Bettina's showcase for challenge #8

Good morning everyone. Today is my turn to showcase my project for challenge 8 over at The East Wind. Since it is the first challenge of the month it means its a freebie challenge. Theme for these two weeks is embossing - dry or wet. 

When I first layed my eyes on this beauty Aurora, I had an idea of a blonde gardener, just like me when I wander around in the garden in the sun. Just love that. She was such a joy to colour. I used a sketch and made a little scene with her using diecuts. Little Aurora is coloured with my beloved promarkers. Hope you like my little project. You can find more details in my little blog over here.

Susan's Showcase for Challenge #8

Good morning everyone!! Today I am showcasing my card for Challenge #8 over at The East Wind. And the 1st of the month means its a Freebie Challenge at The East Wind. The theme for this challenge is Embossing - dry or wet.








When I first saw this beauty I thought she was a definite blonde :)  I thoroughly enjoyed coloring her!!! I love the hair that Kyra draws!!!  It is amazing!! And so fun to color!! I feel like I get a little bit better every time.I used a Spellbinders die around her and then I added glitter around the edge. I added a few 3d paint dots on the image! I stitched around the two dry embossed rectangles. Ughhh... I made a huge mistake with what I glued them down with and it was a NIGHTMARE! LOL  The thread kept breaking.. it was awful! I won't do that again. At least I know what I did wrong! The Cherish and the Friends are both rubons that I had. I added the sticker button on the cherish to finish it off. So be sure to join in!!! This is an amazing freebie and thank you Kyra for always being amazingly generous!!!!!

Copic:

• Shorts: B91, B93, B95, B97
• Shirt and Bandana: RV10, RV13, RV14
• Hair: E50, E51, E53, E23
• Basket: E13, E15, E18
• Skin: E000, E00, E01, E11, E13
• Carrot: YR02, YR04, YR09, YG01, YG05, YG09
• Lettuce: YG01, YG05, YG09
• Potato: E01, E11
• Squash: Y21, Y32
• Boots and Can: C00, C1, C3, C5

Some more inspiration from Maureen

Hi there The East Wind fans! I hope the weather is improving wherever you are - I'm in not so sunny Scotland and the sunshine is so sporadic, I just wish we could have a few good days together! Not rain and cold one and hot and sunny the next!! hahaha 

Anyway, I have a few cards to show you today that I have created since my last Showroom post!

This first one uses the 'Lucy Loo Close Up' image coloured with my promarkers. The papers, candi and sentiment are Craftwork Cards and the flowers were die cut using the XCut Petal Posy dies. This card was for my friend Susanne's birthday a few weeks back, I'm hoping she liked it!

This next card was for the new release of Lucy Loo 'Lucy Longstocking' a few weeks ago. Again she is coloured with promarkers in very typical Maureen Halloween colours! I have tried not to make her too Halloweeny with a fun sentiment printed from my computer. The image is mounted on a Spellbinders Fluer de Lis square and the papers are from My Mind's Eye and Echo Park.

Aurora Gardening is the 'freebie' image for June if you are a subscriber to the newsletter at The East Wind. If you dont subscribe yet, pop over and do so - you wont regret it! Challenge #8 is an Embossing challenge and I have used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the pearlescent card and a Joy Crafts banner die with embossing for the sentiment. As per usual, I have coloured her with promarkers and highlighted the edges with Dusty Concord Distress Ink.

This final project was a wall hanging for my daughter's friend's birthday. She was 7 yesterday and the cards her mum asked me to make were black/purple/gothy looking so I thought that my gift to her would match! I have used the Lucy Loo 'Braided Side' image and kept her skin pale and hair purple as is my favourite for Lucy! The papers are from Kaisercraft and the web corners are a Cheery Lynn die. Emma's name has been stamped using a set from Clarity Stamps and the whole thing covered in Sparkle Mod Podge.

I have several more projects to show you, maybe I'll try and get back before my next scheduled post on the 22nd! I hope you've enjoyed these, you can get more info on each of them from my blog here. 

Here are the links you need -

The East Wind Blog

The East Wind Facebook Group

The East Wind Facebook 'like' page

The East Wind Etsy Shop!

Thanks for looking!
Mo xxx

Believe in Tomorrow ~ Aurora Gardening

Hi everyone! I'm delighted to share the tag I created for the current challenge at The East Wind. The theme is Embossing ~ Wet or Dry and the entire DT played with the new image, Aurora Gardening, which is the freebie in this month's newsletter for those who subscribe. I won't go into all of the details of how I created the background because you can get all of that on my personal blog post.

What I do want to talk about is a quick little lesson on creating flow in a project, regardless of what form the art takes. Flow is what helps a viewer's eye move through the piece so that the entire project can be read as one before someone zooms in on specific details. It prevents the person from getting stuck in one place on the composition. I want to highlight a couple of ways that I used flow on this tag.

By repeating the colours on the ribbons and layered flowers as well as repeating the round shape of the navy blue buttons, I have encouraged the eye to move from the top of the tag through it to the bottom. The eye looks for similarities within the design so it automatically moves from one to the other. The bits of orange, yellow, and blue in the image create repetition. Had I left the bottom flower off, though, the eye would have become stuck on the image and missed the rest of the tag and sentiment. Repeating those colours within the sentiment has the same effect.

Another tip I wanted to point out is that the butterfly brings a little of that brown colour from the bottom half of the background to the very top, again creating repetition and flow. The eye naturally moves around the tag to find similarities.

The last little thing I wanted to point out is the visual triangle I created with my colouring of the image. The three pops of orange from her hair ornament to the watering can to the carrot create a triangle which moves the eye around the image so that you don't miss a single detail.

Thanks for visiting today. I hope that I gave you a couple of things to think about when you are considering why a design is working...or not. Sometimes the addition of a little detail helps the flow and changes the feel of the entire design.

Bonnie

Aurora Gardening, great new freebie at THE EAST WIND

So Glad spring is here and we can garden again. We love to grow our own produce and eat it super fresh. So of course I was thrilled when Kyra drew this awesome image. And it can be yours if you sign up HERE to have the Monthly freebie sent to you. What's to lose? This is an amazing offer!! And then you can enter the challenge this time which is EMBOSSING, wet or dry, we don't mind, or even both! RECIPE Image from THE EAST WIND called Aurora Gardening, coloured with Copics and a white gel pen DP by DO Embossed card Craftwork Safmat greeting Button and twine from stash