Neurographic Art Card

 I promise I'm not aiming to bore you with my latest discovery but just wanted to share a card made using this form of art as a background.  I started with a piece of card left over from a recent experiment using spray starch and shaving foam and just doodled using dark brown with a touch of black pen.  This was then layered up with some toning yellow card and a base layer of black; adding a large sentiment and there you have it a quick card.  That is if you don't count the doodling time 😉😉. I think it was Paul Klee who recommended 'taking a line for a walk' and that's what this is I suppose - very relaxing exercise anyway.

 We must have had a sprinkling of rain overnight but it doesn't seem to have cooled things down much!!

Something Different

 Something different to share today - not a card but just a page from my sketchbook inspired by the talented SARN who introduced us to Neurographic Art in one of her recent posts.  There is a link in her post to a short YouTube video and you will find other videos if this takes your interest.  Finding it a bit too hot at the moment to do anything too strenuous and just hating the inactivity of just sitting I thought I'd give it a go and this is my very first effort - nothing brilliant but at least it kept me occupied for a while and was an enjoyable exercise.  I very much enjoy Zentangle and to my mind this art seems slightly less disciplined - what do you think?  Why not have a go if you are sitting in the shade with a glass of something cold but still feel the need to be doing something with your hands.

Sunflower Ted

 Looking through some of my stash I came across two identical images so I thought I'd take the opportunity of turning them into a card using the technique which seems to be called either 'lattice frame' or 'eclipse style lattice'.  The usual way seems to be putting slivers of foam tape on the back of the frame to lift it away from the background but this particular die has quite narrow 'bridges' so what I did was to cut one from the image and then another one in some white card so that I could adhere them both together before layering over the whole image.  I hope this makes sense - always difficult to explain some techniques 😉😉.  I stopped at the single layer because I was thinking of the postage if the card were to be thicker but I think maybe two layers of white frame under the frame image would probably be preferable visually.  As is often the case this one looks better for real than in the photo.  Finally backed the whole thing with a layer of grey and cut a piece of toning background paper to fit the card.  A birthday sentiment and that's it for today's card.  It still seems to be wall to wall sunshine in the South.

Images - from a pad by Lily of the Valley which I've had for some years
Lattice Frame - unbranded die
Sentiment - dies from Stampin' Up

Two Challenges

 Today's card has been made with two challenges in mind.  Firstly for the Snippets Playground where as usual we are encouraged to use up our snippets.  Apart from the card blank, everything else on this one came from my Snippet mountain, as you can see from this picture.

I trimmed a white snippet to be slightly smaller than the card and then used a selection of  snippets for the other components.  The dragonfly was cut from a snippet of glimmer card which had been coloured using alcohol inks.  After assembly this had a little bit of gilding flake added.  Some stencil work was done on the white background and the sentiment was cut from a sheet which I'd composed and printed using Word.

I'm also visiting the Allsorts Challenge with this one because their theme this time is **Birthdays or anything goes**.

Dies - dragonfly from Gummiapan, Circle motif from Stampin' Up (retired)
Sentiment Dies - from Stampin' Up and Crafts Too (presscut)
Stencil from Lavinia

Lost Windmill

 I wouldn't say this windmill was exactly lost but I did come across it when searching for something entirely different.  I do remember making some windmill cards early last year using items from a class in the post so I presume I didn't use all of the items sent.  Anyway I thought it would be good to make it up into a card rather than putting it back into 'storage' again 😉..  The dies are 'retired' so no longer available from Stampin' Up.  

Class in the Post

 I treated myself to another class in the post.  The instructions are for three cards and a little gift box to contain them but I've gone a bit 'off-piste' although I did make two of the cards as per the tutorial apart from adding some of my own DSP to extend the designs into larger cards..  At this point I decided I wasn't too keen on the third design so I used some of the bits and pieces from the kit along with more of my own paper and made a square card, followed by another 7" x 5".  There are still a few pieces of card and die cuts left from the class so I should be able to make them into yet another.  Getting this class has given me an opportunity to have a play with this Cheerful Daisy set and they are cheerful cards I think.  I love to see daisies growing on the lawn and am always reluctant to mow them down - mind  you they soon pop their heads up again 😉😉.

  Daisies, layers and sentiment - Cheerful Daisies from Stampin' Up
Fancy Border - die from the Works which I've had for some time
Background paper - printed from a download which has been on the computer for ages

Snippets Playground #455

 I'm not sure I will ever see the end of my snippets mountain but at least it gives me lots to play with when designing a card.  I always seem to have far more snippets in white and cream than in other colours so for this card all of the snippets (with the exception of the green sentiment backing) came from the white and cream collection and have been coloured using Distress pens and a water brush. I'm taking this along to the Playground where as usual there is a super prize for a lucky winner and a great snippets card for inspiration..  The two layers of the background weren't snippets although, as most of you will know, cutting them from a whole sheet leaves me with MORE snippets to use for something else. I've stamped a flight of birds on the patterned piece before assembling the various die cuts into what I hope is a pleasing arrangement, finally adding a computer sentiment which is layered onto a snippet of coloured card.

Background - DSP from New Horizons Stampin' Up (retired)
Dies - mix from Gummiapan, Stampin' Up and a few odd bits
Sentiment - produced using Word