Whimsy Wednesday ~ Portree

A warm hello to all my lovely crafty pals out there in the blogosphere. It is time for another Whimsy Wednesday post from me and I feel like I have a really special one to share with you tonight. Mostly because it stirs such vivid memories for me of a really lovely trip I did with my hubby and sister-in-law years ago. I have created this card with an enchanting image by Whimsy Stamps artist Jennifer Dove. Her designs are so lifelike and detailed that on first glance I was a little daunted that I didn't have the colouring skills needed to bring this to life. But I'm so glad I tried, as I'm beyond delighted with the outcome!

I loved this image the moment I saw it. It transported me instantly back to Scotland and the beautiful Isle of Skye. Hubby and I did a road trip with his baby sister a year or so after we arrived in the UK (early 2000's) and happened upon this enchanting little fishing village called Portree. We spent a wonderful night there. I don't recall the name of the gorgeous pub we stayed in, but it was right near the water and we had an enchanting view of the shipping boats in the harbour. So the scene I saw in this gorgeous image, was like someone had taken a snapshot of my memories of that lovely harbour and drawn them. I just knew I had to try colouring this image and I'm so glad I did.

Click on the image above for the original image source and details of this lovely corner of the world through the World Atlas site. The image is of Loch Portree Harbour, with the shipping boats home to rest. It is a similar scene I hold in my memories from our time in Portree and you can see why I was so reminded of this lovely fishing village when I saw that DoveArt design. This beautiful DoveArt image is called simply Boat Harbor.

You may or may not have noticed the little '21' that I painted onto the hull of the stern on the boat in the foreground. There is indeed a reason for this. My eldest nephew has just had his 21st birthday and I decided that this image, with all the memories of travel that it invoked for me, would be a perfect 21st birthday card for my nephew. So that's the reason for the '21' on that boat. Key to the world and all that!

I coloured this gorgeous image with my Copic Markers and it was such a fun experimentation to see which marker to use for the sea and mountain range. I'm so happy with how both of those aspects turned out. I added deeper shadows in the water around the boats and love how that came together. Things most of you seasoned colourists would do naturally I'm sure, but I really worked hard on this one and I am just so pleased with the finished piece. I had wanted to use a gorgeous Whimsy Stamps sentiment set (which you see under my image above) but the text was slightly too big for the space I had in the end. A mistake with my first diecutting of the top edge meant I needed to trim the top edge down slightly. So I chose a smaller but lyrically perfect sentiment which I had sitting on my desktop. I lined up the edge of the sentiment and tried to diecut the stitched edge to match up perfectly with the image. Nailed it! Hehe.

I've used some lovely Whimsy Stamps digital papers in this design. Simple stripes in colours that toned with the mountains and sea in the picture. I just love it and it lends such a masculine feel to this creation I think. The card base is a lovely Black cardstock with a shimmer of copper in the light. An elegant finish to this otherwise very CAS card. But when you've an image as detailed and lovely as this, I feel there's very little need for much else. Hopefully my nephew will love this in celebration of his 21st birthday. 

I have to confess I've been 'in my bliss' with the last couple of Whimsy Stamps releases. There are just SO many gorgeous new releases and both the digital release which is linked above on the banner and the main release have had me totting up my spending money! We are very blessed to have images to play with as the Digital Design Divas, but I want ALL the stuff! The dies, the masks, the rubber stamps! So I can see I'll be totally broke whilst I'm designing for Whimsy, but oh so happy! I hope you're enjoying my Whimsy Wednesday showcases and I'll be back again next week with another Whimsy Wednesday Inspiration post, but in the meantime, do check out the wonderful June new releases and do head over to the Whimsy Stamps Facebook page to see all the gorgeous inspiration post that are in constant stream from the amazing DT that I'm so privileged to design with. Hugs to you all and happy crafting!

Challenge Entries:

Little Red Wagon: #451 ~ Travel

Crafty Catz: #421 ~ Anything Goes

Unicorn Challenge: #33 ~ Masculine

Crafty Gals Corner: #168 ~ Anything Goes

Simon Says Monday Challenge: Transport It

Fashionable Stamping Challenge: #136 ~ Seaside

Addicted To Stamps & More: #297 ~ Make Your Mark

Use Your Stash: #317 ~ Inspired by A Song = All The Little Lights - Passenger

Sweet Stampin' ~ Weddings

Hey there lovely crafty pals. I'm back tonight with a DT post for Sweet Stampin'. We have a lovely theme this week, which is 'Weddings'. I am sharing the card I created for one of my cousin's weddings. Not a lot of stamping on this one, as I went for a lot of intricate cutwork in the design. I'd love to say this was from a gorgeous die that I bought, but actually, I was far more frugal than that. I kept this beautiful wrap from a pretty product box, knowing it would come in handy one day and I think it was perfect for my cousin's wedding card. I'd been looking for the right card to use it on for ages!

I inked the edges and added the wrap over some pretty vintage rose paper that I had in my stash. The central panel was cut out, where the product label had been, so I layered up some sizzix label diecuts, first in the vintage rose paper, then in a lovely pearlescent cardstock, which I then stamped the Magnolia Stamps sentiment onto, in a soft pale ink tone. I wanted it to have a soft finish, so chose a Memento Ink colour called Desert Sand.

I wrapped a dusky pink satin ribbon around the wrap, tied a simple bow and then added a sweet little resin bloom in the middle of the ribbon. It's such a simple design really, but with that beautiful cutwork wrap, it really looks something special I think. 

The rest of the design team have been hard at work with their creations and they're just fabulous! So do stop in and check out their gorgeous designs, you're sure to leave inspired! I'd love to see what you're inspired to do when you're creating for weddings. 

So I hope you'll come join the fun with us. Remember to do some stamping as we are a 'stamping' challenge. Mine was minimal this week, just the sentiment, but it counts, as it's definitely stamping. I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure, until then, have a wonderful weekend and happy crafting. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Crafty Catz: #421 ~ Anything Goes
QKR Stampede: #300 ~ Anything Goes
Dragonfly Journey: #120 ~ Rose Garden
Crafty Creations: #368 ~ Anything Goes

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Frame It
Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #84 ~ Anything Goes
Creatalicious: #141 ~ Anything Goes + Optional Flowers

Whimsy Stamps Inspiration ~ Shelley

Hey there lovelies. I'm with you a little later this week, than my usual Whimsy Wednesday posts, as this card is going live today for my Whimsy Stamps Inspiration post over on the Whimsy Stamps blog. I am SO excited to share it with you. I made this dreamy creation to celebrate my baby sister's 40th birthday and I'm so happy with how it came together. Don't you just love this enchanting lil' mermaid?! Inspired by the blue green of the paper, I coloured up this beautiful Sylvia Zet image called Shelley using my blue-green copic colours to tone with this gorgeous paper. Detes on the colours further down the post.

I have used a beautiful digital paper for my creation which is from the June Digital new releases. These papers are SO beautiful! I didn't want to cover it really, but it did make the dreamiest, loveliest background for this sweet scene. The paper set is called Floral Beauty and I love every page in this set!

I coloured a cream doily with a dark blue-green copic to mat the image. I diecut the image with a stitched circle die and then diecut a whole bunch of seaweed like florals from white cardstock. I then coloured them all different shades of the blue-green copics I was working with. I also diecut some seashells, a seastar and little seahorse from white cardstock. I coloured the seahorse and seastar with the lightest blue-green copic I was using and then glittered those and the scallops. I used Wink of Stella on the little swirly shells. I used a darker teal glitter on one seastar behind the seahorse, wish I'd left him white though, as it disappears a bit much into the paper. Up close it's lovely though.

Above are the Copic colours and a few promarkers I used to colour Shelley and her sweet wee pal for those interested in the specifics. I used a couple of browns on the shell too, but forgot to include those for some reason. Can't recall now which ones, sorry.

I diecut and glittered a lovely 'birthday' word die from Whimsy Stamps adding it straight to the cardstock with Olba glue. Love this stuff, instant hold. You can see in these pics that my printer is still misbehaving, but I kinda like the additional distressed/grunge element, so I'm rolling with it, hehe. It's such a fabulous shabby chic paper design, that I think I get away with it. 

I used my 'LOVE' word die again from the Whimsy Stamps 'Hearts of Love' card builder set. I really like all the different elements of this die set and have used it a number of times now. Other makes including this die set are here, here and here. I used different elements each time and I know I'm going to continue to get lots of use out of this gorgeous die set. Grab it while you can as it's down to under half price in the Retiring Clearance section of the shop.

Thanks for the lovely comments about my Make a Splash Duck creation using this colour combo, for those who wanted the details, these are the colours I used on the sea in that previous creation. I used the same colours on this card too, so here they are for your easy reference. I think they make a really pretty sea colour. I hope you'll enjoy trying that combo out too on your seas.

A new challenge kicks off tomorrow at Whimsy Stamps, so come and join in the fun with us. All you need to do is use a Whimsy Stamps image. There's a fantastic Whimsy Stamps prize up for grabs every month, so be in to win! I look forward to seeing what you're inspired to create. If you need a little inspiration, head over to our Inspiration Blog or to our Facebook page. There's a constant stream of wonderful inspiration from all the madly talented Whimsy Stamps DT. Thanks for stopping in today, I'll be back again next week with my next Whimsy Wednesday Inspiration post. Hugs xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Cardz 4 Galz: #73 ~ Pretty & Pearly

Cute Card Thursday: #534 ~ Sun, Sea or Sand

Colour Crazy Challenge: #23 ~ Anything Goes

Fashionable Stamping Challenges: #136 ~ Seaside

Moving Along With The Times: Girl's Birthday (my baby sister's 40th!)

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Frame It (Framed by doily and seaweed)

SugarPea Challenge: #44 ~ Mix It Up (I've used the beautiful colours from the inspiration pic to create the palette for this card. 

As You Like It: Favourite Fold or Card Base Shape. I make a lot of square cards, that's my quick and easy 'go to', but when I want to make a 'special card', I reach for my 'Go Kreate' XXL dies. I have 3 favourite 'shapes'. My absolute favourite is the one your DT members Annette, Lynne and Sarah used, so to add something different into the mix, I thought I'd show you one of my other favourites from the Go Kreate brand. This is Frilly #9. My other fav's are Frilly #10 (the one the DT girls used) and Frilly #7.

Southern Girls ~ Anything Goes

Hi crafty pals, it's time for a new challenge at Southern Girls. Our awesome blog mamas have worked hard this year to score some stellar sponsors for our challenges and pretty much every challenge has two wonderful sponsors. This week, we are being sponsored by a New Zealand company called Paper Arts and also by the lovely Lacy Sunshine Stamps, so two awesome reasons to enter the challenge this week. Our theme is 'Anything Goes' so we're expecting lots of wonderful entries this week as that's always a popular theme. 

I chose a gorgeous wistful image to create with this week, called Harper's Moon. My daughter has started harp lessons this year, so when I saw this image of Heather's with the sweet harp, I really wanted to have a go colouring it up for Georgie. I tried to make the sky as inky and dark as possible, but think I have a gap too big in my copic blues, so will have to try again at a later date once I've filled that gap. 

I went for a very soft palette to colour the flowers and her dress, to allow the inky sky the depth and strength of colour without overly swamping the image with lots of other bright colours. Close up the flowers and dress are really pretty and very softly coloured. I think that worked out to be my favourite part of this colouring. 

I very much wanted to keep the card design very CAS as I wanted the image to be the feature, but I have to confess I'm not at all happy with how this turned out. I may yet pull it apart and try again, as the image is so lovely, but I feel the card design let's it down. I have no solution in mind right now and tried lots of different layouts and cardstock colours before settling on this. So I'll have to leave it sitting on my desk awhile and see if anything comes to me. I have a lot of 'half finished' designs laying around, LOL. We're always our own worst critic aren't we?! But I do occasionally rework designs when I'm not 100% happy with them. I'll show you if I do.

Do come and play along with us this week for our 'Anything Goes' challenge. It really doesn't get any easier than that! Stop by the challenge blog to check out what my awesomely talented teamies got up to this week too, they're a talented bunch and you're sure to be inspired by what you see. I'll be back again later tonight with my Whimsy Stamps Inspiration post. I usually post on a Wednesday, but each 14th of the month, you can find me over on the main Whimsy Stamps Inspiration blog with an extra inspiration post there, so I delayed the matching post on my blog by a day to sync up with that. So pop back in again soon to see that. Hugs and happy crafting until then, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Dragonfly Journeys: #120 ~ Rose Garden

Lemon Shortbread: #69 ~ Anything Goes

Stamping Sensations: June ~ Anything Goes

Colour Crazy Challenge: #23 ~ Anything Goes

4 Crafty Chicks: #407 ~ ATG + Birds & Blooms

Addicted to Stamps & More: #296 ~ Anything Goes

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Frame It (Framed by mats)

Cupcake Inspirations: #448 ~ Colour Challenge ~ Pink, Yellow, Green

Fab 'n' Funky ~ Bring Me Sunshine

Hey there lovely crafty pals. I'm here tonight to share our latest Fab 'n' Funky challenge with you. This week our lovely Chris is hosting the challenge and she always chooses such fun themes. This week she's chosen the theme 'Bring Me Sunshine'. Very simply, she'd like to see either an actual sunshine on your creations or some very sunny colours. We have a wonderful sponsor this week too. Bugaboo have sponsored Fab 'n' Funky many times and I always enjoy working with their sweet images.

I had great fun with this sweet image today, 'Scene It Ladybug' using my copics to fill in the scene completely. I just love those sweet ladybugs. Their lil' faces are so cute. I used shades of grey to colour their faces, so you could still see their cute expressions. I ended up with a migraine yesterday, so wasn't able to do my colouring as I'd planned in advance. So, after a trip to the airport this morning to farewell my nephew who is off to Paris and then London for a few days, the beginning of an exciting big OE. (OE or Overseas Experience, is what Kiwi's call their 'gap year'), I came home and coloured while my mummy kept me company and caught up on some Netflix episodes (we had gone to the airport together.)

I wanted to do a white embossed base, as I love the way this looks when there's a very heavily coloured scene, as it adds interest, but doesn't detract from the colouring. I had planned to do just the white embossing, however, the folder I used was too narrow, so I had to get creative to make the elements work with that image. 

I cut up the embossed card, into four square panels, mounted them on foam, and then added them over green gingham, for a bit of colour and interest in the background. I wrapped the green gingham with white organza ribbon first and then once all the layers were added, I finished that ribbon layer off with a big double organza bow in white. I felt it was a little plain without it. This side shot shows the extra dimension the foam adds, it's got lots of lovely depth and interest in the layers. A relatively CAS card design otherwise, to allow that more detailed image to have centre stage. 

The white clouds and the sun were layered with Wink of Stella for a little extra sparkle. Then added with foam to the card. Small extra touches to bring the scene and theme together.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog tonight and look forward to visiting yours in turn, so be sure to leave me a message so I know you've been. I love to be able to return the favour. 

I hope you'll come and join our fun challenge this week. A sunshine or sunny colours, such a great theme I think and I really enjoyed working with it, as it's bitterly cold here and been raining a lot today (hence the indoor pics) so it's nice to craft with sunshiny happy images! I'll be back again tomorrow with a new Whimsy Stamps creation and also with our latest Southern Girls challenge. So do pop back to check out those posts too. See you then and happy crafting! Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Lemon Shortbread: #69 ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Gals Corner: #167 ~ Summer Colours

Shopping Our Stash: #358 ~ Summer Colour Palette

The Paper Shelter: #343 ~ Ribbons, Buttons or Pearls

613 Avenue Create: #210 ~ Anything Goes + Ribbons/Bows

Cupcake Inspirations: #448 ~ Colour Challenge ~ Pink, Yellow, Green

Butterfly Challenge: #101 ~ Spin the Wheel with Letter M, Moss Green foliage, Mint Green gingham and Medium Blue sky.

Update: I made the Top 3 at Crafty Gals Corner. Thank you so much ladies, that's made my day! xoxo

Whimsy Wednesday ~ Fish In The Sun

Hey there lovelies. Time for another Whimsy Wednesday Inspiration post from me. I've chosen a super fun image to work with for this one from Whimsy Stamps artist Krista Heij-Barber. I do love her quirky fun images and this cutie, was perfect for celebrating one of our dear friends back in the Northern Hemisphere. They are of course going into Summer, so thought it was a fun and cheeky card to celebrate his birthday. Here down-under, there is a definite Autumn chill in the air!

This fish looks way too chilled with his funky sunnies and salt rimmed cocktail. I added glitter to the salt rim, so it would sparkle and catch the light. So fun! The cocktail is an important feature, as last year, I sent this pal the 'Tequila Mockingbird' book for his birthday. A fun literary twist on cocktails! 

I first added metallic silver to his sunnies, which looked fab, but I decided to experiment and added glossy accents over top. It dulled the shine, rather than added to it so next time, I'd leave it just at the silver. Lesson learnt.

I used my Copic Markers to colour this sassy chap and love the way the sand came out in this beach scene. When I first coloured up this cutie, I actually had coloured the sky and added sunrays freehand, but thought it looked pants, so I fussy cut the cute fella and added him to the most fab Kaisercraft beach scene from their Sandy Toes paper. 

It drastically changed my card design, as I had hoped just to have the image floating on the acetate card front, but on deciding to use the Kaisercraft paper, I covered more of the card inner, so to create that 'floating' illusion, I mounted it high and fussycut some of the background paper away, so it was evident it was on an acetate page and still gave that 'floating image' effect. With the perfectly placed 'Hello Summer' on the paper, I didn't need an additional sentiment.

This guy is so laid back, he's almost horizontal! Hehe, so for a bit of dimension, I've popped him up on foam.

I added a message strip to the inside of the card, hidden behind the beach scene paper, which when viewed front on, isn't visible. That lovely red Whimsy Stamps digital paper was a brilliant backdrop for this creation, emphasizing the 'red' fish. I added a backing of red cardstock to cover where I'd glued the acetate to the red paper and I think it finishes the card very nicely. The cardstock has a lovely shimmery sheen to it.

Thanks for popping in today I hope you enjoyed this Whimsy Wednesday creation. I'll be back again next week with more Whimsy fun. In the meantime, head on over to the Whimsy Stamps Facebook page to check out all the gorgeous Whimsy magic going on over there. See you again really soon and happy crafting xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Unicorn Challenge: #33 ~ Masculine

Crafty Creations: #367 ~ Anything Goes

Lemon Shortbread: #69 ~ Anything Goes

Crafting By Designs: June ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Cardmakers: #213 ~ For A Man/Boy

Crafty Gals Corner: #167 ~ Summer Colours

Simon Says Monday Challenge: All Things Bright & Beautiful