Fusion - Happy Birthday to You

It's been a while since I played with Fusion, but I couldn't resist this week's colourful inspiration photo, especially since my new Distress Oxide Inks are now in the house!

I started with a white panel and masked uneven strips and blended Distress Oxide inks, making sure to overlap, to represent the 'not-quite-straight' signs. I spritzed the panel with water. I die cut and inlaid the sentiment and then popped the panel up on a card base stamped with tone-on-tone stripes.

I used:
-SugarPea Designs Striped Background

My Favorite Things Die-namics, Happy Birthday to You

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Peacock Feathers

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Picked Raspberry

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Salty Ocean

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Twisted Citron

Ranger Distress Oxide Ink Pad, Abandoned Coral

Neenah Cardstock, Neenah Heavyweight, Classic Crest Solar White 110 lb, 25 pk

Ranger Ink Blending Tool, 1 Inch Round

3M Post-It Adhesive Roll, White, 1x400 in

Scotch Double-Sided Foam Mounting Tape

Sizzix Big Shot White & Gray

Ranger Distress Sprayer By Tim Holtz

3 Umbrella-inspired Fusion - Happy Mother's Day

Do you feel like you landed at Donna's blog by mistake? Good! I was so inspired by one of her cards this morning that I couldn't wait to case it!

I didn't have the same floral set (no one but the MFT DT has it yet - it's part of the May release!) but I hoped that I could achieve a similar watercoloured look. Turns out that since my set is made to look watercoloured that I didn't need to spray anything.

I combined my Donna-inspiration with this pretty photo at the current Fusion challenge:

And in the end, I'm loving this fresh, cheery Mother's Day card!

I used:
-Impression Obsession Watercolour Wildflowers
-Wplus9 You Equal Kind (little black dots)
-Hero Arts(?) Sentiment (can't find it anywhere!)

ETA:

Fusion - Beautiful Day

I was excited to see this week's Fusion challenge - I love rainbows and I love the spring feeling from the inspiration photo. And it's starting to feel like spring around here (I have to say that quietly, in case I bring on a snowstorm!).

I usually prefer inspiration challenges to sketch challenges and really wasn't planning on combining the two for my card. But once I finished my flower, I could see how the sketch would really work. As for the idea of the rainbow petal - I was inspired by Altenew's Wild Hibiscus set. I love the sketchy feel and the 'extra' lines on the images. But it's out of stock in most of my usual places so I decided to make my own!

I used:
-Essentials by Ellen Bohemian Garden (and matching die)
-Essentials by Ellen Mondo Magnolia
-MFT Blue Prints #25

ETA: April 29:

  

Fusion - Thinking of You

A lady at our church was in a serious car accident earlier this week. She is 'ok' but has a long recovery ahead. I made this card for her, using the inspiration from the current Fusion challenge:

I was inspired by the colours, layout and the flloral theme. I took the 'plunge' so to speak, into watercolouring and used both my Kuretake Zig Clean Colour Markers (for the flower) and Kuretake Gansai Tambi (for the background). The stamps and matching die are Ellen Hutson's Mondo Hydrangea.

ETA: Look what I got!! So excited (and thankful to Michelle W, who chose my card!)

Fusion Challenge - Happy Birthday, Kim!

This is my second post today - scroll down for my Featured Stamper post.

Today is a very, very special day! It's Kim's birthday! Kylie is hosting a 2-week link-up so that you can join in (those Aussies, really know how to party, don't they? lol!).

I decided to use the current Fusion challenge as my inspiration:

I absolutely adore these little birds! I would never have remembered that I had them but because I have all my stamp sets catalogued in Evernote, I just typed 'birds' into the search function and these guys came up - in a Christmas set of all places!

As you can see, an old favourite has made another appearance - the sentiment has been used many, many time!

Happy Birthday, my friend! Wishing you a very happy day and a wonderful year!

I used:
-Simon Says Stamp Jolly Snowman
-Papertrey Birthday Bash
-MFT Wonky Squares die

Fusion - Old School Roses

Yesterday I was cruising around blogland and I just loved Michele's card for the current Fusion challenge and was inspired to play along!

I'm using only the photo as inspiration and went really CAS with my old, old, old Stampin' Up Rose Rhapsody set (from 2000, long before I started stamping - I got it on ebay). I stamped and masked and that was it.

Fusion - Thank you!

It's been a while since I played along with Fusion. This week's inspiration really caught my attention. The colours are gorgeous!

I chose to only use the inspiration photo. I used my new Mama Elephant Merci set and a Paper Smooches flower die. I love the scale and hand-lettered look of the sentiment! I coloured the daisies with Copics, to match the photo and then added little black enamel dots.

Fusion, CASology 120 (Sea), Happy Birthday Michele!

I'm a day late posting my birthday card for Michele, but trust me, it's worth the wait. I was lucky enough to be able to put this in her hand yesterday when I met Michele at Tracey's house!

I couldn't stay long due to other commitments, but what an amazing (short!) time we had!

Here's a selfie we took with my phone. Michele then used her proper camera to take much better photos of me with Michele and me with Tracey (no tripod, so no photo of all 3 of us!). Once she gets home, I'm sure she'll email them to me.

I was inspired by this photo from the current Fusion challenge

and also by the colours of the Sea (CASology - deadline is Monday!). I used a Penny Black flower die and a Clearly Besotted sentiment. I added the centre of the flower by cutting a circle in pale yellow, sponging it and then coating it in glossy accents.

Fusion - Poppy Thanks!

Click to link up to Darnell's Birthday Party before July 16.

This is my card for the current Fusion Challenge.

I decided to combine the sketch and the photo and came up with this graphic thank you card.  I used Simon Says Stamps flower dies to create my poppy and a Paper Smooches thanks die.

We visited Struan briefly this afternoon. He's done 19 flights so far and is really enjoying himself. Today he'll be learning how to recover from a spin. Well I certainly hope so! And in the next day or so he'll be doing his first solo flight.

Interesting fact - in a field near the gliding club, they breed/keep bulls for bull fighting (I have no idea where any bull fighting is done in this province, but now I know where they get the bulls!). The kids have been told that if they end up landing in a field with a bull (this is definitely not the desired outcome!), stay in the glider until someone comes to get you. We don't want angry bulls running after the air cadets!

Fusion - Butterfly in Gold

This is my card for the current Fusion challenge. I used the inspiration photo only for this card:




I cut 7/8" strips of white and 1/8" strips of gold foil and laid them on a 4x4 panel. This way the surface is smooth. I then cut a gold foil butterfly using a Martha Stewart punch. Very simple, very elegant - perfect for a birthday or thank you.

Fusion/CTS79/NBUS1 Flower Birthday

It's been a while since I played along with Fusion. But the inspiration features one of my favourite summer colour combinations!

and I'm also linking up to this week's CAS(E) This Sketch Challenge:

and finally, because both stamps have never been used before, I'm linking up to Darnell's new NBUS (never been used schtuff) new challenge.

I finally inked up this flower stamp from Stampin' Up's Flower Shop set. The sentiment is from Darkroom Door, stamped in Granite.

Fusion 3 - (Another!) Rainbow Birthday

I haven't played along with Fusion since they restarted, but this week's sketch really caught my eye. The possibilities are literally endless!

I decided to focus only on the sketch. I  overlapped my Clear and Simple Stamps Alpha Duo stamps and then partially coloured and completely Stickle-fied them to create the 'birthday' and a Waltzingmouse sentiment for the 'happy'. And then I planned to put it onto a (you got it!) black mat and a white card. But today, I'm wild, I'm unpredictable! I created a rainbow mat by simply using copics in small blocks around the edge. It is a separate layer, because that way you don't have to worry about perfection in your colouring - the edge of the top layer cleans everything up nicely!

I'm also linking up to Less Is More's rainbow challenge. Take a look at this inspiration photo - it's AWESOME!

Fusion1, CFC97

This card is for the newest challenge on the block - Fusion. There are two inspirations - a sketch and a photo - you can choose one or the other or both! How fun is that? The whole thing is set up like a science experiment, with a hypothesis (the challenge), data (the entries) and and findings (winners).

Fusion's Findings are like Muse in that the participants (and viewers) are the ones who vote on the winners at the end of the week. Jackie Rockwell is the genius behind this concept and I think she's really outdone herself this time (although I'm pretty partial to Muse as well! lol!) (ETA - Jackie has kindly reminded me that Lesley was co-creator of this challenge - way to go ladies - the response already is amazing!)

This week, I chose FUSION - to be inspired by both challenges. I made my chevron out of the flowers (and will link it up to CASual Friday's challenge to use chevrons and flowers). If I can find time this week, I'd like to come back and try the two separate challenges - I think it would be fun to separate them out and see what I can come up with! I hope you'll play along!