A Clean and Simple Card

Hi all, sorry for the long absence from blogging I just could not find the interest to craft I seem to have been in a craftless void ( not a nice place to be in)  Still I came across a couple of stamps that inspired me to pull out the paints and inks and it's playtime again :-) 

I came across this stamp which is taken from one of Michael Powell's paintings.  I've always liked his work and it was a joy to see his designs for stamping.  I  just love detail and these stamps have plenty of it. 

I have to be honest and say that as much as I love these stamps they give a pretty poor print out when stamped, in the end I resorted to placing the card stock over the inked stamp to get a clearer impression, there is a little too much detail and I found it best to leave white area's and to omit painting some details otherwise you can end up with the image looking a complete mess.  Yeah this was my second attempt.

To colour the image I used a selection of soft muted Aqua Markers on watercolour paper.  I deliberately kept my brush strokes loose dropping different colours into each other.  I cut around the image and adhered to plain white card stock. the text is from a Lily of the Valley set of stamps.  A clean, simple card which I quite like.

I've also included a quick tutorial at the end of this post to show how I make my ticket strips.

I will be entering this card into the following challenges

Passion for Promarkers - 138 Colour Challenge

Crafters Companion - Anything Goes

Sir Stampalot - In The Garden

Stamps and Fun Creativity - #88 - Non Cute

Stampman - Colours of Spring

2 Sisters Challenge - anything Goes

Party Time Tuesdays - Anything Goes

TICKET STRIP TUTORIAL

I keep holding back from buying a die for ticket strips, mainly because I'm too lazy to figure out how to cut the strip without the extra long cutting platforms, I'd rather put my money into pens and ink with this in mind I came up with this method of creating tickets which I think look pretty good. 

First you will need cardstock the tickets can be any size but for this demonstration I cut a strip of cardstock 1" x  10"  I then marked the strip into 2" lengths  on both sides of the strip as shown below.

 I used a standard single hole punch to make the notches by placing the card halfway into the punch. 

Score along the dotted lines and Voila easy handmade blank ticket strip ready to decorate.

Hope you like and thank you for stopping by

Kathleen x

Chocolate Tilda Challenge #1

Well Chocolate Tilda was definitely a challenge as I don't have many brown papers or embellishments  but I couldn't resist the challenge and it was a good excuse to get the paint brush and paints out.
Tilda has been watercolour painted with Derwent Inktense pencils and although it is not clear on the photograph I've glittered her shirt and tips of the socks.
This is my entry for the new Totally Tilda challenge blog - Chocolate Tilda Challenge #1

Colouring Tip

Thought I would add a helpful tip for colouring.  Observation is the key to good colouring, we all know grass is green,  leaves are green or are they? Next time you're in the garden have a really good look at the trees I mean really look and see how many colours you actually see, also notice the colour of tree trunks, they are actually any colour except brown.  Don't be afraid to experiment with colour, try adding a touch of pale blue to leaves or a spot of red,  a touch of moss green to tree trunks works a treat or be adventurous and try a light purple with a hint of moss green to colour a tree trunk.  I just so love impressionist paintings although I've never been able to paint that way, they painted what they saw and not what they perceived to be there.