Ballerina Bar Work and Bunting

Good morning, it's Susie here this morning with the cute Ballet set from Clare Brown.  And, for the second time in a row, I've used pink, although I have sneaked my favourite turquoise into the ballerina's outfit and stamping!

The pink dotty card is from one of Sarah's A Few of My Favourite Things sets and provided the perfect background for my scene.  I stamped the ballerina onto some white card and a post it note, cut around the post it note ballerina's legs, skirt and hand and placed her on top of my card ballerina.  I carefully stamped the bar on top.

When the post it note mask was removed, it left my ballerina holding onto her bar!  

I also stamped my ballerina onto scraps of dotty and mint card and cut out her tutu from the pink card and the detail from the mint card and assembled her paper-pieced costume.  (At this stage, it might be easier to colour the skin of your ballerina, before sticking her outfit on, rather than leaving it until later as I did.) 

The outer edges of her tutu were coloured with a pink promarker, so that the white is not seen when I layer her outfit.  I curled her outfit with my scissors, added some glue and a small foam pad to the card ballerina and the stuck her paper-pieced tutu into position.  

The pink dotty card is so pretty that I decided, again, to cut around the top of my scene to expose more if the prettiness.

I also really love this journalling card from Sarah's Wonderful Day set and decided that, whilst the clouds didn't suit my scene, I could use the bunting, so carefully cut it out and curled the flags with my scissors and assembled it to my picture.

Just a bit of stamping, some Stardust Stickles and turquoise gems and my card was complete:0)

A Bright and Rainy Day Scene

Welcome and Happy Good Friday to you!  It's Susie here today and I have the ever so cute Charm Street Cuties Rainy Day to show you.

I love this bright fushia pink card (from one of the A Few of My Favourite Things Kits) and thought that it would provide a great contrast for the Rainy Day stamp.  (It also proves that I am not completely addicted to using turquoise, or various shades of it!!)

I used promarkers in Cool Grey 1, 2 and 3 to create the background for my girl, just with random wavy-ish lines and used a blender pen to blend the lightest grey into the white card.

I then stamped Rainy Day onto the background and onto a post-it note.

The post-it note mask was cut and placed over the card, so that I could stamp the cloud and make it look as if it is behind the girl.  The cloud was also stamped onto another post-it note to use THAT as a mask too.

The cloud was cut out enough to mask the cloud for layering another cloud behind it.

The cloud mask was removed so that some more clouds could be added to the scene and lots of rain drops were also added.

Then the colouring was added, using my promarkers.  I did consider keeping the whole image monochrome, but my love of colour won through and some pink was added to go with the card.

I then decided that I would risk cutting around the clouds, in order to show off more of the fushia card........and removed the top cloud too as I liked the overall shape better without it.  I added some Stardust Stickles to the clouds, rain and puddles and strengthened the shading of the coat and wellies......and was finally happy with the result!  Loving this sentiment from the Rainy Day set too.

Have a wonderfully bright and, hopefully, not too rainy an Easter, folks.

Bookmark - what's a bookmark?

It sounds rather dramatic but soon these little things will become totally redundant. Bookmarks, that's what I'm referring to. As more and more of us read everything from books to the newspaper on our e-readers and tablets, the humble bookmard will become a thing of the past. Just think a whole new generation of people growing up having never used one.

Well I want to put that right and as this new trend for filofaxes and agenda's is taking off, why not make book marks for them?

I stamped the girly from Charm Street Cuties Flower Girl stamp set onto watercolour card with a waterproof ink.

I stamped her a second time on a post-it note and just cut around the head so I could stamp the bunting behind her.

Not content to stop there, I stamped the bunting on a post-it and cut around the right hand end stamping the cloud.

Then guess what? Yes I stamped that too on a post-it and masked it off so I could stamp a second cloud.

With all the masks taken away this is what she looked like.

Now for the colour. I chose to add watercolour paints to her just because I love the look so much.

I trimmed it into a bookmark size and added the word Smile with alpha stickers.

To finish off, I backed it with a piece of card to neaten the back and add a border then ran it through a laminating machine. I rounded the corners to make them a bit more friendly and less sharp and added a grommet and ribbon at the top.

I love it in my agenda and it's guaranteed to make me smile each time I open my page.

Take care and keep the bookmark alive,

Jaine x