Final Postcard ideas

Hello! It's the last day to enter the Postcard challenge on our challenge blog and in case you need some final, speedy inspiration I have three quick ideas you can use. Each postcard took less than 30 minutes so you'll have an entry in no time! There is some typing on each postcard - I have an old typewriter that I used but you could use a sentiment stamp or alphabet stamps for your sentiment.

Let's take each one in turn!

For this postcard, add paint to the postcard for the background (I used Bubblegum Pink and Vibrant Turquoise) and then added White Linen, Lemon Zest and Black Marble paint through some stencils. It really doesn't matter if it looks messy - you'll cover it up!

Then stamp your images - I coloured in a few areas so the white was a counterbalance to the crazy background! When it was assembled I drew some lines from the shape to the scalloped edge so that they look like they are hanging.

The second postcard features a flamingo from Dylusions. The heart is from the Creative Dyary Stamp Set 2.

I used Distress Inks (Broken China, Shabby Shutters, Gathered Twigs) for the background and leaf stamps - the centre of the leaf stamp was inked with Dylusions Fresh Lime ink.

A tip for difficult to cut out images... cut across an area that you can easily glue back together - I regularly cut off the heads from stamped images!

For the third, and final idea I sprayed a stencil with Vibrant Turquoise and then covered the card with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink to give it a vintage colour palette. I then stamped lots of images on the background from an old Tim Holtz set. Then I stamped lots of Darcy for PaperArtsy images on card and coloured them in.

I hope you join in with this month's challenge!

Gabrielle

Spring or Easter gift tag

Isn't it great having the evenings draw out again and soon and this next weekend is Easter, so Spring is hopefully well on its way.

Easter eggs and gifts will be shared in a few days so I thought I would make a quick gift tag for you to make and attach to the present that goes to someone special.

Begin with distress oxides in spiced marmalade, broken china and cracked pistachio and create a dip and dry background.

 Stamp some flying bugs, I used the Entomology set of stamps by Tim Holtz and used his stamping platform to get a strong outline ( I stamped it twice using coffee and black archival inks)

Take forest moss, pine needles, tea dye and rusty hinge ordinary distress inks and with a paintbrush paint in the wings. I also used some white linen ink spray by dylusions to highlight the bodies.

Next take some scraps of paper and tear pieces to cover the butterflies and stamp the text stamp, also from the etymology set, with broken china doxide.. 

Before removing the paper lightly spritz over with water and heat dry.

Stamp the small butterflies from the classics 17 stamps and remove the little Fig. numbers, cut, distress ink the edges and adhere. Also stamp the special delivery from the correspondence set directly onto the tag.

I always 'frame' my tags, cards etc and didn't want to rely just on the normal distress inked edges so I searched my boxes of old unknown stamps and found a fabulous forgotten distressed border stamp which I used with cornflower blue archival ink.

Finally I covered the winged bugs again and splattered some white gesso and then finished with the distress inked edges.

A lovely gift tag with springlike images and colours don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

www.bumblebeesandbutterflies.com

Find the beauty ......

I have a little journal panel to share with you today made entirely with DecoArt paints and mediums and some of the brand new Aall & Create stamps.

The background was made by laying down some gesso applied on the back of a palette knife and left to dry before adding in some colours - primary cyan, cerulean blue, titan buff, raw umber and burnt umber, taking time to add some dips of watery washes of these colours and finishing with a brayer and titanium white to bring some brightness back. 

The stamp set has 11 stamps in it, so there's plenty to help make up a composition with the brush which has written around it -

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

The stamp above says - Creativity takes courage.

The little arrow and dots make a nice fill in piece and the circles make up a great border.

I love using text so I added some very light random stampings of one of my own small stamps.

I used the quotestamp on paper so that it stood out more and shaded round it after I had finished and sealed it all with matte medium.

To get the finished look I splattered some raw umber and white paint and dried it and took my white posca pen to add some small dots in the circles and a black one to add some squiggly border additions. I sanded the edges and blended in ground espresso distress ink.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx