Love FUSION...

How will you be inspired this fortnight? When we went away, we were each lucky enough to receive a fabulous bag of goodies from the gorgeous Joy. As I was working on this FUSION Challenge, how could I not incorporate these stunning flowers onto my card? I paired them with these die cut rose leaves, Simon Says Stamp Hugs and Kisses, and Love sentiment, die cut twice and offset to create shadowed letters. Following the sketch, I inset the negative die cut Lil Inkers Stitched Oval with the flowers and petals, and used the hugs and kisses die cut as the ribbon strip.

How to join in the fun...
1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.
5. Please read the other considerations on the Our Rules Page before playing along.

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team showing you how it works!
Anya Schrier - Betty J - Cathy Weber - Dannielle Robeson - Deepti
Jeanne Jachna - Julia Aston - Katie Brooks - Kelly Griglione
Kimberly Wiener - Lynn Mangan - Michelle Folland - Michelle Lupton - Sindhu

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks! We each will choose one favourite! The winners will be announced at 4am (PST) in two weeks!! Please check the linky for the days left to play with us!

Playing along with CASual Fridays Good Egg Challenge,

and The Pink Elephant Photo Inspiration Challenge too.

A-very Beautiful Life...

I have been wanting to get back into scrapbooking for ages, and as I'm working a short week this week, thought this was the perfect opportunity to combine Sketchabilities Sketch Challenge, Frosted Designs Clear or Sheer Challenge and Avery Elle's Water Colour Challenge.

Pink Paislee Color Wash pad is a great base for Avery Elle's Water Colour Challenge. This gorgeous Avery Elle Petal and Stems flower was stamped on Color Wash paper in Versamark Watermark and clear embossed. These cool Avery Elle Petal and Stems leaves were die cut from a variety of papers from Studio Calico and Pink Paislee, together with coloured vellum, another sheer element. The Avery Elle Simply Tags die cut tag, word strips, Life sentiment and pink scallops were cut from Pink Paislee Color Wash papers, while the wooden scallops were cut from American Crafts paper.  The paper layers were all adhered in place before stamping this beautiful Avery Elle Love Notes sentiment in Wet Cement Hero Arts ink and little Avery Elle Love Notes hearts randomly stamped in Spun Sugar Distress Ink. The final sheer element, sequins from my stash and the Studio Calico wood veneer butterfly (playing along with Little Red Wagon's Wood Veneer Challenge) were adhered last.

 

This made me smile...

Seize the Runway...

 

E.T.A. Joining in the fun with Moxie Fab Hip on Handwriting Challenge

Even though I LOVE the DTs cards and gallery created each fortnight for the Runway Inspired Challenges, they always challenge me LOL.  This time I thought I'd deconstruct the process for creating my Runway Inspired Challenge #57 Markus Lupfer card.  If you look closely at the dress, there are a number of pigeons on it, and "love" speech bubbles, so I thought this sentiment was most appropriate.  The sentiment was the first element I chose for the card, as I liked the similarities between the graphic style of the doodle font of the Autumn Leaves sentiment and the dress. The Alley Way Stamps Lighter Than Air birdies are a similar graphic style. I chose this weeks fabulous Seize the Sketch as the basis for my card, as it replicated the overlapping graphic shapes found on the RIC inspiration dress, my bottom panel became a die cut window, though which you can see the inside decorated panel.  The floral pattern and paperpieced colours are chosen straight from the dress, as well as the Simon Says Stamp speech bubble. Thought it appropriate to play along with Catered Crop Put a Bird on it Challenge too!

Hope you are having a super creative weekend!

This made me smile...

Wanna Uniko Card Concept...

Playing with watercolours, this time using Distress Inks as the base, and these gorgeous Uniko Studio die cuts. Die cut the three Uniko Studio butterflies first, followed by the Uniko Studio flower and lastly the Fawn Stitched Journalling Card. My blue and green watercolour panels were also die cut, then this fabulous Uniko Studio sentiment stamped in white embossing powder on blue vellum.

Joining in the fun at the Uniko Studio Spring Challenge, 

playing with this fabulous Wanna Sketch, 

Card Concept Butterfly Challenge, Seize the Birthday and

Simon Says Stamp HAPPY BIRTHDAY Challenge.

 

 

This made me smile...

KIS and Tell with Stencils...

Time to KIS and Tell, with this fortnights theme of Keep it Simple Stencils Challenge!

This technique was a happy accident!  I had coloured my first Prima stencil using graduated Squeezed Lemon, Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar Distress Inks, then wiped the excess inks from the top of my stencil before I started this card. After painting a base coat of Gesso over the old bookpaper, I filled the stencil with texture paste, and lo and behold - the texture paste soaked up the Distress Inks which had not been wiped off the inside edges of the stencil, leaving these gorgeous coloured edges around the edges of my flowers!  Finished my card with this fabulous Winnie & Walter banner stamped in Momento Ink Rose Bud, sprinkled with clear embossing powder and heat set on my vellum fishtail flag banner.

Take a look at the rest of the cards from the fabulous 

Keep It Simple DT.

Hope you get a chance to play along - can't wait to see what you create!

Playing along with Virginia's View Challenge #2 Stencils, 

Winnie & Walter Join in to Win, Seize the Birthday Anything Goes,
Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday Challenge,
 Moxie Fab World Styling with Stencils Challenge.

Anything Goes with Hugs...

Had so much fun playing with stencils while I was away! Headed down the path of Freestyle Collage mixing and matching the layers and media. This was created using a Prima Cherry Blossom stencil and some Distressed Inks sponged over a sheet from an old Fairy Tale book covered in Gesso.  The cute 'Hugs' sentiment is a Simon Says Stamp, and the wood veneer butterflies are Studio Calico, with a matching button found lurking in my stash. 

Playing along with Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes with Buttons, 

Virginia's View Challenge #2 Stencils, The Card Concept Butterflies Challenge,
and A Blog Named Hero Build Yourself a Background Challenge and
 Moxie Fab World Styling with Stencils Challenge

 

Mixed Media & Happy Crafting...

I took some of these 4x4 canvases away on our crafty retreat and thought I'd have a go at mixed media.

We were lucky enough to have a play with some of Joy's the new Penny Black masks and stamps - and yes, they are as fabulous as you hope they might be! The butterfly canvas is created by applying Gelatos over the primed canvas (they can be primed using Gesso, but these canvases came pre-primed) and blending the Gelato colours with a baby wipe. Using the Penny Black Charming stencil, I gently removed the colour from the stencilled flower and leaf sections, before applying Festive Berries and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks to the flowers and leaves.  When adding a layer of clear embossing paste to the flowers, I discovered that the Distress Inks react to the embossing paste, so I had to be very careful when applying the paste - next time I would use LuminArte or Gelatos, which don't have the same reaction. The sentiment ant butterfly undercolour were created using LuminArte. The Dyan Reaveley sentiment was stamped in Versamark Watermark and Zing White embossing powder, then fussy cut and adhered to the canvas using multimedia paste. The underlayer of the butterfly was adhered to the silver butterfly, and bling added, before adhering with Dimensional Magic.

The little bird canvas is created using one of Jenny's bird stamps, first stamped on watercolour paper with Versamark Watermark just to get an outline of the shape of the bird, then painted in LuminArte and dried before overstamping in Versamark Watermark and Zing Pewter embossing powder. The Dyan Reaveley sentiment was created using the same technique. The background was created using Gelatos, then a second layer of Gelatos mixed with texture paste to create a more textured finish.

Playing along with Virginia's View Stencil Challenge, 

Simon Says Anything Goes Monday Challenge,
 Moxie Fab World Styling with Stencils Challenge, and

Catered Crop Put A Bird On It.

Retreat photos... all the fabulous ladies who attended:  

Back Row: Teresa Xanthos, Jenny Dix, Debbie Pamment, Joy Taylor.

Front Row: Michelle Lupton, Sue Kohler, Jenny Martin Rawling, Iwona Palamountain (Chupa)(in front), me, Angelique Kelly and Cecilia Hsieh.  

Please go and check out their blogs - they're all completely fabulous!!

This made me smile...