Colour wheel

This month sees me on the design team in another Outlawz group challenge, Tuesday colour. The challenge changes monthly and always has a colour theme.  For April the theme is a colour wheel.

The item created must use either 2 cool colours from top of wheel and 1 warm from bottom, or vice versa.  I chose to use yellow, orange and green.  I used a 6 layer mandala die and alternated the colours and mounted on a backing paper using same colours.  The die is an Apple Blossom die 

I did actually create two cards, but this was my favourite to share for the challenge inspiration.

This is the other one, which reminds me of Leeds United colours and may appeal to fans.  I live in Leeds, but do not follow the team.  This is made with another Apple Blossom die

Easter greetings

 The Outlawz challenge for this fortnight is Easter themed using the rhyme Happy Easter by Bill Hoeneveld

I used a Cricut image from Crafty Mama Studios.  It has 12 layers to cut and stick together so is quite time consuming, it is also quite thick on the front of a card so not ideal for posting.  Mounted on Easter themed backing paper, but could easily work as a stand alone card too.

I did make some other Easter cards, but as usual it was very last minute getting them made and sent off, so I forgot to take pictures! Except for this one, which is another Cricut image from Digital Gems, drawn and cut on the Cricut Joy and mounted on flowery backing paper.

The Swing

The Outlawz Song and Rhyme challenge for 17th March, is based on the poem The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

The poem was written in the 1880's and is included in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)

I choose to illustrate the first two lines with my card. I used the Tattered Lace die Summer Swing, cut several times to add coloured layers, with crystal flowers added too, mounted on a sky background from Crafts U Print.

I used another of Louis Stevenson's poems last year in my challenge, see Bedtime

The card also reminds me a bit of this picture stitched by my Grandma when she was 13, it now hangs on my bedroom wall.

Leap Year

 The Sunday song and rhyme challenge poem for this time is chosen by me. This year is a leap year, so at the end of this month we get an extra day.

“Leap years are years where an extra day is added to the end of the shortest month, February. This so-called intercalary day, February 29, is commonly referred to as leap day.

Leap years have 366 days instead of the usual 365 days and occur almost every four years.” (https://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html)

I came across this rhyme by Brian Bilston, in his book Days Like These which rings very true;

Bilston is a modern poet born in 1970 and his rhymes are very relatable.

I chose this particular rhyme as my challenge falls over Feb 29th, I thought it very clever and so true, a whole 24 hours extra, it feels like we should be able to do so much with that time, but in fact it just becomes another day and we don’t feel any benefit to it.

When it actually came to creating something with a link to the rhyme I realised it was going to be harder than I had thought! I thought about a canoe, an Oscar, a Cello, but ended up taking the relatively easy option and using Bees.

The pattern is from Stitching cards, mounted on black card on Adorable Scorable Bee card depicting bees, honey comb and flowers.

My next challenge in mid May so already trying to find inspiration, so many songs and rhymes to chose from.

Snowdrops

 The Outlawz Sunday song and rhyme challenge starting February 4th is To the Thawing Wind, by appropriately named Robert Frost, published in 1913;

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

On first reading the poem I thought of the snowdrops, poking through thawing snow inspired by the line “Give the buried flower a dream”, thawing snow is often accompanied by rain as in the the line “Come with rain” and you slowly begin to see the ground beneath the snow as in “Find the brown beneath the white” and “Melt the glass and leave the sticks.” I think this is more a memory of winters and snow when I was younger. We get very little snow now and what we get seems to come and go so fast. We has the first snow of winter yesterday and it has all gone by this morning.

In the card I tried to represent the wind and rain with the blue and grey background in a swirling pattern, with the paper behind that showing emerging brown and sticks. The snowdrop being the emerging flower. I always worry that I have misunderstood the rhyme, but as it is an interpretation, I believe there is no right or wrong and it is interesting to see how others interpret the same rhyme.

The snowdrop was cut on my Cricut Joy Extra, the wind and rain are printed papers, cut with a die and mounted on flower backing paper.

I have just joined another Outlawz challenge group and will be part of the design team for Tuesday colour from beginning of March. I enjoy making cards to a theme, so will be interesting to be part of the colour group.

The cards I make for these challenges are available to buy via my Facebook page

Halloween

 Card for Outlawz No Stamp Challenge

Created using a printed background paper, source unknown. Wording and pumpkins created and drawn with Cricut Joy.

Colours of Fall

Entry for Outlawz Twisted Thursday

Wording created and drawn with Cricut Joy, mounted on background from Crafts u print