Simples .....

Good morning, peeps!  I hope you're all having a great start to the day!

Today I thought I'd show you a couple of cards that I'm currently teaching at workshops for Samuel Taylor. In fact, there's only one workshop left now at the Brighouse store on Saturday 27 April.  It's always hard to come up with something new that will interest people sufficiently to attend a workshop.  These two cards focus on techniques so the design of the cards themselves is kept fairly simple.  Also, I do like stamps with a floral design (as regular visitors may have noticed!!) and I thought it might be nice to celebrate Spring with some seasonal flowers.

Here's the first one:

These tulips are paper pieced then shaded with coloured pencils to give the image some depth and dimension.  I also like making shaped easel cards, which are not as mysterious as some people might think.  The stamps come from a set by Woodware, available here.  The pink 'frame' to the picture is created with one of the wonderful newer Spellbinder dies called Floral Ovals.

and this is the second card:

The basic card for this one is even simpler, just a basic A5, but I always think that matting and layering brings an elegant shift to any card and the technique this time is watercolour using Ranger Distress Inks - specifically Dusty Concorde and Forest Moss.  You could also use watercolour pens for this technique but, for me, nothing reacts with water better than Sir Tim's Distress Inks!  This is another Woodware stamp called 'Grape Hyacinth' (never refrain from stating the obvious, Diane!!)  It's another design from the talented Jane Gill and being in the style of botanical illustration, I thought that this one was perfect for the watercolour technique.  The plant label at the bottom is cut from another of the newer Spellbinders, this time it's Enchanted Labels 28.  This is just the smallest die in the set and is fairly plain but the larger ones are just wonderful.

Thanks for looking today and I'll hopefully see you all again soon.  Some more goodies from Sheena should be arriving today, so watch this space!

Hugs

Cameo of a Geisha

Good morning, peeps and I hope today is a good one for you!
Firstly I must aplogise for the quality of the photo on this card but it was taken in the gloom of a November evening and this was the best light I could achieve. I was hoping for better light today but it's nearly as dark as night here now! Anyhoo, this is my card for Digi Doodle Shop's Best Challenge number 34, which is 'Anything Goes'. With such an open subject, I do hope you'll all join us for this one.
I've been admiring this geisha image for some time (she's available here in the shop) because I thought she would be the perfect image for me to try out paper piecing, which I've never done before. Well it didn't go too badly but the washi paper wasn't easy to shade over to show the folds in her kimono so next time I fancy a bit of paper piecing, I'll use standard DP!
The rest of her is coloured with Copics, the blue sky background and shadow is done with Primacolor pencils and Sansodor and the scalloped oval is distressed with Pumice Stone Distress Ink. Since I'd used the largest of my Mega Oval Scalloped Nestie dies to cut out the image, I used the die to mark points around the outside of the oval die and then cut the plain gold oval freehand.
I thought this was the perfect opportunity to break out the red poppies from Wild Orchid Crafts, which is where all the flowers came from, as did the wide organza ribbon. The leaves were punched with my Leonie Em Maidenhair Fern punch and the DP is from K & Co.
I do hope you like it and I'll hopefully see your card in the challenge!
Bye for now