Daisy in The Jar

Hello everyone! If you are a fan of Irish folk music, you most likely know all the lyrics to the old trad. song, "Whiskey in The Jar". I don't drink whiskey, though, so I put some daisies in a jar instead :)

 

I'm always excited when I find two or three different challenges that I want to combine. The ideas start spinning around and pretty soon I see in my mind's eye what I want to make. The first challenge I saw was that of As You Like It, where they ask us what our favourite flower is and why. My fave is the daisy, especially the tall ones that grow wild in fields and alongside country roads. Why it is my favourite? They have been since I was a child and I guess they were proof that summer finally had arrived. As I grew older, I realised that there were many kinds of daisies and daisy shaped flowers, such as coneflower, gerbera and asters - flowers that all belong in the Asteraceae plant family. I love them all, but the white wild daisy will always be my #1 favourite. Painting white daisies isn't much fun, though, so I took the liberty of adding colours to mine this time.

Anyway - I wanted to put my flowers (Textured Daisy from Rubber Dance) in a jar, and I have two jar stamps - both on a set from YNS (Your Next Stamp). I had only used one of those jar stamps before, so hey - I'd get to join Darnell's NBUS #10 (Never-Before-Used Schtuff) as well if I used the other jar stamp! Turns out it was a better choice anyway as it's taller than the jar stamp I had used before. To add one more NBUS, I chose a sheet of watercolour paper I hadn't tried yet. I had bought a pack of 10 different sheets to see which I liked, and I love this one! It's a cold-pressed paper, meaning it has a slight texture to it, and I love how my ZIG watercolour markers and a waterbrush worked using the wet on wet technique. But wait - what about the colours I've used? Well, turns out that the manufacturer of the jar stamp (YNS) has a colour challenge right now, and it looks like this:

I decided to use all their colours, the beige one on the stems of the flowers:

 

I'm not a 100 % sure that I should have added the dark blue lines on the top and bottom edges of my painting. I think they steal the show from the more delicate coloured flowers - but what's done is done. A lesson till next time - and learning is an important part of the creative process and fun, isn't it?

I'm adding my watercolour painting to these three challenges:

As You Like It, your fave flower any why (deadline Feb. 8th, I think)

Darnell's NBUS #10, something you haven't used before (deadline Feb. 5th)

Your Next Stamp, colour challenge #56 (deadline  Feb. 2.)

- Thank you for the fun challenges, folks!

I hope you liked my Whiskey... er......I mean Daisies in The Jar!

Sláinte! Cheers!

      If you run a challenge, may I ask you a couple of small favours?       

• Please state clearly in your challenge post which day/date the challenge ends so we who join don't have to do the math by looking at your linky tool closing time thingie, where one must also consider the time zone differences (my May 17th can be your 16th or 18th)
  
• Please state clearly what day/date you will announce the winner(s). That way we won't have to check back several times a month to see if we won some fame and glory, or perhaps a prize. I guess it can be annoying if winners don't acknowledge the honour of an award or claim their prize, but this might very well be the reason why.  It's not that we don't care! :)

     Arright? Goodie! Thank you!  ♥     

 PS: I'll make sure we do the same for the challenges at my stamp company's blog ;-)

Join our challenge!

Hello, everyone! I'm just popping in real quick to inform you about the challenge that started over at my stamp company's blog today:

The challenge runs for 2 weeks - deadline Feb 14th at midnight CET.

You don't have to use our stamps to enter.

Read all about the challenge here.

Here's the inspiration card I made for our challenge, 

using stamps from Rubber Dance:

 

I hope you will join us! :)

Go to the challenge here.

Flower Power - Mixed Media Page

Hello, good people! Here is a piece that I've been working on for a couple of days. I've made it for the current challenge at That's Crafty, where the theme this time is Flower Power! ♥

 

 Recognise the face stamp? I have used it before here and here.
The stamp is designed by my dear friend Donna Gray for That's Crafty in the UK.

I stamped the face on Strathmore Mixed Media paper and masked it with masking fluid.

When the fluid was dry, I sponged several colours of Distress inks on the background, misted it with water and Distress stains.

I used the side of an acrylic block dipped in white acrylic paint for the stripes. After that was completely dry, I stamped flowers and small texture stamps (all from Rubber Dance) randomly around the background. On the left you can also see part of a leaf stencil.

Once my background was finished, I peeled the masking fluid off the face and coloured it in with ZIG clean colour markers.

I made a negative mask around the hair and stamped the small flowers (Rubber Dance), also coloured with ZIG markers.

The flowers and leaves (all from Rubber Dance) were stamped on Strathmore MM paper, coloured in with ZIG markers and a waterbrush, cut out and placed on top of my picture.

I had great fun making this. Most of my makes lately have been CAS cards, so this was something completely different!

Stamps used:

Serena from That's Crafty!

Textured Flowers from Rubber Dance:

They go really well together, don't they?

 

I'm entering my make to this challenge:

That's Crafty: Flower Power

(deadline is December 23rd)

Thanks for looking!

Edited: This entry won me a Top 3 at the That's Crafty challenge! I'm so honoured!!