Peace for the Paper Players

Hello friends!  It's time for a new challenge at the Paper Players.  Since it's the fourth Sunday of the month, that means a sketch challenge, and this time the fabulous Joanne is hosting and given us this great sketch to work with.

Paper Players

I did take some liberties with the sketch, using a landscape format and using metallic cord rather than horizontal strips, so I hope you'll be okay with what I came up with, Joanne!!

This card was actually created during an online class with Tim Holtz using Simon Says Stamp collaboration products, designed by Tim.  Afterwards, I was looking at the card I made, and it reminded me of Joanne's sketch, so I decided to use it for this challenge.

We created many flowers and different types of foliage, going direct to the stamps with Distress Watercolor pencils after misting with water, then stamping on watercolor paper.  It's not a new technique to me, but one I haven't used in at least two years and some of the images turned out fine and some went into recycling lol! I selected a small poinsettia and two branches for the card, all of which were decorated with a bit of glitter on the edges.

The white panel was sprayed with Hickory Smoke Distress Spritz, which looks more silver the gray IRL, dried it and die cut the Peace shadow die from it.   The panel was backed with acetate to create a shaker card.  I used silver sequins and chunky Rock Candy glitter for the interior.  After completing the shaker portion, the silver die cut Peace was adhered to the front along with the flower and branches, and the panel wrapped with silver cord.  It was matted with a panel of silver metallic cardstock then added to a Sea Glass card base.  

This card was not my typical style, but I was happy to step out of my comfort zone and just have fun creating!

So what are you inspired to make with Joanne's fabulous sketch? Take a moment to stop by the challenge blog (linked above) to see a wonderful variety of cards by my talented teammates, then please join us this week!  The challenge will remain open until 3pm EDT Friday October 31st.

Thanks for visiting!

Stef

• SSS/TH Festive Watercolor Stamps and dies
• SSS/TH Festive Words dies 
• Distress Watercolor pencils
• SSS Starshine Confetti
• Tim Holtz Rock Candy and Chunky Rock Candy Glitter
• Hickory Smoke Distress Spritz
• SSS Silver Cording

Chelsea Floral for The Flower Challenge

Hello friends!  Today I'm sharing my reminder card for The Flower Challenge, where this month the theme is to create a birthday card.  

TFC 93 Reminder

As I shared in my blog post for TFC at the beginning of the month, I decided to play with a couple of as yet unused embossing folders, so today I reveal the 2nd of the two.

For this card, I reached for something I rarely use, which are my Distress Watercolor Pencils.  If you follow my blog, you know my favorite coloring medium is alcohol markers, but I knew it would be relatively easy to use some simple water coloring for this panel.  It was embossed using watercolor paper, then I set about using some bright and cheerful colors.  I really love how the peachy flowers turned out by mixing Tattered Roses and Wild Honey. I finished it off with a tiny bit of splatter using Picked Raspberry and Wild Honey.

After the water coloring dried, the panel was trimmed down then layered on two additional panel of scrap paper for a bit of dimension.  It was then matted on a bright green A2 panel before adhering to the card base.  The sentiment was stamped then die cut with a label die and the last step was to add a few embellies around the sentiment that matched to peachy flowers.

There's still plenty of time to join us this month; the challenge remains open until Thursday July 25th.  In the meantime, please be sure to visit the challenge blog, my teammates have new cards to further inspire you!

Take care!

Stef

• Simon Says Stamp Chelsea Floral embossing folder
• Concord & 9th Pop-Up Par-Tay stamp set (sentiment)
• Distress Watercolor Pencils in Picked Raspberry, Tattered Rose, Wild Honey, Twisted Citron and Rustic Wilderness
• Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide ink
• Stampin' Up Polished Dots
• MFT Fishtail Foundations

Hugs for The Flower Challenge

Hello friends!  This is a special day because it is The Flower Challenge's 7th birthday!  The theme is Anything Goes plus we have a number of previous Design Team members joining us for this month-long celebration, along with our latest new DT member Judy Rozema. Woo hoo!

The Flower Challenge

Sadly, this is Viv and Aileen's last challenge as part of the DT, and Cara as well.  We wish them all the best and hope they come back to play along once in a while.

For my card I stepped out of my comfort zone and did some water coloring using Distress Watercolor Pencils.

In February I attended a class led by the amazing Jenn Shurkus where she taught us some basic skills for using Distress Watercolor Pencils, so I decided to apply some of what I learned using a page from the Altenew Watercolor Coloring Book.  I painted in layers then when the flower and leaves were done, I used Speckled Egg to go around the outside of the image, then added splatter in Seedless Preserves, Black Soot and metallic gold paint.

The panel was trimmed down to 3.75" x 5.75" from it's original A7 size, matted with Stampin' Up Blackberry cardstock and added to a lavendar panel that was embossed with the Gina K Lattice folder using a bit of thin foam tape.  The sentiment from Altenew Versatile Greeting was die cut from matte gold and layered on a vellum shadow.  The last step was adding it to an A7 Ivory card base.

We sure hope you'll join us in celebrating TFC's 7th birthday!  In the meantime, please head over to the challenge blog where the DT and guest DTs have some beautiful inspiration to share with you!

Take care!

Stef

Paper:  Altenew Watercolor Coloring Book, Simon Says Stamp Lavendar, SU Blackberry Bliss, Hero Arts Antique Ivory, SSS Matte Gold, Lawn Fawn Pearlescent Vellum

Dies:  Altenew Versatile Greetings, Waffle Flower A7 Layers dies

Embossing:  Gina K Lattice folder

Watercolor:  Altenew Metallic watercolor pan set; Distress Watercolor Pencils in Shaded Lilac, Seedless Preserves, Twisted Citron, Rustic Wilderness, Folssilized Amber, Wild Honey, Vintage Photo, Black Soot and Speckled Egg

Hugs for Sunday Stamps

Hello and welcome!  The first of March is already upon us (wait - where did February go??) and it's time for a new sketch challenge at Sunday Stamps.  This time Amy has given us a terrific sketch to work with so I hope you'll be inspired to join us!

Sunday Stamps

My card turned out to be very quick and easy to put together because the main image had been previously completed in a class I took recently.

In February I attended the Distress Watercolor Pencil class taught by the amazing Jenn Shurkus (link to her website here).  We learned to use the pencils in a variety of watercoloring applications, including using the pencils directly on our stamps along with water.  I was so thrilled with how this image from Stampin' Up's Nature's Harvest turned out I knew I had to use it on a card.  It was stamped multiple times onto Distress Watercolor paper using my Misti.  When I went to create this card, the panel was die cut with a MFT Stitched Modern Rectangle Stax die.

Next a piece of patterned paper from MFT's Plaid Patterns 6x6 paper pad was die cut with a larger size of the same die set and adhered directly to white card base.  I strayed from the sketch a little bit by wrapping Lawn Fawn hemp twine around the floral panel, then attaching a tag with the sentiment.  Both the sentiment and tag die are from Waffle Flower's Special Delivery Sentiments and Dies set.  Finally, I attached a Doodlebug Tiny Hearts Shaped Sprinkle to the tag.  There were green and yellow hearts in the packet but I liked the pop of red.

Lots of options with this sketch, I do hope you'll join us for this challenge!  In the meantime, be sure to pop over to the blog linked above and take a peek at the beautiful cards by the other DT members!

Have a great week and take care!

Stef

Distress Watercolor Pencils - Fossilized Amber, Wild Honey, Vintage Photo, Twisted Citron, Rustic Wilderness.