Curious Cats

Hello everyone. It’s time for another challenge at Cardz 4 Galz, and this time it’s a recipe challenge.

We would like to see one focal image, one sentiment, 2 patterned papers, and three embellishments. Here is my card:

and a little close-up:

If you have seen my blog frequently, you will know I don’t use many patterned papers – I just don’t know what to do with them! I am so pleased I joined the Design Team at Cardz 4 Galz, as it makes me experiment, and try doing other things with my card making.

For the focal image, I used a new stamp set to me from Honey Bee Stamps ‘Oh My Whiskers’. You will also surely know by now that I have cats, love cats, and anything to put cats on my cards is always a great idea to me.

I stamped this image and coloured with Copics, trying to get three different coloured cats, then used the matching die to cut it out. I then thought about the sentiment and background papers….

I have no idea where these papers came from – the darker green, and the muted stripey bluey paper – but I liked how they looked together. They are both 12×12 inches, so I could play around adding them to this 7 inch square card base.

As the cats in the bucket looked a little curious, I used a stamp from Honey Bee Stamps ‘Purrrfect Sentiments’ , and then looked to my stash for anything cat related to add as embellishments. I think I bought these metal trinket things at a craft show, they may be for jewelry, and placed the butterfly and bee as though the cats in the bucket were looking at them, and added a separate cat trinket just above the sentiment.

The Design Team has come up some fabulous inspiration – very varied – and I hope you will be able to join us. I look forward to seeing what you create with this recipe.

:):)

Blue Holly Wreath

Hello everyone. There is a new challenge at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge beginning today. The theme – anything goes as long as it’s Christmas. This includes cards, boxed, scrapbook pages….

Here is my card:

I took the Altenew ‘Peaceful Wreath‘ and stamped all the images using the Altenew ink set ‘Deep Blue Seas‘, but only stamped the first layer, than embossed with silver detail embossing powder the second layers.

There are, therefore, four colours of the individual holly leaves, each with silver embossing. I arranged the two half-wreaths, and filled in the gaps and added the individual leaves around the outside as you see.

The white embossed panel is from a Sue Wilson embossing folder, layered onto a blue shiny card. I ‘gutted’ the blue piece of card with the ‘peace’ word die, creating a five layered sentiment.

The Design Team have created some fabulous inspiration for this challenge, and I hope you can come and join us.

Floral contrast

Hi there. I have a clean and simple card to share today for the current challenge at Addicted to CAS:

The theme for this challenge is ‘contrast’, and my mind turned to black and white instead of colours.

I have this stamp set from Uniko from their newest release, but bought a few weeks earlier at the Stamping Retreat. I have been wanting to create some cards with this set, and when I saw the current challenge at Addicted to CAS I thought this was a perfect opportunity.

The stem, flower head, and leaves are individual stamps, placed together as you see. The white on black card is embossed using WOW! embossing powder, and the black flower is using Versafine to obtain a crisp image. The sentiment is from a Catherine Pooler stamp set.

I’ll not have much time for crafting over the next few days, but if I create something – I am sure you will be the first to know. :)

Always there for you….

Hello again. I have a card to share today using several Altenew stamp and die sets: (no pheasants today, but you can still see the bluebells)

I used the Always There stamp and die set, and brown Altenew inks for the flower. The leaves are from another Altenew set, and the sentiment from yet another.

I didn’t stamp the outline at first, but when I was putting the card together, I decided that the black outline suited when I added the black leaves. Then I realised I hadn’t stamped the centre of the flowers, so I used the third middle stamp only, and added some pink with a Copic marker.

The background panel is actually the reverse impression of a Catherine Pooler stencil. I placed the stencil on some card, then spritz some Tonic Mica Mist onto the card through the stencil – and saw how much was actually on the top of the stencil – so I took another piece of card and laid that on top to get this reverse image. So – two backgrounds for the spraying of one….. frugal crafter!

I tried to catch the mica:

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – pale pink, black, brown, white

Die Cuttin’ Divas – anything goes with a die cut

Addicted to Stamps Challenge – CAS

Watercooler Challenge – feminine

Jingle Bells

Hello everyone, and welcome to the start of another challenge at ABC Christmas Challenge. This time, the themes are ‘J’ for Jingle, and/or ‘K’ for kids.

I went with the Jingle theme to create this card:

I knew I wanted to use the Altenew ‘Bells and Bows‘ stamp set, which is so versatile, and used a newer set of brown Altenew inks. I stamped the images over a piece of white Crafters Companion Neenah card stock, and die cut that piece with a Catherine Pooler die – I love using that ‘postage’ effect around the die.

I then took the jingle bells word dies from X-cut, and cut them out several times with a brown card stock, then matted a black layer on top, slightly off-set, to give some dimension and shadow – but the shadow being brown this time:

I hope you can come and join us this challenge, and the Design Team have some fabulous inspiration for you. I hope to see you there.

Turquoise Butterfly

Hello again. I have a card to share today, but it took me ages to find a suitable butterfly. I can’t believe I have so few butterflies in my stash – and I couldn’t actually find more than a couple of stamps, but I found this old Spellbinders butterfly die-set – which absolutely suited what I wanted to do.

I purposely took a wider photo – so you could the pheasants in the background – just above the butterfly. This next photo has another female off on her food hunting travels:

Back to the card………I found the butterfly die-set, and then looked everywhere for a turquoise ink, pen, marker, card – you name it – I hunted. Again, it took a while, but in the end I used a Copic Marker to colour a piece of ‘Make It colour blending card’ I ordered from Marker Geek – this is soooo smooth, and colours and blends beautifully.

I die-cut the butterfly, then thought about the card base….and thought….then realised I had a delivery of the new Stamps By Me die sets just sitting there waiting to be opened. So – this is one of the dies. A huge die – I mean huge – 8 inches square…..three passes in my Big Shot Pro – despite a shim (should have used the Gemini!!) and I stuck this down to a white card base.

The sentiment is from Visible Image – a stamp set full of encouraging sentiments I have been longing to use – and I think it suits a butterfly perfectly. I stamped the sentiment in a Lawn Fawn grey, as I thought a black would be too much.

A little close up:

The butterfly is only stuck down by the centre body area – the wings just floating there.

I shall be entering this into the following challenges:

CAS on Friday – CAS butterflies

CASology – Turquoise

Make My Monday Challenge – Anything with wings

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Watercolour florals

Hello again. I have another card to share today, featuring water-colouring:

I stamped the Catherine Pooler ‘One in a million mom’ in the bottom corner of a piece of water-colour card, heat embossed, masked it, stamped again, and again a third time to fill in some gaps.

I then used two Catherine Pooler inks to water-colour the flowers and leaves, and added a grey Zig marker for some background. I did less watering down in the middle of each flower, to keep it a little darker, but generally just went for it.

I did originally have the grey going further out, and was going to attached the whole panel to a card front, but I didn’t like how it turned out. So – I took the matching die for the floral spray – then realised I had to do some clever partial die-cutting……nerves of steel today!!

Once I had decided where I wanted to image to be, I stamped and embossed the sentiment on the base card – as I said – nerves of steel!!

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crazy for CAS – grey, aqua, peach

Lil Red Wagon – Flora

Case this Sketch – sketch

Crazy for CAS

CAS(E) this Sketch!

CAS buds

Hello again – I think my mojo is back! Back with a vengeance! This card – two cards actually – was inspired by several challenges:

I have had the sketch from CAS Colours and Sketches in my head all week. I knew I wanted to go CAS, but couldn’t really get my head around what images to use for this layout.

Then – the new challenge at Less Is More raised it’s head – bingo! I got my images, I had my layout, I knew I wanted CAS – so this is what happened.

Then – I read again that the Less Is More Challenge was for a one layer card. Ooops. As you see above, this card isn’t one layer. So – what’s a crafter to do? I went back up to my craft room, and did another:

This is definitely one layer. I had to change the sentiment, because the ‘Hope’ in the first card is a die-cut. This sentiment is from another stamp set, but all stamps and all inks are from Altenew.

I hope you will forgive the poor lighting – but it’s quite dull here today, and even when the sun does come out – the wind is just too much to be able to take good photographs outside.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch

Less Is More – one layer card, theme is buds or petals

Always Fun Challenges – CAS

The Alphabet Challenge – ‘C’ for CAS

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Happy Birthday

Hi there again. A breezy and rainy day here in Chesterfield, so I’m able to catch-up with some house stuff – and some crafting, of course. I made this card yesterday, and was waiting for at least a little sunlight to take some photos:

I find I like to create backgrounds with stamps. I find a certain relaxation in filling-in gaps, constantly just stamping and generating a once-off base card. This certainly a change from the black and white card from my last posting – much more colourful.

For this background, I used Catherine Pooler stamps and inks, was kinda going in a geometric pattern, but just going with the flow. Once the background was done, I took a Uniko die sentiment – the word and a slightly bigger one for the outline – and die cut as you see, with the slightly bigger part being in a contrasting colour – navy in this instance – so it would show up a little more.

In hindsight, I could have – probably should have – had a navy layer under the stamped layer, but it still brought a smile to my face.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – yellow, orange, navy, green

Aud Sentiments Challenge – use a happy birthday sentiment

Black and White

Hi there. I’ve been in a weird crafty mood since yesterday – trying things out, not liking what I’ve done, binning things. In the end I walked away from the craft room and went to do other things.

This morning, I settled down to watch some crafty TV, some of which I had already taped, and decided to try again. I first took a look at some challenges out there, and the first to catch my eye was the colour scheme for this card:

I knew I wanted to use more of the Thirsty Brush and Co stamp and die sets, and wondered how they would look in black and white. I must admit I like this – so I made another using the reverse effect:

Thank goodness for challenges – for giving inspiration. I am also glad I don’t tend to tidy or pack away new items until I have used them in some way.

I used a Sue Wilson die set for the base card and trellis effect. The Carnation Stamp and die set from Thirsty Brush and Co – which included the sentiments, and the two sets of dies for teach sentiment – I just swapped the black and white borders around.

Hopefully, my little crafty hump has gone……..

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Double D Challenge – Black and White

Watercooler Challenge – occasions (congratulations/you did it)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Moving Along With The Times – flowers