Sunday 14 February 2016

Party Animals on a Rainbow Watercolour Background


If you look up #domesticgoddessfail in the dictionary, you will most likely see a picture of our house. It's quite incredible how you stop seeing the mess when you come home late in the evening and get up early in the morning and never see your home in daylight. Then the weekend hits and you see the mess but you are too tired to really care. I read all these wonderful food and lifestyle blogs about people who live in spotless designer houses and spend their days arranging flowers. I spy with my little eye two small flower vases on top of one of our snake-vivs with flowers long dead. As in dead and gone. That's how bad it is! Could someone please just hug me and tell me it will all get better? At least I have taken down the Christmas decorations (ok, that's an exaggeration as in fact the Culinary Consultant dismantled most of them), but the box is still in the living room, waiting to be taken up to the loft. So the sad fact is that today I will have to focus on cleaning, although I would much rather spend my time in the craft room. Isn't it funny how all you want is to be an adult when you are a child - just imagine you could do whatever you want. And yes, you could just sit on the sofa and eat candy all day in theory... but of course we all know that's not how it goes.

Anyhow, before I grab my trusty Dyson Animal, I want to show you the card I made yesterday while procrastinating and mentally scolding myself for crafting instead of cleaning. It's inspired by the Party Animal themed challenge over at Daring Cardmakers and with a theme like that I couldn't resist grabbing the cute little Lawn Fawn stamp set called very appropriately - yes, you guessed it - Party Animals. I wanted to make a watercolour rainbow background, so I grabbed a bunch of Tim Holtz Distress Markers and a waterbrush and then spritzed some water droplets to create a distressed look. I stamped the critters in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Neenah Solar card and coloured them with Copics before die cutting with matching dies. I'm all about rainbow colours at the moment, cheers me up when it's grey and dreadful outside (although I have to admit the sun is currently shining, and boy does that feel nice!). I'm linking up my little animals with Just Add Ink where the theme is Just Add V (obviously aimed at Valentine's day, but I chose to add Wilted Violet distress ink [that's the one in the lower right corner of the background] as well as very happy creatures [does that count?]), Challenge Up Your Life where the theme is No Designer Paper (easy for me, as I love to hoard DSP but never use it, go figure...), Creative Knockouts where the theme is Furry Friends and last but not least Brown Sugar where the theme is Favourite Colour Combo (yes, I proclaim that rainbow is a colour combo). I can't wait for all the crafting challenges to move on from the omnipresent Valentine's day theme for us not so romantically inclined!! 

Card: 300 gsm white card, 190 gsm watercolour card, Neenah Solar white card
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Party Animal and  Holiday Party Animal with matching dies
Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress Markers, Copics
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Dies

10 comments:

Nikki Spencer said...

Awe...that is very cute! Love that you went with colour vs "V" day. Lovely water colouring! Thanks for joining us at Just Add Ink.

April said...

Absolutely adorable. I really like the water color background and your image is too cute. Thank you for joining the Creative Knockouts Challenge.
April

Dawn said...

Fabulous background and super cute animals. Thanks for joining in at Daring Cardmakers.

Darnell said...

You make such fabulous cards and I wish we could all chip in and hire you a cleaning lady so you wouldn't have anything to do at home except make cards! Sigh. Here's a BIG HUG {{{{}}}} and a promise that it will get better!! In the meantime, hang in there! I love this card to bits!! Darnell

Trish *Spring Blossom* said...

I really love the softness that the water colouring adds to your card.
If it makes you feel any better my house is the same as yours.... some days it's easier to turn a blind eye to it and other days it's not!!
At least we are making time for the fun things in life, like crafting :)

Trish
JAI Design Team

Ela said...

That's such a lovely card. I really like the waterclour background.
Thanks for joining us, over at Challenge up your Life.
Hugs
Ela

Svenja said...

Super cute card and a great background you've created. A good choice to procrastinate (or procraftinate?) like this... :-)

Kathy said...

You made me smile with your "cleaning" woes - life is too short for all that "Beautiful Homes" stuff - they need to live a little and enjoy getting messy -creativity is good for the soul

Your card is so pretty and very cute
Thanks for joining in with Miri's Party Animal challenge at The Daring Cardmakers this week

Shona Chambers said...

Don't worry, its not only you who has everything in a mess and finds the 'clean up the house fairy' never visits while your at work!! So hard to fit everything in. I used to have a super tidy house but with going back to work I've had to lower my expectations ALOT, in fact I can't actually remember the last time I cleaned the bathroom properly. Its fine, no one has died from all the dust and mess yet, so try not to worry. Make a card instead of cleaning!! Love the rainbow background of your card and the racoon with his birdie friend is the cutest. So very glad you joined us at Just Add Ink this week and don't worry, one day you will catch up with it all...it just may not be anytime soon....and thats okay!!

Miri said...

That's a beautiful card with lovely water colours! I think you made great use of your time ... a wise older colleague often told me during the most stressful times that cleaning is absolutely overrated. I think she's right ;-) (just read more crafting blogs than house blogs)
Thanks for taking out your cute party animals and letting them celebrate with us this week.