Fusion - It's a New Year

I think the new year has me off to a rough creative start.  I took a little hiatus from stamping the last couple of weeks and jumped in with two feet for our first Fusion challenge of the year.  I loved the bokeh design of the inspiration photo and decided to make my card by combining the bokeh with the sketch and the colors from another challenge.  But the colors ended up being way off to join the color challenge so... this is what I've got.

 

I sponged the colors on to my cardstock then used a bokeh stencil to add those little highlights in white. I substituted a couple of sparkly stars for the two circles on the sketch and stamped the sentiment to mimic the horizontal layer on the sketch.  You may notice that the top of the "S" on the "Stars" sentiment is missing.  Just my luck I got a bad stamp with an incomplete piece. 😕

I think this card is pretty cute anyway and I hope you think so too.  I thank you for stopping by!  Be sure to check out my fellow Fusion teammates for our first challenge of 2022!

Supplies

Stamps:  Shiny Happy Sentiments (Lil' Inker Designs)
Paper:  Bristol Smooth; Glitter Paper (Recollections)
Ink:  Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Fossilized Amber, Chipped Sapphire (Distress Oxide); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Bokeh Lights stencil (Simon Says Stamp); 3 Star Stitched dies (My Creative Time)

CAS(E) This Sketch 202!

I've had a bokeh stencil in my stash for a long time and had never used it but the latest challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch, designed by Leigh Penner, gave me the perfect opportunity to.

I was a little intimidated by that sketch when I first saw it, but since this is a challenge I figured I better really think about how I could blanket the front of my card with a whole bunch of something.  Then I saw this card by Deepti Malik and thought maybe I could do something similar.  So I dragged out my long neglected Distress inks.

The first background I attempted was in shades of yellow but it was horrible so I scrapped that and went with shades of pink and purple.  I added some deep blue to the edges then went over it all with my bokeh stencils in white pigment ink.

I'm pretty horrible at sponging ink onto backgrounds but this didn't come out half bad.  Usually my attempts are all streaky but I tried to be careful about how I swirled my little spongy pad around and I'm happy to say that there's only one spot where there's a little streak and I stamped the sentiment over it so you can't see it.  There are no mistakes in stamping, right?

My CAS(E) This Sketch teamies have got some very inventive cards for this challenge so be sure to check them out.  I hope we'll see you in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamps:  Congratulations (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  White (Gina K Pure Luxury)
Ink:  Elegant Eggplant (Stampin' Up!); Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concord, Chipped Sapphire (Distress)
Accessories:  Bekeh Lights stencil (Simon Says Stamp)

Hello Again

I had so much fun making my watercolored bokeh card the other day I decided to make another one.  This time I used the bold colors at Color Throwdown along with the layout at CAS(E) This Sketch.

The Color Throwdown graphic heavily influenced my decision to use this sunflower die which I thought would look pretty nifty against my watercolored background.  Originally I hadn't intended on doing the bokeh thing but once I had the colors down I wanted to soften them up a bit.  First I cut the tilted layer out of vellum (which is hard to see in the photo) but it didn't soften up the colors as much as I wanted so out came the white pigment ink.

Today was a momentous day because I went grocery shopping!  Usually something so mundane is not worthy of a mention in a blog post but if you live in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire you will have survived the drama of the Market Basket saga which nearly became a Greek tragedy and will know exactly why grocery shopping is cause for celebration!  I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say that I will never take low prices on groceries for granted ever again!  

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Hand Lettered Hello (WPlus9)

Paper:  Soft Stone (Papertrey Ink); Distress Watercolor (Tim Holtz); Vellum, Old Olive, Pacific Point (SU)

Ink:  Old Olive, Crushed Curry, Pacific Point (SU); Frost White (Colorbox); Onyx Black (Versafine)

Accessories:  Sunflower die, Leaf Filled Flourish die (My Favorite Things)

colourQ 256 Bokeh

Hi everyone!  It's time for a brand new palette at colourQ and I'm so excited by the card I made for this challenge.  I recently signed up for a watercolor class for cardmakers and I've learned so many new things by watching the videos. The Friday Mashup challenge this weekend called for a bokeh technique and had a link to a video tutorial which combined bokeh with some watercoloring.  I loved the look so much I used what I learned to make my colourQ card this week.

The background of my card is watercolored and made up of Pumpkin Pie, Cajun Craze and Old Olive.  I swished the colors around to create an interesting, colorful background then once dry went back in with some white ink and sponged the circles to create the bokeh effect.  I cut the sentiment die three times and glued them together to create a little dimension.

I mentioned yesterday that the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch inpsired me to make more than one card and this is the second one.  The layout is so perfect for a million ideas though I've only got two now!  

The ladies at colourQ have got some great ideas to show you using these colors.  Check them out!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies

Stamps:  Simple Shapes (SU)

Paper:  White Pure Luxury (Gina K); Pacific Point (SU); Distress Watercolor Cardstock (Tim Holtz)

Ink:  Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive (SU); White (WPlus9)

Accessories:  Thanks Script (Savvy Dies); Wink of Stella pen