Robin hanging

Hello lovely peeps and welcome to my new email follower :)

I've got a bit of sad news to bring you today.

As my elbow is being stubbornly slow to heal I need to cut down on my DT commitments, so I took the reluctant decision last Friday to step down from the Polkadoodles Design Team.

If I'd stayed on this would have been my post for the new challenge starting today, but instead it's a little 'farewell'.  Thank you so much to Nikky for having me on the team, you are a fantastic bunch and I've made some lovely crafty friends. 


So, onto my make - a little canvas hanging using the Festive Christmas stamps and co-ordinating CD 

I started by covering a 5"x5" canvas with Buff Titanium and White Titanium acrylic paint

and then some positively ancient red paint

Once I was happy with the background I dabbed the tree stamp in some green paint and stamped onto the canvas with it. This wasn't entirely successful as the paint didn't stay wet long enough.

I mixed the paint with some DecoArt stamping medium and tried again. This was a bit more successful although it will need a bit of filling in.

I stamped the robin with Black Archival Ink

and coloured him in with acrylic paints.

I touched up the trees with a bit more green paint and added white 'snow' highlights then added a sentiment from the CD, covered in glossy accents. The ribbon, berries and jingle bell are from my Christmas stash.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
The Ribbon Girls ANY IMAGE
Crafty Ribbons #172 Anything Goes..with ribbon or lace
ABC Christmas Challenge U is for Under the Pile (old Christmas stash)
Craft-Dee BowZ  CDB42 Anything Goes with a Handmade Bow
Not Just Cards  #38 Anything Goes
Creative Artiste Challenge #19 "Anything Mixed Media"
Happy Little Stampers (Mixed Media)  nature
Moving along with the Times # 31 trees and/or leaves
Creative Craft Cottages Challenges #75 use ribbon 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Tumbling Leaves for Polkadoodles

Hello lovely peeps

It's challenge inspiration time at Polkadoodles today where the theme as always is 'Anything Goes' and the Design Team theme is 'Autumn Colours'

I love the colour of trees in the autumn so for my inspiration card I've stamped a few tumbling leaves using the poinsettia leaf from the new Festive Christmas Soup stamps. .

I used sticky notes for the masks this time and coloured in the leaves with diluted brushos

I added some sparkle with a clear glitter pen (Crafters Companion)

The sentiment was printed from the Daisydays CD straight onto some watercolour paper and I extended the twirly bits with a black fineliner pen.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-

Crafty Friends Challenge #42 autumn colours  
 The Crafty Addicts #26 AG/Autumn Colours
Open-Minded Challenges #10 Thanks/Thanksgiving

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

White Poinsettias for Polkadoodles

Hello lovely peeps

It's time for a new 'Anything Goes' challenge at Polkadoodles, with the optional theme of Christmas.
I was lucky enough to receive the gorgeous new Christmas stamps and co-ordinating CD which Nikky launched last Friday on Create and Craft, so I have used these for my inspiration card.

I was a bit stumped again this week on how to I was going to physically make my card. I wanted to combine a stamped poinsettia with one of the background papers from the CD, but I knew my hand/elbow wouldn't be up to cutting out the flowers for layering on top. Luckily, Pebeo drawing gum came to the rescue (more on that in a minute).

To start off, I dragged the turquoise snowflake paper into CraftArtist and sized it to 6"x6". I then brought in one of the lovely sentiments and converted it from black to white before splitting it into two halves and positioning it over the paper. I printed the project in black and white onto copy paper to make sure it was the right size for my card.

I laid the copy paper over the top of some watercolour card and drew some lines around where the blocks of text were, leaving slight indentations on the watercolour card underneath. Now that I knew where my poinsettias could go, I started stamping.

The set doesn't include a poinsettia flower, but you get three different leaf/petal shapes to 'build' your own. I used the largest leaf/petal first, stamping it onto the watercolour card with Dove Grey Stazon. Since the petals needed to overlap I needed to mask some of them off, and this is where the Pebeo Drawing Gum comes in.

After I had stamped each petal I painted the gum over the top and waited a few minutes for it to dry before doing the next one. Although this was quite time consuming it did give my elbow some much needed rest periods*.  Obviously, if your hands are up to it, it is a lot quicker to cut out masks from sticky notes.

* I am under strict instructions from my physiotherapist not to overdo it. Spoilsport ;D

 Once I'd finished building the flowers, I printed my backing paper and sentiment over the top of the watercolour card (I used 160gsm because my thicker watercolour card will not go through my printer).

Dab off any remaining printer ink from the masked flowers and then rub off the drawing gum.

I added some definition to my poinsettias by painting them with Spectrum Aqua markers
(Jasmine, Moss and Black)

I cut this down and glued it onto a 6"x6" card blank, and added a bit of sparkle with a Wink of Stella pen.

The centres are polystrene balls from my old beanbag which I glued on with Cosmic Shimmer.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
That's Crafty! Challenge Blog Christmas in September
Winter Wonderland two Dies and or Add some Sparkle
Addicted to Stamps and More #212 Make your mark
Inspiration Destination  #104 Always Anything Goes
Crafting from the Heart #128 Anything Goes
World Wide Open Design Team Challenge 14 Anything Goes 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x