Bloom of Hope for Paper Players #196
17 May 2014
Hi Everyone. Happy Saturday. It's the fabulous Ann's turn to host our Paper Players challenge and she has a clean and simple - with a twist - challenge for us.
Well, considering I have created two clean and simple flower cards this past week, I was a little stumped and really did wonder why I hadn't checked the upcoming challenge a little earlier :-) However, I've never been one to NOT enjoy a CAS challenge and decided it was time to bring out the new Bloom with Hope set - again.
As I've been trying to attend the onlinecardclass watercolor class, I decided I would use that as a base for my card tonight.
I inked up one of my SU acrylic blocks with three different distress inks in the blue range and spritzed the block with water, but before I put the inked block to paper, I cleaned out the middle of the block with a baby wipe, leaving just enough space for my flower. Once the ink was on the paper, I blotted up any pooled areas and proceeded to dry the paper with my heat gun. I then used a powder tool all over it to make sure that my embossing powder would not stick. Even though it was white, I wanted to make sure there were no stray pieces!Once the image was ready, I used a fine paint brush and my Inktense pencils to color my flower. I spritzed a little water onto my craft sheet and wet my brush just enough so that I could take color directly from the pencil. I used three different greens and four different colors in the orange/yellow range to get the effect that I needed.All that was left to do was to trim the image and stamp my sentiment - from the retiring Express Yourself hostess set. I was really tempted to put a basic rhinestone in the middle, but restrained myself and decided to leave it alone.... in the end, I was pleased I did.The design team have some fabulous cards for you again this week. Don't forget to check out their cards and then come back to the Paper Players and join us this week.
On a personal note:
Well, this week went by very quickly and I didn't get much chance to get to my PC to post to my blog! I had intended to post on Thursday, but Lou and I had to drive 1.5 hours west to go look at some trees and we got back much later in the evening than we had expected. Why did we drive 3 hours to look at trees, I can hear you ask? Well, good question!!! We are putting in some more spade-in trees and needed to go pick them out.
We were very pleased with them.... River Birch and Autumn Blaze maple. They will be coming to our home in a couple of weeks, they just need a couple more weeks of warmth and sunshine to get their leaves, and then they will be safe to transplant. Depending on how they look when they are in, we might go for a couple more.
In addition to the trees, we will be putting in some shrubs; Nannyberry, Cranberry, Red Elderberry, Potentillia, Chokeberry, Winterberry and Juneberry. Most of them will provide great cover for the shy, shrub loving birds and they will also provide berries in winter for them. Oh... and they will provide flowers for us, too. They are supposed to be mostly deer-proof, too.... but... I don't trust those guys! :-)
Talking about shy birds.... how about this wonderful little thing!
Seriously, isn't that the cutest face???? I saw a flash of yellow when I was sitting outside last weekend and assumed it was a goldfinch. It was only when I uploaded the photos that I realized this was NOT a goldfinch. You can check him out here. We knew that the birds would love the white cedars we put in last year and they certainly do.
We even managed to entice this guy. Now.... cardinals were very visible at our last house, but we rarely see them here. So, I was thrilled to get this shot.
I loved the way he was looking at the bird in the bird bath! Loving the bird bath, I might add!
Lou is prepping for the arrival of the contractor as we begin screening in underneath the deck. It's really exciting and will certainly extend our usage of the outside area during summer. One thing we know for sure... the Mossies are going to be very numerous this year, especially as we still have standing water. We are really looking forward to sitting out there in the heat of summer knowing that we will be able to enjoy our views without being bitten!
I'll be back with another card tomorrow. In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.
Hugs
Jaydee
Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless noted
- Card stock: Lost Lagoon. Water color paper - Strathmore. Card base - unknown
- Stamps: Sentiment: Express Yourself. Flower: Bloom with Hope
- Inks: StazOn black for sentiment. Inktense pencils for flower