Saturday, April 4, 2015

April Leading Lady Lydia Evans | Take One

Today we are chuffed to introduce our April Leading Lady, Lydia Evans.   Lydia's style is simply lovely and fresh with a very appealing feminine flair to all she does.  Also apparent in Lydia's work is her sweet personality.  We are so excited to see her spin this month when spring flowers are blooming and the colors paint our lives with happy hues!  

Over the next few Saturdays in April Lydia will be leading us on a journey of her own design and imagining.  Make sure to visit her blog, Lydia Evans Design, to see more from her and for a chance to win a giveaway! 

Give Lydia a big round of applause to welcome her as she steps onto the stage for her first performance as our April Leading Lady!    

Lydia-Evans_apr2015

Hi there Winnie & Walter fans! I'm so happy to be sharing with you this month here on the Winnie & Walter blog...... especially as I very nearly wasn't..... the amazing email asking me to be Leading Lady was in my 'Junk' folder?!?! Gasp...... Mr Email was definitely not doing his job properly when he decided to file it there, only through blind luck did a take a peek in there and find it. I could not believe they Julie & Shay had asked lil ol' me so I can tell you I was as fast as lightning replying back with a big fat 'yes'! Well anyways I'm here now so maybe you want to know a little about me (or maybe not.... so you could just skim the next paragraph ... hehehe)
  
1653456_10201523768757434_1295888376_no

My name is Lydia and I reside in wet and windy North Wales, UK. I live with my ever understanding husband ( I mean he has to be right with a messy.. oooppps I mean creative wife ;) )and our two wee ones Archie and Tilly.. these two also have crafting in their blood, and can give me a run for my money. For as long as I can remember I have been crafting in some way, shape or form but right now my main crafty passion is stamping! I just love how you can take some white card, ink and stamps ad come up with a little piece of art, especially with the designs with W&W is so fun to play and create.

Okay enough jabbering from me and on to some cards..... the theme I went with this week was using the stamp set 'Happy Christmas' and making some fresh and floral springtime cards. First up I have a beautiful spring wreath to share ...

DSC04687

To start I cut a card panel using the smaller of the dotted card layers from 'Essentials: Katharine Cutaways', I then stamped the beautiful wreath from 'Happy Christmas' into place with black ink. I coloured in the leaves with Copic Markers and added some green pencil for shading. For the little flowers I used the teeny-weeny flower from 'A Tree For All Seasons', stamped it in coloured ink and added a dot of pencil to the centre. The little rose buds are the little cluster of multi-sized dots in the upper right corner on the 'Happy Christmas' set, I stamped these with coloured ink and then taking a sharp pencil I drew a spirel on each of them to create the rose effect.

DSC04689

I then cut the 'wishes' using 'The Big, the Bold and Party Cutaways' out of some Gold Add A Little Dazzle Craft Metal and attached it across the wreath, the 'best' is from 'The Big, the Bold and Party' and is stamped in Gold Delicata ink.

While the last card was more subtle I have gone for a bit of a modern twist for the next....

DSC04697

Again I have used the smaller of the dotted card layers from 'Essentials: Katharine Cutaways', this time I cut two, one from white cardstock and another out of black polka dot patterned paper to add at an angle behind the first. For this card I wanted a partial wreath , like a winners wreath and have this cradling the sentiment. To do this I stamped the sentiment into place first , this fabulous one is from 'The Party'- I just love the fonts and size of the sentiments on this set they are just so usable and work for all celebratory cards. Once the sentiment was in place I set to work on the wreath, first up was the centre flower, this is the small poinsettia from 'Happy Christmas' but coloured a different colour than the traditional red I think this would work for a spring-like bloom. I then added two of the sprigs from the same set , it great that there are mirror images of these leaves as it means I didn't have to do and mirror-stamping to get this effect. The small buds and flowers were created in the same way as the previous card.

DSC04692

Now onto a classic.... watercolour....

DSC04656

I stamped and heat embossed the small flower and the small cluster of dots from 'Happy Christmas' in white onto some watercolour card. I stamped the images closer together at the top but more thinned out the further down the card I got to get a falling/cascading effect. I then simply watercoloured the flowers and then created a blue background wash. The sentiment is from 'A Tree For All Seasons' , and this stunning sentiment is simply stamped onto some vellum so it 'pops' a little more.

DSC04658

My last card for today is a kind of fun one....

DSC04683

I wanted to change the doe from 'Happy Christmas' into a lamb... well how do you think I did? I'm thinking I pulled it off ;) So to start I again stamped the beautiful wreath from 'Happy Christmas' this time I used green ink as I wanted a softer effect ad then coloured with some pencils. I then stamped the afore mentioned doe in a grey ink, I then used some white embossing paste to cover his body and the top of his head. Instead of letting the embossing paste dry naturally I heated it with a heat tool, this made the paste bubble and fluff up giving me this awesome wooly texture. The sentiment I made up from a mix of two stamp sets, 'have' is from 'The Big, the Bold and Extras' and the 'big' and 'dreams' are from 'The Big, the Bold and Party'. I have to say that I truly love Winnie & Walter sentiments! I adore the mix and match fonts and words, they are all just a great size and so useable with each other!

DSC04679

Before I finish my first Leading Lady post I would like to thank Julie and Shay again for asking me to do this month, you ladies are awesome! I can't wait to share with you again next Saturday, I just have lots more ideas I want to share.

Before you guys run off I would love to know what you think of my cards, your comments mean the world to me. Also as Julie and Shay are so generous they have given me a $30 gift card to the Winnie & Walter store over on my blog, so if you hope over there and leave me some love I will choose a random winner from all the comments left on my Leading Lady posts through April.

w&w_30giftcard

See you next week!
Hugs Lydia xxx  


w&w supplies used:

31 comments:

  1. CONGRATULATIONS on being the April Leading Lady Lydia!!!
    GREAT getting to know you and such a PLEASURE to see your BEAUTIFUL cards, especially your DELIGHTFUL "thankful" card!!!
    THANK YOU for sharing your CREATIVE INSPIRATION and recipes for AWESOMENESS - looking forward to being INSPIRED again next week :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations on your Leading Lady spot, Lydia! Gorgeous projects ... love how you've showed the versatility of the Happy Christmas set ... these are all such lovely, fresh, spring time cards! Anita :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lydia... such creative cards...so pretty! Congrats... you are a fabulous Leading Lady!
    =] Michele

    ReplyDelete
  4. Congratulations on your Leading Lady spot, Lydia, and what an array of gorgeous projects you've dazzled and delighted us with. Transforming the Happy Christmas set into pretty, fresh, spring cards: innovative! Impressive in every way!
    ~c

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congratulations, Lydia! Love this debut! Gorgeous cards ♥

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congrats! Lovely cards, my favorite is the yellow cascading flowers on the blue wash. Simply gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  7. YAY, another flower girl! Love all your cards, Lydia, but the blue and yellow pastel watercolor took my breath away!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wonderful cards! Love them all :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. These are simply beautiful cards!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thrilled to see Lydia here as i already know what a stamping star she is :)
    Kate xx

    ReplyDelete
  11. So so cute! Your designs are fresh, vibrant and utterly gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  12. They're all gorgeous... I especially love your watercolor card!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Your cards are beautiful, Lydia! Congratulations on being the April Leading Lady!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Congratulations! Lovely cards. The blue watercolored card is my favorite.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yay Lydia!!! What AWESOME cards!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Lovely cards --glad you found their email.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Love your beautiful cards! Such pretty details!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I am in awe, impressed and just amazed at what you have created here!! Love that you are the new Leading Lady for April - you are very talented and I love your card styling!! Your first card with the wreath is my favorite, I think, It is hard to choose just one cuz they all stand out as amazing masterpieces!! Super impressive!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Pretty cards Lydia- the sheep one is great- yes you've totally pulled it off!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Lydia, your cards are stunning and all so different. I especially love the design and colours of your 'Hooray' card, its beautiful. Looking forward to the rest of the month!

    ReplyDelete
  21. These are so awesome! Totally loving the sheep fur!!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Love your work and seeing these spring cards are so inspiring.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Stunning collection of cards - so fresh and Spring-like! I love Lydia's work!

    ReplyDelete
  24. WOW, great cards! You are very creative using the Christmas theme set for different season cards. Love the watercoloring, too! Thanks for the inspirations this week!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Congrats Lydia! Your cards are outstanding!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Congrats to you! I am loving your cards!!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Lydia, your cards are wonderful! I especially like the water coloured card (Thankful for You). That is beautiful. Great work.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I love the delicate coloring and your card layouts are beautiful. Well done.

    ReplyDelete

Your comments make Winnie's and Walter's tails wag in happiness. If you are commenting for a giveaway it is really helpful if you include your email address or that your Blogger or Google account includes a way to email you. :-)