Die-namites April Sketch Challenge

I'm still playing with spring colours, flowers, and birds today!  Welcome everyone!

Here is the darling sketch that's up on Die-namites' blog this month, along with a colour dare:

Bo Bunny's "Madeleine" paper fit the dare perfectly!!

I did a few alterations on one of my Die-namites dies, in order to make my basket full of flowers.  I took "Spring Basket" and removed the eggs.  Then I cut off the handle and bow, and flipped the bow over to the other side of the patterned paper.

For the flowers that fill the basket I used the "Pretty Blooms" die and cut them out in green and one of the coordinating patterned papers.

I didn't like the white lines that were showing up on the paper, so I took a copic marker and coloured the whole thing.  I like the effect I got with some of the pattern still showing through but in a much more subdued way now.

Throw in a few pretty embellishments and a little bit of stenciling... and this card is ready to hit the mail!

I haven't played over at Flying Unicorn, in far too long, so I decided to also enter this card in the "Made with Love - Anything Goes" challenge.

Both of these challenge go until the end of the month - so why not check them out!!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Linda

April Tag of Savagery

I'm here today with a tag I created for the April Swirlydoos Tags of Savagery Challenge, and my tag was totally inspired by the gentle breezes of spring and the soft greens that are unfolding all around us.

OVER the Land is April

Over my heart a rose;

Over the high, brown mountain

The sound of singing goes.

Say, love, do you hear me,

Hear my sonnets ring?

Over the high, brown mountain,

Love, do you hear me sing?

By highway, love, and byway

The snows succeed the rose.

Over the high, brown mountain

The wind of winter blows.

Say, love, do you hear me,

Hear my sonnets ring?

Over the high, brown mountain

I sound the song of spring,

I throw the flowers of spring.

Do you hear the song of spring?

Hear you the songs of spring?

Robert Louis Stevenson

For this challenge, Maggi created a video showing us the inking technique she wanted us to try.  Check it out!  You'll have lots of fun with inks, mists, stamps and embossing paste.

For my tag, I combined Maggi's tutorial with Tim Holtz's March Tag tutorial.  So I embossed my butterfly with white embossing powder and I changed the stencil embossing from just using embossing paste, to trying Tim's technique where you emboss through a stencil with regular molding paste and then sprinkle the paste with several different embossing powders. After heating with a heat gun you end up with a really pretty blend of colours.  I used pastel powders and the effect ended up being very subtle.

I also masked my butterfly before applying the molding paste, as Tim did, but I should have placed the stencil over more of the butterfly, because the effect is pretty slight on my tag as it only covered the tip of the tail and a portion of the wing tip.  If you look really closely, you can see it on the upper right corner and bottom right corner.

This challenge goes until midnight MS on May 14, so you have lots of time to make (and enter) a tag of your own!

Thank you for stopping by!

Linda

Supplies used:

• #8 manila tag
• Distress inks:  Dusty Concord and Mowed Grass
• Butterfly stamp is from the Limitations Tim Holtz framelits set
• Kaisercraft Damask Stencil Template (Quarters)
• Lindy's Stamp Gang Moon Glow Embossing Powder:  Cosmic Pink, Weeping Willow and Geranium Coral
• Golden Molding Paste
• Grape Ice Stickles