Copics

ABC Christmas Challenge – J and K

Hello there. ABC Christmas Challenge has reached the letters J and K. Wei is hosting, and this time we want to see your Christmas themed creations with ‘J for Joke and/or K for Kraft‘. I was inspired to make a card for each theme:

For the first card I used the Tim Holtz die ‘Arthur’ and created him with a cream textured card stock with some brown ink blending around the edges. The hat is from a Simon Says Stamp die set – with some glitter applied to the white parts. The background is an ink smooshed background from my stash. The joke sentiment stamped onto some patterned paper and placed using 3D foam squares.

For the second card I created a shaker card using an ink smooshed background which I embossed using a Simon Says Stamp embossing folder, then applied Sizzix lustre wax. I placed this into a shaker creator from Tonic Studios, added glass beads and some thicker glitter and sealed it.

I die cut a Hero Arts Christmas cover panel out of Kraft, and stuck that down onto the front.

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas creations – following one or both of our two themes. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

First card:

Peace On Earth Christmas challenge – anything goes Christmas

Crafty Animals Challenge – anything goes with an animal

12 Months of Christmas – anything goes Christmas – option not taken

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Second card:

Dies R Us challenge – anything goes with a brand they sell

Arty Divas Challenge – anything goes

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts or embossing folder (both)

Love To Craft Challenge – anything goes

Winter Bouquets

Hello there. A new challenge has begun at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is ‘anything goes’ as long as it is Christmas. Here is my card:

I used the Honey Bee Stamps ‘Winter Bouquet‘ Honey Cuts and took lots of inspiration from watching YouTube and Nicole Spohr when she was making cards with this set.

The main thing for me was to use Copics on the die-cut elements to create some dimension – a game changer for me. I never thought of doing that to die cuts when using a coloured card.

I die cut the elements out of coloured card, used some matching Copics, then assembled as you see. The centre of the poinsettias are actually a very bright yellow glitter card – no idea where it came from – and then I just used a brown Copic to tone it down.

The sentiment is white heat embossed, and is from a Stampin Up set and white heat embossed onto a die cut panel.

I stuck most of the element down with 3D glue gel, only the tiny sprigs where stuck with glue.

The background is a piece of water-colour card and spritzed with Lumi spray – I wanted a bright shimmer to the background. then came the Nuvo drops – I’ve not used them for a few weeks so here we go – making up for the loss!

I hope you can come and join us for this challenge – I look forward to seeing you in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Krafty Chicks Challenge – occasions

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

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – atg

Crafting Happiness Challenge – atg

A Fishing Penguin

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. 🙂 🙂

Coloured Vellum Strip

A quick post today, for the new challenge beginning at Cardz 4 Galz. The theme this time is to use vellum on your project – lots of choices of where to go with this, and I look forward to seeing your creations:

I used The Ton ‘Fab Day Peony‘ stamp set on some Lawn Fawn vellum – heat embossing with gold, coloured the back of the images with the colours you see, die cut the edges with Lawn Fawn ‘Stitched Scalloped Borders‘, and stuck down.

I’m trying to keep my Design Team duties and responsibilities going, and crafting is helping me get through losing my dad a few days ago – very therapeutic and healing to create – it is helping me deal with things – but my blog posts will be a little shorter than usual.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

INTAAS – flowers

Happy Little Stampers – CAS only one third

Color Throwdown – orange, pink, yellow, green

Allsorts Challenge – feminine

Meadow Motifs

Hi everyone. A very short post for this card for a few of challenges. Therapy crafting today:

and one with a cat in the background – because I could:

The stamped images coloured with Copics, then die-cut and arranged as you see.
Challenges I shall be entering:

Color Throwdown – purple, blue, turquoise, yellow

Happy Little Stampers CAS challenge – use only one third

AAA Cards – CAS along the edge

Craft Rocket Challenges – atg

Funky Floral Hello

Hello. I’ve been doing some more crafting – and yes – despite all the die cutting from the other day – I did more for this card:

I used the colours from the current challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches to colour the white die-cuts from using the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Funky Floral 3 die set. This time, I forgot to use double sided sticky tape on the back, so the flowers are constructed with glue – not my favourite way of sticking little bits together – but I was patient…..kinda!

I used the Hero Arts ‘Wood Grain Infinity dies‘ again to create the frames so I could mimic the current sketch at Freshly Made Sketches

A little close-up of the flowers and frames:

The sentiment is from Altenew, and I also used the teeny tiny dimensionals I received recently behind the frames – a little dimension. The flowers aren’t completely stuck down – I do like to create some movement when using flowers like these, and so I tend to tuck them inside a frame like this, or just stick the stalks into some 3D glue behind other images.

I even took a photo – slightly dark I’m afraid – against some flowers which almost seemed to match the colours:

As well as the flower colour, and the photos with my garden in the background – there is a lot of green around at the moment. We have had quite a bit of rain, and I am looking forward to the promised sunshine and warmer temperatures for this Bank Holiday weekend in the UK.

The challenges I shall be entering are:

CAS Colours and Sketches – Gorgeous Grape, Crushed Curry, Highland Heather (attempted matching with Copics)

Freshly Made Sketches – sketch

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – CAS

Try It On Tuesday – In my garden is…….

Also – I’m trying to link photos from challenges to their challenge site – and not just write down the challenge and theme etc …..can you let me know if it does or doesn’t work? I’m playing a little here………. 🙂 🙂

CAS Colours & Sketches

Freshly Made Sketches

Simon Wednesday Challenge Blog

Cow Birthday

Hi there. I have a card to share to day using a stamp set from a company I hadn’t heard of – until the craft show in Doncaster a few weeks ago.:

The stamp company is ‘Time For Tea Designs‘ and they seem to have quite a few quirky stamp sets, and matching quirky sentiments – just up my street.

This stamp set is called – appropriately – ‘Moovellous‘, and I am loving that cow stamp. This set comes with the cow, the birds, the flowers, the fence, the trees, the grass stamps – in fact the only thing not from the stamp set is the background light blue paper, (I did say I was going to try and use paper from my stash) and the grass edge die set.

Once I had stamped all the images, I coloured with a selection of Copics, and then die cut them with my Scan’n’cut – with baited breath as I had already coloured everything…………..

I managed to take the photo during daylight hours outside – and caught one of my cats in the background – that black and white blob thingy………!!

Another close-up of the card and colouring:

Once I had die-cut the grass, I thought it looked a little plain, so I stamped some of the grass images from the stamp set in a green which shows only slightly – I think an Altenew green – but it does give a little more interest.

Challenges I shall be entering:

Aud Sentiments – animals and a sentiment

Freshly Made Sketches – sketch

Color Throwdown – green, yellow, light blue, Kraft

Cut It Up – die cuts and a sentiment

Penguins, Quarters, reindeer

Hello there everyone. There is another challenge starting at ABC Christmas Challenge, and this time the letters are ‘P’ for Penguins, ‘Q’ for quarters, and ‘R’ for Reindeer.

Here are my cards for this challenge:

I was so inspired by this challenge, that I did cards which covered all three letters. I hunted through my MFT stash to come up with the images, and I even enjoyed colouring them! I know – I don’t usually…..

For the first card I used some Distress Oxides and ink blended a background, cutting out four squares as a backdrop for the penguins. The embossing folder is from Sue Wilson. The die-cut sentiment is from Altenew, and stacked with three layers for dimension to match the height of the squares.

For the second card I used the same embossing folder, ink blended – just a little – some of the blue Distress Oxides, but used the de-bossed side, instead of the embossed side.

I hope you can come along and join us this time, I am sure you have something suitable in your stash for at least one of the letters – if not all of them. I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery. 🙂

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – Christmas with the option of reindeer

Dis Digi designs – things with wings or a tail

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

My Time To Craft – Christmas in July

Black and White with pop of red……..

Hello there. Peace and quiet here again today, so I’m making the most of it. I have been swatching some of my inks and have done my Distress Oxides and my Catherine Pooler inks, moving to my Altenew inks – but run out of the little stamp pockets.

They are due to be delivered from Amazon again today – but an email to say they couldn’t access my house – ridiculous. No-one has come near me this afternoon – and I have CCTV to prove it!!!!! This has happened a few times before – I think it’s a Sunday driver who can’t be bothered. I’ve called Amazon – but what can they do about it? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Sometimes I wonder why I pay for Amazon Prime……….

Now – rant over – over to the card I have made:

I first stamped the Uniko ‘Large Background Tropical Paradise‘ stamp using Altenew ‘Obsidian’ ink – a gorgeous clean and crisp image from this ink. Love it.

Then I die cut the Hero Arts ‘Wood Frame Infinity die‘ out of black card stock to frame to stamp.

Moving on to the flowers, I used Altenew ‘Hibiscus Garden 3D’ die set, cut out of white card with double-sided sticky sheet on the back, then each layer coloured with three tones of reds with my Copics.

Three leaf clusters from that same die set cut of black card, and all put together as you see. with the leaf clusters hanging over the edge of the frame. I do like that look, and have used it before – and bound to do it again, I’m sure.

Challenges I shall be entering:

Paper Minutes – black and white with a touch of red

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Craft Rocket Challenge – anything goes

Die Cuttin’ Divas – anything goes with die cuts

Happy Panda Birthday….

Hello yet again. I thought I would have time to craft yesterday, but the builders – still working on my bathrooms – were noisy, and my parents came over, so I didn’t have much time. However – today hubby went to golf early, the house was quiet………and here we have what I created in the nice and quiet and peacefulness:

This order of ‘Party Like a Panda‘ from Simon Says Stamp takes less than a week to me – and no added postage or customs…………a lot quicker than my sister in Canada even! I fell in love with this collection from day one and have been waiting for a chance to play with it.

I stamped all the images you see, masking the individual presents, stamping again and again, to create a pile or presents. I used a few favourite Copic combinations to match the colours from a challenge. I like when other people show what colours they have used, so I am trying it here. Is it helpful?

I stacked three rolls of double-sided sticky tape together to use as a container – I think that’s ingenious………….if I do say so myself!

Now for the cutting………….I don’t have the matching die sets. One new purchase is the Brother Scan’n’Cut CM900 at the Doncaster craft show the other week. I was thinking of the newer version with auto-blade, but as a card-maker, I think this machine will be more than suitable – I hope so! My time is spent on YouTube figuring it out – but it’s actually quite simple once you get your head around it…………maybe!!

I was nervous cutting this lot of images out, as I had spent a couple of hours colouring them – but – perfect! I added a little border around each image for some definition, as I knew the Panda would be standing in front of the presents, and I wanted him to stand out a little and not blend into the background.

The only thing I need to do in the future is think about the balloon strings, I must adjust the settings or something because it cut one of them off – so I drew it in.

I also forgot to put the white highlighter marks in initially, but the first photo above is including them – here are some without – and what a difference: