Altenew Gradient Stripes Cover Die

Some Flowers and a Tree

Good morning everyone. I have been a little remiss in my blog postings. I posted a couple of cards at the beginning of the week – Christmas cards – for a couple of challenges I am now Design Team for – ABC Christmas Challenge and The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge.

This means I will have a significant stash of Christmas cards by the end of the year, so I hope you will join us there.

I managed to get time in my craft room yesterday, and made three cards for separate challenges, so I hope you will bear with me for the bunch of photos, and as the lighting currently is quite poor – despite a light box – I did struggle with them, but I hope you can enough for what I was trying to achieve.

As Christmas has been on my mind for the above challenges, I decided to add just one more for the CASology Challenge , using the colours from CAS Colours and Sketches, and adding into the Christmas at Sweet Stampin’ Challenge:

Here is a little close-up:

I used a stamp from Paper Artsy, and coloured with Copics. The sentiment is on two separate blocks to add to the ‘funky’ feel of the card, and the two outer strips are coloured with Copics, and cut to add as you see. I left quite a bit of the image white, so try to maintain a clean and simple look, as the image is quite a large one at six a a half inches tall.

This second card was inspired by The Color Throwdown Challenge, to use Grey, Purple, Lavender, and Kraft:

I turned to me Altenew 3D flowers for this, die-cutting them and then colouring with Copics. I did put the uppermost level as white initially, but then coloured it grey, which I prefer, but leaving the middle stamen white. Those leaves – my goodness – loving those leaves, I must say.

My third and final card for today:

The colours were inspired by the photo inspiration at Pinspirational – the greys and whites, along with the stripes. An Altenew stamp and die set, and Altenew inks, and also dry embossing the Gradient Stripes Cover Die into the white background:

Once again, the lighting not brilliant, but I hope you see the stripes.

This card will also be entered into:

Watercooler Challenges – anything feminine goes

Clean and Simple on Friday – CAS dry or heat embossing

The Flower Challenge – anything goes with flowers

An Indoor Garden

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Hi there. I really enjoyed making this card with the Altenew ‘Indoor Garden‘ stamp and die set. I have had this set for absolutely ages – and never used it. The opportunity came when I saw the current challenge at Addicted To Stamps, and the theme for Inkspirational.

I took all of the images from the stamp set, and didn’t realise until I started that each image has several bits to stamp to complete each one. Actually – I had so much fun with the images coming together, and I am sure I will make more similar cards. I did stamp and die cut at least three of each – you have to fill your Misti, don’t you?

I used the Altenew ‘Soft Scoop‘ ink set, as although different colours, they work so well together. I also used some of my other green inks, for more variety, as I wanted the cacti themselves to be quite bright – but not too much.

The lined background is me taking a die cut from the Altenew ‘Gradient Stripes‘ cover die – just laying there on my desk – and using that as a mask. Not too correctly, and using three colours, to give an almost water-colour effect. I liked how this turned out – not too precise, but certainly a little something extra to the background.

Once I had placed the die cut images down, I looked for a ‘power‘ sentiment to match. My thought process in this…..cacti are strong, durable, and seem to survive almost anything – that is my ‘power‘ idea. I have a couple of friends going through some personal issues at the moment – and I thought this sentiment was ideal, taking from Altenew ‘Bamboo Rose‘ stamp set.

I hope you like it, and I hope you come back tomorrow to see what I have created for my guest designer spot on CASology……

Challenges I will be entering with this card:

Addicted To Stamps – photo inspiration

Inkspirational – power

Purple Rose Flurries

Hello again. I have a couple of cards as variation on the current theme inspired by Inkspirational:

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The theme is to use purple and gold, and so I turned to my ‘Rose Flurries 3D die set‘ from Altenew. I had a little play with them when I first got them, but took the opportunity this time to really have a play.

There was a lot of die-cutting – and no stamping! I had four variations of colour of purple, as I had a pack from Creative Expressions. I cut all of the layers of the roses in all four colours, and placed them in a variety of ways – some with the dark colour on the bottom, some with the dark colour on the top, and then some more just putting them in any old order!

I then cut the leaves in Creative Expressions gold card, but I didn’t layer them up, as I liked the look of them as they were.

The first card is the flowers and leaves layered onto a plain white background, but I added some detail to the background on the second card. This time I took the Altenew ‘Gradient Stripes cover die’, and cut it out of the gold card, then cut the ‘Watercolour stripes cover die’, and placed that on top – that way I had some gold in the background – but not too much.

I must say I enjoyed the faffing and fiddling when doing all that die-cutting, and even enjoyed the gluing part of it – though at times the flowers were sticking more to my fingers than each other……

Here are the cards at a different angle:

I tried to show the glimmer on the gold card, but it is really difficult…..

🙂

Blue Congratulations

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Hello. I hope everyone has had a good weekend. I have managed to find some mojo, and find some time to craft. The weather has been  brighter, even though it did rain last night, but everything is looking really green and lush at the moment.

I wanted to join the current challenge at Watercooler challenges, with the theme of ‘Occasions’, as I have three – yes three – friends at work who have recently has the news of passing exams/courses as part of our work. Those Masters degrees – hard work, but worth it in the end.

I also took inspiration from Craftaholics R Us, where their theme was to use something blue on the project. So, even though I am using the Altenew ‘Gardenia‘ again – are there blue Gardenia’s? – it looks completely different in this colour to when I have previously used it.

When I was thinking about the design of the card, I actually turned to the current Card Concept Challenge – they have a photo of a big and bold red/orange blossom. So even though my flower is blue, I took their photo as inspiration for the layout, and just used one flower, and the Altenew Gradient Stripes Cover Die. I actually put some of the strips back into the frame – in a different order – as I thought the wider stripes of blue seemed to engulf the flower a little too much.

The sentiment is from another Altenew set, and I added  some Nuvo drops, basically because I haven’t used them for a little while, and I also wanted to break the white up a little more.

🙂