Pink Poinsettia

I have created a Christmas card inspired by the non-traditional colours for the current challenge at 52 CCT:

For some reason, when I saw the colours required – orange, pink, turquoise – I immediately thought of a poinsettia. I’ve no idea why, but I went with it.

I searched the CML app for the key word ‘poinsettia’, and this inlay die from Simon Says Stamp jumped out at me. It is called ‘Poinsettia Cover‘ and I have had it for quite a while, maybe played with it once before.

This time, I die cut the whole plate in white, light pink, and turquoise.

I used ‘Press’n’seal’ to take each colour out of the die, which left all the pieces in place. so I could pick and choose which I wanted to take off and ink blend.

I stated with the leaves of the poinsettia, placing them onto a grip mat, and ink blending Pinkfresh Studio light pink, then a slightly darker pink onto each petal.

I then took the leaf elements and ink blended a turquoise, and put them aside to dry.

Taking a white card base, I added the turquoise frame first, then the white background panel from the white die cut, and then inlaid each of the floral ink blended elements.

I also placed back into position the small white dots, but covered each of those with ombre gems from Pinkfresh Studio.

The centre of the flowers was ink blended in orange, and placed back into position, then a clear enamel dot – from Altenew – added on top for a little more shine. This also allowed the orange to show through.

The gold foiled sentiment was added – from a previous crafty foiling session, and some more of the ombre gems.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

52 CCT – orange, pink, turquoise

Peace On Earth – anything goes Christmas

D is for Double

Hello there. The Alphabet Challenge has reached the letter ‘D’, and Melanie has chosen the theme of:

D is for Double – include 2 of the same thing

Here is my card, which has two flowers on it:

These flowers are from an Altenew die set called ‘Butterfly Ranunculus‘. I used a blue card stock to cut the petals, and added some darker blue ink blending to the middle of each layer. These were easy to put together due to the #keyhole system’ which Altenew uses. The stems were die cut, and placed to one side whilst I decided what I wanted to put on the background to show case these gorgeous flowers.

I decided to go with a cream textured card stock, placing one layer as the back panel on a card base, then die cut the stitched oval in the same card stock.

The oval was glued to the back panel, and the flowers arranged to my liking, added with 3D foam.

The silver foiled sentiment added, then some small black gems for added interest, and to bring in the black of the sentiment strip.

I hope you can come and join us with your creations following our theme. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Allsorts – anything goes in the garden

Give A Crafter A Cookie – in the garden

Triple B – birds and/or butterflies and/or blooms

Die Cut Divas – die cuts and/or dry embossing

Sunshine Kisses & Birthday Wishes

Hello. I am hosting the new challenge at Cardz 4 Galz, and have chosen the theme of:

Seaside/Coast

Here is my card:

I started with background, and used a Honey Bee Stamps die & stencil set called ‘Beach Break’. I did have to go to the web site to figure out how things went together, but it was quite fun creating.

The beach was created using Kraft card and the die – which gives a lot of the details, then the stencils were used and a darker brown ink to make those details a little more prominent.

The blue of the waves/sea was die cut in a light blue card, I went in with the stencil and embossing ink, then heat embossed with white to create to foamy water.

Then to choose a critter – and this little guy is from a die set from Spellbinders a couple of years ago, die cut and assembled as required.

He was added to the background with 3D foam.

The sentiment is also from that release, stamped in blue and clear heat embossed, then die cut.

I hope you can come and join us this time round with your projects following our theme. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Make My Monday – add texture with dry or heat embossing

Mix It Up – anything goes option of stamped background not taken

Pick Three Challenge – embossing, birthday, blue (not used sports, numbers, plaid)

Critter Crazy – anything goes with a critter

Four Seasons – anything goes Summer

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

For Someone Special

Hello everyone. I am pleased to have been asked to be a special Party Guest for the new challenge at Ellibelle’s Corner Garden Party, after being selected in the Top 3 for one of her challenges with this card here.

The theme for the new challenge is – anything in or from the garden. Here is my card:

I must have been in a really fiddly and faffy mood to create this, as the butterfly – from A Pocket Full Of Happiness – takes a lot of die cutting in different colours, and then inlaying each itty bitty piece…….

I started by cutting the base outline, then the butterfly out of white card stock a couple of times, and glued it together.

The next steps was to gather colourful pieces of card for each flower, and the wings of the butterfly and set-to die cutting. Each colour was inlaid back into the butterfly, and then glossy accents applied to create a stained glass effect.

When that was dry, I added a top layer of the die cut butterfly, this time cut out of a blush card stock and laid that on top. This also covered any of the over-flowing glossy accents.

I wasn’t happy with those tiny areas on the edge of the butterfly wing, so I added small pink gems to each and every one of them – I told you I must have been in a fiddly and faffy mood.

I wanted a bold background for the butterfly, so used some Concord & 9th card stock, trimmed it a little smaller than the card base, and used a Spellbinders embossing folder.

The butterfly was glued down, and then the foiled sentiment added.

I hope you can come and join us at Ellibelle’s Corner for her Garden Party. I hope to see you in the gallery. xx

ABC L & M

Hello everyone. We are starting a new challenge at ABC Christmas Challenge. Our challenge is all about Christmas, and getting your stash ready for the end of the year, and we always have themes to follow for each of the letters. This time, our themes for the two letters are:

L is for Let It Snow

&

M is for Mice

Here are my cards:

L is for Let It Snow

M is for Mice

For my first card, I used a Spellbinders hot foil plate and gold foil onto a dark blue panel. I also went around the edges of the panel after foiling with a lightly darker blue to create a halo effect.

The snowman is from a Simon Hurley/Spellbinders die set, and Concord & 9th card stock. The sentiment is also from the same die set, and backed with a piece of gold. Little black gems were added for the buttons on the snowman.

For my second card, I absolutely had to go with some Lawn Fawn mice and the stamp, die and layering colouring stencils called ‘Mice On Ice‘.

The images were stamped, then the stencils used to ink blend their colouring, then the matching dies to cut them out.

I also used one of their ‘Stitched Den‘ dies to create the opening in the white panel to represent iced lake, and backed that with a piece of light blue card stock which I ink blended slightly with a light blue ink.

The blue panel was adhered to the card base, the white layer added on top, then I played around with the placement of the mice until I was happy, adding them with 3D foam.

The sentiment was stamped and die cut then added as you see.

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas creations following one of both of our themes. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Snowman card:

Girlz Creative Christmas – anything goes Christmas

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Peace On Earth – anything goes Christmas

12 Months of Christmas Link-Up – anything goes Christmas, option of marble background not taken

Mice card:

Critter Crazy Challenge – anything goes with a critter

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

Crafts Galore – anything goes

Lots of Thanks

Hello there. I had the need for quite a few ‘thank you’ cards. Having recently retired from the NHS after over 40 years, I had a small leaving meal last Saturday. There was the nurse practitioner team I first started 26 years ago – now a team of 8 people. There were consultants there who I did clinics with up until my final day – who actually paid for the whole thing…….to say I was emotional is putting it lightly. Such a lovely gesture….

Anyhoo – I wanted to batch make some thank you cards for them, and decided to go down the route of complicated. These cards actually took me over 3 hours to make – why did I go with heat embossing and ink blending? Well – I enjoyed the process – but I don’t usually like to make the same card more than once. Here are the cards:


The stamp, die, and stencil set called ‘Chirpy Mithu‘, is from Pinkfresh Studio, and was part of their Create & Connect event in February this year. I hadn’t played with them yet, so I though it was time to bring them out.

I began by stamping and heat embossing the image in gold, then colouring with the provided layering stencils. Pinkfresh Studio inks were used for this. As there were seven images, and there were 6 stencil layers – this took quite a while, especially as I used different ink colours on some of the stencils.

Once coloured, I then used the die to cut them out, cutting out an extra white layer to make the image a little more sturdy.

I then used a couple of the sentiments from that same event, heat embossed those in gold, then die cut them, also adding an extra white layer.

For the background, I used a over plate to create the stitch details in two colours of card stock – just for a little variety.

The background was adhered directly onto the card base, after cutting down slightly to create a white edge. The image was added with 3D foam – another fiddly job of cutting pieces to fit – and then the sentiment was glued down.

The final touch was to add some gold gems.

I shall probably pop in and give them out one day this week.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Ally’s Angels – anything goes

Make My Monday – add texture with dry or het embossing

Love To Craft – anything goes

Ellibelle’s Corner Garden Party – anything in or from the garden

Allsorts – anything goes from the garden

Triple B – birds and/or butterflies and/or blooms

Stencil Fun – use stencils – option of butterflies not taken

Make A Splash

Hi there. Today’s card was inspired by the colours at Color Hues – Pink & Turquoise:

The two colours made me think of a nautical theme, and I remembered their recent ‘Under The Sea‘ release. I actually had bought quite a bit of the release, so gathered all the products to see what I could do with those and the two inspiration colours – certain neutrals and metallics are allowed.

The first job was the background. I took a teal/turquoise piece of card and used the ‘Under The Sea Background stencil‘ and a Pinkfresh Studio turquoise ink. The stencil is in two layers and also has fish and turtles, but I only wanted the water details, so a little masking was needed.

Then I looked at the dies in this collection. As I wanted the coral to be like a silhouette, it was die cut out of black, as well as the fishes – cutting some pink and turquoise fishes at the same time. I didn’t know how many fishes and out of which colour I needed, so I cut quite a few.

The submarine and divers helmet were die cut, and both assembled, then came the playing with placement.

Once all was arranged to my satisfaction, I adhered the elements using glue or 3D foam. There was some over-hang of the black coral, so this was trimmed with some large scissors.

The sentiment is from Spellbinders, and I added some clear drops for a bubble effect, as well as glossy accents to the two windows on the submarine:

Color Hues – Pink & Turquoise

White Flowers

I was working on this card yesterday, and managed to finish it today, following the inspiration photo at Beautiful Blossoms:

Here is the inspiration photo I worked with:

The first thing I did was to search my CML app for flowers/florals. As you can imagine, literally hundreds came up. I narrowed the search to dies only, and as I knew that The Greetery had quite a few, I narrowed the search for that manufacturer only.

Taking several die sets, I used water-colour card and die cut the stems and then the flowers. The stems I coloured in my Zigs – quite roughly – then added some very light grey to the centre of each flower.

There were some wooden looking stems, so I used a dark brown for those.

Once I had a collection of coloured and layered elements, I used some other dies from The Greetery – the capsule series – to create the scalloped blue layer to bring in the blue of the vase in the inspiration photo, then added a frame which I also embossed using one of their embossing folder.

This frame was attached with thin strips of 3D foam, more towards the outside of the frame, as I knew I wanted to tuck some of the elements behind and under it.

The elements were arranged and attached with a mixture of 3D foam pieces – some very tiny – and other parts with glue.

I was thinking of adding a sentiment, but decided against it – I will put something together for the inside instead.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Beautiful Blossoms – anything goes with flowers – inspiration photo

Ally’s Angels – anything goes

Give A Crafter A Cookie – in the garden

Die Cut Divas – dies cuts and/or dry embossing – both were added

Berry Big Thanks

Hello again. I have another CAS card to share. I must be in the zone for these cards at the moment.

For this card, I took inspiration from the current challenge at AAA cards. The sketch is here:

As you can see, I used Strawberries instead of the flowers in the sketch and rotated it.

The strawberries were die cut from a Spellbinders die set, with some ink blending on the bottom of each of the top layers of the berries.

The sentiment was stamped directly onto the card base, then the strawberries attached.

AAA Cards – CAS sketch

CAS Rainbow

Hello once again. I am here with another try and a CAS card. It’s a style I try every now and again when a challenge theme inspires me:

The current theme at CAS on Friday is ‘Rainbows‘. I searched through my CML app – it’s surprising how many items I have in there which I have tagged with that word – and a stamp set from Simon Says Stamp popped up. This stamp set is from 2021 and a kit they put together.

I used the four solid arch stamps to create the rainbow, and four colours of Concord & 9th inks. These inks stamp the best on solid images, in my humble opinion.

The process, for me, was quite involved…….I placed the card base in my Misti, then added another piece of card on top – like a practice panel. I arranged the first arch, stamped the red on the practice panel, liked how it looked, then removed that panel and stamped the card base.

The other three arches were aligned and stamped the same way, using an orange, yellow, and green, trying the keep the bottom of each arch and the distance between the arches the same.

The sentiment is also from that same stamp set and stamped in blue.

I was quite pleased I didn’t get any ink smudges. That usually happens to me when I attempt a CAS card, especially when I am stamping directly onto the card base.

As mentioned, I am entering the current challenge at CAS on Friday.