Hello again. I am hosting the new challenge at Cardz4Galz, and chosen the theme of ‘Shades of Brown‘. I thought this would incite some creative juice production to make a girlie kinda card using this theme. Here is my card:
I started by stamping the Altenew ‘Engraved Flowers’ onto a dark brown card-stock, and heat embossed in white. I stamped out all the images, but only used the two you see above.
I then took that same dark brown card and a lighter brown card and dry embossed with a Sue Wilson embossing folder for some added background detail – but not too much, as I wanted this card to be quite simple.
The sentiment is also from the same stamp set, again heat embossed in white.
I hope you can pop along to our challenge blog and have a look at what the rest of the Design Team have made, and take the plunge and join us by entering. I look forward to seeing your ‘shade of brown’ creations in our gallery.
I have a card to share today, made for entering a few challenges. I have been making cards the past few weeks, but mainly to fulfill my Design Team obligations.
I haven’t made many other cards, as losing my dad just over a month ago, and then the funeral happening last week – I’ve struggled to get my head around things a little………
I’ve been spending a little time just going through my stash, cataloging what I have – isn’t it amazing what products we have and never used? The stamp I used for this card was one of my ‘finds’!
Here is my card:
I used Distress Oxides to blend the background – I think it was Squeezed Lemonade and Barn Door – then splattered some white gouache for a little snow effect.
Once that had dried, I stamped the image from Woodware’s ‘Winter Wonderland’ in a brown Altenew ink, then clear heat embossed it for some shine, and doing the same with the sentiment which is from the same stamp set.
Hello there. A new challenge has started at The ABC Christmas Challenge. This time the letters are ‘U’ for up-cycle, and ‘V’ for Velocity.
Here is my card for Velocity:
This stamp set was bought at the ‘pop-up-shop’ whilst attending my first Copic Colouring lesson last Saturday with Faye Wynn-Jones. I knew the letters for this challenge and so I thought this image fit perfectly.
I started by stamping then colouring the image, and using my Scan’n’cut to cut around the outline.
The background is Distress Oxide blending with a Heffy Doodle stencil, and not being too ‘blendy’ with the blues to make quite a stormy sky, adding white gouache and sparkle splatters. I also used the blue colours to just darken the edge of the silver glitter ‘road’ a little.
The puffs of snow and the Christmas hat is from MFT ‘Ready, Set, Snow’ stamp set – the little Christmas hat just about fitting onto the cycle helmet – I didn’t want to leave the helmet off and mask around it to add the hat – it’s dangerous riding a bike without a helmet!
The larger part of the sentiment is from the Gerda Steiner stamp set, and the smaller part is a freebie from Heffy Doodle with one of their orders.
I hope you can come and join us this month, and create a Christmas card with the challenge theme. The Design Team has some wonderful inspiration too – I hope ou can pop along and have a look – and then join us.I
I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery.
xx
I shall also be entering the following challenges:
For my card, I took the opportunity to use one if the new stamps I bought at a craft show near Coventry the other week:
I loved this simple stamp when I saw it, and decided all it needed was some Copic colouring. It’s also a tall and skinny card, managing to create it using an A4 sheet of card, without going into my 12×12 inch stash.
I used a selection of brown Copics, wanting the deer to be darker than the birds, which I wanted darker than the antlers – just so they stood out.
Of course – they are all robins, with their little red breasts.
I hope you are able to come along and join us in this challenge – I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery – and don;t forget – making Christmas cards is almost a ‘must’ at this point in the year…….no pressure!!
Also – I’m struggling with photographing my cards in the darker days – have a light box, have a light stand – but just can’t seem to get the lighting quite right. I seem to have done better with this photo – but I think it’s a work in progress………if you have any suggestions, hints, tips – feel free to either leave a comment on my blog – or send me an email….. xx
Hello there. There is a new challenge beginning at Cardz 4 Galz, and the theme this time is ‘Pretty Bows’. We would love to see your paper-crafting related projects with this theme.
We are also have a Design Team call – so if you can create a card every two weeks following a set theme, be able to comment on your allocated numbers in the entries – I usually comment more – and host a challenge or two, picking the spotlight winners – then please come along and submit your entry for consideration. I’m looking forward to seeing what you create, and looking forward to greeting a new teamie…… xxxx
Back to the current challenge. Here is my card:
I began with a lilac card layer using Sue Wilson Stitched Squares, cut a smaller square with one of the layers, and then die cut one of the verso layers from the tonic die set. The bows in this verso layer can be lifted for added dimension, as you can see from the close photo.
After cutting a couple more layers from the Tonic set, I created a lattice bow using the Spellbinders tiered Mulitloop Bows die set, using a gem brad to put the layers of the bow together, and added to the card as you see.
I decided not to put a sentiment on this card, and will instead use a verse or poem in the middle instead, as I feel this could be quite a generic card.
I hope you can visit the Cardz 4 Galz challenge and see the creations from the Design Team – and I also hope you can come and join us – I look froward to seeing what you create.
I used the Altenew ‘Hand Picked Bouquet‘ stamp set and a black ink for the outline, with three grey inks for the layering flowers.
The small leaves I coloured with Copics, the larger leaves I stamped the second layer only with a minty Altenew ink, then coloured that same area with the same Copic used on the small leaves.
Hello there. I know I’ve been absent for a little while. I lost my dad towards the end of August, and I have also had a week away on holiday in Turkey. I managed to schedule my Design team posts, but very little else.
I’m also what they call flexibly retired – which means I am only working two days a week now…….hopefully more time for crafting – as well as other things.
I have a Copic colouring class this coming Saturday with Faye-Wynn Jones – soooo looking forward to that. I have the three day Craftaganza in November with Crafters Companion, and a three day weekend with ‘the girls‘ in a holiday park in November too.
The builders have finished the bathroom, the decorator has finished the painting and decorating……….it has been full-on, I’ll tell you…..
This morning I created a card for the current challenge at Color Throwdown:
This is a fairly new stamp company based in the UK, Picture This – Creative Endeavours – and I have several set of their stamps, but haven’t found time to play with them until today, I thought I should, especially as I bought more when I went to the crafting Live show in Coventry last Sunday – courtesy of Thirsty Brush and Co and winning a couple of tickets on Instagram – bought more goodies……I am sure you will see them – gradually!
I saw the colours for this challenge, and thought of this set of houses…..
I stamped the image first, then again alongside – can you see where I did that? I don’t think I did too badly! The outlines are heat embossed in black, then I took the three other colours from the challenge and played with water-colouring the houses with my Zigs. The aqua is actually the Catherine Pooler ‘Aquatini‘, but the grey and cobalt blue are Zigs.
I did quite a rough water-colour technique, as I didn’t want the houses too perfect, or too neat and tidy, as I feel the stamp is quite sketchy. A little bit of a deeper colour to some areas, but generally played around.
The sentiment is from Concord and 9th ‘City Scapes‘ – the ‘welcome‘ die cut three times and layered, and the rest stamped onto the card itself.
Hello there. A new challenge has begun at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is – anything goes as long as it’s Christmas. Here is my card for this challenge:
Whilst I was sorting my stuff out after the decorator had left, I came across a bunch of Tattered Lace magazines I have never even opened or looked at – from the first ever magazine they produced up to and including a Christmas Special which had this cute fishing penguin as a free die on the cover.
I may have put these to one side so I didn’t spoil the magazine by taking the dies off, or cutting into the papers in the middle of the magazine – but as they’ve been sitting there for years (I think this was from a 2016 Christmas Magazine) I thought I’d use them. No point hoarding – well, not for that long, anyway!
I die-cut the penguin out of a cream card stock – I didn’t want him to be too bright – and coloured his individual parts with Copics, adding some glitter to the hat brim and pom-pom. I also added a small piece of glitter card behind the swirls on his belly – but it’s not showing up very well, I’m afraid.
I was going to do some Distress Oxide blending for the background, but every Tattered Lace Magazine has some papers on the inside, so I used one of those paper scenes and cut to size, adding a stitched frame around it. I don’t use patterned papers very often – I seem to struggle putting them together and matching shapes, layers and hues – but with a scene paper like this – it seemed to work well.
The penguin is standing outside of the frame, and fishing into the bucket on the inside. The bucket is from MFT ‘Pet Perches‘ die set, and is supposed to be the bed for the pet – but I saw it as a bucket, especially when the die actually cuts into to ‘bed’ itself so I could slot the fish into it.
I hope you have time to join us for this challenge, and I look forward to seeing what you create. :) :)
Hello there everyone. There is a new challenge starting at The Alphabet Challenge today. The letter is ‘M’ and we want to see your Masculine cards. Here is my card:
You may or may not realise that masculine cards are few and far between for me. I don’t know how to do them, and they aren’t a particular card I frequently make.
As Design Team member for this challenge, I knew I had to do some research – so I went to Pinterest, to YouTube, to Instagram – you name it – I went there. I came to the conclusion that geometric seems to be quite a popular male card layout – so I went with that one.
I hunted through my card stock and found some blue and maroon patterned card from Hunkydory – I’ve had this for quite a while – probably years – and so I decided to work with that. I cut the hexagons out on my Scan’n’cut from the two pieces of card – after playing around with sizing – then played with the pattern and layout.
The grid is from Waffle Flower, and cut into a piece of card which I would class as vanilla – but no clue where it came from and no idea how long I’ve had it – but I didn’t want white – and this seemed quite a good match for the blue and maroon.
The sentiment strip and sentiment itself is from the Concord and 9th Everyday Bouquet die set.
So – do masculine cards excite you? Do they scare you? They scare me – so this challenge was perfect for getting over the fear………I think! :)
I hope you can come and join us, and I look forward to seeing your take on the masculine theme.
Hi everyone. There is a new challenge beginning at Cardz 4 Galz, and the theme this time round is ‘Welcome Autumn/Fall‘. In England it’s called Autumn, but as I have many stamps and dies from the USA – I have used stamps from my stash for the sentiment:
I started by die-cutting some bronze muted shiny card with the dies from Concord and 9th ‘Everyday Bouquet’ die set – the squares, the leaves – and then glued them dwon as you see. I did run the little die-cuts through my Xyron to get them sticky on the back.
Sometimes I let leaves and branches etc move around on my cards, but I wanted these to be stuck down – no idea why, I just thought it would look better. It’s strange how we sometimes go with an idea – with no thought process – maybe just a ‘gut feeling‘………..
I was going to emboss the sentiment, but decided to stamp in another brown, keeping the whole card quite simple – yet I feel it’s also quite elegant.
I hope you can come and join us with this theme, and I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery. :) :)
loopyloocards 