Thursday, 7 May 2015

Easel Card with Butterfly Backdrop

Hello dear readers, 

Welcome to another new month of creativity, inspiration, challenges and super cool goodies to win from Lulupu. 

This months challenge is based on "Femininity", we have a lovely bright color palette to choose from and many chances to link your creations, For more details, check out the below link:


This week, I have a easel card to share with you all. The interesting part in this card is the butterfly backdrop which I have created with several punched out Monarch Butterflies which have been pre-distressed with the theme color (Salty oceanMustard Seed and Picked raspberry). To use the butterflies as the base I have adhered them with a layer of Mod podge, which helps in giving a very clean finish! I hope you like my very pink and feminine card and find inspiration to try something from your very own stash. 



Here is a close up of how the punched butterflies look :) Prettiness!



Well, That is from my side! Do leave some love :)

Thanks for dropping by!

Love,
Dolly


Supplies from Lulupu store:


Monday, 4 May 2015

Winners Challenge #48

Morning Everyone!!

This is Manu here and I bring along the winners for the Challenge #48: Watercolor Cards. We got an over whelming response to this challenge totally loved your creations!! It was really difficult to pick the winners, but we did it! 
Lets get the ball rolling and checkout who all won our hearts this time!!

Starting with the special mentions (in no particular order) 

What a lovely shaker card, awesome coloring effect and that lovely butterfly, this surely struck our chords!!

We swooned over that lovely and enchanting galaxy view!!! So Pretty!

This card is such a perfect way of telling a story!! Sure a fun way to remember all those courtship moments!


Here are our Top 3 (In no particular oder)

What an awesome technique(thanks Nandini, we learnt a new one too) and this one is sure an eye catcher! 

What an amazing background and the overlapping of the colors just pops the complete look!!

This one is a beauty, the dahlias just pop up on that turquoise backgrop. Another beauty!


...and the winner is ...
What a fabulous creation Lekha, We just loved the water coloring and those sunflowers looks so perfect!!

Congratulations winners. Please contact hello@lulupu.com to claim your prize and don't forget to grab your badge.
All the winners, please grab your respective badges from Here.
 
We look forward to seeing your creations for the current challenge Feminine- use wings and color palette here

See you very soon.

 Love
Manu

Friday, 1 May 2015

Lulupu Challenge #49 : Feminine - Use wings & Colour Palette

Hello Everyone!

Manu here and I'm bringing a brand new challenge for you this month!!! We had some awesome and wonderful entries for our last Watercolors challenge  and this month of May will be yet another exciting month for all! We celebrate Mother's Day during this month and we thought about getting our kitty full of lovely gifts for that one Angel in our lives. The Theme for this months challenge is all about capturing that very essence of being a lady! Yes, it's the right time to make utterly cute feminine theme related creations.


Lulupu challenge #49
Theme: Color Palette + Feminine Creations
Twist: use wings
(Click here to read the general guidelines)

1. Anything goes - so you can make a card, layout, canvas, mini album, 3d project etc.
2.  Emphasis on feminine - The creations have to be all feminine based. Go wild with your imagination.

3. Don't forget the twist - Include wings in your project. You can use both too if you want. 

4. You have until 31st May 2015 11:55 IST to submit your entries. 

Here's what the winner for this months challenge will get!! 
The very gorgeous of the Prima pattern papers: Bella Rouge



 and here's the color Palette for the challenge


Here's my project for this months challenge and I have a tutorial for it as well. 
This pretty Canvas took my heart away once it was finished!! Totally loved the outcome!
This canvas is all flowery and loved the colors as well, but my favorite is that quote!! 'Be Yourself, everyone else is taken' such a wonderful, powerful and lovely message for all the ladies out there. You all rock!
Lets check out how I made this one, I have a picture tutorial for the same.


I so totally the way this Canvas turned out to be!!! This probably is my second try at some serious mixed media and totally worth the planning and time spent for execution!

Here's the step by step making of this wonderful canvas which soon will go on one of my living room wall (and this time I'm firm on getting this one on the wall)

1. Take a 15*15 inch canvas (this one was lying with me and I had this custom made long ago from a frame shop) , but you can take any size canvas,  and then to prepare the base, apply about two coats of Gesso. Do remember to apply the second coat after the first one dries completely. 
Take the right shade of the blue acrylic color and I had then mixed this blue with the gesso again and applied it evenly. The trick is that when applying the color mixed gesso, the base gets more durability and the application of the color is more even and smooth. 
Once the base coat of the blue was done, I then applied a little straight-from-the-acrylic-bottle more shade of blue which turns out to be dark around the corners and tried blending it in the canvas area with the base coat. This gave me a little blending of the colors.


2. Taking the Brick stencil and the Sakura modelling paste, make the brick pattern on the edges of the canvas. I basically wanted my brick look to come at two parallel edges. 


3. Once the modelling paste dried, cut out a few pieces from the watercolor paper and apply random shades of the watercolors on the swatches. Make sure to use the colors which go along with the blue base.  Keep the paper cutting randomly and see how it looks! I normally try to keep everything on the canvas before fixing the embellishments to see how they fit together with one another. 
Also cut a little shaped piece of pattern paper to form a vase for the flowers.
Once I was happy with the arrangement, I applied them all with mod podge onto the canvas. 


4. Once step 3 was done, I had randomly applied gesso again onto some parts of the canvas and tried blending the watercolor pieces with one another and again used a little of the colors with gesso. Once I was happy (again) with the way my canvas looked, I stamped Prima calligraphic stamp with Archival ink at random places on the canvas (and once this step is done, you can actually see a lot of difference this stamping brings to the complete look.)


5. And now onto on of the most awesome part, the Flower arrangement. There is no denying the fact that I love flowers and I always find a way or two to use them in my projects (& it's really very difficult for me to make one without them ) 
Once I was glad with the flower arrangement, I glued them all!!  Checkout that pretty crackle effect on the vase, it's not completely visible in the below picture, so checkout the next one for that one awesome Ranger product!



ahhh, that lovely crackle effect!! So lovely and pretty!! 

6. And now comes another interesting part of this canvas. The BOLD sentiment. I so wanted a bold one on the canvas, which I think totally suits the softness of the other side of the canvas and which also gives a strong message!! We ladies are bold and strong!! The edges of each sentiment piece is highlighted with a charcoal pencil.

I sprayed a little Lindy Stamp gang mist all over (in purple) to give a striking effect. And those Droplets like thing near the flowers are actually glue dots which I made using the glue gun. (checkout the closer picture of the flower arrangement to view them) and which I think was totally cool!
Finish the canvas off with some pretty butterflies.. So pretty and lovely and they look so real!


Here's the complete canvas for you again and I hope that you'll all love this one!



I hope you'll all like my try at mixed media and we would love to see your participation in this months challenge!

Happy Crafting
Manu




Supplies used from the store:



Thursday, 30 April 2015

A Rose Postcard

Hello Everyone!
Hope you enjoyed all the water color goodness the Lulupu team brought to you all month long!
In this final post for the month I am sharing this simple card made by coloring a stamped image.


The card started with a beautiful Justrite background stamp, stamped with black archival ink on smooth cardstock. I colored the images with Cretacolor pencils using baby oil & stump to blend the colors. I also stamped the butterfly image again  & colored this with spiced marmalade distress ink. To add interest to the butterfly wrapped some golden string to the body & popped this butterfly over the blackground image with foam tape. Distressed the edges of the entire image with spiced marmalade & abandoned coral DI. This was then layered over black cardstock.



Thank you for stopping by today!

Supplies available at Lulupu.com



Monday, 27 April 2015

The Triad Tree - Watercoloring with Distress

Dear Crafty Friends...

A big hello to all of you!! Hope you are enjoying the month of April with loads of watercoloring techniques being shared by the DT members. Today I have a super simple watercolor technique to share with you all. 

The Triad Tree - Using Primary Watercolours







These are some of the beautiful results I got by using just 3 primary colors - Yellow, Blue and Red.

The tutorial is really simple, all you need are the watercolors, a round paintbrush, watercolor paper, a mini water spritzer and heat gun!



1. Start by tapping watercolors onto the watercolor paper - Yellow, followed by Blue and finally by Red. I would suggest you all to practice the tapping on waste paper before you finally get a hang of it. You can also control the amount of color by using less/more water and by tapping closer/ far from the paper. 

For tapping the paint brush, you can either use your fingers or a wooden spoon/stick. It helps controlling the paint splatters. 




2. Once the colors are all tapped in, the real fun begins.. Bring out your mister and spray lightly on the paper till the colors start moving and blending.
3. Use the heat gun to set the colors dry.
4. You can paint the branches and the tree trunk using a darker shade of watercolor.

Voila, you triad tree is almost ready!! All you need to do is add your sentiments and pop it up on a card panel. I have used various sentiments directly on the card / or on a vellum strip. 

So, let you imagination run wild in making these simple triad trees! You can also experiment with various colors to get different effects. I was aiming at a spring look and hence the bright colors. 

Hope you liked the cards and the quick tutorial. Don't forget that we have a month long challenge which is open upto 30 April 2015! The winner gets to take home some yummy products from Lulupu!



Love, 
Dolly