Sketch Challenge at The Outlawz Challenges

After being on a leave of absence from The Outlawz for the last two months, I am excited to be back again.  We have a new sponsor for the month of May as well as a new sketch for the week:

Our sponsor this month is:

artbymiran  The prize will be 3 digis

My card features a Penny Black image from a set called Flower Festival which is colored with copic markers.  I made the background with Distress Inks applied to cardstock and then spritzed with water which had some Perfect Pearls added to it.  Not sure if you can tell that the shimmer is there?  In person, I love the affect this gives.

Hope that you will stop by The Outlawz and see the creations which my sister DT members have made and perhaps give this sketch a try yourself.

 

Deborah's Card Challenge

Last month I participated in Deborah Nolan's April Card Chain Challenge. Each month Deborah allows cardmakers to sign up to exchange cards and we can choose from the parameters given as to how to put the card together.  Participants are from all of the world.  How neat is that to send a card to a sister cardmaker and to receive one as well?  My card went to England and here is what I made for the lovely Jo in Birmingham:

And I was fortunate enough to receive a gorgeous card from my online friend, Lisa.  This surely makes one day to get a hand made card in the mail, especially when we are usually the ones who do the sending of our cards!

Watercoloring and Travel

My goodness, it has been such a long time since I have posted anything to my neglected blog!  Perhaps, blogging is just not my thing, but here I go again!  Trying once more to get into a routine of posting.  

I am excited to be enrolled in the new online class taught by Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner, which starts next week and is all about watercoloring.  To get ready for the class, we have already been given some "homework" and I have been working on that as I have time.  So, I have been dusting off the various water color products which I have accumulated over the years and playing with those a little.

This card is one I made before starting my practice pieces.  It was inspired by Jacqueline who makes the most beautiful grid cards which are posted on the Hero Arts blog.  I did mask off the areas with painter's tape to make my grid and then I went back and stamped each block.  It was a lot of fun to make, even though time consuming.

 

Most of the stamps which I used were by Hero Arts and were from various sets.

The next items are the charts which I made as instructed in the pre-class videos.   There are many products which I have accumulated over the years so I still have some more items which I have not brought out yet.  But after viewing the video which Kristina made, and I found the Koi set at AC Moore's, I just had to have it.  I must admit that the colors are much creamier to work with than the cheap sets which I have used.  Have not tried coloring an image yet, but the swatches seemed to make up with little effort.

Another assignment for class is to make up a background using watercolors.  Mine turned out pretty vibrant with the new set, but trying to find the right amount of water to mix with the creamier paint is going to take some practice.

 
Last, but not least, here are a couple of the photos from my trip to Southern France.  I have always wanted to take a river cruise after hearing from friends how amazing it is to travel in this fashion.  So March 29 of this year I realized this dream by going to France with several friends.  We were on a brand new ship, the Viking Hermod, and were pampered royally.

Here is a picture of our ship:

We flew into Marseilles, France, and then were bused to the ship in Avignon.  On Sunday afternoon, we could take a walking tour into town.  On our return to the ship we had a great view of The Pont d' Avignon.  This bridge was completed in 1185 but swept away by floods on the Rhone.  It was made famous by a French folk song, Sur le Pont d'Avignon (on the Bridge of Avignon which describes boys and girls dancing on the bridge, but it was more likely that they danced under the arches of the bridge).

Hoping to get into a groove of posting so the posts will not be so long to try to catch up on everything.

Wednesday Sketch Challenge - July 24, 2013

The sketch for today over at The Outlawz is one which I thought would be great for an image from this month's sponsor....DS4J.  It is called Potted Orchid and I knew that I wanted to try my hand at coloring it after seeing orchids at a friend's house.  I actually used a photo which my friend sent me as my guide, only I did not have the right copics to achieve the brilliant fuschia of her plant.  Looks like I need to do some more shopping....LOL!

Here is the sketch:

 

And now for my card:

Hope that you will come on over, see what my sister DTeamies have created and perhaps play along with us.
 

Summer Camp 2

The last three weeks I have been attending Summer Camp.   This is an online class taught by Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner as well as many awesome guest instructors.   I have taken several of their classes before and have really enjoyed them, plus learned much from each class.  Before class began, we had a challenge to create a card with colors which I don't normally choose when I make my cards.  It was surely a stretch for me to try these, but ended up liking the color combination in the end. 

The colors in these really are not showing up as they look in real life.....white, light grey, dark grey, aqua and peach.

Here are some of the cards which I have made for our homework assignments.  The first one is simple, but effective.

 

The next card is a circular one, so different and fun!

I enjoyed making this little owl card as well.  It was

 created with the color combination suggested for the second week of class--cream, light blue, green and brown.  I stamped the owl on water color paper which I applied Distress Inks and water to before stamping.

Finally, my last card is the first Christmas card I have made this year.  Yep, actually a card for the holidays in July....that may be a first for me!  Since many of the cards in the class feature dies and I don't have many of those, I went with a punch which is from Stampin' Up.  These colors are totally out of my comfort zone, but again was pleased with the card once finished.  It is not very traditional for the holidays as well, but went together easily, so I may make some more of these.

I wish that I had more time to devote to my "homework" as there are so many ideas and techniques given that I want to try.  I hate that the class will be soon over as the videos each day are addictive.  And, seeing what others who take the class create is inspiring in itself.  So many amazing cardmakers out there, and we can learn from their take on class, too!

Wednesday Sketch Challenge at The Outlawz Challenges

I am beginning to think that the name of my blog should be the "Negligent" Blogger as my getting around to posting seems to be so hit and miss.  Am not sure where the spring went to?   I can't blame it all on travel, but I did take a big trip in May  (a dream trip to Austria and Germany) and then a family related trip in June.  Getting ready for a trip and recuperating once I am home seems to take much of my time....LOL!
 

Once again Wednesday is here and a new sketch for The Outlawz Challenges is going on.  My "Sister" teammates have created gorgeous cards using the sketch below:

I must confess that I really struggled with this design.  It was not the layout as much as it was my lack of planning for the space to fit all of the elements in after I made them two separate times.  I did learn to do this in a more efficient manner if I ever use this type of layout again.  My game plan was to make little panels of flowers on water color paper which I masked off, colored with Distress Markers and inks.  I liked the results of the masking, but I just made them too large to fit on even a large standard size card.  Finally, I decided that this should just be a little art piece and let it reside on an easel or put it in a shadow box.  So, here is my mini art piece:

Hope you will come on over to The Outlawz and join in this week's fun!



 

Wednesday Sketch Challenge

This week's  Sketch Challenge at The Outlawz is a fun one to work with and my DT Sisters created some awesome inspiration with the sketch below:

For my card, I used a Penny Black stamp which I have had for awhile but was a little intimidated about coloring.  I must say that after I stamped it on Xpress It paper, I noticed that on the back of the packaging, there was an example in color.  Why had I not noticed before that  PB took my angst right away in how to color this gorgeous flower?  The glitz in the flowers is from Hero Arts, which I also had not used before.

 
I also have two cards to share which I created for the Hero Arts Scramble last Friday.  This Scramble was to create a one layer sympathy card.  For the first card, I attached the layer to a mat and it actually looks like there are two layers because of the way I masked the area where I sponged Distress Inks.  So, for the second card, I actually did the sponging on the card itself.  This was a real stretch for me to create two cards plus post them in 90 minutes....perhaps if I keep trying the Scrambles, I will be able to be quicker in my card making???  Well, I can only hope.....  The cards created for the challenge were wonderful and it amazes me that such beauties can be made in such a short time.

My last card is one which I created for a special SIL, who shares my love of tea and things tea related.  Here's to you, June, and may we go enjoy "teatime" very soon!

So, it has been a fun week of making cards, even if it took a week to get them posted!