Sweet Stampin' ~ No DSP

Hey there my lovely blog pals, my laptop is misbehaving today, I've had to copy and paste the 'e' into every spot you read it here on my blog today, as 3 keys on my laptop have suddenly stopped working!! (So forgive me if I miss a couple.) It's Saturday, so it's time for a new challenge at Sweet Stampin' and our theme this week is 'No Designer Series Paper'. We are sponsored by the lovely folks at Freckled Fawn this challenge, so our winner is in for a lovely treat!

I made a thank you card for 'new' friends who had us over for dinner on the weekend. Man oh man, I have never had such good Brisket, ever! It was a fab night, the food was delicious, I got to try out a new recipe, (would you believe I'd never before made a potato salad?!) the wine flowed, the conversation flowed and we all had a fabulous night. So a thank you card was most definitely in order. Our friends own an art gallery, so I thought it was fitting to do a little 'arty' piece myself for their thank you card. I love how it turned out and kept the card style very CAS to allow the ink work and stamping to feature.

The sentiment I've used is from an Inkylicious set called Journey. I made a second card on the same day with an Inkylicious Thank You sentiment, which I had originally thought I'd give these friends, but when I finished this card, it was far more 'arty' looking, which I thought would appeal to them more. 

I used a couple of different ink pads to create the colours for this background. The main background was created with Distress Inks in Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers and Squeezed Lemonade. I then added a grass line using Bundled Sage. I added some water splashes to create texture. Then I used a Tsukineko Kaleidacolor inkpad in Creole Spice to ink the grasses. I used the first two colours on the pad only, turning the stamp to ink it. So the colours shifted between the warm gold and copper colour, giving a nice variation in the grasses. I let the little dragonfly reach onto the green portion of the ink pad to set him apart a bit. Then randomly stamped the little dandelion clocks in darkening shades above the grasses. The sweet little dandelion grasses stamp was from a Practical Publishing magazine cover gift, which had a fairy template and a mix of fairy and foliage stamps. I can't recall which magazine it was, so if anyone knows, please do tell me! The taller grasses on the side are a Joy crafts stamp called Silhouette Grasses.

Thanks for popping in today. Do head over to the Sweet Stampin' challenge to see what my talented teamies have been up to. We've had two Sweet Stampin' birthdays this past week, so if you're stopping into their blogs, be sure to wish Cass and Abi a happy birthday! See you again really soon with my next crafty adventure. Big hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Fantasy Stampers: #70 ~ Sunshine Colours
613 Avenue Create: #188 ~ Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday: #440 ~ Words/Numbers

4 Crafty Chicks: #313 ~ Let's Get Sentimental

Moving Along With The Times: Clean & Simple

Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #40 ~ Anything Goes
Squirrel's Not-So Random Challenge: #1 ~ Anything Goes