Urban Scrapbook's Monthly Challenge - May

Hello my friends,

This month's kit at Urban Scrapbook is a beautiful collection from Prima. The gorgeous wood patterned paper is perfect for a rustic or nature inspired photo. The complimentary colors in green, purple and a metallic rose gold really make the the page shine.

I used my Silhouette machine to cut the feather and birds, saved the cut outs and mounted them on top for extra embellishments  on the page.

"Bird Song"(Graphic 45) was stamped in archival ink over a lightly gessoed chipboard piece included in the kit.

I would love to say I took the picture, but I didn't I found it on Pinterest. However, I have been to Hanoi Vietnam and it reminded me of the song birds hanging in the storefronts. Here is the link to the picture...

 http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/600x/be/ba/da/bebada2b3402c92fa36e9ffda6a891de.jpg

Distress colors used were: peeled paint, antiqued bronze, milled lavender

I splattered some Color Shine spray on the page as well in Chartreuse, Purple and Bronzer.

Thanks for stopping in. You can check out the other design team's layouts on the Urban Scrapbook blog. I will be back with some more artsy inspiration for you. Happy May!

Bokeh backgrounds

I love doing faux techniques. The bokeh backgrounds are really pretty and easy to do.

I started with Ranger's watercolour paper and used two colours of distress stains on each card.
The one on the left was Seedless Preserves and Peacock Feathers while the one on the right was
Peacock Feathers and Cracked Pistachio.  yummmm
I stamped the Penny Black dreamboat stamp with Black archival ink.
The faux bokeh was added on top with a handmade circle stencil and Ranger's white pigment ink pad.
A little starburst stamp from Magenta was added on the top (just for a bit of interest)

Distressed Watercolor

Hi again,

I was playing with my new Penny Black and Dina Wakely stamps.  Watercolour seems to be the hot ticket at the moment, so I pulled out my distress markers and ink pads.
I used the watercolour paper from Ranger to give a "true" watercolour look.

Years ago, I took a watercolour class and I was terrible at it. With rubber stamps and distress markers, you can get a beautiful look with  minimal artistic expertise.
I stamped the card on the left with Squeezed Lemonade distress and then watercoloured over the yellow. I achieved a sharper image with this technique.

The middle and right cards were stamped with ink and then painted in with water to blend the hard line of the edges.

thanks for taking a look at my watercolour cards, see you next time...

Chameleon Markers

Hi everyone,

I got a chance to play with these new markers that were released at CHA this past January. They are an alcohol based marker with a built in diffuser nib. You can achieve a gradation of color depending on the time you fuse the marker. You can check out the product here 

http://www.chameleonpens.com/#!home/mainPage

I used the Jamie Dougherty stamp from Prima. I colored it two different ways to demonstrate the variety of tones you can get with these markers. The only part I used my Copics for, was the shells.

I added some liquid pearls on the headband, stamped and cut the shells out to add an extra layer then matted it on some coordinating paper

Thanks for taking a look, I will see you next time...

Urban Scrapbook Monthly Challenge - April

Hello my friends, thanks for stopping by, today we have the beautiful  kit available at Urban Scrapbook for the month of April. It features a feminine selection of pinks and gold from Kaisercraft "All that Glitters" collection.  The embossed butterfly paper adds a bit of whimsy to the page and shows off my beautiful daughter's graduation dress.

I stamped a random dot stamp and embossed it with sticky embossing powder from Ranger.
I then added some pretty pink foil from Heidi Swapp.
It isn't a complicated layout, but I love the final result.
You can check out all of the design team's layouts on the Urban Scrapbook's blog here.