Copics

Blow Bubbles

Hello. It is my turn to host at The Alphabet Challenge. We have reached the letter ‘C‘, and I have chosen the theme of:

C is for Circles

Here is my card:

I remember having a Lawn Fawn stamp and die set with bubbles, so I hunted it out, stamped all the images, then coloured with Copics. These were then die cut and set to one side.

I wanted a grass and sky background, but not the traditional way of doing it, so I searched through the CML app for ‘circle’ and this fun stencil popped up from Heffy Doodle.

Onto a white panel, I laid the stencil, then ink blended in two colo0urs of blue and then two colours of green, darker at the edge of each colour, then lighter where the two colours met.

This was then glued onto a card base, and then I spent quite a bit of time placing the images, and the bubbles until I was happy, then used 3D foam pieces to attach them.

The sentiment is from the same Lawn Fawn stamp set, and stamped onto the background panel – very, very carefully and using my Misti……Maybe it should have been stamped before adding the images……

I hope you can come and join us with your creations following our theme. I look forward to seeing you in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Stencil Fun – use stencils – option of see through it not taken

Allsorts – anything goes

Love To Craft – anything goes

ABC Christmas Challenge – J & K

Hello there. It;s been a busy week, but I am here with a couple of cards for the new challenge starting at ABC Christmas Challenge. We always have themes for our letters, and this time they are:

J is for Just Enough (CAS)

K is for Knitwear

Here are my cards:

For my first card, I chose a Polkadoodles stamp set, and stamped directly onto the white card base, then coloured with pencils. I find Copics show through on the revers side, and I wanted this card to be one layer, no additional elements, to keep it very purely CAS.

My second card took a little more time. My first step was to stamp the Lawn Fawn critters, then colour them with Copics, before die cutting them out. The sweaters were also stamped, coloured, then die cut, and attached to the critters. The edges of the sweaters I also added some Lawn Fawn Prisma glitter for a little more sparkle.

All of these stamps came from the same stamp set – ‘Ugly & Bright’.

The background is some patterned paper from Heffy Doodle.

I used the Waffle Flower postage collage die, then a couple of the Waffle Flower Christmas postage collage stencils – picking which images were going where after placing my critters – then ink blending , adding more glitter to some of the elements, before stamping and die cutting the small bubble sentiments.

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

Sending Sunshine

Hello everyone. It;s been a fairly busy week, but I have time to create another CAS card:

For this card I used a stamp set from an SCT ‘Let’s Stamp Together‘ kit, I believe is from Taylored Expressions.

I first took a white panel and stamped the sun image, then stamped again onto some masking paper, cut it out, stuck it down on top of the stamped image, then stamped the rainbow image on top.

Once the sun mask was removed, the sun covers the cloud on the other end of the rainbow and looks like one image.

Once both images were stamped in dark brown amalgam, I heat embossed with clear, as I wanted to colour straight away, and didn’t want to wait until the ink dried. Even when I dry the ink with my heat gun, I find alcohol markers sometimes still smudge and smear the outline.

I chose to colour with Copics, adding a little shading, then stamped the sentiment, cut down the white panel slightly and adhered to a white card base.

Even though it is CAS, I don’t like that Copics will show through a card base if coloured directly onto it.

I hope I will have more time to craft these next few days, and so you may see more of my cards coming up. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Addicted To Stamps & More – make your mark

Addicted to CAS – CAS – theme of weather

Owl I Want For Christmas

Hello once again. You may be pleased to know that the card I am sharing today does not contain washi tape – no washi tape – none, at all, anywhere…….

I decided to break out the Copics and create this mixed media CAS kinda card:

I was inspired by one if the challenges below to create a Christmas card featuring owls. I searched the Color My Life app – fabulous cataloguing system if you don’t have one – and this cute stamp and die set from Clearly Besotted popped up. Bingo. Perfect for what I wanted.

I started by stamping the images in Gina K Amalgam ink, and heat setting before colouring using my Copics. Once coloured, I used the matching dies to cut them out.

The background is a landscape card base, and onto that I adhered a blue strip for the night sky. This strip was created by ink blending two Distress Oxide blue tones, then I used Liquitex white acrylic paint to create the splatters.

This was put aside to dry whilst I stamped the image – also from the same stamp set – directly onto the card base, ensuring it would be just below the blue strip.

Before adhering the cute little owls, I did die cut another blank one to layer behind for a little more stability, and then glued directly down onto the blue piece.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

12 Months of Christmas link up – Christmas with option of owls taken

We Love 2 Create – anything goes mixed media

Daisy Chain Challenge – animals

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

Die Cut Divas – die cuts and critters – real or imaginary

Creative Artiste Mixed Media – anything goes mixed media

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Elephant Birthday

At The Alphabet Challenge, we have reached the letter ‘Z‘. Deborah has chosen the theme of ‘Z is for Zoology‘. We want to see your projects featuring animals Here are my cards:

I decided to make the background grey and have the elephants in colour. A flip-around really.

The background is dry embossed using a Spellbinders embossing folder.

The elephants were stamped using the ‘Color Layering Elephant’ from Hero Arts, in tones of the colours you see. Once stamped, they were die cut and set to one side.

The balloon background panel is from My Favourite Things, and inverted. I have seen most projects with the balloons coming up from the bottom, but I wanted mine to come from the top.

Once that balloon panel was cut, I used some Copics which matched each elephant, coloured some pieces of card, then used a balloon die to cut them out, gluing them to the white balloons on the background panel.

I attached the elephant, stamped and attached the sentiment, then added glossy accents to the balloons.

I hope you can come and join us with your projects following our theme. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

We Love 2 Create – anything goes mixed media (die inks, Copics, glossy accents)

Creative Artiste Mixed Media – anything goes mixed media (die inks, Copics, glossy accents)

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Ally’s Angels – anything goes

Crafty Gals Corner – anything goes

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