Colour Challenge

I think that Christmas cards are my absolute favourite kind of card to make, probably because they all get used, whereas some which I make for challenges, never quite have the appropriate recipient and so they sit in boxes forever... just waiting!

Here is a really simple card for the challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown

I was intrigued by the colour combo and set about looking through my stash for ideas. I came across this ridged grey card and so started from there. I wanted the white to be a snowflake and so I needed to add some rose gold. I cut a square and embossed it many times with a mix of Copper and Gold embossing powders, the finished colour IRL is really rather nice. 

I ummed and ahhed about whether or not to add a sentiment and decided in the end to leave it as is.

Hopefully the Covid restrictions should start to be eased as more and more people are vaccinated. I have heard that sometimes there is a reaction to the second dose even is the first was symptom free, I should be getting my second next month, so fingers crossed that all goes well!

Stay safe everyone.

 

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days that starts full of ideas and promise and just becomes one frustration after another?

Well that's what I've had today. I saw a couple of challenges which spurred me into action, but then things started to go pear shaped.

I saw this inspiration photo at Just add Ink!

I got out my corresponding colour set of Distress Inks Faded Jeans, Weathered Wood, Hickory Smoke, Milled Lavender and Seedless Preserves and the stamp from Kaisercraft and decided to do an ink lift technique. So far so good. I inked a panel, stamped and  clear embossed and lifted the ink... still OK!

Because I wanted to use this sketch from CAS(E) this sketch

I needed a diecut or something in place of the star. I wanted a watch to be in keeping with stamp. I had a die set, (this one) but I actually thought it was a little large, so I went to my Silhouette to see if I could download a cut file which I could size appropriately, only to find that my software needed upgrading before I could do anything. This took an age, but I got there only to find that there really wasn't an image that I liked. Back to square one, so I decided I would have to use my existing die from All Occasion Dies.

I chose the edging for the panel as it reminded me of the cogs in a watch!

Next came the sentiment... I searched through my sentiments as I wanted some reference to time but couldn't find one so I thought I would do one on my computer, only to find that having messed about with it upgrading the Silhouette software, it wouldn't print to my printer but just went PRINT TO FILE and I'm blowed if I know how to get it back to normal!

Any suggestions would be most welcome!

So then I had to choose a different sentiment and came up with this one. I have scrawled on the stamp package A little Sentimental, but sadly not the manufacturer.

I'll continue to try to sort my printing problem, otherwise I'm up a gum tree!

PS

Just did a restart and I can print again!

SO here is the edited version with a computer generated sentiment, which says what I wanted it to!

Birthday flower

I love this pretty flower stamp and die set from Simon Says Stamp. 

I stamped the flower onto vellum and clear embossed it in silver before die cuting and colouring on the back using alcohol markers. I added a few tiny gems to the centre of the flower and attached a couple of vellum leaf sprays behind it.

The background stencilling was made from  a Memory Box die which I cut from vellum and then used as a stencil. I sprinkled a few grains of red and white Brushos over the stencil and then spritzed with water before dabbing dry with a paper towel.

A few additional gems and a silver embossed sentiment from SSS completed the card.

Just Us Girls  - Birthday

CAS on Friday - Use Vellum

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge  - Anything Goes

Inkspirational - Use Your Stash

I've had this grey card used for the base for years. It was purchased from a Papermill shop many years ago and all the shops have long since closed down, I'm still slowly working my way through boxes of coloured card!
The flower challenge - Anything goes

Letterpress Emboss

For the Emboss Challenge at Happy Little Stampers this time I decided to use my dies to emboss with... but with  twist... I inked the backs of the snowflake dies, then used them to impress the colour into the card. I then cut the snowflakes from card, twinkled them with Glamour Dust and added them over the matching impressions. A few gems and a sentiment from CUTplorations and the card was just about finished!

Our winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop! Check out all the details HERE.

IF YOU USE STAMPS BY HAPPY LITTLE STAMPERS AND YOU ARE OUR RANDOM WINNER, YOUR PRIZE WILL BE DOUBLED!

Presents

I was lucky enough to be chosen as the winner of a recent challenge at Addicted to CAS and was offered a Guest Designer Spot.... and so here I am!

Their theme this time is presents!

This stamp from Stampendous, epitomises the reason why we give presents at Christmas time, to remember the gifts given by the Three Wise Men to Jesus at his birth.

This is simply stamped onto deep blue card and embossed with gold embossing powder. The panel was cut out with an MFT stitched square die, elongated slighted to fit the card front.

My Anniversary cruise will be here before I know it and so I think I need to get into Christmas mode PDQ!

More Klimt

Here is another card made from the Chocolate Baroque set of Klimt bauble stamps.

This time I have used the largest of the three circular stamps, but once more I have not used the co-ordinating hanger stamp to make it into a bauble. Instead I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches, adding a sentiment from Lili of the Valley

            

It's a second submission to the challenge at The Male Room

Trees

Here is yet another Christmas card to add to my pile... I really hope I will be prepared this time! We will be off on a cruise for 10 days in December to celebrate our Sapphire Anniversary, so I really need to be ready with cards etc in good time! There will be no hope of last minute mailing once we get home!

This is for a couple of challenges!

It's based on the sketch from Freshly made Sketches

With the colours from CAS on Friday/Sunday!

Copper, Black &White.

I used Tim Holtz trees embossed in Copper and cut out.

The white strip is dry embossed with a folder from Sheena Douglass and I can't remember the make of the little JOY die.

Jolly Holly

Here is another Christmas card to add to my gradually increasing stash. This year I'm determined to be more prepared when December arrives. For this one I used a stamp from Penny Black and a sentiment from Happy Little Stampers. The image was heat embossed in gold and coloured with alcohol pens and given a little coat of gold Wink of Stella to add a little shine.

It's for the challenge at Addicted to CAS.

I recently bought a new car... it wasn't quite what I expected in that I was told there would be all sorts of extra features which didn't appear when the car was delivered. However, the company has tried to make up for the fact that I was disappointed and that they were at fault over the transaction. 

  I have got a very good deal and they have arranged for a few extras to be included in the purchase price. 

Here it is outside the dealership!

As it is an automatic, the knee which has been giving me pain for months is really happy!

Sparkly Christmas

Here is a beautiful snowflake stamp from Happy Little Stampers. I embossed it with Heat it Up, Snowflake Tinsel EP on black card. I made an edging strip using a Pierced Pennant die from MFT and used a matching rectangular die for the sentiment, which came from the same stamp set as the snowflake. I then scattered a few tiny tiny sequins in the spaces and Hey Presto... all done. 

This is the theme ths time at Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge

Our winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop! Check out all the details HERE.

IF YOU USE STAMPS BY HAPPY LITTLE STAMPERS AND YOU ARE OUR RANDOM WINNER, YOUR PRIZE WILL BE DOUBLED!

Masculine Christmas Card

A simple card for a couple of challenges

AAA Cards

The zig zag dry embossing and the shape of the trees are all somewhat geometric.

The trees are Hero Arts and the dry embossing is from Cuttlebug. The sentiment is from a set by Hero Arts

It's also for the Masculine card challenge at CAS Christmas challenge

Danke

 

Recently we visited Germany with my choir to sing Vaughan William's Sea Symphony, together with some German choirs.

It was a wonderful trip and we made lots of new acquaintances and renewed some old ones. One of the latter was a lady whom I stood next to in the concert we gave 15 years ago on a previous visit to Osterode. It was strange how we remembered each other after such a long time.

She had decided to come to England to hear the performance we were giving of the symphony on our return. In fact she wanted to sing with us and that was also arranged. 

I offered to pick her up from the airport and offer some hospitality and in appreciation of this she made this beautiful painted silk scarf. It's really rather clever how she incorporated our choir logo into the corner of the scarf.

This is the card I made for her to thank her for such a thoughtful and creative gift.

As we were singing the Sea Symphony I thought that the anchor would be an appropriate image and after adding the chain I tried to make a play on words and added one link in the form of a letter 'd' so when read 'd'anchor would sound like the German for thank you!

It's the colours of our choir too... Red and black and here I added a little gold too.

This is a picture of the combined choirs in Osterode.

The anchor and chain are from Creative dies and the Danke sentiment from Mama Elephant.

It's for the challenge at Just US Girls

Happy Anniversary

The challenge at CAS on Sunday is to use a die cut!

Using dies is one of my favourite techniques... but then so is heat embossing... so here is a card which combines both.

I looked online to discover that the 8th Anniversary can considered to be the Bronze anniversary, so I used a combination of metallic embossing powders for the heart stamp from Indigo Blu (I think)  and also to emboss the Memory Box die cut!

The sentiment was computer generated. 

This week we are spending in Cornwall with our son and his family. Let's hope the rain stays away!

Hugs

I haven't managed to make a card to enter a challenge for quite a while, but I love this layout from Freshly Made Sketches and just had to have a go! The little butterfly is from a Penny Black die set and the 'hugs' from Cutplorations, which I triple layered.

Part of this week will be spent having our grandkids here for the half term holiday!What fun!

HLS Embossing on vellum

At the CAS department of HLS this month the challenge is to emboss on vellum.

Here I did a little dry and heat embossing.

I cut an aperture in the card front and placed a piece of vellum behind it which has been embossed using a stencil made from acetate, cut with my Silhouette  Portrait. Behind this I placed a piece of mulberry paper to add a little interest and colour.

The butterfly, from Dies for all occasions, was cut from white card (base layer) and vellum (filigree top layer). The vellum was then heat embossed using WOW St Lucia Surf embossing glitter.

The sentiment, cut from Craft Essentials Creative Dies, was similarly embossed.

It's really taking me a while to get back into the groove of card making since my amazing trip to California... I'll get there soon I'm sure!

This challenge is sponsored by

Tutorials:

Embossing Vellum with Stylus by Keenan Kreations (8:55)
Embossing Stamped Images on Vellum by Jennifer McGuire (3:27)
Would also like to include videos (but couldn't find good ones so far):
Dry embossing on vellum
Heat embossing on vellum
Wet (pastes) embossing on vellum

A little French one layer!

Here I used a couple of Penny Back stamps and stamped using Versamark and then added embossing powders in a variety of shades and textures without shaking off the excess between each addition. I used WOW powders in Verdigris, Copper, Gold, Pepper and Green.

Some time ago we had a bit of a debate at "Less is More" about whether inlaid dies count as one layer or not!

The general consensus was that it's OK so here is an inlaid card using a sentiment from SSS and a stitched snowflake die from Memory Box!

The challenge at "Less is More" this week is for a one layer card with the theme French, so I've gone along with French Christmas for both cards!

Busy, Busy!

This week has somehow passed me by and I seem to have got little done in my craft room, however here is a little card for a few challenges made with my new Hero Arts Elf set of stamps plus a die for cutting the images out. The sentiment is from LOTV and the snowy EF backdrop from Sheena Douglass. The snowflakes are from All Occasion dies.

Time OUT - Snowflakes are Winter's butterflies

AAA - Anything Goes

CAS on Sunday - Christmas Card

Casual Fridays  - Precious Metals

Spectacular embossing

 

The challenge at AAA Cards is Spectacular Embossing.

I love embossing of all types and this stamp is from WOW is embossed in WOW Pale Gold EP.

The HAPPY border die is from DieNamics and the 'Christmas' from Simon Says Stamp. The panels are cut with SSS Stitched rectangle dies. I can't quite remember the manufacturer of the octagonal snowflake!!!

Muse Inspiration Designer

I was delighted to be asked to provide the inspiration for the challenge at

  Muse

Here I began by spritzing a piece of card with water and then dropping Spun Sugar and Festive Berries Distress inks onto it. I also tapped a little mica powder onto the wet surface. When dry, I stamped the Stamploration flowers with Versamark and embossed them in gold. I added more deep red ink to the petals and then added Glossy Accents to the centres and tipped micro beads into the liquid glue. I thought his looked a little insipid, so I added some Gold Aqua Tint ink to them and dropped a few spots onto the remainder of the background. The panel was cut with a Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle die and mounted on a dry embossed black layer, similarly cut.

The Memory Box dragonfly was cut from gold textured paper plus a second layer of wings from vellum, which I dry embossed to add a little veining and then inked with gold ink.

The sentiment is from Tattered Lace.

It will be so interesting to see the various interpretations of this Muse card!

I shall look forward to visiting everyone!

Yum!

It's odd how different stimuli spark ideas. When I saw that the challenge at Just us Girls was these colours, I immediately thought of these stamps from Unity.

It also fits with the cue word from CASology

...plus the Picture Inspiration from Addicted to Stamps .

A hint of colour from the flowers, the colours of the clocks on the wall and the criss cross design on the table top!

I'm not sure of the make of the embossing folder, but it's quite a large one  about 5"x7".

The image was coloured with a variety of alcohol pens, and cut out before mounting on a rectangle cut with a SSS stitched rectangle. The sentiment panel was cut with a Lil Inkers die.