January Swap

Five Swaps to start the new year of 2018 for my cardmaking Group.  There have been lots of problems with this Group .... no, I will rephrase that!  Yahoo has caused a large amount of problems on most of their Groups and many of them are moving over to Groups.io.  I am very fortunate in that both of my Groups are, or have, moved and now I also can move my posts around a bit.
My first Swap is the Noobie swap.  This is the first swap that new members can join and thereafter they can join in all of the swaps or just the chosen few swaps as I do.
Noobie
I printed this black and white image, cut to size and rounded the corners.
I used my watercolour paints to add a gentle touch of colour to the letters, then attached to a pale blue card with 3D foam pads and rounded the lower corners of the front.

What a superbly bright card to receive on a dull morning.

Thank you Olive.

ATC - Something New


I used some stencilled papers for the background and then punched two circles  - one from a wax rubbing paper. 
I printed out the text and then punched this circle, washing the background using some of my Neo Crayons.  After this was dry, I painted the capital letters using a purple Neo as my paint.
I attached the circles slightly of centre to mix in the orange and purple background. 

Definitely something new!!

Thank you Olive.

Technique - Acetate
I have had this piece of acetate in my stash for some months.  It's the front of a box, the contents have been used, and so I cut it to size to fit a cream card.  
I stamped the flowers and sentiment using the free gift from the last issue of Quick Cards.  I placed all the stamps on a large block before inking so that I could be certain they would be where I wanted them.  I measured the level of the acetate to the card and then stamped the flowers round these measurements.  I purchased some Dovecraft metallic pens last week so I used a fine brush to pick up the ink from a block to colour the flowers.  Now I added the acetate band .... very carefully!  I am really, really pleased with how this card has gone from an idea in my head to reality...... think there might be hope for me yet!!

I have received this very pretty card by return post.  The Peeloffs  and the stamped flowers round the border have all been coloured with the same shades of paint.

Love it, thank you JackieP.

Colour - White



This is the first time I have used an embossing folder for the front of a card.  I am very pleased with the result!  On the close up you can see the depth of the embossing and the details.  I added the precut sentiment as I felt the card did not need any more detail.

Beautiful Embossing and a few flowers with pearls.

Thank you ChrisN.

 Sketch

Once again I found it very difficult to use the sketch for this card.  I sorted out the papers (Make Special Cards Issue 7) I wanted to use.  I put them in the order according to the sketch and then cut to size, not once or twice you understand!  Once i had put them all in order on top of the card, I realised that I needed a white background for the top oblong to match the background of the butterfly topper.
Cut paper!!!
I attached all the papers and the ribbons to the card and then added three blue stones to the lower right corner of the card.

Unfortunately, this month's swap has not arrived ....