Month: March 2022

Just A Note…..

Hello there. Here is a card I created using a new stamp, stencil, and die set from Pinkfresh Studio:

I first stamped the image using Gina K Amalgam ink, then used the matching stencil to colour with green and orange. The matching die cuts all of the images – and separates them – in one pass, so I set them aside and worked on the background.

On a separate panel I stamped the image again, but didn’t use the stencil or die, and coloured the images in a Copic light brown – no shading, only one colour.

I then stamped the sentiment and heat embossed in brass onto vellum, then die cut using a circle die.

The brown floral panel was adhered to a card base, then the vellum circle was glued down – but only using dots of glue behind the letters – then edges were left unglued to enable me to place some of the floral die cuts around, underneath, and on top of the vellum. I snipped some of the images between the leaves to make this easier on some of the images.

I still have more than half of the floral images from the die cut left over to make another card – maybe two.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – orange, tan, green

Trimmies Craft Challenge – anything goes

Crafty Catz weekly challenge – anything goes

Tuesday Taggers Challenge – flowers

Cut It Up Challenge – spring project including die cuts

My Time To Craft Challenge – three or more layers (base panel, vellum, flowers)

Sending Cotton Hugs

The Alphabet Challenge has reached the end of the alphabet again. For the letter ‘Z‘, Caz has chosen the theme of ‘Zig-Zags‘. Here is my card:

The pink background is an Altenew stencil and pink Distress Ink, then framed by the Hero Arts infinity frame. The floral image is from Altenew, and lightly coloured with warm grey and cool grey Copics.
Once the floral images were coloured, I then die cut them with the matching dies, snipped a little, and arranged as you see. The sentiment is from the same stamp set.

The Design Team has a wide variety of inspiration using the ‘Zig-Zag’ theme, which I hope you will have a look at, and also hope you will join us.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Fab’n’Funky Challenge – hand coloured image

Here Is A Place To start – anything goes – option two of a kind

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Colour Crazy Challenge – anything goes colouring – week 11

Cardz 4 Galz – Spring Flowers

Hello once again. Cardz 4 Galz has started a new challenge, the theme chosen by Caz is for ‘Spring Flowers for UK Mother’s Day or just ‘Spring Flowers’. Here is my card:

This took a bit of fiddling, but I’m pleased how it turned out.

The background is one of my many ink smooshing and playing backgrounds. I love to just play creating these, and this this colour-way was the perfect background to the the cover plate.

I die cut the cover plate in white card stock, then took some alcohol ink backgrounds and tried to die cut them so I could paper piece……however……these alcohol ink backgrounds are from a thinner kinda Yupo paper and it didn’t want to die cut. At all. No matter what I tried, how many times, against a precision base plate, another shim – nope. No way was it going to die cut….

So – as the impression of the tulip plate was in the paper – I just cut them with my scissors – which was easy – but ensuring there was no overlap, or extra bits sticking out – now that took a little fiddling…

The alcohol ink pieces were glued down behind the cover plate die cut – but the glue I was using went all over the white – so I just cut another and layered it on top…..

Phew – what a palaver!

Anyhoo – I hope you can come and join us with your spring flower creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Daring Cardmakers – anything related to Spring

Mixed Media Lovers – anything goes mixed media

Everybody Art Challenge – spring

Hand Stamped Sentiments – photo inspiration

A Bit More Time To Craft – anything goes

Crafty Gals Corner – add a flower

Crafters Café – use some flowers

Merry Poinsettia Christmas

The Holly and Ivy Challenge has started a new ‘anything goes Christmas’ challenge. Here is my card:

I first adhered some patterned paper onto a 5 x 7 card base.

The wreath, poinsettia dies, branch dies are from last years Concord & 9th ‘Holly Jolly’ virtual event, and the sentiment is from Hero Arts.

I used Concord & 9th card stock for the poinsettia leaves and the additional branches – as well as the shadow layer behind the sentiment.

The words are die cut out of glitter card stock – layered a couple of times with white card stock.

Some gold glitter drops applied to the centre of the poinsettia, the leaves curled slightly for dimension.

I hope you can come and join us with your festive creations.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge – anything goes – option to add sparkle/glitter

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Addicted To Stamps – dies cuts and/or stencils

Daisy Chain Challenge – use dies

Creative Fingers Challenge – anything goes

Hello There…..

Here is a card created using the colours for the current Color Throwdown Challenge:

I wanted to get messy and create an ink smooshed background, so I looked through my Distress Ink swatch, and found two colours which would represent the yellow and the tan colours – and played….

I actually liked how these two colours mixed well together I created a few of these backgrounds for future use.

Once this panel was dry, I stamped the sentiment onto the bottom using Versafine ink, then die cut it using an MFT stitched rectangle die and layered it with some foam at the back onto a white card base.

The leafy square is from Simon Says Stamp and die cut out of some dark grey card stock.

I played around with the placement of this square a little, and settled for it being where you see it.

I noticed when writing this post that the past few cards seem to have a theme running through them – hello, hi etc – it would appear my mind is turned towards ‘just because’ cards at the moment and not for specific occasions.

I’m already planning what to do with the other similar coloured backgrounds….. and I even did some using the same colours of Distress Oxide – but the inks are my favourite for this – well, at the moment, anyway.

Color Throwdown

Hi there….

Hello. Another card to share today, which is CAS – but took some fiddling:

I die-cut a panel using MFT wonky stitched rectangles. Into that rectangle I also used the MFT peek-a-boo square.

The square that came out of that, I stamped the image. The hat and face are part of the same stamp, so I stamped the hat, rubbing off the blue from the face part. Then for the face, I stamped ensuring no black was going to be stamped onto the hat.

The ears are another part of the stamp – it also comes with the bobble on the hat, but I didn’t want the bobble, so just stamped the ears.

The die-cut word is from Time For Tea Designs – part of a much larger cover die – fiddly to glue such small letters but managed using a precision point on my glue, and my Marvy jewel picker.

The base panel is adhered directly onto the card base, the square is raised using 3D foam squares – thinner ones to create some but not much dimension.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Cupcake Inspirations – pets

My Time To Craft – animals

CASology – cue word HAT

Hello…….

Despite spending 8 hours crafting yesterday at the Taylored Expressions virtual event, I have spent a little time in my craft room today. I wanted to make something for the current challenge at Color Throwdown, where the colours are pink, grey, and lime green. Here is my card:

I die cut the Avery Elle ‘Diagonal Stripes’ die and adhered it to the card base. The Neat and Tangled ‘Flora Frames’ was stamped and die cut, then coloured with Copics – simple colouring, no shading, nothing -fancy, then stuck down onto the panel.

The word was die cut three times from grey card stock then layered together.

The grey enamel dots are from Time For Tea Designs.

I’m glad this came together quite quickly after the lengthy crafting yesterday. xx

Color Throwdown – grey, lime green, pink

Because Nice Matters……

Hello. Another messy crafty time creating – trying my hand at some mixed media creations:

Onto \ piece of white baseboard, I stuck another piece of card, some crackle paste, and a couple of stencils to create the diamond area in a couple of places, and there are some dotty areas too – but I think they are covered.

After those areas were dry, I added a layer of Gesso, let it dry, then applied some Sizzix acrylic paint in a yellow and a teal blue/green, sprayed some water, used a brush and basically moved it around the piece to create some messy shadow areas. Before that layer was dry, I also added some mica shimmer powder – wet them down a little more to create a more concentrated colour.

I used a whole host of flowers I had in my stash, keeping them mostly to the same colour or tone – or I even altered them a little with some paint. I also used some Tim Holtz die cut wallpaper flowers.

I also used a rectangle of Tim Holtz wallpaper, distressed the edges, ink blended around those edge, then stuck it down – leaving the edge kinda curly.

Then I played with my stash of flowers and die cut leaves – tinting the leaves with the same acrylic blue/green paint, the edges of the some of the flowers, and even used some mixed media art stones – coloured yellow for the centre of the flowers. They are a little fiddly to get where you want them – but I persevered because I only wanted them in the centre of the flowers.

The flat die-cut flowers are also from Tim Holtz, and I used them as a base layer on the small panel, and glued the rest of the flowers down – hot glue gun – as you see.

I added some clear glass cabochons and used a Tim Holtz ‘Quote Flair‘ as the sentiment.

After all had dried, I applied some dots of glue then glittered select places – some flower petals in particular.

So – lots of layers, lots of messy crafting, drying time required – though the heat tool comes in handy sometimes. I really enjoyed playing this way for a change – I am sure I will learn more about the techniques and layers as I continue to play – and watch YouTube, of course!

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – add some green

We Love 2 Create – anything goes Mixed Media

Creative Artiste Mixed Media – anything goes mixed media

Dragonfly Dreams Challenge – make something to make you smile

The Alphabet Challenge – ‘Y’

Helen is hosting the new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge. Having reached the letter ‘Y’ we want to see ‘Your Favourite Colour Combination’. Here is my card:

I didn’t really think I had an absolute colour combination, but looking back through my cards, I do seem to trend towards more green, blue, and red – and for this card I also used a spot of yellow.

Onto a white card base I used my oval mask created myself using some mylar. I then took the Lawn Fawn cloud stencil and some blue Distress Ink and worked my way down the oval. I then stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set in the top right corner.

The image is from Clearly Besotted, stamped, coloured with Copics, and cut using my Scan-n-cut – always a little nerve-wracking when the colouring has already been done……!

The Design Team has come up with lots of very colourful creations, I hope you can come and join us using your favourite colour combination.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – add some green

Promarkers Challenge – use markers and CAS

Lil Red Wagon – CAS

Colour Crazy Challenge week 9 – anything goes with colouring

Inkspirational – word prompt – CURVE

Cardz 4 Galz – Zoo or Safari Animals

Dawn S has chosen the theme for the new Cardz 4 Galz Challenge – Zoo or Safari Animals. Here is my card:

For this card I chose to use patterned paper for the sky and grass – no idea where the paper came from other than in my stash! The grass pattern I cut with scissors to create hills, and used Distress Ink to blend on the edges. I also used the same patterned paper to create some grassy clumps.

The animals from Lawn Fawn ‘Wild For You’ were stamped, Copic coloured, and die cut with matching dies.

I also used some party hats – and of course the lion had to have a crown.

I decided to create the sentiment in a wild manner – haphazard and a weird shape for the word ‘wild’ – I think the craziness works……

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Colour Crazy Challenge – anything goes colouring – week 8

Creatalicious Challenge – anything goes with option of green

Craft Rocket Challenge – use an animal

Crafty Animals Challenge – anything goes with an animal

Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper Challenge – anything goes with patterned paper

Die Cut Divas – birthday – include die cuts