My Paper Corner

Made one of my hand drawn tangle designs up into a birthday card - lots of presents under a tree in an Autumnal setting. Back in the summer I found a piece of watercolour card in my stash with green & yellow mop up ink on it so set about drawing with a black micon pen the piles of presents then added a tree to frame one side and overhang the top.  I've added colour and shading with metallic pencils. A bold birthday words stencil was dry embossed on core'dinations card then sanded back to give a textured layer.  Decided to add some die cut leaves floating down and matt layers all in Autumnal colours. This is the piece I started with.  Hand drawing was something I rediscovered a year ago.  I started following Sandra Rushton and her twice weekly tangle tile designs where she also encourages us to create bigger pieces of art either for framing or making up into cards, her twist on the traditional Zentangle. This overall design was inspired by Sandra Rushton's Sanntangle til

Well I think my Christmas sheep have turned out rather cute one wearing his red festive hat although his black faced cousin looks a little bemused but at least they both have warm woolly coats!  I've used a Funky Fossil stamp set and one of their tree dies just adding the word 'Christmas' from my stash.  Kept both cards clean and simple with a stitched matt on a scalloped edge card base. My first sheep's hat is the small cloud stamp from the set topped with a sparkly die cut circle for a bobble and he's sat on some sparkly tree branches embossed with white & silver super sparkle EP. My second sheep I've placed beside a fence that has been painted with some pearlized accent ink with a flower to hide one of those annoying smudges that just suddenly appeared.  Coloured the top of his head red, my thinking that's a small hat he's wearing. I've added swirls with a glitter gel pen onto both of their coats and kept the same sentiment too. I've used

I was so very pleased to be invited as a Guest Designer for CAS Mix Up  this November where the challenge prompt is stencil monoprint (you can see my card that won their September challenge here ). Creating a stencil monoprint is a fun technique to do and also proves how versatile stencils can be.  If you've not tried this before here are a couple of video tutorials: Stencil Monoprints - Lee-Anne Cross (6:50) Stencil Monoprints Backgrounds with Distress Inks (8:28)               I chose to work with a pretty Indian Mandala stencil and distress inks in shades of blues and greens dabbing them over one side of the stencil, misting with water then pressing down on some watercolour paper.  Left the print to air dry then placed the stencil back over the design and sponged over some yellow ink to soften the white areas.              And then quite radically I sliced my print up adhering the strips to some acetate and placed a leaf aperture panel over the top.  Added a die cut 'Birthda