Flowers in Winter

Hello, Stamplings!

Welcome to the crest of the week! Now all you have to do is ride it on into the weekend!

I'm very happy to say that my first cataract surgery went off without a hitch yesterday! I wrote most of this post earlier in case my eye was blurry, which it still is, but all is well. Thank you all so much for your well wishes!

Up first today is a simple one-layer card:

I don't buy many wooden stamps any more, but when I was at Mike's recently, the stamp I used for this card jumped out at me from the display. I do love an image where the artist does 90% of the work by carving natural shading into the artwork. All I had to do was color the rubber directly with my Ziggies markers, give it a spritz, and stamp it on watercolor paper! Scrumplicious!

The NBUS stamp is from Inkadinkado. It's liberally winked, which you can see better below. The sentiment is from Penny Black's "Sweet Wishes."

Challenges

• CAS Watercolour January Challenge: Birthday.
• HLS January Watercolour Challenge: AG with option of sequins.

Evolution

Sometimes I'm not sure how far I want to go with a design, even with a clean-and-simple-one-layer card like the above. I'm sure you've had that feeling, right? I've always set up my card across the room when I think it might be done. It helps me get the "big picture" better than having it under my nose. Then last year it occurred to Hammy that I could use my point-and-shoot camera to help me better "evolve" my card design because when it is up on the computer screen, I can see it the way you will see it.

In other words, I can take a photo of my card at the very CASest stage, see it up on the big monitor and stop ... or add a little sumpin' sumpin', take another photo, ... etc., etc. It takes a bit more time, but it is very freeing to indulge in experimenting with design this way and it helps me know when I've arrived at that "AHA" moment when I'm happy with my card! (And even if I go too far, I still have a perfectly fine card for donating or giving away.)

So, for instance, Stage One:

Above is how my card today started out. Very very CAS. Just the image colored, spritzed, and stamped, and the sediment stamped in black ink. Which I'm good with. I like very minimalist CAS, but if I cock my head, I start to wonder, hmmm ...?

Stage Two.

,

Above is the same card, but with the addition of winking and splattering and sequints. You will notice that the green colors of the bottle have spread a bit, which winking will do. It's okay (only I wish Hammy hadn't added quite so many splatters), but hmmm, something is still missing ... 

Stage Three.

AHA!! Above is the same card, but it needed some dementia, so I added a bit of a marker line to show the inside bottle bottom and I added a shadow. Wallah! NOW I'm done!

Here is a closeup of the winkle which refused to show in any of the other photos:

Twofer.

In a slew of flowers, I have a spotlight single flower to share:

This is SU's Corner Garden stamp. It's a delight to color, but coloring it can take a while, so if you don't have time, it lends itself nicely to spotlighting. I spotlit one blossom by stamping it on a Brusho background snippet and fussy-cutting it. QACAS!

Challenges

• CASology: Glimmer.
• The Flower Challenge: Spotlight stamping.
• HLS CAS Challenge: Friendship.
• Pixie's Snippets Playground: Use those snippets!

 

Reminder

Since this is such a short post 😇, I'll remind you that we are halfway through the first Twofer Card Challenge! The challenge ends January 24, 2018, at 10:00 AM (PST).

Thank you so much to everyone who has played! I couldn't be more thrilled by your enthusiastic response and the number of you who have already joined in! The gallery is just bursting with inspiration! My awesome Design Team and I can feel the love and support and it means the world to us. More importantly, it's obvious you are having fun and we love that! Mwah!

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Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy!  LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and a special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!  Please let me know you came by so I can be sure to return the favor!

*Life is too short!

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