Playing with various techiques

An acquaintance from church asked me to make her 3 cards. I asked her what she was looking for and she came up with something to represent nature, something to represent water or the beach, and something that involved clouds.

Earth and water.... these were pretty basic:

Products used: Paper - SU! (Whisper White, Cranberry Crisp, Morning Marigold and either Wild Wasabi or Kiwi Kiss cs for the card above and Pacific Point for the one below) and DCWV (patterned); Stamps - SU! (Seaside Sketches); Markers - SU; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

This next card is a very simple design. What made it different for me was the way I coloured it. I pulled out my chalks for the first time in ages and blended various shades of green, yellow, brown, and orange to make the trees. The grass is a mix of two or three different greens.

Products used: Bazzill CS, Harmonie pp, SU! chocolate chip ink, Pebbles Inc chalks.

The final card, which was to represent clouds in a blue sky, nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. Yes, of course I'm exaggerating - but as anyone who know me will tell you, probably not by much.

In the end, Google was my friend. I found a link to a great method at the Stamping411 site -http://stamping411.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-make-skycloud-template-and-use.html Mine turned out differently because she used a different shape; I only have the scallop border punch.
Products used: Paper: SU! Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White, Basic Black; Stamp: Touch of Nature; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU! Whisper White Craft ink.

On my card, I used my stipple brush and a foam brush to apply SU! white craft (pigment) ink directly to a Tempting Turqoise background. I didn't want it to look like a row of scallops, so I used the brushes to make it more streaky and swirly. I wanted to reflect the way clouds have a variety of shapes and sizes. I used only white rather than adding other colours to the clouds based on the wishes of the person requesting the card.

I attempted to emboss the image and realized that my embossing pad has dried up, so I'll do that next time. Didn't color the image because I liked the black/white/blue combo and didn't want to distract from the background.

This card didn't photograph as well as I'd have liked..... sorry about that. Not sure what the dot i near the butterfly's wing... it wasn't there when I gave it to M.