Adding a spot of warmth

I have been checking out the Play Date Cafe's challenge today. Superb colour combination. Three analogous, harmonious greens and then a complimentary contrast of orange. Three cool colours and one warm. So I kept the bluey greens as the main body of colour and accented with their contrasting opposing orange.

Oh yes and I used up another from the circles stamp set (see previous post). I mislaid one, so I still have one more stamp to use up.

Right, time to sneak this onto the PDC blog before Anne notices. Shhhh!

Uncovering Hidden Art

I have no problem using sketches to create my LOs although I am fussy over which ones I like. I prefer them to have the elements to be straight, not at an angle and with a nod towards Graphic Design. So I had no problem employing Lianne's competition sketch for Sarahscards blog.

My first thought was, what photograph shall I scrap? Well, last year my father & I scanned thousands of old transparencies into digital format and none of them have been used. In fact, most of them still require sorting into categories. I browsed through them idly, clicking one folder open and then the next, when suddenly I saw this photograph of two drunk guys lighting up. As the title of this post suggests, this was hidden art. I could imagine seeing this framed in a gallery as a retrospective of a famous photographer, who specialises in candid shots of real life.

Actually, it was taken at a party held by a friend of my parents, many moons ago, when they were in their early twenties. I emailed the photo to my father who filled in the details as to who they were etc.

To make life easier, in assembling it, all the papers and embellishments in this LO are Basic Greys Periphery range.

Play Date Cafe 5

I didn't beat Anne this week lol. She's just too good!!!! However, you must check out the Play Date Cafe's colours this week. They are truly elegant. Blue, silver, violet and white. Again I've gone for a card and created it with a simple, bold design. And yes, I've used another in my swirly circles stamp set. Only one left to use before I can say they've each had at least one passing acquaintance with an ink pad.

Oh yes, & thank you to the Play Date Crew for selecting my card in challenge number four as one of the Fab4. It is very sweet and kind of you. Once again, thank you to everyone who left such wonderful comments on my blog. Reading each one is like taking a sip from a cup of hot cocoa. Warm, sweet and perks me up.

Trying hard not to be a Xmas Card

I've combined two challenges for this little card. The sketch has come from the ever inspirational Monday Mojo. The second was one of my two favourite colour combination sites, the Colour Throwdown.

The colours this week are cream, chocolate, dark red & olive. The temptation, given that both red & green are in it, is to make a festive card with these two hues dominating. I thought I'd try letting the neutrals be the foundation instead, accented with the two earthy colour tones. And yes, I've used another stamp from the collection in the previous post, so that's one more notched up. The sketch itself was good for helping me step out of my current style a little. It's made up of several layered components, so you are coerced into adding paper over paper and embellishing. I think its still got a little of my essence and style in there too. Just addicted to making these fan flowers from my scraps. They are perfect for using up the long thin strips I chop off the ends of 12x12 paper.

Just using 'em

Not had much mojo or time to make any crafts recently. So in an order to kick myself up the creative butt, I dug out these stamps which I bought sometime last year. When I saw them, I envisaged them getting lots of use and you know what? They've hardly, if never, seen an ink pad. So I thought I'd rectify the oversight and make up a batch of cards which finally made good use of them. I have only managed two so far and I will make it my motivation to carry on producing more cards until each stamp has been inked up and utilised.

Have I Beaten Anne?

The very talented and lovely Anne has each week produced a stunning project for the Play Date Cafe challenges in record time and her entry is always in before mine. However, today I'm hoping I can post my entry before she does and turn the tide haha.

The colours for this weeks challenge are beautiful and subtle. Soft muted tones of brown, yellow and green. They remind me of choc mint ice cream and toffee.

So with my clean and simple eye, I die cut three butterflies and embossed each with a different cuttlebug design. I mounted onto cream card, then attached a punched border (Martha Stewart loops) in the coffee colour. To hide the join, I attached a dark brown ribbon. All these were matted onto the green card and finally onto the cream coloured card itself.

Thank you to everyone who has left kind comments on here in the last few weeks. I read them all and they really perk me up. I do go to each and everyone's blog and look at your beautiful creations. In fact, I spend so much time looking and drooling over your blogs, I don't leave myself a lot of time to comment back. My sincere apologies and when I find a spare afternoon, I hope I can reply in kind. In the meantime, please just know how grateful I am to all who've taken the time to comment. Hugs to you all.

Playing Catch Up

Thank goodness for creativity! It's meditational, fun and calming. It allows the mind to focus. It's been just the tonic. Still haven't gotten around to clearing up my art room though this weekend. Well there's always the next.

So when I have been playing in my messy room, it's been making crafts for challenges. Play Date Cafe again! I love the colours that have come up so far. This time around was black, red and white. My first thought was, uh! not very original. But thinking on, the colours were influenced by a teenager and when I was that very same age, I decorated my bedroom in black, white and red. So, in fact they were an appropriate if not classic scheme. And hey, who needs originality all the time? Sometimes, going back to the classics and playing with them again is a good exercise.

So anyhow, I made not one, but two cards for this challenge. I decided to play at keeping the black dominant and switching around to white. Okay I could have tried a third with red dominating but shucks, I'm lazy haha. I also tried for minimalism too. Playing around with how basic I could get away with and still have a good looking card. The downside is that this discipline doesn't exactly use up a lot of stash. My scraps pile has hardly had a dent made in it this week.