Floral Threesome

I had stamped a few flowers on a scrap of cardstock to play with the Altenew Alcohol inks.

Took my panel of flowers and turned them into a tag. Gave some texture and depth by masking and stamping the Mixed Typo.

My entry to ...

... CAS Colours and Sketches 

... Inkspirational Challenge : 3 or 5

Calm ...

It's time for the new CASology Challenge. The cue word is CALM.

It's a 2 week challenge as we're in summer.  So relax, be calm, and enjoy.

This is such a lovely sentiment from Magenta ... I wish you all a little peace and quiet.

Come and check on the creations of the design team and be inspired. Looking forward to seeing your take on the cue word.

Bharati Nayudu

Deidre Payne

Jacquie Southas 

Janet Ribet (you are here)

Jen Wills 

Joyce Mehrberg

Karen Haman

Melissa Chipperfield

Rachel Bergfeld

Sue Symens

Guest Designer : Shona

Flowers and Berries

While scanning through my Christmas stamps, I cam across this lovely poinsettia flower from Magenta which hasn't seen ink for quite some time. And then it all came together step by step...

• stamped, embossed and watercolored with distress inks
• wanted a gold border
• decided that the kraft brown looked lovely with the watercolour
• needed to add a red border to make the gold one stand out
• embossed the kraft to give some texture
• wanted to add some beads to give the idea of berries

My entry for ...

... Fusion Challenge : Wine O'clock I went with the sketch, and a little of the photo (natural colours with a touch of red, some berries)

... CAS Watercolour Challenge : Christmas Florals and/or Greenery

... Addicted to CAS : Make your Mark

... CAS Mix Up : Embossing folder + stamping + your choice

Magenta Nature ATC's

I participated in the Magenta Nature ATC swap.

Here are my four sent to Linda in Belgium.

Hydrangea coloured with Prismacolour pencils.

Blossoms with Copics. 

Poinsettia with Distress inks - watercolour.

Spring Flower with Prismacolour pencils and dots of white gel pen.

Soft Tags

I LOVED the inspiration over on MUSE Challenge this week - Shona, your card is delightful!

I love the colouring of the white embossed hearts, and the design.

The stamp for the tags, which are embossed in white, as well as the sentiment, are from Magenta. Painted them with Distress Inks. Made the border design using the Paper Smooches dot line die.

Garden Inspiration

It's spring in our part of the world, and one of the beauties are the Jacaranda trees. I have quite a few in my garden, and I love the soft lavender colour with the soft, pretty carpet it creates. It also makes me think of my Dad as it was his favourite tree.

I wanted to create a card inspired by this, when a friend arrived with her new Paper Smooches Botanicals stamp set, it had the perfect stamp. The sentiment is from Magenta. I love that the white space gives room to breathe to match the sentiment.

Magenta ATC's

I joined in on the Magenta ATC swap with the theme of "Colors that makes me happy".

For my first, I played with some Gelatos to create the background.

My second ended up very different to what I had planned as I dropped my Salty Ocean ink pad! So a generous spritz of water mixed with white perfect pearls gave it a lovely shimmer (unfortunately I couldn't catch it on the camera - when I can see the shimmer through the camera, it can't cope and doesn't focus. Got to learn how to do the manual focus!) ... and hid the mess.

I used watercolouring and a distressed background with some lovely Magenta paper on my third.

For my last one, I used one of my favourite Magenta sentiment stamps. I dabbed Salty Ocean on my craft sheet, spritzed with Perfect pearls and smidged my tag in it.

I sent mine to Alida in the Netherlands. And she sent me these with wonderful colourful backgrounds created with alcohol inks.

My Kusudama Ball

Loved the Kusudama ball on Annabelle Stamps Blog. When I saw it I just had to make one, and just below the photo, instructions started with the first fold. I rushed off to get a square of paper and immediately started following the instructions (without reading to the end first!). I got to the end of folding the first sheet, and it said that made ONE petal. 

And you need 5 petals to make one flower.

And you need 12 flowers to make the ball.

So I only had 59 to go!!  I just laughed at myself because I had used a 6"x6" square, and  that meant I would need 15 sheets of 12"x12" paper. So my one petal sat on my table for a couple of weeks ... but I couldn't resist it ... so I just started folding, and here it is!

Made with Fabscaps and Magenta papers and Hero Arts dots.

Magenta Sketch

I have been eyeing the Magenta Sketch for awhile.

Here's my take on it (using 2 of Magenta papers . . . cutting the scrolls). Punched out circles from the actual name place settings and menus in addition to lots of blues and greens.

As I like double page spreads, I did a vertical take on the same layout moving it off-centre.