Just Add Ink 242

In the last couple of months, I've become interested in experimenting more with backgrounds, even though I'm often drawn to clean space.  For instance, I've begun using background stamps more, I've experimented with sponging and embossing and tried some new techniques so this week's challenge at Just Add Ink re-ignited that interest.

The watercolour background I created by scribbling onto a piece of baking paper with stamp-and- write pens in Island Indigo and Crushed Curry, spritzing with water then dragging the Whisper White over it to pick up the ink.  After it had dried, I gave it a spray with Pearl Perfect Pearls, which gave it a nice shimmer in the light and somehow brightened the colours. I tried using watercolour paper  and also ink pads rather than markers but these did not give such a pleasing blend of colours.

The 'daisies' and the colours seemed joyful, so I used some bits from Endless Wishes, even though this is a birthday card, not a Christmas card.

Thanks to the Just Add Ink team for another thought-provoking challenge!

Update: This card got an honourable mention at Just Add Ink

Ingredients

Card: Island Indigo, Crushed Curry, Whisper White, scraps of Garden Green

Ink: Island Indigo

Stamps: Endless Wishes, Sassy Salutations (Happy Birthday is on the inside), Petite Petals

Other: Island Indigo and Crushed Curry markers, Petite Petals punch, Island Indigo baker's twine, Crushed Curry candy dots, Crushed Curry button, Provocraft Fancy Pants tag die, IOS spiral die, Perfect Pearl mist, circle framelits, dimensionals

Freshly Made Sketches 164

Freshly Made Sketches had a very open sketch this week and it got me thinking about making a very clean, very minimalist card.

Ingredients

Card: Cherry Cobbler for the base, Whisper White

Stamps: Endless Wishes

Ink: Cherry Cobbler

Other: Provocraft cuttlebug embossing folder, Cherry Cobbler baker's twine, Vintage Christmas charm (magazine giveaway last year), dimensionals to lift white panel, Cherry Cobbler marker pen to colour the cut edges.

Freshly Made Sketches 163

There was great excitement in my house on Monday because the stamps I'd ordered on-line from Altenew arrived. New stamps always cause a frisson of pleasure but this was the first time I'd ordered anything on the internet that involved non-NZ dollars and I hadn't expected them to arrive after only 8 days - US to NZ. Not a bad effort from the postal service! A bit of a double whammy of excitement for the first day of the working week.

So, then I hoped that one of the challenges that open late in the week would have something that would let me use them and sure enough, Freshly Made Sketches obliged.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Gray, So Saffron, Whisper White

Stamps: Altenew Painted Flowers and Label Love, SU Gorgeous Grunge

Inks: So Saffron, Crushed Curry, Certainly Celery, Basic Gray

Other: Dimensionals, Square Lattice embossing folder, Certainly Celery stitched ribbon

Just Add Ink 241

The sketch from Just Add Ink kept me awake half of last night as I tried to work out the best way to tackle it and tried to work out measurements in my head! Even so, I ended up with variations on a theme.

I was lucky enough to get a couple of stamps from the jumble at the Church Fair a couple of weeks ago - a tree and a really useful clump of grass. Neither are named but one is dated 1994 and I wanted to use them in this challenge.

Variation 1:

Variation 2:

So, first thing on today's agenda was getting these cards out of my head and made. I've too-ed and fro-ed about which one to submit to the challenge, but think I'll go with 2.

Ingredients
Card: Night of Navy, Crumb Cake, Whisper White
Ink: Pool Party, Marina Mist, So Saffron, Night of Navy (both) Hero Arts Black; Crumb Cake, Soft Suede (1); Mossy Meadow, Basic Gray (2)
Stamps: Unnamed tree and grass (both); Wetlands, A Dozen Thoughts (1); Wetlands sentiment (2)
Other: Dimensionals (both), Linen twine (1); Decorative label punch, Night of Navy candy dots, Night of Navy ribbon (2)

CAS 100

I might be short of time this week but I really wanted to make something for CAS Colour and Sketches' 100th challenge. I've only played here two or three times before but there's something special about 100 that was extra enticing. The sketch was an interesting one.

Another colour combination I used once before this year is Marina Mist and Tangelo Twist and since I wanted this card to be bright and celebratory, I went for this combo again.

The horizontal band was made by sponging Marina Mist onto white card, then using the star mask and sponging Tangelo Twist on top. The banner piece was embossed using the now retired Square Lattice folder. I used star framelits to cut the stars. The Tangelo star is on dimensionals, as is the hollow Marina Mist star on it. This arrangement has gives a really pleasing sense of depth to the card. The small star is attached to the vellum banner so it almost seems to float over the paper.

Ingredients

Paper: Whisper White, Marina Mist, Tangelo Twist, Vellum

Stamps: SU Dozen Thoughts (Bravo!)

Inks: Marina Mist, Tangelo Twist, Black Stazon.

Other: Star mask, sponges, star framelits, Marina Mist candy dots, Square Lattice embossing folder, dimensionals

Freshly Made Sketches 162

There's not been a lot of time this week for any crafting between work all week and a trip to Wellington this weekend with my daughter. So, it's Sunday tea-time but I have managed to get a card done for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

Earlier this year, I made a card using Cherry Cobbler and Sahara Sand for a Paper Players sketch and became quite besotted with the combo, so came back to it for today's challenge. I took a pretty literal interpretation of the sketch and came up with this...

... It's a little busier than I usually go for in a card, but I wanted to experiment in combining patterns.

Ingredients

Card: Cherry Cobbler, Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Regals DSP, Moonlight Paper stack

Stamps: SU Dictionary Background stamp, Hero Arts thank you, Hero Arts Dandelion

Ink: Cherry Cobbler

Other: Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green markers to colour the dandelion stamp, Linen twine, dimensionals, corner rounder punch, Tag from Provocraft Happy Pants alphabet set.

Create with Connie and Mary 328

Well, I wasn't going to spend any more time this weekend making things. It's a spring day, lots of jobs calling me and work tomorrow. But somehow, the colour challenge at Create with Connie and Mary just wouldn't let me go. Beautiful colours, beautiful combination.

I've also been trying not to make Christmas cards but the idea of a non-traditional Christmas garland kept turning over in my head with these colours. Anyway, here's how it turned out.

The card base is Cherry Cobbler and then piece of Smoky Slate. I started by stamping the leaves firstly using Lost Lagoon in two generations of colour in a rough semi-circle. Then I used the same stamp from Kinda Eclectic and put a few very light Smoky Slate leaves out further.

The Cherry Cobble Petite Petals are raised up on dimensionals while the ones stamped in Cherry Cobbler are attached flat although I've curled them a bit to give them some height. The little flowers punched with the Itty Bitty Punch are attached with glue dots so I could get a good curl on the petals.

It's finished with the Lost Lagoon ribbon and Cherry Cobbler baker's twine and the sentiment.

Ingredients
Card: Cherry Cobbler, Smoky Slate, Whisper White
Stamps: Kinda Eclectic, Petite Petals, sentiment from Endless Wishes
Inks: Lost Lagoon, Smoky Slate, Cherry Cobbler
Other: Lost Lagoon ribbon, Cherry Cobbler baker's twine, Decorative Label punch, Petite Petals punch, One of the Itty Bitty Punch set, dimensionals, pearls, Smoky Slate candy dots, Cherry Cobbler candy dots, Cherry Cobbler marker to edge the punched shapes.

Just Add Ink 239

This week at Just Add Ink, there was a colour challenge. Incorporating four colours turned out to be a challenge too!

Here's the result of time spent in my craft room this morning, while avoiding cleaning the oven!

The card base is Early Espresso, then a gold piece and then Very Vanilla, where all the action is. A blossom from the retired SU Eastern Blooms set, stamped in Lost Lagoon, is on a Very Vanilla circle raised up on a larger circle cut from either Early Espresso or gold. Initially, all the circles were Early Espresso but it looked more interesting to have the centre one gold. I played with offsetting the Vanilla circle on the darker bases but the Asian influenced blooms looked better in a symmetrical setting.

I finished the by carefully gluing a small gold bead into the centre of each blossom. Tweezers definitely required.

The sentiment is stamped in Lost Lagoon.

Ingredients

Card: Early Espresso, Gold, Very Vanilla

Ink: Lost Lagoon

Stamps: SU Eastern Blooms, Hero Arts Thank You 

Other: small gold beads, dimensionals

Freshly Made Sketches 161

No long weekends or school holidays this week, so it's been a real effort to get anything made but I did get something done for this lovely design at Freshly Made Sketches.

It hasn't photographed so well, but the butterflies wings are raised more the higher they climb and each is based on an Early Espresso "shadow" butterfly. They were 'painted' using ink pads and cotton buds in Pool Party/ So Saffron and Pool Party/Marina Mist

Update: So happy for this card to be picked as a Perfect Princess at Freshly Made Sketches.

Ingredients
Card: Early Espresso, Pool Party, Very Vanilla
Stamps: SU Eastern Blooms, Papillon Potpourri, Hardwood Background and Hero Arts Thank You stamp
Ink: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Pool Party, Marina Mist, So Saffron
Other: Early Espresso baker's twine, stray button from the jar, circle framelits, dimensionals to lift the wings and to raise the sentiment cluster, pearls, Itty Bitty circle punch, small butterfly punch

Just Add Ink 238

This is the fourth time I've played at Just Add Ink and I have really enjoyed each one. This week it is a sketch challenge, very open to interpretation.

I've always admired cards in black and white but have never really explored the idea before this sketch. The card evolved over the afternoon - the most gorgeous spring day: fine, sunny and nearly 28 degrees. I really should have been in the garden...

The beautiful rose was another first time try. Sometime ago, I found instructions on Pinterest for making a rose using the SU Pansy Punch and it works beautifully. The only thing I did differently was to outline the Tangelo Twist pansy pieces with black marker before making it. The link to the instructions for the rose is here. Here's a closer detail of the rose.

The centre panel is stamped in Dictionary using Basic Gray, then I've used black embossing powder for the "Happy Birthday". The back panel is embossed using the Decorative Dots folder. The tendrils are from an IOS die and because the centre panel is raised, some of the tendrils are hanging in space over the embossed panel.

Thanks for another great sketch!

Ingredients

Paper: Basic Black, Whisper White, Garden Green, Tangelo Twist

Ink: Basic Gray, Versamark

Stamps: SU Dictionary, Sassy Salutations

Other: Decorative Dots embossing folder, IOS Die 062-F, Corner rounder punch, Pansy Flower Punch, Black marker pen, Black rhinestones, Black embossing powder.

Freshly Made Sketches 160

Although I liked this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, I didn't really find any inspiration until I was cleaning up my scrap paper drawer and came across a little scrap from Kaisercraft's 75 Cents Collection, which had trapped itself right at the back. So I hunted out the scraps of Bazzill Lagoon and a gold/cream that I could no longer find the name of, but that I'd used on a scrapbooking page with that paper, and got going.

Here's the sketch.

And here's the card.

It turns out that Bazzill Lagoon works very well with SU Lost Lagoon ink. I cut frames for the circle pieces rather than layering a smaller circle on a larger one because when seen in the flesh, rather than in a photo, I think it adds a subtle sense of depth. Once again, the Kinda Eclectic set proved useful. 

I used a very literal approach to the sketch as it was so lovely and I liked the idea of echoing shapes - the circle panels and the dots from the stamped panel, the rhinestones on the butterfly.

Ingredients

Papers: Bazzill Lagoon, Kaisercraft Penny, unnamed neutral

Stamps: SU Kinda Eclectic, Papillon Potpourri, Hero Arts sentiment

Inks: SU Lost Lagoon, Black Staz-on.

Other: Circle framelits, black rhinestones, dimensionals for layering panels and butterfly wings, Butterfly punch.

Colour Me Creative

Decided that today was the day I would join in at the Colour Me... blog, which this week offered a choice of colour palettes to play with.

I chose to Option 1: Basic Gray, Garden Green, Blackberry Bliss and white.

Last week, at Just Add Ink, the challenge introduced me to a technique I'd never used before - clear block stamping. The idea of using the actual block as a stamp had simply never occurred to me before and it set off a flurry of experimentation, which I'm still engaged in and used in this challenge too.

The card base is Blackberry Bliss because such a strong, vibrant colour frames the whole decorative front and ties all the elements well. The central Garden Green panel is the result of my further experiments with stamping using the clear block. As I don't own a Garden Green stamp pad, I used my GG marker pen to scribble over the acrylic block, then misted it very gently with water, then stamped it. I left some parts unmisted to get a variation in colour and texture.

The bouquet corner has quite a sense of depth because of the various layers, from the Petite Petals directly stamped onto the Garden Green through to the large flower in the corner in where the layers are separated by dimensionals, making it into a double-decker.

I let some of the stamping on the green panel flow out into the white mat panel to subtly suggest the idea of exuberance and vitality - these flowers cannot be contained within the frame. This is also the idea behind the Gorgeous Grunge splatter in Basic Gray, exploding outwards from the flowers. I did try making my own mist with Basic Gray reinker but really, it didn't do half the job the Gorgeous Grunge stamp did!

Thanks for such a fun challenge.

Ingredients
Card: Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White, Basic Gray, Garden Green.
Stamps: Flower Shop, Petite Petals, Gorgeous Grunge, A Dozen Thoughts, Acrylic block
Inks: Blackberry Bliss, Basic Gray
Other: Garden Green marker, Leaf Sizzlit, Flower Shop punch, Petite Petals punch, Itty Bitty punch, dimensionals, Pearls, Neutrals candy dots (Basic Gray).