Stencil and Pan Pastels

Good morning! It's my first post of the new year and before I get to my card I want to wish you all a happy and healthy New Year! I hope it's off to a great start for you!

As today is Saturday we have our first challenge of the year for you at Allsorts.  Susan is our hostess this week and chose the theme of "Something New".

Perfect opportunity for me to play with my new stencil by Penny Black (thank you Brenda!!) and also had the chance to use my pan pastels again. Sadly they have been sitting in a drawer for most of last year! But when I saw this stencil I thought the design would look great on black card stock to mimic a chalkboard and the pan pastels were the perfect choice.

After sponging the pastels I used a french script background stamp (old, by Stampin up) and white craft ink to add some words to the background. I don't speak french but I was told the script has something to do with friendship so the little sentiment "Just for You" goes perfectly with it. The sentiment is from the set "Snippets" by Penny Black and I used a stitched tag die by Whimsy Stamps to cut it out. I tied some green twine to the sentiment and attached with a dimensional. Framed with white card stock then adhered to a soft sky card base.

I used the same colors on the second card, but here I used a music note background stamp (by Hero Arts) and craft ink, along with a dotted stencil on the background. The sentiment is from Whimsy Stamps (mini chalkboard greetings) heat embossed using white embossing powder. I also added some embossing powder around the edges, then framed using plum card stock to match the purple pastel.

We are starting out the year with two wonderful prizes by DigiStamp Boutique and Stix 2, come join us for a chance to win!

Thank you so much for visiting, have a wonderful day. I hope you stay warm wherever you are! Ice rain in our forecast tomorrow and I am not looking forward to that! But I am hoping it'll warm up a little bit next week, it's been way too cold here already!

Penny Black and More - July challenge

This is a scheduled post, been taking a little bit of a card making and blogging break, but I made this card well in advance for the Penny Black and More July challenge. We're continuing with easy themes, anything goes this month, just be sure your focal point is stamped (not a digi) - from any company.

I masked the edges of the white card front using painter's tape, then tore some printer paper to create a hill mask. Pan pastels were sponged onto the background and after removing the mask I stamped the tree using versafine onyx ink. The words from a clear whimsy stamps set were randomly stamped onto the background before I added the sentiment. Embellished with a little prima flower and sticky pearl, removed the painter's tape, then adhered to a white card base. 

Sentiment and tree are from the Penny Black set Enjoy Life, words are from the clear Whimsy Stamp set Backgrounds and Borders.

Hope you come join us this month, we have some great prizes to give away as always :-) 

Have a great Sunday!

Flower Power for Penny Black and More - June challenge

Good morning, happy Sunday :-) Time already for a new challenge at Penny Black and More. We're having another nice and easy one this time, and perfect for the month of June - Flower Power. Come join us, we have some fun prizes to give away as usual from our generous sponsors. This month we are sponsored by Penny Black, Sizzix, Stamp Addicts, Crafty Ribbons. 

For my card today I created a background using Pan Pastels. It's my first time ever using them and I used this card by Brenda for my inspiration. I left off the clouds though and ended up with more green...I got the painter's set, meaning pure colors, and I was trying to mix my own tints using white to make them lighter, but like I said, this was my first time playing with these pastels, and I am sure like always I need more practice. They are lots of fun though and I can't wait until I have time to play some more with them.

 Anyway, I started out my masking the top and bottom portion of the white card stock, using painter's tape, and I put a circle mask in place for the sun (or moon).  Then I applied the pastels using one of the applicators that came with the set. Removed circle mask and stamped the flowers over the background. I initially used an eraser to remove the pastels from inside the blooms and colored them all using prismacolor pencils, but the eraser left me with some rubbed off black ink on one of the blooms, so I ended up re-stamping all the large flowers onto xpress it blending card, colored them with copic markers and fussy cut. I used dimensionals on a couple of the blooms, and regular glue on the others. The butterfly was also fussy cut. 

After this was all done, I removed the painter's tape, stamped the sentiment and mounted it onto a wisteria wonder card base. 

And that would be all for today. Thanks so much for visiting and hope you have a great Sunday!

I will be back again tomorrow with another card which will most likely be my last one for the month of June.