Delicate Cluster colour challenge

Hello there. I have been able to take some time to craft today. The past few days I seem to have been out and about a lot.

I decided to take on the colour challenge at Color Throwdown to create this card:

You may be asking why I put these two photos together – will I’m playing with taking photos and the first is using some additional changes using my phone – contrast etc, and the second is the original……..hmmm – I think I prefer the original for this one – what do you think?

Anyhoo – I used the Altenew ‘Delicate Clusters‘ stamp and die set, remembering that the dies cut the clusters together – the flowers and the stem. Previously I had stamped the images, and then the stem wouldn’t be the same shape as the die…..

This time I die cut both clusters, to leave a template in the piece of card, then when I had die cut each cluster again for the elements to make the card, I only had to inlay the die-cuts and only had to line-up the stamp once each time for each layer. I think Jennifer McGuire and Amy R have done videos about this technique – but I couldn’t find them! Typical!

I used Altenew inks for the clusters in shades of grey, and Catherine Pooler ‘Lime Rickey’ for the stems – only one layer for the stems and leaves.

The fuschia and purple from the colour challenge were on the sentiment strip – I coloured a couple of strips with Copics, and stuck to the back of the sentiment.

I knew I wanted a fairly CAS card, but it took me ages to actually plan the stamping and the layout……

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – grey, lime green, purple, fuschia

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – add a sentiment

Krafty Chicks Challenge – CAS

Be a Unicorn

Hello there. I have a cute card to share today using a new die from Waffle Flower:

I knew I wanted to play with this die as soon as it arrived, and took the opportunity to use the current colours at Color Throwdown.

I die cut the unicorn, then added some Spectrum Noir purple sparkle as you see. Whilst that purple was drying, I turned to the background.

I used Distress Oxide ‘Mowed Lawn‘ and blended using my blending brushes, adding some Gansai Tambi green sparkle splatters – it’s all about the sparkle on this card.

I created a frame in grey card stock by using some rectangle dies and adhered this to the green layer. The sentiment is stamped using grey ink, placed as you see, and the unicorn sat on top of the sentiment strip.

I did take some warm grey Copics and tried to add some shading to the edge of the unicorn – not sure I like it, might have been better left alone – but there we are.

I glued the unicorn to the green layer, making sure the arms and the wings were free, and added some Tonic Nuvo drops in ‘mercury‘ for the eyes and nostrils, slotting the purple glittery present in the hands.

I think I’ll be playing with this die some more, using perhaps rainbow colours – of course the glittery rainbow colours, and I’m sure you’ll be seeing that here.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – violet/purple, green, grey

Time Out Challenges – inspired by words (Birthday and sparkle like confetti)

Crafty Calendar Challenge – use die cuts/punches

AAA Birthday – birthday and cute

Tulip Birthday

Hello there. There is anew challenge beginning at The Alphabet Challenge. The letter has gone all the way down to the letter ‘W’, and Meg is hosting and has chosen ‘Anything you WISH‘.

I decided to go a new Altnew Build-a-flower stamp and die set I haven’t used yet:

It is my sister-in-law’s birthday soon, and I thought I’d get prepared.

I began by stamping the flowers from this set in a selection of colours, initially planning on making several cards.

When I started putting down the pink flowers and the green leaves and foliage – I thought the card looked a little empty, and initially thought of an ink blending or stencil and paste – but decided to go with the Altenew ‘Dotted Swirls’ debossing die – just a little more detail added to the back of the flowers.

I added the additional purple and blue flower as you see, for even more colour. The pink flowers are stuck down using 3D gel so I could move them around if I needed, and could tuck the foliage and leaves underneath.

The sentiment is also from Altenew, and I think there’s a little fault in the ‘y’ of happy – but I decided it was fine to go with it, and then die cut with the Heffy Doodle ‘More Strips of Ease‘.

I hope you can come and join us for this challenge – make anything you wish. It couldn’t be simpler, could it? I look forward to seeing what you create. xx

Challenges I shall be entering:

The Paper Girls – birthday

Addicted to Stamps and More – atg

Arty Divas – atg

The Flower Challenge – flower and add leaves

Black and Blingy Birthday

Hello there. I am hosting the new challenge at Cardz 4 Galz, and I chose the theme of ‘Black and Blingy‘. I am sure there are some ideas rolling around in your head to be able to join us in this challenge.

Here is my card:

I knew I wanted some black foliage, and turned to a Tattered Lace die – A Little Bit Ditsy – and die cut this out of black glimmer card stock from Stampin Up.

That in itself was a challenge! Getting all those little details to come out of that card – slowly, slowly peeling it out – it took some doing. despite using my Gemini Junior, and cutting it s few times – I almost gave up!

I’m glad I persevered – and even cut two of them!

The butterfly is from Spellbinders, and I took the decision to add some pink glittery card underneath the black butterfly – I like the pop of colour.

The sentiment is from a Sue Wilson set which started out as ‘Happy Birthday to You’ – but I trimmed it down as you see.

All the card – except the base card – is glimmer card from Stampin Up – no stamping on this card at all – just die cuts.

Sticking items onto glimmer card is also a challenge – so once I had used some glue I turned again to me Tonic Nuvo drops and added some black dots strategically – to enable to some added dimension, but also to act as glue to keep those flourishes down on the card.

I hope you can come and join us – I can’t wait to see your take on the black and bling theme. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crazy 4 Challenges – something that flies

The Paper Girls – birthday

Happy Little Stampers dies challenge– anything goes with dies

Watercooler Challenge – occasions

Watercolour Poinsettia

Hello once again. I have a card to share for the new challenge beginning at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is anything goes as long as it’s Christmas related.

Here is my card:

I began by stamping and heat embossing in white the Thirsty Brush and Co ‘Sparkle to my world’ stamp set onto Arteza water-colour card. I used the rough side of the card as I like the look that gives with watercolour. I then used the Arteza Real Brush pens and a combination of several reds for the poinsettia itself, and several greens for the leaves.

I just played with the colours and the shading – not particularly taking any notice of light source – just playing and colouring, adding water, then taking some away – I do tend to add too much water sometimes – until I was happy with the result.

I did colour some of the stamped berries, but I didn’t like how they turned out, so I went into my Tonic Nuvo drop stash – I seem to have a lot of these drops – and found a colour that matched. I also found a lovely green – so I added that too.

For some reason, I just can’t stop adding these drops once I start:

I layered some red and green card and as I wanted to stamp the sentiment in black to make an impact, I used a black card base.

I hope you can come and join us, as I’d love to see what Christmas creations you can add to our gallery. The Design Team has some fabulous and varied inspiration for you xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge – atg with option wet or dry embossing

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – atg Christmas with option of cute

Joy Of sets Tic Tac Toe – watercolour/embossing/floral

Happy Little Stampers watercolour challenge – watercolour with option of bling

Please feel free to copy to your sidebar

The Joy of Sets Tic Tac Toe Challenge Grid for February 2020 - #JOSTTT014

Rainbow Plushies

Hi there. I wasn’t going to post today, but I have been playing in my craft room – well, I went to tidy it up and found myself playing – and made this card for the current Facebook Challenge at CAS Facebook Lottery.

I haven’t entered this before, but the aim is to make a CAS card, with a theme set by the previous winner, who then chooses the winner of this challenge. The winner sends their card to the host and everyone else sends their card to the winner…………how fabulous is that?

The theme chosen this time is cats and/or dogs – more than one. I used the ‘Piled Up Plushies‘ from Clearly Besotted:

I seem to be in a Copic Rainbow Limbo…………..

The stamp set includes both cats and dogs, so I played with colours and blending, no plan to it, just went with it. The sentiment is from the same stamp set.

So there we are, a last minute and unprepared creation – sometimes they are the most enjoyable, aren’t they? Especially when they turn out OK….

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Cute Card Thursday – atg cute

AAA Cards – CAS one third or less, option of hearts (not taken option)

Use Your Stuff – critters

Colour Crazy Challenge – atg colouring

Double Trouble Challenge – critters and again and again

Caroling Cats

Hello there. I have been having fun with my Copics the past few days, and have created a card for the new challenge which has just begun at ABC Christmas Challenge.

The letters this time are ‘C’ and ‘D’, and Wilma is hosting and chose the theme Cats and/or Dogs. Here is my card:

I began by using the Clearly Besotted ‘Sing It’s Christmas’ stamp set and stamping onto a piece of card. I then stamped the image again onto some masking paper and cut that out with scissors – no matching dies with this set – aren’t I brave?

Once I had masked the image of the cats and lamp-post, I created a circle mask, and used three blue toned Distress Oxides to blend a background.

I let that dry for a couple of hours, then coloured my images with Copics, and stamped the musical notes.

I realised that the Distress Oxides blurred the images a little at the end – probably I didn’t mask good enough – so I went in with a black artliner and expanded the lines a little, and made some of the others a little darker…now I look at it, you can;t really tell I did that – should I have kept that to myself? :)

I then decided to do some white gouache splattering……..uh huh…..at this stage I hear you ask…..

I masked the coloured images again, then splattered – and almost went too far with the larger drops, so I stopped, and took a white gel pen and added smaller ‘snow’ flecks instead. I was too nervous to continue with the larger splattering after all the colouring I had done…..

You can see the larger splatters, and then the smaller gel pen spots I added. I even went over the cats themselves to pretend they were in a blizzard – yet still singing……..

I’m really pleased how this turned out – no smudging on the white card – and I even found a piece of blue card as a base which matched pretty well.

I hope you can come and join us – I am soooo looking forward to seeing your Christmas creations which include cats and/or dogs. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

The Christmas Blog Challenge – Christmas and Little Friends

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – atg Christmas – option quick and easy

Catch The Bug – anything goes

Pink Gem Challenge – anything goes

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

CAS one layer cards

Hello there. I have spent some time in my craft room today, getting to grips with my Copics again, and generally just playing around.

I struggle with CAS cards, and definitely struggle with one layer cards – but today I made two cards.

Both cards are made using Simon Says Stamp ‘Gnome For The Holidays’, using different images, yet the same sentiment.

I shall be entering the first card into the following challenges:

Water Cooler Challenge – occasions

Addicted to Stamps Challenge – CAS

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – atg

Krafty Chicks Challenge – anything goes

I shall be entering the second card into the following challenges:

Perfectly CAS – CAS one layer card

Jingle Belles – Christmas and three of something (three berries)

Simply Less Is More – tiny and few

Stitched Blooms

Hello once again. I have been making a card today, to enter a few challenges – I love how challenges give me inspiration, and an actual reason to make cards. I like to have a plan – either the colours, or the layout, or the theme.

Here is my card:

I used the colours from the current Color Throwdown Challenge and die cut several flowers, leaves, and foliage from the MFT ‘Stitched Blooms’ die set, using Simon Says Stamp card stock received in a recent kit, and layering the flowers as you see.

The background is an Altenew stencil – really trying to use stencils more – called ‘Sunburst’, and I used a light grey – Pumice Stone – Distress Oxide to blend through onto the background piece of card.

I then took the flowers and layered them onto the card, placed the leaves and foliage as you see and added a grey and red strip to the far edge of the card.

I then turned to the extra circles which had been die-cut – the little circles which are meant to be the centre of the flowers – well I just used them as accents and placed them haphazardly around the flowers.

Oh – and then I took a Tonic Nuvo crystal drops in ‘Liquid Mercury‘ and added some of them too. The thing about these drops – I just can’t stop putting them on the card once I start…………!

I added them to the flower centres, to the extra circles, to the card itself. I had to restrain myself from adding even more…….

Now – I didn’t use a sentiment. Not yet anyway…. I sometimes leave cards without a sentiment, so I can add one at a later date. Occasionally I like to make cards just for the sake of it, after being inspired by challenges, and therefore I don’t always have a person or occasion in mind.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – red, dark grey, light grey, white

Tuesday Throwdown – layered die cuts

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Daring Cardmakers – layer it up

Alphabet Challenge – Vegetables

Hello there. I am pleased to be hosting the new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge – and I chose the theme of ‘Vegetables’. I know, I know – quirky huh?

The Design Team has come up with some amazing inspiration – I do hope you can come and join us – I’d love to see your take on this theme.

Here is my card:

I used a stamp set from Heffy Doodle, stamped with Gina K amalgam ink, and coloured with Copics – which I haven’t done for a while.

Then I turned to the layout, and utilised a sketch challenge. To adhere to the sketch, I decided to use the ‘Welcome Wreath’ from W Plus 9 to create the six circles. First layer with a dark green ink, then thought the wreath needed more, so added a browny ink layer, and finally a lighter green layer.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set, and I copic coloured the orange strips underneath the white strip, just to make it stand out more, and cut it to a jaunty angle – just like the carrots..

I hope you pop along to see what the Design Team have created – there are lovely inspiration cards over there – some quirky, some funny, and some just plain sweet. Here’s hoping to see your creations in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – atg

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – all loved up

The Paper Players – sketch

Watercooler Challenges – occasions (Valentine)

Time Out Challenges – affectionate