Garden Window

I really liked the new Window on the Garden die from Hero Arts but when I die cut I couldn't decide if I was inside looking out at the garden or in the garden looking in - so I made a couple of cards one in and one out!

I started in the garden looking in so die cut it from white card (the same card as my card base - I cut off the backs of the cards I mess up and save them for jobs like this) and used my inktense pencils to colour the flowers.  You could use normal water colour pencils, water colour paints, dry pencils, alcohol markers - anything you like to colour the flowers but as the areas are small I found the sharp point of a pencil that I could then blend with a water brush was the easier option for me.

To complete the card I drew lightly around the die on my base card with pencil so I knew where to ink blend (weathered wood oxide ink) to get my windows shaded as windows tend to look grey when you're outside looking in.  I added a sentiment from Cheeky Birthday by Hero Arts which is one of my fave sentiment sets (and is on sale if you fancy a bargain and as its on sale won't be back once it sells out!)

For my inside looking out I went for a silhoutte effect so die cut the garden window from black card.  Again I drew around the die on my base card and then ink blended a sunset sky (seedless preserves, wilted violet and chipped sapphire oxide inks) spraying and splattering with water to get a starry night feel.  Simply finished with a fun generic sentiment from MFT's Anything But Basic Encouragement - I love to have some general thinking of you cards on hand for when I have no specific reason to send someone a card but want to keep in touch.  I embossed it directly onto the black using a pinky-purple glitter powder from my stash.

Whilst I was playing around with the idea of inside looking out, I thought it might be fun to create some wallpaper from patterned paper so I die cut the die again from some paper and then used a kraft knife to run around the edge to trim out the window and leave me with an empty frame.   I couldn't decide which I liked best, so I stamped a sentiment onto it (from Man's Best Friend by Colorado Craft Company - I love their sets as they are packed with fabulous sentiments as well as their quirky images) and just layed it over the black card to see which I liked best.   They jury is still out......

NEWS FROM THE STORE

• The whole of the new 2020 catalogue from Hero Arts is now in store.  

• We have the lastest release from Colorado Craft Company and will be adding that as soon as we can tomorrow.

• We expect the latest release from Altenew to be delivered tomorrow and will get it in store as soon as we can.

• The lastest release from MFT Stamps is in transit and should be here for release day.

• The brand new release from Reverse Confetti is also in transit and will be added later this week.

• We also have the latest release from Mama Elephant in transit and that will be here for release day on the 15th.

That's all for today

Catch you next week

Tara