Saturday ... it's the WEEKEND!

Morning readers,

How is the weather with you all? It's been properly wintry here, cold, wet and sooooo blustery too. We've lost a fence panel but, other than that we SEEM to have been relatively lucky. Our trees have not been quite so lucky and they're all NAKED now!!! Ooo-er missus!

Right, on to the ongoing tale of the graduation cards .....I was reaching my wits end with regard to my commission for three graduation cards. I had made two using the exact same image and was struggling to come up with a third idea that was sufficiently different. I made two abortive attempts at a third card and they both went in the bin! Then, like a bolt of lightning I FINALLY remembered that I own the Crazy Things  accessory set which included both a fun mortar board and a diploma AND the Crazy birds set they were designed for - I set to work and this is what emerged from my Table of Craftiness .... and, frankly, I am loving it! I hope you do too, IMHO it was worth the two I wasted!. I'd forgotten how much I loved those crazy birds and it was great to get to ink up the mortar board and diploma, both previously un-inked!

My third graduation card

And a closer view

  

The front, back and inside of my card along with the front and back of my envelope

Materials used:

• Cream A2/C6, 250gsm card and matching sized envelope
• Two pieces of Cream card, cut to size - for card front and insert
• One piece of dark brown card, cut to mat
• Snippets of card in white, cream, dark brown and DCWV metallic striped 
• Sizzix Framelits (Crazy Birds) used to die cut my outline from a snippet of white card
• Crazy Bird (CMS212) stamped using Memento tuxedo black
• Crazy Things mortar board and diploma (CMS237) stamped on to a snippet of white card using Memento tuxedo black ink .. and also on to a full cover post it, which I then used as a mask for stamping the inside, reverse and envelope
• Sparkle 'n Sprinkle "Celebrate" (from 00-777P7) and Stamplorations "your achievement"  (from their sentiment builder "Celebrate" set) stamped using Memento rich cocoa ink
• Plain rectangle nesting dies (WeRMemory Keepers) and faux stitched rectangle (MFT) used to cut the image panel, matting layer and sentiment panel
• Faber Castell polychromos pencils used to colour, blending with Sansodor
• Dimensional foam used to attach the sentiment panel and the diploma

I'll be entering the above make for the following challenges:-

1. Colour Crazy - challenge No. 38 - ANYTHING (hand coloured) GOES
2. Crafting With Friends - challenge No. 73 - ANYTHING GOES
3. Crafting With An Attitude - challenge No. 43 - ANYTHING GOES
4. QKR Stampede - challenge No. 314 - ANYTHING GOES
5. CardzTV - challenge No. 66 - ANYTHING GOES

HUZZAH! Commission completed .. want to see the first two and missed the original posts? Check them out here and here.

And now for a journal page .... my pals and I are still managing (for the most part) to complete a journal page per week using a one word prompt set by a different one of us each week. This week the word is "BRAVE"

My journal page

Materials used:

• One page of my Crawford and Black journal
• I brayered Fresco banana paint over the page and set it aside to dry
• Next I brayered Pebeo iridescent blue/violet paint over and set aside for a few minutes, to take the edge off the wetness but not to allow the paint to dry
• Dutchdoobadoo triangle stencil (470.715.120) placed over the drying paint and a baby wipe used to knock back colour through the stencil .... set aside to dry
• Dylusions stencil (DYS34216 - "checkered dots") through which I sponged Finnabair alchemy gilding was (brushed iron) for the border
• I used a combination of Kaisercraft (13th hour alpha) and Inkadinkado alphabets (99107) to stamp the words using Versafine ink but then, because it was on to paint I heat embossed using clear embossing powder
• I stamped the VLV image (from plate #9291) twice (once on to a full coverage post it which I then fussy cut out to use as a mask) on to a snippet of white card, using Memento tuxedo black ink before adding the mask and then stamping the HLS flower (Doodled Flowers) over the mask, using the same ink - Yes, you would HAVE to be BRAVE to fly past flowers that size, wouldn't you?!?!??!?
• After removing the mask I coloured with copic markers before fussy cutting 
• Using a black sharpie I hand drew my "stem" before attaching my image to the background

With the blue/violet paint "knocked back" through the stencil

I'll be entering the above for the following challenges:-

1. Creative Artiste - challenge No. 42 - ANYTHING MIXED MEDIA GOES - 2nd entry
2. WeLove2Create - challenge No. 12 - ANYTHING MIXED MEDIA GOES
3. More Mixed Media - September challenge - ANYTHING MIXED MEDIA GOES + optional twist of USE BROWN
4. VLV Stamps - September challenge - FOR THE BIRDS ... a project using the mood board below ... I used my VLV flying person image - and definitely orange from the mood board!