A few cards

Hello!

Over the past few months I've been busy making cards, but have been somewhat inconsistent with blogging them. I have a few reasons- my card reader on my laptop is working poorly, my hard drive was mostly full (this has since been rectified!), I've felt more like creating than writing about creating, and the list goes one. I know they are just excuses, I guess I just need to make the effort to get back to regular blogging! I certainly have enough projects that I could be sharing!

It's February, and that brings out the Papertrey Ink anniversary contests! I've been playing along with all of the challenges so far!

Here are my cards for the first 5 challenges.

#1 Colour Combination/Sketch
I used the colour combo of Melon Berry, Blueberry Sky, Fine Linen, Classic Kraft, and Aqua Mist. I was really drawn to this combination and didn't think I'd ever put these colours all together before.

#2 Inspired by Maile
Really, who hasn't been inspired by Maile at some time? I drew some inspiration from this post. I really liked the idea of using a coverplate over a colourful background. I don't have the star cover plate, so I did some selective die cutting, being careful to leave an un-cut panel. I also wanted a more blended background so I sponged by background instead. I suppose with the rainbow look, you could say I was a little inspired by Laura Bassen as well.

#3 Make a Tag and Matching Gift Bag
I always like using the bold flowers from Beautiful Blooms 2 and thought they would work well for a gift-giving duo. Here's a look at the tag:

And here's the full project:

#4 Bouquet using Multiple Stamp Sets
I think this might be my favourite challenge so far. It was so fun going through all my stamp sets and figuring out which flower images might go well together. On the car I used flowers from Green Thumb, Everyday Classics, and Rosie Posie. I really wanted them to look like they could have come from the same stamp set. I stamped the images onto some natural cotton paper. Once I had my bouquet arranged to my liking, I went over with a fine paintbrush and water and blended the images to create a more painted look. I also added a few free-hand stems and then tied a silver bow around the whole thing. It was surprisingly enjoyable to do this with my stamps, as I am a little guilty of refusing to combine stamp sets with different design styles.

#5 Use a stamp set that hasn't been used in a while.
I've used In Bloom and the Year of Flower sets in the past, but it's kind of been a long while since I've used either. I also had it in my mind that the card was supposed to be Spring themed, so I went with a Spring type colour combination.

For this one, I first decided on a colour palette- Winter Wisteria (lol the irony!), Spring Rain, Spring Moss, Lemon Tart, and Sweet Blush. Next, I knew I wanted to try to split panel type of layout and I also knew that I wanted a spring-ish sentiment.

That's all I've made for the challenges so far! I am looking forward to the next 5 days!