ended up with Four Frames and a nice button to cap it all off.  The sentiment that I've used comes from Petite Pairs.  If you don't have that set yet, you should add it to your wish list.  There are a variety of great little sayings in there, and the layout of them allows you to use with a variety of shapes of punches.

A La Card Monkey #99

Buttons.  Hmm.  I have mixed feelings about these little embellishments.  My style doesn't usually include buttons; however, last summer I ran a couple of button shares so that I could get large quantities of a few colours.  I ended up with more colours left over than I wanted, so into the embellishment drawer they went.

When I saw this sketch this morning it was the perfect time to pull those suckers out and dust them off.  Their turn in the spotlight.  It took me a bit of playing around to get this card exactly how I wanted it, but I'm happy with the end result.

Brayer Technique

My best friend was here from out of town this weekend so on Saturday night we had a few people over, got a little silly, and stayed up wayyyyyy too late.  Of course I was still up at 6:30 but stayed in bed until 7:30 so as not to wake up our guests.

7:30 was still a sleep-in so I felt the need to get up and get going.  I'm not sure everyone else felt the same, but I had promised a nice big breakfast upon waking, so I didn't hear any complaints.  Now, it's after noon and I am the only person in the house that is awake.  Aforementioned best friend has a three year-old son (bouncy bouncy bouncy) and doesn't often get time away from him.  However, he's out ice fishing with his dad today, so mama gets a little well-deserved rest.  I had grand plans for us to make cards all afternoon, but a rare nap seems too good to pass up so I sent her back to bed for a bit.

Knowing that I had company this weekend, I left all of my work in my office, so I found myself with some guilt-free surfing time.  I've been meaning to try out some techniques with my brayer and I finally did.

I watched a tutorial and then flew at it.  It took a few tries before I could get it to look how I wanted, but I'm pretty pleased.

The picture doesn't really capture all of the colours very well, but it's So Saffron layered with Calypso Coral.  I love how the back matting makes such a bold statement.  I was going to stamp a sentiment up in the right corner, but I like it plain - I think.

Happy crafting!

Daring Cardmakers 01

Again, I was surfing around the good old internet, and I found a fun challenge site.  This one's by some lovely UK ladies.  I mashed it up with an old Mojo Monday sketch and am pretty pleased with the outcome.

I got this set a number of months ago, but haven't been inspired to use it.  As soon as I saw this combo though set practically jumped right off my shelf and into my lap!  Pool Party and Island Indigo aren't exactly these shades, but they're close enough, and they look great with Crumb Cake and Soft Suede, so it all came together nicely anyways.