Bright and beautiful ..........

Happy Wednesday .........

Boy has it been hot!!!!!  What an absolutely glorious few days we've been having.   I love the sunshine but, thank goodness there's a breeze this morning and it's a little bit cooler (for now that is) ......... I'm melting!!    

Anyhow, enough about the weather.  Have you played along with this month's Simply Sweet Poppy Stencils Facebook Challenge yet?  There's still time to join in, the challenge is open until the 29th of July.

Just follow the simple rules (you'll find them at the end of this post) and you never know, you could be the next winner of the fabulous £40 voucher to spend on the Sweet Poppy website.

July's theme is ...... Bright & Beautiful.  

Now that can be anything you like, as long as the main focus of your card is a Sweet Poppy stencil.  If you use stamps, and they are other brands then remember to keep them small, just a single word or a simple sentiment is allowed.

It had to be florals for me .......... beautiful, bright coloured blooms! 

Sweet Poppy have lots of  gorgeous flower stencils, it was difficult to know which ones to use.   

In the end I kept things nice and simple, letting the stencil do all the hard work,  and of course the gorgeous bright colours of Distress Inks were perfect for the job

This is the Black Orchid stencil ....... I love this design.

I masked off the leaves using stencil tape, and then blended Picked Raspberry and Abandoned Coral Distress Inks over those gorgeous flower heads

When I was happy with the colour, I then masked off the flowers and used Twisted Citron to colour the leaves ..... so pretty!   As you can see, I wasn't too precise with the masking, there's a little bit of overlap with the colours but that's fine, I quite like the shading

The sentiment was simply stamped over the top using a black Versafine Clair ink.

For my second card, I used one of my all time Sweet Poppy favourites ...... Wild Flowers

I kept to bright, summery colours ....... Distress Inks again in Picked Raspberry, Carved Pumpkin, Squeezed Lemonade and Twisted Citron again ..... so pretty all together.

The stencil has two different sized flowers on it, but for this card, I only used the large one of the two, varying the placement of the stencil to give different heights to each bloom

A simpe sentiment strip attached with foam pads across the bottom .......

and a couple of gems here and there to add a sparkly finishing touch.  

I love these summery colours ...... they're definitely bright and beautiful!

Here are the challenge rules ...... nothing complicated so go on, give it a go.  You have to be in it to win it!

Thanks for stopping by ..... enjoy the rest of your day.

It's back into the craft room for me,  it's not quite as hot in there today.   And guess what ...... it's time to get a little festive I think (oh joy!) ....... Christmas cards it is then!  Ho Ho! Ho!

Cheerio until next time ..........

Supplies:

Card 1

Stencils: Black Orchid (Sweet Poppy Stencils)

Stamps: All Occasion Sentiments #6 (Uniko)

Inks: Distress Inks - Picked Raspberry, Abandoned Coral, Twisted Citron; Versafine Clair - Nocturne

Card 2

Stencils: Wild Flowers (Sweet Poppy Stencils)

Stamps: Positive Vibes #10 (The Artistic Stamper)

Inks: Distress Inks - Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Carved Pumpkin; Versafine Clair - Nocturne

Other: Small coloured gemstones from my stash