Stampin! with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday and Happy Mother's Day!

It's the fabulous Sandy's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and she has a great color combo for us.

Calypso Coral is not my favorite color, so I decided to focus on So Saffron as my major color - it's such a pretty, soft yellow and I thought this combo was perfect for a card on Mother's Day.

I'm currently participating in the onlinecardclasses watercolor for card maker's class and decided it was time I practiced a little of what they are trying to teach us about water coloring.

I started with a white card stock base and inked up my SU acrylic block with So Saffron ink and squirted it with water to diffuse it a little.  I placed the block on my card base and let it sit for a minute or so on the card base.  I then dried it with my heat gun. 

Next, I inked up one of the flower stamps from Bloom of Hope with Stazon ink and stamped it onto the base.  I then colored the flower with my watercolor brush and some Calypso Coral ink.  I added layers of shading and a little bling to the flowers.

All that was left was to take two of the sentiments from Work of Art (love the typefont on this set) and tie a little bow around my flowers.  I backed the whole frontpiece with double sided tape to ensure it didn't warp and, voila! 

It is a fairly dull day, so I wasn't able to get a really good shot outside, but I do love the softness of the So Saffron water color background and the pop of the flowers.  I had to tie a bow around the flowers, because they just seem to hang there if you don't.  I have this thing that flowers should be grounded or connected in some way..... so, tying them together seemed the ideal thing to do.  The touch of gold in the Baker's Twine helps to carry the yellow theme throughout the card and echoes the little bit of glimmer from my gel marker on the flowers.

The design team have some fabulous inspiration cards for you - and some more sneak peeks.  Don't forget to check out their cards and then come and join us at the Paper Players.

• Ann
• Anne Marie
• LeAnne
• Nance
• Sandy

On a personal note:

Oh... it's going to get to 70 degrees today.... yes... wonderful!  Lou and I spent some quality time in the garden yesterday planting trees in the woodland.  Well, Lou dug all the holes, I supervised:-)  It was wonderful standing out in the woodland watching all of the birds.  We planted 4 sugar maples

to start adding a little diversity into the woodland, which is mostly Green Ash.  We will also be adding some river birch, a couple of more mature maples, some hackberry and a couple of birch.  Then, we will be planting our shrubs to replace the buckthorn which we have removed.  As we are planting native shrubs that flower and fruit, and have a fairly dense spread, we think this should help to bring even more native birds to the garden.

Talking about birds in the garden..... it's two years TODAY since Lou and I moved into our new home.  It was over 90 degrees the day we moved and I remember it was incredibly hot and humid.  That night, when we went to bed, the cacophony of sound from the frogs was over-whelmingly loud.  I'd only once heard that many frogs making that much noise before in the Kruger National Park in South Africa, many, many years ago.   The night we moved in reminded me of that.  Both of us stood at the window and marveled at the sound.

Well, a couple of morning's ago, I went out on to the deck at around 10am and the noise was AMAZING.   Thousands of frogs, a flock of red-winged blackbirds, and other birds were all competing to be heard.   I had to take a video.  You can see the wetland, but ALL of the noise that you hear on this short video comes from Mother Nature.  I've come to call this noise - Sounds of Spring.  I know they sound like a whole invasion of cicadas, but it really was the frogs.

I know I thought that was loud, but with a little bit of heat over the last couple of days, the sounds last night were MUCH louder.  It was wonderful to be lulled... if you can call it that... :-) to sleep by the mating call of thousands of frogs :-)

Thank you for your visit - and your comments.  They really do mean a great deal to me.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Extra hugs and prayers for you, Sandy.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up!

• Card stock:  Whisper White.  So Saffron
• Stamps:  Sentiment:  Work of Art.  Flowers:  Bloom with Hope (both available in the new catalog starting June 1 2014)
• Inks:  Calypso Coral, So Saffron and Pear Pizzazz.  StazOn black
• Accessories:  Gold and vanilla baker's twine
• Tools:  Water color brush, gel roller, double sided tape, acrylic block, mini mister