A surprise for Autumn

Autumn had signed up for the Mini Memory swap on DCI, but dropped out as her life was a bit hectic. I had gone gung-ho on this swap and had all mine made early on. Since I had made one for Autumn prior to her dropping out I decided to send it to her as a surprise.

She had chosen women's faces and blues/greens and patinas for her theme and colours.

I started by painting a coaster with various blues and greens and copper. I added some embossing powders and stamped into it while hot with a flourish stamp. I took a chipboard flourish and embossed it with  copper and green glitter embossing powder and added some gems.

I stamped the "Woman with a Pearl Earring" from Chapel Road  (one of my favourite stamps) and coloured it with Lyra pencils; attached it with double-sided foam tape.

I took a label holder die-cut and embossed it with distress embossing powder, rubbed some off and added various Patina Perfect Pearls over the top. Stamped a portion of a background stamp on a piece of cardstock coloured with fluid chalk inks and placed it underneath the label holder and attached it to the coaster.

I hope Autumn will enjoy my little piece of art and it will be a nice surprise.

Celebrate Spring

There is another swap "Celebrate Spring" for which I have been playing with an idea.
I drew out a bird from a template I found on the Internet. I did direct-to-paper with Colorbox pigment inks and added some Smooch ink around the edges.

I stamped some images and coloured them with Prismacolor and Lyra pencils. I added some stickers that my friend Cathee sent me in a recent swap. I cut the end of the tail and the wings with some scalloped scissors. I added the "spring" quotes (Hero Arts) and the little butterfly on the tail. The eye is a flower from a cheap dollar store bracelet.
I was not completely happy with this piece so I made another one and am much more satisfied with the result.

The second one was done by applying scrapbook paper to both sides of my template, then doing direct-to-paper over it with Fluid Chalk inks.

On the Blue & Yellow side I stamped a Magenta Flourish stamp with Vivid green. I took a butterfly shaped Grungeboard piece, covered it in Glitter Ritz and embossed it in the Cuttlebug. The word Fly is also Grungeboard, coloured with Mustard Seed & Peeled Paint distress inks and Yellow pigment ink. The bird and tulip are stickers and the eye is a piece of confetti and a gem.

The orange/red/coral side was stamped with a Magenta border flourish stamp with Versafine Satin Red. The flower is a sticker and I added a scroll die cut and the rivet eye. The brad was added to cover the end of the "wings" on this side.

The wings are Cuttlebug leaf die-cuts, which I coloured again with the Fluid chalks on both sides and added the Hero Arts "spring" words with the same inks that I used for the body.