Tuesday Alchemy #53 - Over the Pastel Rainbow

Hello!

It's time again for another challenge at Tuesday Alchemy.  The theme for Challenge #53 is Over the Pastel Rainbow, and who doesn't love using pastels! 

The prizes are awesome and are as follows: 

Di's Digi Downloads - $10 store voucher

Stitchy Bear Stamps - $10 Store Voucher

LEJDesigns - 4 Digital Images

The DT was challenged to choose a color and do a monochromatic card in that color, and I chose green.  Huh??  What was I thinking?  Green butterflies?  Green flowers?  I must have REALLY been in the mood for a true challenge.  LOL!  But not being one to back down, here is what I came up with:

How's that for some green?  There are green flowers out there, and who knows, maybe somewhere in the tropics there may be some type of green butterfly.  (These almost look like the common sulphur yellow that are soon to be seen in the garden.)

The image is from Stitchy Bear and is "Floral Swirl," which you can find here.  I paper pieced the flowers with scraps of green printed CS and popped them up on dimensionals, and the butterflies were white which I colored with yellow-green and green Copics.  There are butterflies printed which are part of the floral stamp, but I felt like going the 3-D route this time and covered them with my embossed die cut lovelies.

I glittered the stamens on the flowers.

I applied SU Shimmer Paint to the debossed areas of the base layer.  Why debossed?  Because I was sloppy in applying the paint to the embossed side and thought I'd give the debossed side a try before trashing the piece, and turns out I preferred the look! 

I made a nice, squashy bow out of hand dyed seam binding then added a custom charm which I already had on hand - perfect match!

And that, dear friends, is my monochromatic pastel card.  Thank you so much for joining me today, and do stop on over at Tuesday Alchemy to play along and see what the rest of the lovely DT has made for your inspiration! 

Happy crafting!

Supplies:

Stamps: Floral Swirl (Stitchy Bear)
Paper: Always Artichoke, Wild Wasabi, Subtles Stack (SU); white scraps, green print scraps
Ink: printer
Extras: Dies: Ovals Stax 1 & 2 (Dienamics); Embosslits Beautiful Wings (SU), Copics, rhinestones, seam binding, custom charm, Shimmer Paint (SU), ef (unknown)

Challenges entered:

SCS TLC422 - Monochromatic Madness
Incy Wincy - Pastels
Love to Create #58 - Pastels
Inky Impressions #102 - Flowers
Charisma Cardz Challenge #11 - Diecuts
3 Girl JAM #14 - Green w/Ribbon
Frosted Designs - Up, Up and Away
Really Reasonable Ribbon #68 - Flowers & Ribbon
Red Carpet Studio #29 - The Secret Garden
613 Ave. Create - Anything Goes

Love to Create Guest Designer!

Hello and good morning!

I am so excited today to have been invited to be this week's Guest Designer for the Love to Create Challenge Blog! 

 
I have only recently discovered this fun challenge site as I am relatively new to challenges at all, having only begun my blog last September; however, their challenges are so enjoyable that I try to play along every week.  The Design Team is fantastic, and I always enjoy seeing what they've come up with, and that's why I am delighted to get to play with them this week! 

This week's theme is "3 Favorite Colors," which for me was a little tricky since I have so many favorites.  Red is probably my all time fave in all aspects - wardrobe, wall color, furniture upholstery...(no, my house doesn't look like a bordello, but it DOES have a lot of red in it).  But I also love turquoise.  And pink.  And black. And...the list goes on.  Therefore, today's center step card has a big dose of turquoise with rose red and saffron yellow to complement because, while I wouldn't wear yellow per se, I love it and love what it does to other colors - it just warms them right up.

This little furry sweetie is a digi stamp called "Butterfly Friend" and you can find her over at Whimsy Stamps.  I love their images, they are perfect for coloring and/or paper piecing, which is what I've done with this image.  I learned a different way to paper piece from the lovely blog In Rosie's Book - she calls it "paper toile" and I was fascinated the first time I saw one of her cards using this technique.  You need to head over there pronto to see her work and see how she does this.

See the different pieces?  Put them together...

...and you get this.  Can you see the slight shadow the raised pieces make?  It looks 3-D indeed.  SO much fun if you like fussy cutting (and I do).  Now Rose cuts really, REALLY small pieces, but I just did three.

BTW, this was my first time ever to color fur with Copics, and I have to say I'm fairly happy with it.  Tutorial by Suzanne Dean here.  I used Copics for the coloring.  The purple edge to the butterfly is a bit sparkly, and there are the teeniest rhinestones in the centers of the flowers.

Here you can see the popped up nature of the pieces a little more.  I added stitching around all of the panel pieces and a nice little bow with ribbon from 3 Girl JAM.   I also added a few punched butterflies sprinkled about.

The greeting was punched with a ribbon banner die and stenciled in blue chalk which is soft and subtle in real life, although it doesn't show well in the picture. I also chalked around the image.  A few rhinestones both on the banner and on the punched butterflies complete the card.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come and visit, and I wish you a fabulous week full of all the crafting fun you can stand.  And many thanks again to the fine team at Love to Create!

Happy crafting!!

Supplies:

Stamps: Butterfly Friend (Whimsy Stamps), Banner Wishes (Paper Sweeties)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Whisper White, Rose Red, So Saffron, Tempting Turquoise, Brights DSP Stack (all SU); Sweet Fairy (Prima)
Extras: Circle Stax, Decorative Doily (Dienamics); SB Ribbon Banner, chalks, rhinestones, Copics, ribbon (3 Girl JAM), MS butterfly punch, sewing machine, dimensionals, Embosslits Beautiful Wings.

Challenges entered:

Allsorts #190 - Flower Power

Step Lively! (Step Center)

Hello and good morning!

Today's card is a new one for me, a Step Center Card.  The challenge (#43) is hosted by Tammy Ortiz, of Tammy's Scrappin' Corner, and I thought it would be fun to try something new and different.  I followed an excellent tutorial over on YouTube by Susanna Boyd (here), and got quite a surprise.  Here I was thinking this was going to be a tricky, time consuming card, but turns out it goes together in just a few minutes.  Really.  It's so fun, in fact, that I plan on making this part of my regular card repertoire.  Sure, it took a few minutes to cut the extra layers to go on the sides and bottom, but that's just a matter of personal preference.  You don't HAVE to.  It just looks nicer and makes the card a bit sturdier, which I need since I tend to add a lot of stuff to mine.

Kind of cool, huh?  I get the biggest thrill when I do something different, and do it right.  The colors come from the fun color challenge over at IBSIC, sage green, light purple, and blue.  The fact that they're also offering blog candy for entering the challenge just kind of "sweetens" the deal, right?

I had the light purple and blue down pat, but it took me forever to find anything resembling sage in my rather sizeable paper stash.  Finally found some in a Prima 6x6 pack (shown below in Supplies).  And I will be placing a paper order SOON.  

I colored the image with the new Copics that Santa brought me, and I paper pieced it to the blue oval, which I had stamped with the oval design and the image.  The stamens are Smooches and are a bit shimmery.

Note:  Some of the paper edges are inked, some aren't.

What took me the longest with this card was putting the papers together.  The sage was the hardest, and even though it's a very subtle print from the dp stack, I still wasn't happy with it, so I stamped it with Versamark and used SU Iridescent Ice to emboss it.  Gives a nice shimmer, which you can see a little bit here.  The main stamp set (oval, greeting, and embossing on the background paper) is from The Craft's Meow called "Lovely Ovals" and the hibiscus flower stamp is from There She Goes and is named, appropriately enough, "Hibiscus." 

Here's another view which also shows the shimmeriness of the tiny butterfly.  (Is "shimmeriness" a word?)  All butterflies were painted with Creative Inspirations paints, Tutu Pink on the lavender lovelies, Ivory on the sage.

I was still kind of bugged by the plain feeling I got with the sage, even though I layered it on top of the lavender CS.  That darned sage nearly did me in on this card, which is strange because I LOVE the color sage.  My entire living room and master bedroom are painted that color!  So I decided to add some machine stitching.

AHA!!  Perfect!!  I had finally solved the dilemma of how to dress it up just a tad with straight stitching on the three narrow panels and a curly, scallop-y stitch on the center panel.  I dug around in my button tin and found a perfect little vintage lavender button and added some white baker's twine.

Of course there had to be a bow, and I had just barely enough of my custom-dyed seam binding on hand to wrap the center panel and tie the bow.  I hope I remember how to make it again - right now I have no earthly idea which dyes I used.  For a bonus I made a quick little stick pin for the bow since I didn't have any on hand in this color scheme.

A few lavender pearls on the side panels, some smaller white pearls on the butterflies, and the card was finished.  The pile of crafting debris was enormous, but so was the satisfaction at having put together this card, the style of which I had never made before.  And in such luscious colors to boot.

Thanks for joining me today, and here's wishing you a colorful, PRETTY day!

Happy crafting!!

Supplies:

Stamps: Lovely Ovals (The Craft's Meow), Hibiscus (There She Goes)
Ink: Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Perfectly Plum, Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi
Paper: Marina Mist, Whisper White (SU),Sweet Fairy (Prima), Lavendar (Flourishes)
Extras:  SB Floral Ovals and Classic Ovals Large, Copics, pearls, seam binding, vintage button, baker's twine, Iridescent Ice ep (SU), custom stick pin, Beautiful Wings Embosslits (SU), Smooches, CI paints, sewing machine

Challenges entered:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Totally Mad (no rules) Tea Party (Anything Goes)
The Pink Elephant TPE 180 - Anything Goes
Tammy's Scrappin' Corner - Step Centre Card
Really Reasonable Ribbon RRR#63 - My New Toys (+ ribbon) (my new toys are my Copics!)
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - New Something (Copics)
SCS Ways to Use It WT 408 - New Toys
IBSIC #40 - sage green, light purple, blue
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #188 - Make Your Own Backing Paper (I stamped and embossed mine)
3 Girl JAM #9 - Anything Goes + ribbon
Drunken Stampers #112 - All That Glitters (glittery embossing on background paper, plus stick pin, which sparkles - does that count?)
Pile It On #49 - Pile On Embellishments
  
The Craft's Meow January Sketch Challenge