Jar of Love Light-Up Fireflies Card

by Joanne James7. August 2016 10:00

It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's my turn to host this week and I have a fun theme for you to play along with:

    

I decided to choose something really open-ended with my 'you light up my life' theme - from sunshine to light bulbs and everything in between, so long as your card includes a source of light, real or artificial, it will fit the bill for my challenge this week! I decided to try something that I've been wanting to have a go at for a while - an actual light-up card! Take a look:

 

Here's the low-down on today's card:

A Jar of Light and Love - I decided to watercolour a little scene for my card, stamping my large Jar of Love as the temporary home for my fireflies. I did all my stamping in Archival Black ink onto watercolour paper, then coloured my image using my inks and an aquapainter. I didn't worry about being too precise with my watercolouring as I wanted that fluid, loose feel. I also added a few tiny dots representing more fireflies in the distance with my white gel pen and some Dazzling Diamonds glitter to my firefly wings with my fine tip glue pen. 

A Fire Fly Glow - Mr James is passionate about electronics and the James Juniors are really into circuits and creating things and, amongst other things, they have made cute light-up houses with their circuit pens previously; I have been wanting to have a go at 'drawing' my own circuit and using it to incorporate lights into my card for a while so for today's card, I raided hubby's electronics supply of LEDs, circuit pens, copper tape and batteries to create my very own circuit and give my fireflies a bright glow. The circuit sits behind the image panel and when you press on the sentiment tab it completes the circuit and the fireflies light up like this:

 

Isn't that just so much fun?! It really wasn't that tricky to do and does create a fun element to your card, although it can work out expensive if you need to purchase lots of electronics supplies, so this is definitely a card to send to someone special.

Meadow Grass - To create the grassy ground for my jar to sit on, I used the flower stems stamp and grass from the 'In the Meadow' stamp set. The loose, sketchy style of this set fitted perfectly with my jar and watercoloured scene. I stamped the flower stamp twice, masking the stamp the second time I stamped it so that my grasses would taper away across my card.

I'm linking today's card up with the team over at Just Add Ink where the theme is 'Just Add F' or things beginning with F - in my case, fireflies.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

 

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

The Paper Players Design Team
 
 
Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:
 
1.  Create a new paper project
2.  Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission.
3.  Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL.
4.  Have FUN! 

 

I look forward to seeing what you create with my theme this week. I am spending the day at home today, taking it easy; the James Juniors had a friend each over to camp in the garden last night so a late night and early morning will undoubtedly have been had by all! Daddy was on camp out too, so he will have fared the worst; I suspect much of today will be spent surviving until we can all have an early bedtime, but this kind of fun is most definitely what summer holidays should be about!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

In The Meadow Square Card

by Joanne James17. March 2016 08:05

Today it's time for a new challenge over at Create With Connie and Mary and this week we have a colour combination for you:

 

These colours immediately made me think of nature so I decided to use my new 'In The Meadow' stamp set for my card today:

 

I stamped my images in Archival Black ink and used my aquapainter and inks to colour them in before cutting out with my Circles Framelits. My Soft Suede card base is square and I layered this with a mat of Mossy Meadow and a piece of striped paper from the English Garden designer series paper pack that has a lovely watercoloured feel. I added a strip of Mossy Meadow and before I added a few twists of linen thread and a bow, decided to add a strip of wide Watermelon Wonder ribbon on something of a whim. The only other place I used this one of the challenge colours was on the butterflies next to my sentiment, so thought I would try a bold injection of colour; I liked it, so I kept it! This stamp set is not the type I am normally drawn to, but having seen some beautiful scenes created with it I decided I had to have it and I love the creative possibilities it offers.

Here's today's visual summary of the key products used to create today's card for easy reference:

 

Do visit the other Design Team members to see what they did with this week's colours; there's lots of inspiration over on their blogs too!

I have another busy day in store today (no rest for the wicked and all that!)

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

  • Big Shot
  • Precision Base Plate
  • In The Meadow Clear-Mount Stamp Set
  • Watermelon Wonder 1" Stitched Satin Ribbon
  • Circles Collection Framelits Dies
  • Magnetic Platform
  • Linen Thread
  • English Garden Designer Series Paper
  • Soft Suede Classic Stampin' Pad
  • Soft Suede A4 Cardstock
  • Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad
  • Mossy Meadow A4 Cardstock
  • Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock
  • Watermelon Wonder Classic Stampin' Pad

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Hi I'm Joanne and live in Northampton and when I'm not looking after my husband and two beautiful children, am an avid crafter with a passion for all things Stampin' Up!

I must confess that I have never been a big rubber stamper - until I discovered Stampin' Up! that is. I love the fact that I can get such great results with co-ordinating stamps, inks, papers and punches - the possibilities are endless! Join me on my stamping journey as I share the things I love and be inspired to create amazing things yourself!

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This is my personal blog and is not endorsed by Stampin’ Up! I hope you find it a plentiful source of ideas and personal inspiration but please don't copy my designs for contest submission or use for classes, publication or sale without express permission.