This Moment - My Summer Cottage

Hello Everyone!

Today I have something a little different to share with you. The colours from this card aren't ones that I would have put together on my own, but I'm really happy with how it came together. This is one of the things I love about these challenges, they really make you step outside of your comfort zone and try something new! So much fun! I will tell you about that colour challenge in just a bit, but first, a bit about my card.

The wood plank background was done using a home-made crackle paint technique. The flowers are handmade with yellow card stock and streaked with with Hero Arts shadow ink Pale Tomato to give it an orange colour. The oval was coloured with Tim Holtz distress ink Peacock Feathers and I smooshed a little of the ink here and there on the background along with some distress ink Spiced Marmalade. The dark brown stamping was done with Ranger Archival ink Coffee. The butterflies were handmade with polymer clay and a Mod Melt mold. I hope you enjoy all the summer brightness!!

It's hard to see, but I used some home-made texture paste and the Reversed Chicken Wire stencil from Crafter's Workshop to add some interest on the background. If you want to see a close-up, just right click the image and open link in new tab...presto, super-sized!!

I am entering my Summer Cottage card into this week's challenge over at Try it on Tuesday.

I just love this blog! Such talent on the design team and their challenges are really creative! I pull so much inspiration from the creations they post! This week their challenge is Things With Wings. I guess it's obvious that I decided on butterflies... they're everywhere! HA! I just love butterflies!

Another challenge blog that I fell in love with instantly is Hobby Cutz Challenge Blog. 

Their design team has so much talent and creativity! They do cards, layouts, tags, altered projects, stamping, die cutting, you name it...and everything is gorgeous! This was my favourite card of the week, so I chose this one to enter into their Challenge #57 - Anything Goes.

The layout for my card came from Cardabilities. I'm super excited to have ran across this blog! Every 15th and 30th of the month, they post a new sketch challenge. They are really creative with those sketches and their talented design team provides tons of amazing inspiration! This challenge is for cards, but they also have challenges just for scrapbook layouts, called Sketchabilities. Here is the sketch for Challenge #103.

The fantastic summery colours and theme for my card came from a challenge over at Moving Along With The Times. This is my first challenge with them but I am so excited about the wonderful creativity of their challenges! They post new challenges every Thursday and their design team is just filled with talent! You should pop in there and have a looksie!

This week was a Colour Challenge - Nice Bright Summery Colours and for inspiration, they provided a photograph. As soon as I saw it, I was reminded of my cottage up north. I know their picture is in a pool, but for us, as kids, it was the cool aqua lake water, our inner tubes and jumping off of the dock. So that's what I used for my inspiration. I replaced the really dark blue with dark brown because, well, my dock was brown. :)

I added some frilly yarn in and about the card just to add a bit of of that rustic cottage feel. One last shot of those orange flowers, boy are they bright or what!

Dies: Cheery Lynn-oval doily stacker one, Joy Crafts-flower 1, Marianne Designs-ivy, Spellbinders-foliage

Stamps: Kaisercraft-botanical, Prima-cling stamp set from the songbird collection

Handmade: wood plank background, the flowers and the butterflies

From My Stash: frilly yarn, crinoline, acrylic paints and stamens

That's it for today. Thank you for stopping in and for all your amazing comments. I read and appreciate every single one!  If you have any questions, please let me know.