Big Birthday Wishes

Hello. It’s raining here today, a little relief from the high temperatures last week – but I like whatever the UK weather tends to throw at us – barring the absolute extremes, of course.

I have couple of cards to share today using the same stamp set from Hello Bluebird, and for a few different challenges:

Both are one layer cards, stamped onto folded card-stock from Catherine Pooler I received many eons ago in one of her kits.

For the hippo card, I stamped the hippo in Gina K amalgam ink, then coloured with warm grey Copics, adding some white gel pen for details.

The grass was drawn on – to fit in with one of the challenge themes – and coloured with Copics. I must say – drawing grass is far harder than it might look. :)

The second card, the elephant, was coloured in the cool grey Copic markers, and this time I just drew in the top of the grass and coloured the rest with the same as the previous card, but adding bunches of grass with the darker green instead of drawing more black lines.

The hippo card will be entered into the following challenges:

Simply Less Is More – CAS and doodles

Animal friends Challenge – hippo or rhino

Watercooler Challenge – occasions

The elephant card will be entered into the following challenges:

Moving Along With The Times – Elephants

Pink Gem Challenge – anything goes

Seize The Birthday – birthday anything goes with option rainbow colours (not taken)

Button zum Mitnehmen

You’re The Cat’s Meow

Hello and welcome once again. I have a card to share today which turned out to be made largely from Mama Elephant products. This wasn’t planned at all – it was just the way my mind went when designing the card:

The theme started off from the current challenge at CASology – the prompt word being ‘BALL’. I put that into the Color My Life app and it came up with lots of balloons in my stash – and a few stamp sets which had cats/kittens with balls of wool.

Of those three, I chose the Mama Elephant stamp set ‘My Pet Kitties‘, stamped a couple of the images in Gina K Amalgam ink onto a scrap piece of Concord & 9th white card (from a previous make).

I coloured the kitties in Copics – the warm greys (and this card stock loves Copics – very easy) with a touch of peach to the ears, an aqua Copic for the wool balls – following the current colours at Color Throwdown – and then used the matching dies to cut them out.

I was going to go with a ‘normal’ card layout, but I have several of the slimline die sets so I went with that. I first looked on the Mama Elephant web site to get the dimensions for a slimline card, especially as I was using their dies to create one.

The base card is Neenah card, the Kraft layer is cut using Mama Elephant ‘Slim Card Basics‘, as is the white layer and the three windows.

Instead of ink blending the windows, I used another Mama Elephant die set – ‘Slim Window Dressing‘ – which had grass and cloud dies so I used an aqua and Kraft card for those two layers in each window.

The sentiment is from C.C. Designs ‘Cutie Cats‘ – one of the other stamp sets I was going to use – and then all put together with foam pads and glue as you see.

I added a couple of little butterflies – just because I could………

Even though this has a few layers to it, I still think it’s CAS enough for the CASology Challenge – but I am sure the DT there will let me know if it’s a problem – I still had fun thinking about a card for their current theme – it has taken me days and days…….

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CASology – word prompt ‘BALL’

Color Throwdown – peach aqua, Kraft

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – midsummer blues – use blue, or the blues music, or sad

You Really Are The Sweetest…

Hello there. I have a ‘berry’ sweet card to share today – pun intended:

See what I mean?

I used the Clearly Besotted ‘Pick a Plushie‘ stamp set and – obviously- the strawberry. Once stamped with Gina K amalgam ink and coloured with Copics – I then had to fussy-cut them out……I know – not usually my thing, but these were quite easy.

I then used some white gel pen for details and turned to the sketch layout, using three die cut squares which were left over when I die-cut the Heffy Doodle ‘Stitched Slimline Trio die’ a few cards ago – I always keep these little squares or circles for future uses – but sometimes I forget I have them! These were still on my craft desk and just begging to be used.

The inner small squares were cut using a Stampin Up ‘Stitched Squares’ die set – a staple in my craft drawer and used frequently.

The sentiment is from the same Clearly Besotted stamp set and stamped directly onto the card base.

I am continuing to make cards for non-specific reasons and just sending them to friends as a little encouragement and contact.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Fusion Card Challenge – sketch and/or photo – photo inspiration of the berries

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch

Crafty Sentiments Designs – anything goes

Arty Divas Challenge – anything goes

Inkspirational – word prompt ‘Face‘ – my strawberries have faces :)

OUR BANNER FOR YOUR blogs
A badge for you!

A White Daisy

Hi there. I hope you are all well. I was lucky to obtain the new ink cubes and card stock from Concord & 9th when it was first released over here in the UK.

This card features just the card stock – all die cutting – mixing the three Concord & 9th ‘Fresh Cut Florals‘ die sets for several challenges:

A close friend of mine has a birthday on 11th August, so this card was made withe her in mind. I knew I could go a little more dimensional as I could take it to her so I wasn’t worried about giving the daisy a little bit of dimension and life – whilst still keeping the look CAS.

She has been shielding since March, so I haven’t seen her – though we have kept in contact. Her family has been doing the shopping etc. It’s only recently that people who have been shielding have been ‘let out’ of the house. I’ll be picking up some real flowers and maybe a little treat as well.

After die-cutting the three sets a dies a few times in the blue, white, marmalade and red pieces of card, I then played with the colours of each element. I knew the white daisy was going to take centre stage, but the other elements were moved and changed around until I had the layout you see above.

I have some huge white daisy in our garden which were also an inspiration:

I didn’t ink the leaves of the daisy – just clean lines and colours. I looked for a sentiment – and I have a lot of them – but in the end I decided to put the sentiment on the inside to keep the outside kinda ‘pure’.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – red, coral, blue, white

Watercooler Challenge – atg with feminine twist

Simply Less Is More – CAS Summer Flowers

Give a Crafter a Cookie – photo Inspiration (white flowers)

Clean and Simple On Sunday – CAS Nature

For your blog

Life’s a beach…..

Hello there. I have a CAS card to share today which stretched my Copic colouring knowledge – research was undertaken! – to create a beach scene:

I used Make It colour blending card and stamped the Clearly Besotted scene onto the bottom of it in Gina K amalgam ink.

Once stamped, I then turned to the tinterweb and searched for ideas on colours and ‘how to‘ colour a beach scene and the sea. Most of the colours and methods came from watching Mindy Baxter do her magic – very inspiring. I added some more colours – and actually used a couple of different ‘blues’ for the sea as I didn’t want it too dark or even too light – but kudos to her for her easy to follow instructions.

Here is a picture of the colours I used:

I think I missed the dark brown Copics somehow!

I find taking a picture of the colours helps me to look back and see what I was happy with, and what combination of colours I may use again. I do write these down in a note book – very OCD at the moment – and write where I have used them on what card and what post so I can easily look back and see if I was happy with the colours or not.

The card was then die cut using some stitched rectangle frames, then adhered to a white card base. The Make It card isn’t thick enough to be used as a one layer card, so if I want to do one of those, I tend to colour on Neenah Classic Crest – but I find that doesn’t blend as well, so I have to choose my colours carefully – or colour using another medium.

I hope you are all well and managing to stay sane……!

I shall be entering the following challenges:

AAA Cards – CAS along the edge with option of ‘beach’

Lemon Shortbread – anything goes

Crafty Sentiments Designs – anything goes

Colour Crazy Challenge – week 30 – anything goes colouring

OUR BANNER FOR YOUR blogs

Hope to Sea You Soon

Hi there. I have a card to share – quite a CAS card – made with a dear friend of mine in mind:

I have seen this particular friend just once since March – and so I am hoping we can get together again soon for a catch-up – and maybe one day we can hug again!

The stamp set I used is from Heffy Doodle – You Go, Gull – and I first stamped the tree stump in Stampin Up ‘Terracotta Tile‘ ink – then used a water-brush to pull the colour out a little.

I then stamped the birds in Gina K amalgam ink and coloured the grey areas with Copic cool greys, and used the same Stampin Up ink and a little water to colour the beak, legs, and wing detail.

The base card is three and a half inches by eight and a half inches, and the black layer and white window layer are cut using Heffy Doodle ‘Stitched Slimline Trio‘ die set. I love the scallops on the windows. And I have three scalloped squares to use on another card now…….

The sentiment is from the same stamp set, heat embossed in white – though I did have to go over the letters with a white gel pen as it didn’t quite emboss fully.

The hearts are cut from a piece of card I coloured with the same ‘Terracotta Tile‘ ink.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – black, white, terracotta

Water-Cooler Challenges – anything goes

Freshly Made Sketches – slimline sketch

Krafty Chicks – anything goes

Right Click to Save

Birthday and Hello

Hello there. I have a couple of cards to share which used just one stamp set between them, and then I die cut a couple of rectangles from the image:

The circular floral image is quite large, and I was going to use the whole image on one card, but decided to cut it up to make two CAS cards.

Here is the original stamp set picture, just so you can see what I started with:

Beautiful Inside and Out Clear Stamp Set
Funky Fossil Designs, A5 stamp set

I stamped the circular image in Gina K amalgam ink, then coloured with Copics, sticking to the colour scheme from one of the challenges.

Once coloured I then used a small stitched rectangle die from Susan Wilson to cut two pieces out, and attached them in different places in two different sized card bases.

The ‘Hello‘ die is from Simon Says Stamp and part of a recent kit of theirs, die cut in black 4 times and layered together.

The birthday sentiment is from another Simon Says Stamp set called ‘Bee Happy‘ – I was after a small birthday sentiment and this fitted perfectly.

I’m off to get the house ready for having visitors this evening – the first time since March. We are lucky to have a downstairs cloak room – so I have sanitised it, and shut the door so hubby and I won’t use that for the rest of the day. I’ve even ordered a take-away restaurant meal…….not quite ready for going out to a restaurant yet……Can you also imagine I’ve also got out separate cutlery, plates and glasses for them that haven’t seen the light of day since Christmas? Yep – that’s my OCD kicking in!

Anyhoo, I shall be entering the following challenges:

Watercooler Challenges – occasions

Color Throwdown – yellow, orange, green

Krafty Chicks – occasions

Here is a place to start – flowers/floral

AAA Cards – CAS max white space and option of flowers

Christmas Spirits….

Hello once again. I hope you are keeping safe. I have a CAS card to share today:

I took a square base card and stamped some images from a newly purchased Clearly Besotted stamp set ‘ Drink and Be Merry’ in Gina K Amalgam ink, then very simply coloured with Copics.

The berries are one of the gold’s from my Gansai Tambi set – and those little berries are exactly that – little!

The sentiment is from the same stamp set – and there are loads of sentiments with this actually quite small set – you certainly get a lot for your money.

I have a confession to make – this is my second attempt! The first did go in the bin – I couldn’t save it……………I took ages creating a mask for the glasses on the original card, then used a circle stencil and Distress Oxide Speckled Egg as a background – it looked absolutely horrendous!

Really – I mean horrendous! It was only because the Speckled Egg is a greyish-blue, and covered some of the black lines up – my fussy-cutting isn’t the best in the world – so I drew over them in black pen – went squiggly without even touching a drop of alcohol……..I still thought I could save it – coloured the images, stamped the sentiment……nope! Binned.

The version you see here is much better and I feel a whole load happier. I keep trying new things – but sometimes going back to what you know is better. I’m not having a very patient day………………..warn hubby now!

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – blue, green, peach, metallic gold

Aud Sentiments – Christmas in July with a sentiment

Simply Less Is More – CAS one layer Christmas

Christmas Blog Challenge – Christmas and a square card

christmasblog

Gnome For The Holidays

Hello. There is a new challenge beginning at ABC Christmas Challenge. We have reached the letters ‘N’ and ‘O‘. We want to see your Christmas creations with ‘No Fuss‘ and/or ‘Over The Top‘. I chose the ‘No Fuss’ theme. here is my card:

I first stamped the images from Simon SDays Stamp ;Gnome For the Holidays’ in Gin K amalgam ink, then coloured with Copics.

Once cut out with the matching die set, I arranged them as you see – though I did play around with the layout quite a bit. I’ve said before how I find arranging CAS layouts quite challenging.

We have some great makes from the Design Team, and I do hope you can come and join us for this challenge. I ‘d love to see you in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Krafty Chicks Challenge – occasions

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – atg Christmas – option snowflakes (not taken)

Colour Crazy Challenge week 24 – atg colouring

Crafty Sentiments Challenge – atg

Butterfly Star Trails

Hello. I have another CAS card to share using a mix of a couple of stamp sets:

I took the theme from Krafty Chicks, the colour inspiration from CAS Colours and Sketches, and the image inspiration from Fusion Card Challenge.

I ‘found’ this butterfly stamp set from Stampin Up when adding to Color My Life app – and am finding and revisiting a lot of my old stash. I knew I had a lot of products dotted around my craft room and the spare bedroom – but I didn’t realise how much I had forgotten I had.

Adding to this app is bringing back to me the reasons I bought a lot of my products in the first place – and never utilised them…….

I stamped all three layers of the water-colour butterfly as you see, then used the matching die set to cut it out.

I wanted some swirly trails behind the butterfly, and – again – found this stamp set from The Ton which has several star trails stamps. I used one trail stamped in red, then added the yellow and navy stars individually.

Once I had decided where the butterfly was going to be, I then stamped the antennae – that took a little fiddling around – the most difficult part of the card……

Right Click to Save