Nothing but black

This weeks challenge on Art Impressions was "anything goes". Kerry had made some stunningly colourful Pop Art cards for inspiration - I think I will need to try those one day too. But this time my inspiration came from my husband's work with black and white photography . I wanted to try "nothing but black" with watercolouring.

My first draft was coloured with Distress Ink & Markers Pumice stone, Black sooth and Hickory smoke. It was ok, but it wasn't what I was looking for, so I decided to try the challenging one colour only approach. It was slightly odd to think about colouring skin with black but I think the result works. I used only Distress Marker Black sooth  in this image. The first layers I made with a brush and lots of water, slowly adding shades and shapes with less water - until the last touches which I made directly with the marker.

The card I made with black cardstock, and used some pearl white paper which I embossed with Xcut embossing folder. The ribbon is cut from KaiserCraft's paper which I coloured with the same Black soot Distress Ink.

The stamp I used is Art Impressions Uptown Girls 

Make sure you also check out Kerry's Pop Art cards and the other works on the challenge!

Missing you

It's the clean and simple - challenge at the Paper Players with beach theme this week. For 6 days, my mind has played a bit too simple, just a blank white paper in front of me and the idea of my last summer days card that I posted a couple of weeks ago. Until today, half way cleaning my car, I got the inspiration. Wonder why..

Here's what I made, and don't take it wrong, it might be simple, but it wasn't easy to make. There's a good few discarded 13x13 cm water colourings at the rubbish bin - one of them actually the favourite of my husband.

I coloured the ocean with Salty Sea and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks, sprinkled some colour from the brush to add some life and added the die with Joy! Craft's Seashore die. I wrote the text with Distress Marker Broken China. 

Autumn falls

Well, it is really the last beautiful summer weeks in Finland, but my thoughts have been in autumn colours for a while already. The Art Impressions "Create a card set" challenge was perfect for what I had had in mind. So, the complete set of four cards; autumn is my favourite colour.

The cards are A6 in size, and the backgrounds are made with Reminisce's Autumn themed scrapbooking papers. All the stamps used are from Art Impressions Girlfriends series, and they were coloured with Distress Inks, main colours were rusty hinges, peeled paint, fossilized amber, gathered twigs and wild honey. In addition to those, I used heaps of other colours for hair, skin and shadows.

I simply love these Girlfriends stamps, they are such happy mood stamps. Below the cards individually.

This card's stamp is Under my umbrella 

This card's stamp is In the tub

This card was stamped with Uptown girls 

This card was stamped with Girlfriend blend

Take also a look at the other awesome cards which participated on this Art Impression challenge! 

Inside the box

I've been playing around with Distress Ink backgrounds, trying different techniques and getting rather colourful too. When I saw the Paper Players Challenge for the week, It's Hip to Be Square, I instantly thought of this picture, and I spent the morning making the card. So, my last summer days card became my first ever card to be entered to a challenge.

Background Distress Inks
Stamp: Impression Obsessions Puddle Jump
Tag: Kaiser Craft Collectables
Paua shells from New Zealand

It's Hip to be Square: Paper Players Challenge #256

One for the rainy day

This summer has been incredibly rainy in Finland. The constant rain gave me inspiration for this joyful summer card. The text says "let it rain!"

Stamp: Art Impression Dive in!

Coloured with Distress Inks and Distress Markers