Embossing, Freebie, and Gold

Hello – a new challenge is beginning at ABC Christmas Challenge, and this time the letters are – can you guess? – E for Embossing, F for Freebie, G for Gold. The Freebie might be a little confusing, but we want to see anything you received as a free gift – that could be a free digital image, a free stamp from a magazine, a free embossing folder – anything you received that was a free gift. Here is my take on the themes:

I stamped the image in Gina K Amalgam ink, then did some simple Copic colouring, colouring only part of the small images. The hanging heart is added from the same collection of free stamps and actually comes joined to another stamp – but I did some stamp surgery and cut them apart.

I liked how the image looked, I made another card which incorporated all three themes at once:

And this time I changed the hanging heart to the hanging star – just because I could!

I hope you can come and join us in this challenge. The Design Team has come up with some amazing inspiration – I hope you can go and check them out.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakersembossing

A Bit More Time To Craft anything goes

AAA Cards – CAS, max white space – option metallic

Merry Little Christmas Challengeanything goes Christmas

Bunny in the clouds

Hello everyone. I have another card to share, using of my current favourite techniques – of CAS + stamping + Copic colouring. I seem to be going from CAS to ‘chucking’ everything at a project – one or the other other with no in-betweenies:

I began by thinking I wanted the cute little bunny and balloon in the clouds, so I used a couple of previous Clearly Besotted stamps – names on the side-bar. I stamped the bunny, sentiment and balloon, masked off the bunny and balloon, then stamped the rainbow and clouds.

The clouds didn’t come far enough down for me, so I took a black art-liner pen and drew some more – actually a lot more – but I wanted the bunny to be well within the clouds.

Once stamped with Gina K Amalgam ink, I coloured with my Copics, trying to match the colours for one of the challenges below, and doing some simple grey shading on the bunny, no shading and just the four colours on the rainbow, and mixed some of them together on the balloon.

I needed to blend a little on the balloon – the blues and green didn’t really want to mix – but I took my colour-less blender and tried that way – it kinda worked……..I see a metallic balloon now – mutli-coloured!

I die-cut the panel with Simon Says Stamp ‘A7 Thin Frames’ to get the centre panel, then the thin frame was coloured in the green Copic and stuck back down around the panel.

And do you know – the new release from Clearly Besotted landed on my mat whilst I was putting this card together……maybe more playing later today…… :)

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Clean and Simple On Sunday/Friday Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, Granny Apple Green

Daring Cardmakers people/animal/things that leap – a bunny leaps, doesn’t it?

Inkspirational Challenges word prompt – LEAP

Crafty Sentiments Designsanything goes

2 Crafty Critter Crazies anything goes with a critter

Crafty Animalsanimals

Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge CAS and favourite technique (stamping, Copic colouring, CAS)

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Hello Little One

Hello once again. I said yesterday I was have a craft-a-thon – well it continues…. Here is a card I made today:

I was inspired to use this Mama Elephant stamp set again – it came to mind straight away for a few challenges.

I stamped the images onto Make-it colour blending card stock with Gina K Amalgam ink, then coloured with Copics, trying to match the colours for one of the challenges.

Looking at the colour again – I have no idea why I coloured the little boy in the pink instead of the blue……….no idea. Oh well…..!! At least he’s got a blue scarf…….. :)

The sentiment is from Heffy Doodle, as is the cloud speech bubble.

Very clean and simple but I think quite effective.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CASolgy Tall

Just Add Ink smoky slate, petal pink, soft sea foam

Simply Less Is More CAS big and small

Colour Crazy Challengeatg colouring

CAS Leafy Birthday

Hello there. After my last post which was mixed media – at the start of my journey – I have gone more CAS today.

I used my newly acquired Uniko stash – ordered last week – to create this card, and some Stampin Up inks.

The die cut circle was stamped using a Pinstripe stamp for a background to my floral images.

The leaf images were stamped and then cut out using my Scan-n-cut, and whilst I was there, I cut a dozen more ready for any future makes with this stamp set.

The sentiment is also from the new release from Uniko.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CAS Colours and Sketchessketch

Color Throwdownaqua, hot pink, Kraft white

Watercooler Challengesoccasions

Krafty Chicksoccasions

Right Click to Save

Just Because Cherry Blossom

Hello there. I have a card to share to day using one stamp and die set:

I wanted a very CAS card and took inspiration from several challenges. The colours were from CAS Colours and Sketches, the layout using the prompt from AAA Cards, and the stamp set using inspiration from the current theme at Die Cut Divas.

The stamp set is Altenew ‘Under The Cherry Blossom Tree, using the branch, then next stamping the flowers, then die cutting. The birds were stamped and then die cut, and added together as you see in the top corner.

I fiddled a little with which corner to add the branch, and then which branch to add the little birds to, but I am pleased with the final placings.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CAS Colours and SketchesPear Pizzazz, Grapefruit Grove, Daffodil Delight

AAA CardsCAS one corner, using older supplies

Die Cut Divashearts or flowers with die cuts

Grab our Badge

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 Thursdayatg cute

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

Use Your Stuffcritters

Colour Crazy Challengeatg colouring

Double Trouble Challengecritters and again and again

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 Challengeoccasions

Addicted to Stamps ChallengeCAS

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challengeatg

Krafty Chicks Challengeanything goes

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

Perfectly CASCAS one layer card

Jingle BellesChristmas and three of something (three berries)

Simply Less Is More tiny and few

Heart Caught in Crystal

Hello once again. I have a card to share utilising a technique I haven;t tried for ages – years in fact. It is the ‘caught in crystal’ technique I first saw from Sue Wilson.

The current challenge at CASology made me think of that technique again – so I went hunting through my stash for products I could use. Here is one of the results:

I started with a piece of acetate and added some glue, smoothed it out a little, then added alcohol inks, mica powders, ink sprays – well, I added a whole load of stuff to the background, but tried to keep it a deep red/purple look, as I knew I wanted to use this Simon Says Stamp ‘Streaming heart’ die – a recent purchase.

I then added some pink tissue paper – I didn’t have any white, so used the pink. Once dry it looked like this on the tissue paper side:

And on the shiny acetate side it looked like this:

It’s very difficult to picture the shine and metallic look to this – but I promise there is some in there somewhere………..I chose which area of the acetate piece I wanted showing through the die-cut heart, cut out a square piece, and glued it down beneath the white heart piece.

The sentiment is from an Altenew set called ‘Wishing You’ – I wanted a short but sweet sentiment.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CASologyCrystal

As You Like It Challengeanything goes

Mowing Along With The Timesall things new (heart die)

Crafters Cafe Blog ChallengeCAS

Stamplorations CAS January ChallengeCAS option metallic

Aud Sentimentsanything goes with a sentiment

The Crafter's Cafe Challenge Blog

Bright Red Poinsettia

Hi there. I hope you are doing well. I have managed to craft some more and created a CAS simple card for some challenges.

I used the Uniko ‘Season of Beauty’ poinsettia stamp, only using some of the layers. I fuirst stamped the flower itself in Rockin’ Red by catherine Pooler – realising after the first stamp I needed ti re-ink the pad. So this is actaully the second stamping…….

I then took the outline layer and one of the inner layers and heat embossed in gold. I used a green for the little dots in the centre of the flower, and stamped a sentiment from the same stamp set in Altenew Obsidian ink.

I took a little while to decide on the base card, and my eye turned to black, to tie-in the sentiment. My thoughts then turned to a strip of gold card, but I knew that Bev from Uniko designed a lot of the strip stamps to build backgrounds – of which I have a few :) – and found this stripy strip stamp so I heat embossed that in gold along the bottom – then went for the top too.

I’m trying to get my head around indoor photographs with my cards – lighting, angle etc. I may even try some kind of decoration around the cards at some point – only time will tell!

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CAS Colours and Sketches cherry cobbler, metallic gold, shaded spruce

Daring Cardmakers3 elements from photo inspiration – stripes, red, joy

Time Out Challenges merry and cheerful

Uniko December ChallengeChristmas with option of trees

Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challengeatg Christmas with option of candy cane

Snowy scene and zig zags

Hi again. There is a new challenge starting at ABC Christmas Challenge. The letters are ‘Y’ for Yuletide, and ‘Z’ for Zig Zags. We would like to see your Christmas related creations using one or both of these themes. Here is my take on the zig zag theme:

This isn’t the card I started out making, but I am pleased with the result, and the simplicity.

I used MFT ‘Snowy Scene Builder‘ for – well – the scene! This die set includes the two hills, the house, trees, and even the clouds. The cloud die I cut in half and used a piece either end of the card.

The house die I placed all the windows and the door back in – paper piecing I suppose – and die cut extra trees for a full treeline.

The zig zag paper background works quite well, I think, quite muted, but certainly adding interest to the card – which is why I kept the rest of the scene white.

The sentiment is from Uniko – quite a bold but open sentiment – and I tried to match one of the brown colours of the background paper with an Altenew ink.

I also took the Spectrum Noir glitter pen and added some to the roof of the house, the hills, and even the clouds – but that may be difficult to see.

I hope you can come and join us, and I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery.

xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Just Us Girlsanything goes

Aud SentimentsChristmas or Winter sentiment

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challengeatg Christmas

Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper Challengeatg with patterned paper