Hi there. A new challenge is beginning at Cardz 4 Galz, and this time we want to see your MONOCHROME creations.
Here is my card:
I began by stamping the outline of the Altenew ‘Build-a-flower Magnolia’ in Concord & 9th grey ‘Dove‘ ink from the mini cube set, and the second layer, missing out the base and more detailed layer as I wanted some white within the grey. Once they were die-cut, I played with the layout on a piece of black card embossed with a Crafters Companion 3D embossing folder until I came up with the placement you see.
Sentiment-wise – this is from Heffy Doodle – a vertical sentiment for a ‘just because’ reason. I am missing so many of my friends that I’m going to keep sending out little snippets like this – so they don’t forget me!
As if!!!!
I hope you can come and join us this time round – the Design Team has a whole variation of monochrome creations waiting to view – hope to see you there. xx
Hi there. I hope you are all well. I was lucky to obtain the new ink cubes and card stock from Concord & 9th when it was first released over here in the UK.
This card features just the card stock – all die cutting – mixing the three Concord & 9th ‘Fresh Cut Florals‘ die sets for several challenges:
A close friend of mine has a birthday on 11th August, so this card was made withe her in mind. I knew I could go a little more dimensional as I could take it to her so I wasn’t worried about giving the daisy a little bit of dimension and life – whilst still keeping the look CAS.
She has been shielding since March, so I haven’t seen her – though we have kept in contact. Her family has been doing the shopping etc. It’s only recently that people who have been shielding have been ‘let out’ of the house. I’ll be picking up some real flowers and maybe a little treat as well.
After die-cutting the three sets a dies a few times in the blue, white, marmalade and red pieces of card, I then played with the colours of each element. I knew the white daisy was going to take centre stage, but the other elements were moved and changed around until I had the layout you see above.
I have some huge white daisy in our garden which were also an inspiration:
I didn’t ink the leaves of the daisy – just clean lines and colours. I looked for a sentiment – and I have a lot of them – but in the end I decided to put the sentiment on the inside to keep the outside kinda ‘pure’.
Hellooooo. There is a new challenge beginning at ABC Christmas Challenge. We have reached P, Q and R – and we want to see your Christmas makes with Pine Trees, Quiet, and/or Robins.
I went with all three:
Pine Trees
This first card is using the Clearly Besotted ‘Scene It Around 2‘ stamp set, and coloured with Copics.
Quiet
Santa and the sleeping cat – shhhh – is from Gerda Steiner Designs, again coloured with Copics. I’m owned by two cats actually, and until hubby and I have finished our travels and working less – then it will continue to be cats – they are so much more independent – and don’t need walking in bad weather!
Robins
These cute little Robins are from Clearly Besotted – stamped the layers, adding glitter to the white on the hats, and added to a stenciled background.
I am looking forward to seeing what you create with these topics for a Christmas make – hope to see you in our gallery. xx
Hi everyone. A new challenge has begun at Cardz 4 Galz, and this we want to see you stamping on Kraft………
I did another card recently where I enjoyed creating my own background whilst stamping on kraft – I got my DT cards and themes kinda mixed up!
So for this challenge I went retro:
Very simple – but I think very effective. This is a stamp from Picture This/Creative Endeavours and once again ‘found’ whilst putting items into the Color My Life app. It’s called ‘Terry and June‘ – which also brings to mind an old UK sit com.
This stamp set also brought back memories of the early 1980’s – hubby and I were often off on his motorbike – sometimes camping at rallys with lots of other bikers, and sometimes off on our own just travelling the roads.
He has had loads of motorbikes over the years – and still has some – but my days of doing that are over – I like my creature comforts too much!
I must say, when I showed him the card he wasn’t very pleased – we were the rockers – completely opposite to the scooter gang! You know the ones I mean – we had long hair, scruffy leather jackets with denim cut-outs on them – head-bangers we were called because of the way we ‘danced‘.
Anyhoo – I love this image – bringing back memories of biking and camping with such joie de vivre……
I hope you can come and join us in this challenge, I’d love to see you in our gallery. xx
Hello once again. I hope you are keeping safe. I have a CAS card to share today:
I took a square base card and stamped some images from a newly purchased Clearly Besotted stamp set ‘ Drink and Be Merry’ in Gina K Amalgam ink, then very simply coloured with Copics.
The berries are one of the gold’s from my Gansai Tambi set – and those little berries are exactly that – little!
The sentiment is from the same stamp set – and there are loads of sentiments with this actually quite small set – you certainly get a lot for your money.
I have a confession to make – this is my second attempt! The first did go in the bin – I couldn’t save it……………I took ages creating a mask for the glasses on the original card, then used a circle stencil and Distress Oxide Speckled Egg as a background – it looked absolutely horrendous!
Really – I mean horrendous! It was only because the Speckled Egg is a greyish-blue, and covered some of the black lines up – my fussy-cutting isn’t the best in the world – so I drew over them in black pen – went squiggly without even touching a drop of alcohol……..I still thought I could save it – coloured the images, stamped the sentiment……nope! Binned.
The version you see here is much better and I feel a whole load happier. I keep trying new things – but sometimes going back to what you know is better. I’m not having a very patient day………………..warn hubby now!
Hi there, After a few days making cards for my DT posts for the next few weeks, I decided to make a card to enter some challenges. A few caught my eye. Here is my card:
I really am a fan or white on white cards, especially for Christmas. For this card, I hunted out a lot of my oldie but goodie Sue Wilson dies – some dating back to 2014 – I am never, ever getting rid of these dies – my ‘go-to’ when it comes to die cutting and Christmas in particular.
I have found with white on white cards, that leaving some of the elements to – well – hang around creates some shadow and dimension. For instance – I don’t glue every single branch and leaf down – I just glue the stem, or a leaf or two, and let the rest wriggle around there. This creates movement when the card is handled by the recipient, too.
The Gemini Junior went through a work-out for this card – all that die cutting! I have also bought some new plates so it cuts better – not warped currently – and I have even followed Jennifer McGuire when she taped some of the plates together to try and prevent warping……you can check the video out HERE.
Now, she does state several times that she is defying the rules – but hey – anything which gives me a chance of reducing the warping on my plates – then I’ll try it.
You can see each element I have die cut and how they are arranged, adding a little pearl to the middle of the poinsettia – even the pearl is a white one!
All this die-cutting takes me back to when I first started crafting – rather card making. Lots of die-cutting, very little stamping…..purely because I couldn’t stamp correctly, the images where never clear and solid.
We all know the arrival of the Misti stamping tool was revolutionary – it was for me anyway. From there onwards my whole way of crafting changed – I even took to trying some colouring…….!
So – this card brought back happy memories of years gone by, and made me realise how my card making has changed – I feel I am so much more versatile now – I will try a lot more techniques – some you win, some you lose – but hey – as long as we are having fun, right?
Anyhoo, I digress – I seem to be in a chatty mood – somebody better warn my hubby……………….. :)
Hi there. I have a card to share to day using some of the new release stamp sets from Clearly Besotted:
I stamped the floral scene twice along the bottom of a piece of Make It Colour Blending Card, and stamped the cute little plushie with the flower onto another piece.
I coloured the images using Copics – very simple, very little shading, then added some gold gel dots to some of the flowers – I tried to catch that in the bottom photo – and some darker dots on the other flowers.
The plushie image die–cut with two nesting circle dies as you see, and the sentiment from the same plushie stamp set attached.
Hello everyone. I am pleased and excited to announce that here is the first post as fully-fledged Design team member at ABC Christmas Challenge.
The current challenge is the start of the New Year, and the start of the alphabet. Goodness – there are some amazing themes coming up – I hope you can play along. I have discovered an amazing and friendly team, I have learnt how to use blogger – a little, anyway – and I’ve discovered that I’m going to be making Christmas cards all year long. All. Year. Long.
All those will be posted here, and will all be posted on Instagram. Please say hello when you see our cards.
The first challenge is ‘A’ and ‘B’, of course. The theme being anything goes, and/or berries. Now, I hunted everywhere for berry stamps or dies, and couldn’t find anything with berries that I really wanted to use. What I did find, was this unused, yet been with me for ages, Hero Arts Colour Layering Trimmings stamp and dies.
Here is the card – anything goes (Christmas):
I stamped the layers of the leaves on a white piece of card, then added to a green and white card base – then stamped some more, die cut them, and added to the edge for dimension.
I wanted to give the impression of a Christmas Tree hanging over the edge of the card.
I hope you are able to come and join the fun, and I look forward to seeing your makes – and I even get to comment officially now – yay!
I shall also be entering this card into the following challenges:
AAA cards – three of something – (three added branches)
Hello there. Having time to craft today, I started off with one project – and came up with this one. Does that happen to anyone else?
It’s only a few more days until I begin my first challenge as Design Team member for the ABC Christmas Challenge, but in the meantime I have this card for you:
I was looking for some holly stamps – for some reason I don’t have many that I could put my hands on – then I remembered my Catherine Pooler ‘box’. I have a whole storage box where I put my Catherine Pooler stamps and dies – there is a bunch of stamps I’ve never used, and I came across this die set from the Winterhaven collection.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m learning all about alcohol markers – Spectrum Illustrators and Copics. I recently bought some Copics from Ebay – and I really, really see the attraction. What amazing pens these are – totally fallen for them. And – I think I’ve developed a ‘full set’ syndrome……help me now!
I’ve been doing a little internet searching and currently reading all about Copics from the Copic Marker Tutorial page, and the Kit and Clowder tutorials. Still not feeling relaxed and chilled when colouring, but enjoying the process of learning.
This card is made from the die cut wreath, with the individual parts coloured simply with Copics, and adhered to the card base.
The sentiment is cut from a Copic coloured piece of card, with several layers underneath for just that little dimension.
I may have to return to my craft room to complete the project I was initially going to do – I think I can manage that. :) :)
I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:
Hello everyone. I hope you managed to enjoy the festive period in whichever way you chose, and hopefully looking forward to the New Year.
I haven’t had much time to put a card together, though did manage a little crafting, just not to make anything in particular. I have been spending some time thinking about up-coming challenges for the ABC Christmas Challenge – as I will be on the Design Team for the next 6 months!! Yay!! My first Design Team position – and it means making Christmas cards every month – a win-win situation for me. Hopefully, you will be able to join us.
The card below was one I put together whilst having a sort-out of some of my Christmas crafting boxes:
It incorporates some distress oxide blending, masking, a little stamping – and generally getting a little messy! That always happens when I ink blend, and especially when using a mask. If the ink isn’t all over my hands, then it’s where I don’t want it to be, or all over my glass mat – and therefore transfers to everything!
I found this Indigo Blu snowman stamp in a box of Christmas stamps I had ‘filed’ away. Goodness knows how long I’ve had it – and it’s never been used!
I stamped the image, then stamped again on some masking paper, then went ahead with the masking and ink blending. I used a darker blue for the upper part – trying to make it look like the sky, and a lighter blue for the ‘snow’ on the ground.
I then splattered some water on it, then splattered some Gansai Tambi ‘white gold’ – and just kept splattering. More mess!
I wasn’t truly happy with how this turned out – but then I added the MFT sentiment, and it seemed to tie the whole thing together.
I left the snowman white – a little shading around the edge, and also left the little birdie white – a very monochrome card. And it’s also a one-layer card. I took on the challenge – no idea why – but I am pleased with how it all came together.
loopyloocards 