Coffee?

It's time for another fabulous challenge at Freshly Made Sketches and this week it's my turn to be hostess!  I came up with a simple sketch that is open to interpretation.  In fact, my own card doesn't completely match the sketch - but that's what makes the whole challenge game fun, right?

When I designed the sketch some weeks ago, I had planned on putting a row of flowers along the bottom.  Somewhere along the way, my flowers changed to a coffee cup...

I started with a white card base (as always, it seems!) and stamped the coffee circle stamp using Memento Toffee Crunch ink.  I die cut the coffee cup using Desert Storm, Very Vanilla and a watercolored piece I had on my desk from another card.  I shaped the coffee cup and lightly sponged the sides to give dimension.  The center of the cup is popped up on two layers of foam tape and the sides only one.  

I hunted for a sentiment that was small enough to fit on the panel along with the coffee cup and found this one from PTI.  However, the bottom looked bare so I carefully lined up the square panel with the coffee circle and over-stamped to get some of the coffee circle on the sentiment panel. 

No embellishments on this card as it's probably destined for a male.

I'm entering this into Seize the Birthday's Anything Goes Challenge.

Thanks for visiting.  Please check out the rest of the design team's fabulous inspiration and I hope you'll find time to have a go.

Products used:

Stamps:  Communique Curves (PTI), Inkadinkado 97100

Ink:  Memento Toffee Crunch,  Dark Chocolate (SSS)

Cardstock: White, black, Desert Storm, Very Vanilla, Watercolor

Accessories:  Coffee Cup die (MFT), Lil' Inkers Stitched Square dies, water color paints

Cheers

Karren

Sleigh Bells

It's Merry Monday and that means it's time for another Christmas card challenge.  This week Bonnie is our hostess and she is challenging us to use wet or dry embossing on our cards.

I went with some heat embossing and came up with this card, that also uses the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch.

I white embossed the Santa's sleigh image onto a white card base then carefully sponged Tumbled Glass ink over the top.  I sponged some Broken China ink inside the circle and at the top of the houses and tree to define them a bit more.

The sentiment comes from Winter Wonderland by Mama Elephant and worked well with the image.  I finished off with some Moonshine sequins from SSS.

Thanks for visiting.  Be sure to check out the amazing creations by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Holiday Silhouette (Inkadinkado), Winter Wonderland (Mama Elephant)

Ink:  Versamark, Archival Black, Tumbled Glass, Broken China

Cardstock:  White

Accessories:  Sequins, White EP

Cheers

Karren

Icy Snowman

Hi and welcome!  Today I have the great pleasure of being Guest Designer at a relatively new challenge called Retro Rubber.  This is a great challenge and quite unique in that, as well as the usual sketch and color challenges, the twist is you should use older stamps for your cards!  By older, preferably more than a year old - you don't need to go back to last century unless you want to :) 

Like most of us, I love everything that's new and often neglect some amazing old stamps in my sizeable collection, so this challenge is a great way to share the love :)

Anyway, I won their second challenge and was invited to play along as GD on this challenge, which is a cool color challenge to use silver, blue and white on a holiday card.

The stamps I used on this card come from an Inkadinkado set I've had for probably 5 years.  I silver embossed the snowman onto a piece of Midnight Muse cardstock then cut it out with a stitched circle die to get the stitch lines on the inside of the circle.  I then used the same circle die to cut a circle out of a piece of white cardstock which added stitching to the outside of the circle. 

The sentiment was stamped in Midnight Muse ink and the whole panel was mounted onto the blue panel using foam tape.  A strip of silver glitter paper added a bit of sparkle down the right hand side as did the rhinestones.

I hope you'll find time to support Retro Rubber Challenge.  I wish them all the best!

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Holiday Silhouettes (Inkadinkado)

Ink:  Midnight Muse, Versamark

Cardstock:  White, Midnight Muse, Silver Glitter Paper

Accessories:  Pewter EP, Lil' Inkers Stitched Mats Circle Dies, rhinestones

Cheers

Karren

Pensive

Today's card was a bit of an experiment and I wasn't sure how it was going to end up.  I'm not totally happy with the final product but it was a good learning experience.  I used the inspiration photo from Fusion and the sketch from The Challenge.

My background was made using alcohol inks on glossy paper.  I used several different light-colored inks.  I then stamped the main image in Versafine Onyx Black and some text images in Archival Viridian ink.  The Versafine ink is not waterproof ink and it didn't dry so I had to clear-emboss it.  Doh!  I sponged around the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink then cut the panel into six pieces before adhering it to black then Cherry Cobbler panels.

The card base is Crumb Cake overstamped with Hardwood in Sahara Sand ink.  It also had the edges sponged.

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Inkadinkado 91089-Y, Long Writing Background (HeroArts), Hardwood (SU)
Ink:  Alcohol inks, Versafine Onyx black, Archival Viridian, Vintage Photo Distress, Sahara Sand
Cardstock:  Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Glossy White
Accessories:  Clear EP

Cheers
Karren

Blue Snowman

It's Merry Monday Challenge time and this week we are challenged to use Aqua and White with a touch of color.

I decided to go CAS again this week and came up with this card:

I found an older snowman stamp from Inkadinkado and embossed it using Tempting Turquoise embossing powder.  I then spent even more time looking for an appropriate sentiment!  I finally found this one from Snow Much Fun and decided it fit well enough!  For the pop of color, I cut a little red heart using the Owl Punch and colored it with Wink of Stella.

Thanks for looking.  Check out the rest of the DT cards and have a go yourself at this fun color challenge.

Products used:

Stamps:  Holiday Sentiments (Inkadinkado), Snow Much Fun (SU)
Ink:  Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black
Cardstock:  Whisper White, Real Red
Accessories:  Tempting Turquoise EP, Owl Punch, Wink of Stella

Cheers
Karren

Christmas Tag

Hey there!  This week it's my turn to host the challenge at Merry Monday and I chose to go with a color challenge.  The first thing that draws me to a card is color, so it is quite fitting that for my challenge I chose some of my favorite colors - grey, red and white.

I won't tell you how long it took to make this card, but suffice it to say, this is probably version 5 or so :)

I really want to do a faux mother of pearl for the tag, but when I'd finished I realised there was no white on my card, so back to the drawing board.  In the end, I white embossed this beautiful Inkadinkado image onto Real Red cardstock and cut it out.  For the Basic Gray layer, I stamped the Christmas Collage stamp then sponged the edges.

I hope you'll check out the rest of the design team's inspiration and I do hope you'll give my challenge a go and build your Christmas card stash one card at a time!

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Inkadinkado, Christmas Collage (SU)
Ink:  Basic Gray, Versamark
Cardstock:  Real Red, Basic Gray
Accessories:  White EP, Basic Gray Ribbon, black twine, sponge

Cheers
Karren

Rock Salt Background

Welcome back to another Freshly Made Sketch challenge.   I can't believe the amazing response to Jen's sketch last week. Let's see how many have a go at this on-trend sketch from Cindy Lovell.

The angled panel is really popular right now - helped along I think by a set of dies available.  I don't have any dies, so cut my own shape.  This was easy to do - I took a rectangle and placed it on the card front at the angle I wanted it, then carefully flipped the card over and drew a pencil line around the card base on the back which I then used as my cutting lines.

However, before I took that step, I tried a new-to-me technique - Rock Salt Background.  I found this on Pinterest in one of those "pins you might be interested in" emails.  Basically you pour some rock salt onto your cardstock and run it through the Big Shot between two cutting plates.  You then scrape the salt off and you have a lovely background.  It's hard to see in the photo, but I did this to both the Whisper White angled panel and the Rose Red banner.  Here's a close-up:

For my cupcake, I stamped it in Brilliance ink onto Whisper White cardstock and colored it using Copics.  I then went over the frosting with my 2-way glue pen and sprinkled on some Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  The sentiment stamp was inked up in Versamark then in Island Indigo before being clear-embossed.

Another simple inside, but hey, at least it's another card with its insides done LOL.

Thanks for looking.  Do go check out the rest of the DT cards - they're all stunning as usual.

Products used:

Stamps:  Birthday Cupcake (Inkadinkado), Birthday Bash Sentiments (PTI)
Ink:  Versarmark, Brilliance Graphite Black, Island Indigo
Cardstock:  Island Indigo, Rose Red, Whisper White
Accessories:  Dazzling Diamonds, 2-way glue pen, rock salt, copics

Cheers
Karren

Hey, Cupcake

Over the next month, two of my three sisters have birthdays.  Today I made a card for one of them (not sure which one, yet!).  I used the colors from Just Add Ink for my card, which also uses the new Circle Thinlits.  I've been waiting and waiting for SU to introduce them to the NZ market, so a very good friend of mine in the US sent me both the Circles and Labels sets for my birthday.  Today is the first chance I've had to try them out.  ETA:  I just logged onto the SU Demo site and these are going to be available in NZ from 22 October!

These cards are a 'mare to photograph so I took several photos.  This first one is the card closed.  I used an Inkadinkado set for the cupcakes which I colored using refills and an aqua painter.  It's been quite a while since I colored with an aqua painter but I wanted a very watery look for the Raspberry Ripple icing otherwise it would have looked sickly :)  The small cupcake has the Raspberry Ripple watered-down and the Raspberry Ripple full strength for the cherry - so you can see the difference!  

The candy dots are actually Rose Red but they are close enough to pass for Raspberry Ripple.  

Here is a photo of the inside.

I used some NBUS on this card, which is a Paper Smooches set I just received on the weekend.  For the circle element, I stamped the sentiment in Raspberry Ripple, then over-stamped the cupcake in Sahara Sand.  And another photo just for the fun of it!

Thanks for looking.

Products used:

Stamps:  Birthday Cupcake (Inkadinkado); Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)
Cardstock:  Coastal Cabana; Very Vanilla; In Color DSP; Watercolor Paper
Ink:  Black Stazon; Raspberry Ripple; Coastal Cabana; Sahara Sand
Accessories:  Raspberry Ripple Ribbon; Circle Thinlits; 2 1/5" circle punch; 1 1/4" circle punch; Regals Candy Dots

Cheers
Karren

Snowflake Christmas

The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is to just add snowflakes.  I combined that challenge with the sketch challenge at Pals Paper Arts to come up with this card.

I started out digging through my DSP stash to find some paper with snowflakes on and came across the Ski Slope DSP, which is one of favorites - I think I still have 2 unopened packs of it!  I then decided to go with Baja Breeze and Midnight Muse as my color scheme.  Now to find some snowflake stamps.   I decided to go non-SU for this card and was surprised to find I have no wood-mounted non-SU snowflake stamps.  Clear stamps to the rescue!  I found a set of Inkadinkado stamps, called Holiday Silhouettes, which hadn't seen ink that I used for my card.

Once I'd stamped my images, I cut them out using circle nesties and before removing the die, I lightly sponged Baja Breeze ink onto the image.  The two little poinsettias were colored using my Cherry Cobbler marker and a blender pen.

Thanks for looking.

Products used:

Stamps:  Inkadinkado Holiday Silhouettes
Cardstock:  Midnight Muse; Baja Breeze; Ski Slope DSP; Whisper White
Ink:  Midnight Muse; Baja Breeze
Accessories:  Circle Nesties; sponge; Cherry Cobbler marker; Finishing Touches Edgelit

Edited to Add:  This card was chosen as a PPA Pick.

Cheers
Karren

Plate 199

I have quite a few cards to blog about so there might be a few blog posts from me over the next day of so, in order to meet challenge deadlines.  It's been great having a week off work, but unfortunately my 11-year old spent the last week and a half trying to cough up a lung or two!  He's had a bad cold so we ended up spending the week pretty close to home.  My oldest had his first holiday job, so he was gone all day, which meant no fights but also having to entertain my youngest more than I would normally.

This card I'm showing uses the cue word of "Gold" at CASology as well as the inspiration photo at Fusion Card Challenge.  My card started out using the sketch as well, but I couldn't think what to use for the oval shape that wouldn't cover up the gorgeous stamp, so left it out altogether.

It's pretty obvious but I chose the gold starfish on the white background as my inspiration.  When I was going through my non-SU stamps that I pulled out of storage earlier in the week, I came across this gorgeous Tin Can Mail by Inkadinkado stamp and because it was top of mind, the card came together quickly.  I love these botanical images and have quite a few unmounted plates of stamps along similar themes.

Thanks for looking.

Products used:

Stamps:  Inkadinkado
Cardstock:  Whisper White; Brushed Gold
Ink:  Versamark
Accessories: Gold EP

Cheers
Karren