TRY STAMPIN ON TUESDAY #TSOT458

How is everybody doing?  As a crafter do you find during lock down you have been crafting more or just suffering from a lack of mojo. I asked this question recently in my Facebook Group The Joy of Sets and the answer was near enough 50/50.  A lot did say they are lacking mojo and challenge blogs are so great for this.  As a member of Design Teams it really helps me to keep motivated and I love to use old unloved stamps and bring them up to date.

A great sketch to work with today from Try Stampin On Tuesday.  How will you use our sketch?  I wanted to use the lovely little bicycle from Stampin Up's Winds of Change.  This set is retiring, which is why I bought it, but I think the sentiments are so great for our times at the moment.   

 I used some Lime Otter watercolour brushes to colour in the flowers and SU blender pens in Light Balmy Blue and Light Gray Granite for the bike itself. I looked through my stash of DSP pieces and found this lovely bright background - I trimmed off two pieces and turned them into banners and used the reverse side of the paper. I then found some Tim Holtz die cut leaves I had cut for another project and tucked them behind the stitched tag cut out.  The flower is from SU Floral Essences which I had lying around on my desk and I thought it went well with the colours.  I added it with a dimensional.  It's not the card I had in my head when I started out but it sort of evolved.  The sentiment is stamped in Melon Mambo and is from the same set.  I added a touch of So Saffron twine at the bottom. 

 

SWEET STAMPIN - THANK YOU

Our theme at Sweet Stampin this week is Thank You.  We all have a lot of people to thank at this mad time the world finds itself in - I actually went food shopping today for the first time in 7 weeks - hubby had been doing it all but he was called back to work last week so I had to go out.  How strange it felt and I almost got panicky but it was good to get out and about again and try and feel a little normal.

My card today uses a retiring Stampin Up set.  It was on sale in their Retiring list and was a great price. Called Winds of Change it has some really great sentiments that are so applicable at the moment I'm surprised SU are getting rid of it.  

I find tulips very difficult to grow and I love this image of them all standing tall!  I started by embossing my card stock with an embossing folder from Kaisercraft called tiny floral.  So pretty.  I then used some water colour paper to create my image using an SU mask for the clouds and various inks for the background.

It was recently my birthday and hubby bought me some lovely Watercolour Brush Pens from a company called Lime Otter.  They are not a company I had come across previously but the colours are lovely and they are so easy to use - as you can see they give these tulips a lovely vibrant colour.  I was also lucky enough to get a new die cut machine - an electric Gemini and this Thanks came with it. I'm still learning how to create the correct sandwiches for it and learning to do lots of die cutting at one time rather than just the odd one.  I added some ribbon from my stash to finish off the card.

 

HAND STAMPED SENTIMENTS #CC339

Our colour challenge this week at Hand Stamped Sentiments offers you the following colours to play with. Remember they are only a guideline and you can use similar non SU colours.

I have a new set from Stampin Up which is actually on the retirement list which is a shame.  The wording is so apt for the current situation and the image with the bicycle as people are being urged to leave cars behind in the future.  I used some Basic Gray to stamp the bike and used Rococo Rose and Seaside Spray to ink up the flowers and colour the bike.  I then cut it out with a stitched framelit and added some Mint Macaron under the bike and around the edges of the frame.  I must just add - May is my birthday month and this year I was treated to a Gemini electric die cut machine.  Wow - no more cranking of the Big Shot.  I love playing with the machine.  I think today's task will be to cut out nearly all my dies and just have a load ready to play with!

Back to my card - I used some of the retiring DSP Pressed Petals for the background and added a piece of the gorgeous scalloped linen ribbon in Seaside Spray.  I think this is my favourite ribbon ever!

I added the sentiment bottom left which I think is so apt for our times and a few little pearls which are non SU but look so like Mint Macaron.