Versafine

Two clean and simple cards

Hello everyone. I have two clean and simple cards for today – just for whilst my Brusho backgrounds are drying after a colourful play. It is too late for me to take a photo outside – very grey and a little rainy – so inside it was.

The first card was inspired by Just Us Girls photo week and Clean and Simple Colours and Sketches.

The photo inspiration looked very green to me, and lots of leaves, especially down the left side, so I used my ‘Grass Skirt’ from Catherine Pooler, and placed the leaves as per the sketch. The leaves were from a Stamps By Me set I recently purchased – yes, another set. The sentiment is also from the same company, putting two sentiments together from two different stamp sets.

The second card was inspired from the current challenge from CASology. The cue card was:

Now I spent some time thinking about this card. I didn’t have a clue what to do, so I was sat there, checking my emails, thinking of lucky rabbit feet, fortune cookies, stroking one of my gorgeous black cats – I have two – then the bolt of lightning struck me…….lucky black cats! Yay! Problem solved……

I hunted through my stash, as I knew I had several cat stamps, including the Tim Holtz Crazy Cats, Indigo Blu, Stampendous, but also knew I had a solid cat stamp somewhere…. and found it in my trusty Altenew box ‘Dancing In The Rain’…..

So now to the sentiment. I couldn’t find any ‘good luck’ stamps initially, I hunted through loads of my stuff, then found a set from JustRite, from a wedding set, and liked the look of the font.

I stamped them both in Versafine black onyx, and decided to stop there. No embellishments, no further additions. (remember to keep it clean and simple, Lynda!!)

Hopefully, my Brusho backgrounds will be dry so I can put together some more cards for tomorrow……..

Challenges entered:

Just Us Girls – photo inspiration

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch

CASology – cue card ‘fortune’

 

Happy Bee – day

Hi everyone. We had a little windy episode here in Derbyshire the other night, certainly nothing in comparison with the USA at the moment, but nevertheless, it led to one of our oak trees losing some branches onto a power line near our house. Thankfully, it didn’t cause the wires to touch, but our electricity provider was called, who said it needed sorting out then and there, which meant a tree surgeon has had to come and make the area safe – but cutting down most of the beautiful oak tree!

It’s not nice seeing all the branches on the ground, and the trunk bald and bare……and they are coming back to cut it down to ground level later in the week. I can’t believe how emotional I got seeing that poor tree……

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To take my mind off it, I escaped to my craft room, and made quite a few cards. Enough to enter a few challenges over the coming days. I was thinking of posting a few of them today, but decided to do quick posts each day, so there wasn’t too much to read at one go, and not too many pictures to download, either. If you are like me, we have quite a low internet speed, so some pictures take forever!

This card was inspired by the challenge from AAA Cards, Addicted to Stamps and More, and Less Is More.

I have used this stamp set from Hero Arts once before, and remembered how cute the little bees were, so had a little fun playing with the CAS look. I also had a delivery of a box of ready made and scored cards, varying sizes, and thought this smaller 4 inch square card suits this little bee and little sentiment.

I used Versafine black onyx again, and used my Misti, as I made several of each design, ready for little note cards. I only used a yellow colour on the bee, and no other colour at all. Zip. Zilch. Nada. (See how multi-lingual I am)

No smudges either, which is what I usually do when I do a one layer card, with a clean and simple design. Maybe it’s because I didn’t play around with the design too much, and not too many colours and different inks – who knows!

Challenges entered:

AAA Cards – Creatures Great and Small

Addicted to Stamps and More – Clean and Simple

Less is More – Take flight

 

 

Learning and Education card

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Hi everyone. Please excuse the way I have photographed this card – it is windy and rainy today so I can’t go outside, and after the way my last card blew into the wet flowers – I just didn’t want to risk getting this card wet.

This simple black and white card is inspiration from CASology. This cue card is ‘Education’. I started with an idea for a mortar board cap – partially covering one of the corners, with a tassel hanging down, and a sentiment, but I couldn’t find a stamp which would suit………..I will keep looking though, as I still have that image in my head.

However, whilst looking through my stuff, I came across a Sheena Douglass stamp and die set I have had for a few months, never used (seems to be a trend for me) and took the book stamp and the sentiment and played with them for a while.

I started one of my ideas with stamping the books, and colouring them with distress inks, and whilst I liked this look, it just didn’t sit with clean and simple for me – looked a little too grungy. As the stamp is quite large, a normal 4 x 5.5 inch card meant there wouldn’t be that much open space, so I turned to a 6 inch square card. I like this look better.

Once I had decided on the layout, I then stamped directly onto the base card in Versafine black onyx – of course – and left it just the way you see it.

I will be using this set again, and making more colourful cards, now I have found it again, adding backgrounds with colour and embossing, but this is the card I am posting today for the CASology challenge.

Now, I’m off to my craft room to see if I can find something which resembles a mortar board tassel…….if I find something – I’ll let you know. 🙂

 

 

 

Guest Designer Sketch (no 2)

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Hello there everyone. I am back in the UK, arrived Heathrow at 07.30 this morning, and home by 11 am………..feeling pretty good so far. I am sure it will be a little like hell this evening, but I will get there!

This is my fourth and final card as Guest Designer for CAS Colours and Sketches, and I made this card at the weekend at my sister’s. I must say it took a little organising and thinking. I wanted to stay away from flowers this time, so I searched my sister’s stash (again) and found these little aliens. I don’t have anything like them myself, and always struggle with cute cards, but played a little with them – mainly the colours – and came up with this card.

The stamp set is from Gerda Steiner Designs ‘Alien Invasion’, and stamped with Versafine Black Onyx, coloured with Zigs. Nothing fancy, no shading of the colours. I did try shading them, but the images are quite small, and I thought the shading got lost a little, so I stuck with block colours. The thing with Zigs is that there are so many colours, aren’t there? Which to use, in what order on the card? Blimey. I must have shuffled these three little aliens around so many times before settling on this layout.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set, and I also stamped a few little stars around for a little added detail.

I hope you can play along with this sketch challenge, and I look forward to seeing your creations.

I shall also be entering this card into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – add a sentiment

Crafty Gals Corner – add a star

Imagination Crafts Poppy

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Hello again, everyone. This is my last full day in Quebec, and I will be travelling home to UK tomorrow evening, arriving early hours Tuesday morning. I have had a great time here with my sister and her husband, lots of chilling, good food, getting out and about a little, but also some card making. My idea of a relaxing holiday if not going to the beach.

This card is for the Color Throwdown Challenge, to use the colours hot pink, yellow, and lime green. I love to make cards with flowers – can you tell? – and found this stamp set from Imagination Crafts in my sister’s stash. I don’t have any of their stamps, and was immediately taken by the design and outline of the flowers. I stamped them several times, in different layouts, and played with colours and layouts.

This card is one I made where I stamped the flower outlines then masked them off, stamped the leaves and then the dots, and coloured them in the challenge colours. I didn’t go for any fancy colouring or shading, as I think these stamps lend themselves to a more solid colour. Having seen the Herge (creator of Tintin) exhibition in Quebec earlier this week, I thought I would take a leaf out of his very experienced book!! Apparently, he rarely did any shading, and used block colours most of the time. We learn something new every day………..

Once I had coloured the flowers, I added three lines at the top of the card using my score board – an little extra but plain interest – and stamped a sentiment in Versafine black onyx ink.

I may have time to create another card to post tomorrow before I leave Canada, but if not it will be Tuesday when I post my fourth and final card as Guest Designer for CAS Colours and Sketches.