Bokeh Background Birds

Today's challenge over at 365 Cards is to say goodbye to the summer by using sunset colours on your card.
I sponged an ombre background from pink through to orange and then yellow, then added a little bit of a bokeh effect over the top in the same colours.
Not having any circle stamps I punched a few different size circles out of craft foam to create my own.

I've seen lots of beautiful cards in blogland using the bokeh effect.  I wanted to get a pattern close to what's seen in a photograph, so added my final layer of stamped circles with white craft ink to get the highlights.

I'm entering this card into
 Moxie Fab World : Tuesday Trigger - Honoring Ombre

and
Aud Sentiments Challenge #88 : Any sentiment

Rainbow Colour Blocked Birthday

Today's challenge at 365 Cards is to use all the colours of the rainbow but without using a rainbow.  (Did you guess from yesterday's card?)  After warming up with the stamped card I thought some colour blocking might be the way to go!
I started off with the die cut sentiment on some rainbow stripes then had a go at colour blocked die cuts for the swirls.  Added a few little gems to finish it off.

Round and Round

This weeks challenge over at Less is More is Round and Round.  Now it being the school summer holidays my children have been playing with all of their toys (more or less all at the same time!).  One thing they have is a big set of brightly coloured plastic cogs that all fit together and when a handle is turned they all start moving round and round ... and hence my inspiration for the challenge  :-)

I lightly sketched out a circle on my card, measured the area for the sentiment, dry embossed around it and then masked it off before stamping my cogs.

This also happens to be a bit of a sneak preview for tomorrows challenge at 365 Cards, don't forget to come back and find out what it is!

Front and back

Todays challenge over at 365 Cards is to decorate the front and back of your card.
I thought that having a swirly flourish that is kind of draped over the top might be one way of doing this so here's what I've made.
I water coloured the background in very wet red and yellow washes and then, when it was almost dry stamped the flourish in grey water colour paint to get a soft image.  When it was all dry I stamped over in white and then grey inks.  The flowers were stamped and water coloured then fussy cut out and stuck onto the card.  Here are the front and back views ....

I'm also entering this into Colour Q challenge #202

Staples

Today's challenge over at 365 Cards is to use at least two staples on your card, so here's what I did with exactly two staples!

My husband thought it would be a good idea to do some staple art and make a picture out of a whole load of staples.  He's obviously a lot more confident in my artistic abilities than I am!

The background paper has a layer of tissue paper over the middle part to allow the sentiment to stand out a little more clearly.  The birthday letters are from a Stampin' Up jumbo wheel, which I stamped and then cut out.  The staples are holding down some paper twine (I am rubbish at glueing that stuff down - it has a life of it's own!).  I put the staples through the background paper and the dark brown card base layer before I glued these layers to the card so that the sharp ends wouldn't be seen from the inside of the card

Chevrons and flowers

I've had fun trying out lots of new ideas for this card.  I saw a fab new technique recently of cutting out a design from the front of a card and then putting another layer behind it (thanks Deepti!), this is my take on it - I drew out the scalloped square and the Zoe, then really carefully cut out all the bits with some super sharp pointy scissors.  I water coloured the frame then stamped lots of flowers all around.  The background is held on with some double sided foam pads to add some depth.  I punched holes inside the scallops and threaded some ribbon through to finish it all off.
I'm entering this into
Ribbon Reel #59 Chevrons and Flowers

Kaboodle Doodles #183 Anything with Scallops
Ribbon Girl August Card Challenge : Birthday Card

Background Splatter Birthday

I'm so excited to be on the design team with 365 Cards I'm on a bit of a card making roll!

This card is based on Sketch Frenzy Friday's sketch -

And uses the colours from Colour Q

And Make It Monday's random background stamping technique (which I had great fun with!)