OLW 43 Shimmer

Susan’s challenge on Simplicity this week was to add a little shimmer.  Once again this was indeed a challenge to me.  I rarely add shimmer and could only think of one product  I had which would provide any shimmer: some pearl ex powders from SU.  I have hardly used them and have forgotten the techniques I once tried.

To make the top card I flicked around a bit of masking fluid first then rolled the dragonflies with versamark  before brayering celery and bordering blue over the top of that.  I shook pearl ex powder onto the coloured panel and it stuck to the versamark but also lightly to the rest of the area.  You can see a bit of shimmer at either edge of the card but the string of shimmery dragonflies actually goes right across the card.

The card below was done in a similar order but I embossed a string of dragonflies first.  After that I added a string in versamark and pearl ex and a few coming off onto the ivory cardbase.

All in all it was a fairly experimental exercise which is half the fun of challenges.  As others have said in their posts there is a lot more shimmer to be seen in real life but there are glimpses in the photos.

Supplies:

Stamps: Dragonfly roller, Paint Prings,  Simple Sayings 2 (all SU)
Inks: Versamark, Certainly Celery, Bordering Blue
Cardstock: Flourishes Classic Ivory
Also: clear e.p., Pearl Ex powder

OLW 42 I’ve got the music

Jennifer gave us a musical challenge this week for One Layer Wednesday while Mandi and Chrissie at Less is More sent out a three square challenge.  I don’t often combine challenges as that makes them all the more challenging but I had a picture in my mind as to how these two themes might work together.

For the music theme I wanted to create the feel of an aged piece of sheet music and combine it with the warm colours of the wood of a violin.  Both my girls have lovely violins; one is over 100 years old and the wood is a warm muted colour, the other is under 10 years old and is a darker, shinier finish.  I knew when creating this card I would have to get the musical elements right or they would tell me so.

I cut three 1½” squares out of a post-it note mask and used the SU roller “Music Notes” to fill all three squares.  I didn’t re-ink it as I wanted the faded look.  I then sponged in close to cocoa and ruby red before stamping my little violin stamp in the same colours.  I coloured the violins with watercolour pencils and blended them with water, flicking a little around at the same time to add to the aged look.   The treble and bass clefs and the sharp and flat were drawn with black watercolour pencil.

Supplies

Stamps:  Music Notes roller(SU), Fiddle(Parlour Victorian Atlantic Canada), Thank You Kindly(SU)
Inks:  Ruby Red, Close to Cocoa
Paper: Flourishes Classic Ivory
Also: FaberCastell Watercolour pencils

A musical theme

These cards were inspired by cards I admired on Susan Raihala’s and Colleen Dietrich’s blogs.

As our family is involved in many musical activities I bought the musical notes roller from SU planning to make many cards with it.  I made a few and then seemed to get stuck without inspiration.  That is until I saw Susan’s delightful Christmas balls which I reproduced with very minor changes.

When I saw Colleen’s clever stack of presents I again saw an opportunity to use my music roller.  I reproduced her card but without all her gorgeous embossing and layers (I was a bit lazy to add them).  Then, because I was on a roll, I made another card with the gifts in a row.  On all the cards the punched shapes are popped up on stampin’ dimensionals and on the two cards above the shapes are sponged around the edges too.

Now I had better get on with writing in these cards, that is the idea of making them after all isn’t it?

Supplies

Stamps:  Music Notes roller, Short & Sweet
Inks:  Choc Chip, Real Red, Wild Wasabi
Paper: Whisper White, Confetti White ,
Also:  Gold cord, Red ribbon, red gingham ribbon, stampin’ dimensionals

OLW 17 Border Stamps

Susan’s One Layer Wednesday challenge this week is to use a border stamp.  Rollers are all I really have in the way of border stamps and I tend to forget them most of the time.  I decided to pull out this one and my watercolour pencils, which have also been neglected of late.  There is not much to explain really;  I inked in black, coloured and then blended with a blender pen.

When the stamping and  colouring was done I asked my younger daughter for input regarding ribbon.  The choices I gave her were black gingham or red gingham.  She didn’t really like either so suggested green, one of her favourite colours.  Turns out she was spot on.

Supplies:

Stamps:  Time for a Tree, Short & Sweet
Inks: Basic Black
Cardstock: Flourishes Classic White
Also: Faber-Castell Watercolour pencils,  Apple Green grosgrain ribbon

Black on Kraft

Last week when I was playing with Kraft I switched from white to black embossing and had fun with that too.  I pulled out some rollers that I haven’t used in very long time and inked them up with versamark and embossed in black.  I decided that the dragonflies needed a little extra something and went in search of my Pearl Ex powders, another item that hasn’t seen the light of day in quite a while.  The blue powder was exactly what I needed to add a little lift but then I decided to add a little bling as well.  I also used a little copper Pearl Ex on the shells ever so lightly.

That’s all my Kraft cards for now but I know I will reach for it more often than I used to.

Supplies:

Stamps: By the Sea roller, Dragonfly roller, With Gratitude,  Simple Sayings 2
Inks: Versamark, Basic Black
Cardstock: Confetti White, Basic Black, Kraft
Also: Black e.p., Pearl Ex powder, Rhinestones