Rainy Days.....

Yesterday it was rainy in the morning and so I spent the time playing!  I purchased the latest edition of the UK magazine Cards  a few weeks ago and while I have read it from cover to cover, I had not cased anything much out of it - so decided to work through page by page to see if any cards there inspired my mojo to compete - and this is the result!  I am only through the first 10 or so pages. Have also added it to the Little Paper Shop Monday Challenge LPSC55 - Distressing:

I used their colours and idea of the 'quilt' but my stiches are faux and my flower is not the same - I also like the way that two of the squares sat off as if unfinished or as if the butterflies had knocked them askew, rather then the uniform one is the magazine.  My butterflies are not the same either.   The butterflies are from two different stamping sets, coloured with SU markers and then coated with Dimentional Magic to make them shine. The feelers were drawn in after they were fixed to the card front. Cuttlebug embossing on SU card used and a brown SU marker for faux stitching. The stem and leaves were rough cut out of scrap card.

You can see the faux stitches here and the fussy-cut butterfly, and the embossing.

Next one was using buttons - I am always reluctant to use too many in fear of using up my stash but in reality I have so many it makes little difference to the stash pile!  I had to use the bottom of a 'y' letter to make my inverted comma and I think it is upside down now I look at it! An embossed piece of card (Swirl) which has the scallops punched out of the bottom edge. Some SU designer paper scraps and we were away. The letters are left overs on a set of big chipboard letters I have in the stash without the name of the manufacturer on the sheet. 

The next one had a simple flourish on craft and three flowers of felt with button centres and a big single letter 'K" on the right hand side.  Mine is a little different but is inspired by the same design.  Yes, I use the SU Baroque  flourish, but the felt flowers I have are only pink and white and I wanted to use the autumn colours here, so I just used three yellowish flowers and added three different buttons.  I then decided to sponge some Old Olive everywhere and add the red ribbon to lift the design. The 'O' is not quite big enough and looks a little out of place - it is meant to be given to a friend whose first name starts with 'O'. So, its like the one in the magazine, and its not.

This one was inspired by a series of flowers across a ribbon in the middle of the card, with faux stiches aroung the petals.  I don't actually have a flower stamp that suited that idea, but I do have this stamp.  It is a Stamp-It one called Framed Daisy Trio, and it thought I could stamp it several times and cut out the flowers and make them string across the middle, but I then had a better idea. After colouring one set in completely using SU markers and chalking the paper to make it more suited to the colour scheme, I then coloured in just the flowers from the second stamped set, and fussycut them out; attached them over the first ones and coated them with Dimentional Magic to make them shine.  They really pop off the page. I used my Fiskars punch to create the border on the bottom of the yellow card and my background papers are from the scrap drawer. I used some green card instead of ribbon across the centre of the card behind the stamped image, and again inside the bottom of the card so that it showed through the decorative cut. Some black Thickers for the sentiment and I was pleased with the result.

I then decided to change the colour scheme and ended up going pink because I could find several different things in pink to embellish the card with - wonder why? The sentiment is from a Verve stamp set and the bird is from the SongBirds stamp set from TJ Designs.  I used SU Pink Passion ink and card and layered up with a piece of teal card from somewhere! I used the computer to generate the saying and then punched the edge with the Fiskars punch. Some other bits and pieces, and some black ribbon from the inside of one of my jumpers, and it was done! I tore the edges of the paper and deliberately glued the ribbon on less than carefully to make it look avant guarde!

This is the last one - some layering up required here.  The colour scheme and the idea came from the cased card, but the stamp used is a Hamilton Art Stamp - Watercolour Daisy, coloured (in watercolour) with the SU markers waterbrushed. A Verve sentiment stamp, onto white Bazzil and layered onto blue; and 4 orange sparkly brads; layered onto Confetti Kaleidoscope Suprise "Cousins" Flowers DP, orange bazzil, SU Whisper White all on top of a blue bazzil card base.  Now I look at it I need to have shortened the flower topper a little to make it fit better on the orange base.

Better go, the girlies have arrived for their regular Monday night roast (Roast Beef tonight) - and NO homework tonight!  We might go for a walk!