Inside the Lines for Freshly Made Sketches

I hope you had a fine weekend! The cold weather finally warmed up here and the snow stopped so it had to be better than last week! I went out for some retail therapy with some gift cards I got for Christmas and my birthday and we also went with some friends to see a movie. All very nice! And yesterday, I sat down to work on a new card design. I wanted to showcase the Sale-A-Bration reward that I haven't spent much time on and that's the Inside the Lines Designer Series Paper. I decided to use it with the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge for this past week:

I needed to go with a landscape orientation rather than a portrait one in order to get a piece of the DSP that was large enough to have a full flower on it to colour so I changed the sketch around a bit. Of course, it was a perfect opportunity to use the Watercolour Pencils along with my Blender Pens and I am so pleased with the way the colouring turned out. This paper would be a great gift for someone who loves adult colouring books. Pair it up with the Watercolour pencils and a Blender Pen and you would be their favourite person!

I hope you can see the sketch in this design:

• When colouring, I used more colour on the areas I wanted darker and left the areas I wanted a lighter colour almost clear of colour. Then, with the blender pen, I drew colour from the darker area gently into the uncoloured area to get the lighter colours. I used the Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, Old Olive, Basic Gray, Daffodil Delight and Pumpkin Pie Watercolour Pencils with the Blender pen to get these colours.
• This Inside the Lines Designer Series Paper stood up pretty well to the liquid from the Blender Pen. I wouldn't want to try anything wetter than that, but I was really satisfied with this job.
• The bees were stamped with 2 Step Stamping from the 2 bee stamps in the Dragonfly Dreams stamp set. There is a bee die in the Detailed Dragonfly Thinlit Dies, but I found it wasn't really a good fit with this stamp and ended up fussy cutting the bees out by hand so the lovely details wouldn't be lost.The die could be used for just a single layer black cardstock bee and it would work well for that.
•  The sentiment is from Dragonfly Dreams as well.

To earn this lovely paper, all you need to do is to place an order for a minimum of $60 before tax and shipping and you can choose it for your Sale-A-Bration Reward. It is 12 x 12 paper and there are 3 each of 4 designs! You can also colour it with a brayer, a sponge or Stampin' Write markers!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Dragonfly Dreams Photopolymer Stamp Set [142924]	Dragonfly Dreams Photopolymer Bundle [144728]	Inside The Lines Designer Series Paper [143830]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]	Melon Mambo 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [115320]
Mint Macaron 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [138337]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708]	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad [131173]	Watercolor Pencils [141709]
Blender Pens [102845]	Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits Dies [142749]	Big Shot [143263]	Paper Snips Scissors [103579]	Stampin' Trimmer [126889]
Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Glue Dots [103683]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]

Hope is a Lighthouse for As You See It Challenges

Phew! What a week! It has snowed like crazy all week and I'm not sure it's done yet, but the temperature is coming up, so I suppose that means rain and with all the snow on the ground, that's going to mean a BIG MESS! But we have to go through all that to get to Spring, right? So it's hopeful! Hopeful that spring is just around the corner and soon the days will be longer and sunnier and warmer and we'll be able to put away the boots and sweaters and parkas and bask in the sun!

Hope springs eternal in the human heart or something like that! I was reminded of that when I was making my card for our next challenge at As You See It Challenges. Amanda gave us a beautiful colour challenge to work with this time:

Isn't that gorgeous? Obviously, the inspiration photo was implanted in my mind because my design team sample looked quite like it:

• I've been dying to use the High Tide stamp set from the Occasions Catalogue so this seemed like the perfect situation! I used some Shimmery White cardstock and made a watercolour background using my ink pads direct to a clear block E and misted it with water and stamped that on my cardstock. I needed it to be a little wetter, so I misted the cardstock again, which made it wet enough to let me manipulate the ink with a paint brush. I was able to create some cloud shapes and a horizon that way.
• Using Memento Tuxedo Black ink I stamped the two step lighthouse image. I wanted the shadowed side of the lighthouse on the darker side of the background, which meant that the stamp creating the ground didn't give me much ground on the left side of the lighthouse. To compensate for that I did some mirror-image stamping. I stamped the image of the ground on a cellophane bag I had handy and immediately used that image to stamped the opposite image on the card front.
• The water stamp was inked up in both Dapper Denim and Sweet Sugar Plum, sometimes together and a couple of times separately to get the waves stamped properly.   
• The sentiment is also from this High Tide set.

I hope you'll pop on over to As You See It Challenges and play along with us with these gorgeous colours! Have a wonderful weekend! See you again on Monday!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

High Tide Photopolymer Stamp Set [143006]	Shimmery White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101910]	Dapper Denim 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [141414]	Flirty Flamingo 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [141416]	Sweet Sugarplum 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [141418]
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708]	Dapper Denim Classic Stampin' Pad [141394]	Flirty Flamingo Classic Stampin' Pad [141397]	Sweet Sugarplum Classic Stampin' Pad [141395]	Clear Block E [118484]
Urban Underground Embellishments [142786]	Aqua Painters [103954]	Stampin' Spritzer [126185]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]

Quick and Cute with Stylish Stems

I needed one more quickish card for my Technique night since my other two cards are quite involved. I have not yet demonstrated the Stylish Stems framelits in any of my classes, so decided to go with that, along with some Blooms & Bliss Designer Series Paper.

• Stylish Stems allows you to work with the negative space, or it has an outline die that you can use to die cut a stamped image OR you can also die cut the negative space left by the other die to get what you see with the Rich Razzleberry flowers above.
• Love the Rich Razzleberry paired with the Blushing Bride and Mint Macaron color palette. The ribbon is the lovely Mint Macaron Sheer Linen Ribbon, just tied in a quick knot to add a little embellishment!
• The tiny sentiment is from the coordinating (and bundled) stamp set, Special Reason.

We have had a crazy amount of snow around here over the last few days. It has set all sorts of records in Vancouver, and we are not supposed to be done yet here in the Okanagan! Take a look at our front deck and back yard:

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Special Reason Wood-Mount Stamp Set [142899]	Special Reason Clear-Mount Stamp Set [142902]	Special Reason Wood-Mount Bundle [144719]	Special Reason Clear-Mount Bundle [144720]	Blooms & Bliss Designer Series Paper [141654]
Rich Razzleberry 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [115316]	Blushing Bride 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131198]	Mint Macaron 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [138337]	Rich Razzlebberry Classic Stampin' Pad [126950]	Mint Macaron 3/8" (1 Cm) Sheer Linen Ribbon [141656]
Stylish Stems Framelits Dies [142750]	Big Shot [143263]	Big Shot Die Brush [140603]	Fine-Tip Glue Pen [138309]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]
Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]