Radiant Light in the Great Outdoors - PP356

Hi friends!  This week I am the happy hostess over at The Paper Players with our first Theme Challenge of the (new) month:

The Great Outdoors...my favorite place to be.  Whether at the beach or in the forest, I love being outside.  And when it comes to "outdoor" stamps, I would be hard pressed to find a tree or leaf stamp that I didn't love!  Every time there's a new one from SU, I say "nope, don't need it" and you can image how long that lasts! 

Today's card was inspired by one that I found while roaming around Pinterest.  This stunning card from Susan Goetter took my breath away.  I love pinning cards that inspire me to re-create them with Stampin' Up products.  Unfortunately, I needed two sympathy cards this week and Susan's gorgeous creation had just the right melancholy feeling I thought was appropriate.

The rugged texture of hot press watercolor paper was just right for the watery look I wanted with my colors.  I laid down a base of light colors for the earth and sky first using Soft Sky and Pear Pizzazz.  Once that dried, I added some streaks of Old Olive and [retired] Baja Breeze.  I kept adding more layers of color until I was happy with the look.  Honestly, I really don't know what I'm doing, I just play around with color and water until I like it!  The tree line is from a [retired] set called Happy Scenes and the trees have snow clumps on them.  I didn't want a winter look to the trees so I used my Aqua Painter to blend the ink which covered up the snow clumps and added to the watercolor look of the whole design.

Vellum adds elegance to any project and since the overall design of this card is quiet and simple, a vellum insert adds a little extra special touch.  I replicated the scene from the front on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock with brush strokes from the Work of Art stamps.  The colors were more vibrant, without watercolor, and the vellum overlay mutes the colors.  This sentiment is from a retired set called Love & Sympathy and has always been a favorite of mine.  It's always so difficult to know what to say in a time like this and the idea of our loved ones watching over us resonates with me and, I hope, brings comfort to my two friends who experienced great loss this week.  

I hope you've enjoyed today's card.  We would love for you to play along with us at The Paper Players.  Be sure to check out all the other inspiration from my teammates and then play along before our challenge ends on Friday, August 11th at Noon (EST).

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Deanne 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Love & Irises {CCMC197}

Happy Thursday, friends, and welcome to another week at Create with Connie & Mary! It's a color challenge this week and the colors are gorgeous together...take a look:

I combined the colors with this fantastic sketch from the gals over at Card Patterns--love their sketches! 

 

Blues and greens are probably two of my favorite colors but I rarely use purple and Concord Crush even less, lol!  It's a very intense color so for my card, I lightened it up a bit:

The set Love & Sympathy is so pretty with two heartfelt sentiments and this gorgeous, grassy flower.  To me it looks a bit like an iris so Concord Crush was a perfect color choice.  I inked the flower with a Concord Crush marker and after stamping off once, inked the grass with a Certainly Celery marker and stamped the whole image onto some Very Vanilla cardstock cut with the Labels Framelit die.  I repeated another flower, for a field effect, and added the lovely sentiment in Maria Mist. To the background I stamped the grass from Inspired by Nature in Certainly Celery to compliment the grass of the flower.

So, are you wondering where the Concord Crush DSP came from?  Curious?  Well, you can probably guess...that's right...My Digital Studio!  I realized that I didn't have any Concord Crush DSP and I actually didn't have one in MDS that I liked either...shocking, I know!   So...I made my own.  I used a digital stamp called Fancy Fan (it matches a letterpress plate by the same name) and colored the "stamp" in Concord Crush.  Because I wanted it a little lighter, I used the "opacity" command in MDS to reduce the intensity of the color.  So not only did I make my own DSP, I also made my own color, lol!  Concord Crush "lite"!

I mentioned that this set has two pretty sentiments--you saw the first one already and the second one is perfect for the inside.  Stamped here in full strength Concord Crush and this time with a Marina Mist flower.  I hope you've enjoyed today's card and feel inspired to play along with these gorgeous colors.  Be sure to check out the rest of the amazing design team over at Create with Connie & Mary.  If you decide to play along, you have until Wednesday, April 18th at Noon (EST).  I hope you'll join us!

Supplies 

Stamps: Love & Sympathy; Inspired by Nature

Paper: Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla CS; MDS hybrid designer paper

Ink: Certainly Celery, Concord Crush, Marina Mist classic ink

Xtras: Marina Mist 1 1/4" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon; Linen Thread; Labels Framelits; Basic Pearls; Stampin' Write Markers (Certainly Celery, Concord Crush, Marina Mist)