single layer card.

I need cute card for next week.  As it's a certain young ladies birthday. So I created this card using some stamps from Lavinia stamps and a couple of stamps I bought at the Stamperama craft show last week. On this card I have stamped Lori the rabbit outside the scene looking in.

The birds are literally  part of the " in the Harbour " stamp, by stamp addicts. If you look at the boat cards in the post below you'll see the birds are on this stamp.  I cut the birds off the stamp so I could use them on their own.
 

On this version I added a row of trees and swapped the wild flowers for toadstools and used a different fence.  I missed out the birds and added a the sun going down behind the hills. I swapped Lori out for Pippin.

On this version I changed the position of the sun and the toadstools.

I also missed out the row of trees and changed the colour of the sky.

The hedgerow beneath the trees in this photo was created using just the tip of the rounded tree used  in second photo. I masked off the area under the tree with scrap paper and stamped just the top of the tree multiple times over the edge of the masking paper.

In the harbour.

Last Sunday I went to the Stamperama craft show in Newbury.  There were only three stalls I really wanted to visit and one of them was the Stamp Addicts stand. I visited their website the night before and made a short list of stamps I would like to buy. Unfortunately they only had two of the stamps that were on my list. This stamp one is called "in the harbour"  and it's by Stamp addicts.

I also went looking for images of cards made using this stamp on the internet, I only found two samples, both of which were on display at the craft show and neither were my style. So I 've had to do my own thing with this stamp.

 I decided I wanted a moody sky on this first card, so I blended some yellow and grey ink into the sky area and also on the shore.

 I used Copic markers to colour the boats and the wall. 

For the rest of my samples I chose to do blue skies using torn paper and  blended blue ink to create the wispy clouds.

I used warm grey ink pads for the shore with subtle touches of green here and there , Which don't show up in this photo.  Again using Copic markers to colour the boats and wall.

 On this last card, I added some tree tops. This was because I somehow managed to get an inky mark in the sky so to cover the mark I stamped some trees. Hubby pointed out the trees were not straight, my reply....it's a windy day.

Gatefold card

We all need a bit of inspiration from time to time and need to hop on to Youtube to find something that  inspires us and kick starts the mojo. Which is exactly what I did before creating this card.

I came across a video by Jo Rice on making this gatefold card. I thought it was very pretty, and  a bit out of my comfort zone, but  I wanted to have a go  at making this card anyway. Especially as I had received the fir tree stamps for Christmas and hadn't yet used them. It was the perfect excuse to get them out and start stamping.   

Once I had made the card, I remembered why I am not a great fan of gatefold cards. I think we waste our time decorating the front panels of this type of card.  The only time you see the front panels are when it's closed, but it won't stand when it's closed, so the side panels are folded out, hiding the artwork, and revealing a fairly plain, uninteresting central panel that's often totally unrelated to the outside artwork. which has also been written on by the sender. Not something I personally would want to put on display. I want to see the beautiful artwork.

I think that's why I was drawn to this card, I loved that Jo decorated the central panel to match her front panels. The sender wouldn't want to write on a beautifully decorated panel and would automatically write their greeting on the back or one of the inner side panels.

As I sit here writing this  I am wondering what it would be like if  I made the two front panels again (excluding the moon) and stick them to the inside panels to create a panoramic scene and maybe just put one scene and a sentiment on the outside...  I think I may try that.