Rising to the challenge?

Having a few hours off and nothing on my craft to do list (well loads really but nothing urgent), I decided to play along with a few challenges. I save sketches and card challenges to my computer but almost never, ever use them - let alone manage to be able to submit within a time limit :)

The first one to share is Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge which has a photo to draw features from.

 Here is my card...

 Some more hand drawn watercoloured lines. I decided that hand drawn chevrons was beyond my skill set :) I added pennants in the featured colourways but also an old sizzlet heart die, some silver and red large sequins and a hand written sentiment. The papers used are mostly very old Kaisercraft.

I managed to complete two of Nat's card challenges for the month (the other one scares me a bit - don't know why!) but as it is only 2nd Feb I still have time to give that one a go too.
Firstly a colour inspiration

Mmmmmmm meringues

I have these wonderful WPlus9 Spring Blooms stamps that I have seen so many amazing cards created with. I still haven't quite got the measure of them. Sigh. Anyway I stamped with pale distress ink onto watercolour paper and stamped the flowers, colouring them with watercolour paints. The little blue flowers, leaves and stems are all hand painted. Everything was outlined with gold pen and sprinkled with Heidi Swap mist - as was the base Crate Paper layer. I added a gold outline to all the papers and some extra stripes to one of the papers. The gold is where I departed from the inspiration piece. The flowers were all given a Wink of Stella glitter covering

The sentiment was stamped with Delicata gold ink and cut with a fishtail die. Finally a big pink Docrafts button was added with some gold thread. It actually tones better with the card in real life than in the photo.

Then came a card sketch...

which I kept to quite slavishly. I either follow a sketch completely or you can't tell I used it at all...

The papers are from the Park Bench paper pad by Fancy Pants. I used a brand new Avery Elle dotted borders die and an almost as new Lawn Fawn stitched circle  combined with an old school retro daisy flower punch. I punched the flower three times and stuck them together and then after shaping the petals smothered it in glossy accents. A Clearly Besotted sentiment was embossed with Liquid Platinum embossing powder.

And finally (because if I put this in a different post I would probably not get round to the post so its better to put all of my eggs in this basket)
a scrap book sketch from Studio Challenges

Again, pretty well followed to the letter - even down to the yellow border. The striped paper had to be moved over slightly to hide a dirty mark on the white cardstock otherwise there would have been even more matchiness

There is a mix of papers here - some are Studio Calico, but there is also some WRMemory Keepers (Kaleidescope and Natural) and Simple Stories DIY Boutique (the background yellow). I was going to use a circle frame I have had for ages to draw around - and the circle was going to be yellow. But then I decided that I might as well use the circle in the layout and add some more of the colours from the photo. So first I traced and cut anyway for the green backing paper and then gessoed and watercoloured the chipboard circle a soft blue. When that was dry everything was given the black pen outlining treatment. The chipboard stickers are American Crafts, the stars are from Chickaniddy Crafts, brad and some of the stickers Simple Stories and the black/white one is Theresa Collins. The leaf is a Prima canvas one, inked with Mowed Lawn Distress ink.

Because of using the chipboard circle, the page has ended up with oodles of dimension.

and using the sketch means it came together really quickly.

Right, off for a lie down after that burst of creativity....