93rd Birthday

Hi and welcome.  I'm the hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week but this is a quick post because I've got some things to deal with in real life.

This card was made a few months ago for my dad's 93rd birthday.  I thought it would work for my sketch so I based my sketch off it.

For a very quick explanation, I used stencils and soft ink-blending for the muted background and ink-blended die-cuts for the focal point.

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team and have a go yourselves.

Products used:

Stamps: To the Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps), Mini Messages & More (MFT)

Ink: Gathered Twigs Distress Oxide, Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs, Tea Dye, Frayed Burlap, Scorched Timber, Speckled Egg, Iced Spruce Distress Ink

Cardstock: White

Dies: Rustic Garden (Spellbinders)

Accessories: Winter Wonder Background stencils (Honey Bee Stamps), Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain

Cheers

Karren

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High Top Birthday

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses the sketch over at Card Challenges as well as the Green/Gold colour combo at Color Hues, the green die challenge at Just Us Girls and the stencils or dies challenge at Just Add Ink, where I used dies but not stencils.

Seeing the new Spellbinders club dies reminded me I had this die set from many years ago, so out it came and I had fun making some green, slightly grubby high-tops.  I die-cut the elements, added some ink-blending to dirty them up and put them together.  I used gold for the eyelets and the stars and then I also added some white thread for the laces.

I embossed a black panel with the Quilted embossing folder and adhered that to a white card base.  I then added a thin strip of gold foil and the sentiment.  Finally I propped up the shoes with foam tape.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps: Be Original, Birdie Brown Greetings Galore (MFT)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Morning Frost, Reindeer Moss (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Black, Reindeer Moss (Altenew) Matte Gold Foil

Dies: All-Star High Top (MFT)

Accessories: White twine, Quilted Embossing Folder (Tim Holtz)

Cheers

Karren

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Edited to Add:  This card got a shout-out at Just Us Girls and Color Hues

28

Welcome to our last challenge of 2025 over at Freshly Made Sketches. Our hostess this week is Narelle Farrugia and I used her sketch to make a birthday card for my son, who would have been 28 on 17 December (yesterday for me as this post goes live).  I still make him a birthday card to celebrate each birthday and this year, I made a card to resemble his car, which was his pride and joy.  He painted it himself and wanted to be a car painter.  

To make the card, I first stamped the Papillon stamp onto the black panel with Versamark for a subtle watermark effect, but it didn't even show up in the final card or the photos.  I applied some gilding flakes to a white panel and then ripped it diagonally to match Matthew's car.  I then die-cut the rectangle frame from the panel and mounted it onto another slightly larger black rectangle before putting it onto a card base.

I used the same technique for the numbers but put the gilding flakes at the top, added a smaller black panel and the stamped sentiment.

Here is a photo of Matthew's car after he had painted it and then at his funeral where we invited everyone to write a message in Sharpie over the gold paint.  That car is treasured as are the messages.

Thanks for visiting and please check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.  This challenge will be open for longer and we'll be back in January with a new year of sketch challenges.

Products used:

Stamps: #Hashtag, Papillon (Tim Holtz)

Ink: Obsidian (Altenew), Versamark

Cardstock: Black, White

Dies: A2 Rectangle Stax (MFT), By The Numbers (PTI)

Accessories: Gilding Flakes (Nuvo)

Cheers

Karren

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Charcuterie

Hi all.  It's been a long time since I've made a card just for fun, but we had a long weekend here in New Zealand and rather than do boring stuff like doing some winter gardening,  I decided to spend a whole day in my craft room.  That turned into a day and a half, but it was good to just play with no design team commitments.  I decided to play along in a couple of challenges with my card today.  The Honey Bee Stamps Buzzworthy Challenges FB group has a monthly card contest and this month's challenge is Father's Day.  Father's Day isn't until September here but I bought this set specifically for my DH so I thought it was time to put it to use and get ahead of the game!

I'm also playing along with Addicted to Stamps and More who are looking for die-cuts this challenge.  Everything apart from the patterned paper was cut with dies.

I hadn't done any Copic colouring for a long time so that was my plan this weekend.  I coloured up a sunflower which will be in an upcoming DT post and then had fun colouring all these images, using about a million different Copic markers.  Once coloured, I worked on the cutting board which was die-cut and then ink-blended with Distress inks.  I arranged the food onto the cutting board and adhered it all with liquid glue then used foam tape to add the board to the card base.  I tucked in a few pieces to the side of the cutting board and added the sentiment.

Thanks for visiting!

 Products used:

Stamps:  So Char-CUTE-rie, To The Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versafine Onyx Black, Brushed Corduroy, Gathered Twigs, Ground Espresso Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Gingham (Echo Park)

Dies:  So Char-CUTE-rie, Cutting Board, To The Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories:  Copics

Best Dad

 Hi and welcome!  I'm here with my card for the latest challenge at Tic-Tac-Toe where I went in two directions:  Die-cuts - Ribbon/Twine - Embossing Folder and Masculine - Ribbon/Twine - Plaid.

Onto a panel of Desert Storm cardstock, I embossed with the Woven embossing folder and then adhered to a white card base.  I added a panel of plaid patterned paper and then a sliver of gold embossed cardstock (in hindsight, I regret that strip but it was too late to rip it off).  The sentiment was die-cut from black and I also added a couple of gold-embossed hearts.

Finally, I used my new-to-me twine die-cut which I cut from dark red cardstock and added to the card.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Cardstock:  Neenah Desert Strom, Black Licorice (MFT), Vineyard Berry (Altenew), Black & White Plaid (MFT)

Dies:  Best Dad Ever (MFT), Field Notes Twine, Parcel & Post Heart Decorations (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Woven EF (Spellbinders, Gold EP

Cheers

Karren

Big Birthday Wishes

 Hi and welcome!  Today (24 December) is my husband's birthday so this morning I thought I'd better get cracking and make him a card!  I bought the MFT food truck kit specifically for him, so I didn't have to think too hard to decide what to use.

I put together the burger, hot dog and taco then had to think about how I wanted to lay them out on the card.  I decided a grid card was a good option so die-cut the gift card cover-up and ink-blended Salvaged Patina ink on the bottom of three of the panels, fading out to white.  On the fourth panel, I stamped the sentiment from Mini Messages and More.  I then adhered the sentiment panel and the food with foam tape.

Thanks for visiting.  A lot of challenges are having a break at the moment, but Krafty Chicks have a CAS challenge and The Male Room is Anything Goes so I'm going to add this card to their galleries.

Products used:

Stamps:  Mini Messages & More (MFT)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Sand Dunes, Rocky Shore, Espresso, Honey Drizzle, Heart Beat, Lettuce Celebrate (Altenew), Salvaged Patina Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White

Dies:  Gift Box Cover-Up, Hamburgers & Hot Dogs, Taco Tuesday (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

27

Hi!  Welcome to my blog. Our sketch hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week is Kim Singdahlsen.  I used her great sketch to create a card for my son, whose birthday is in a couple of weeks. If he was still with us he would be 27 years old this year.  This is the 6th birthday since he passed suddenly 😢.   

I used the Shiplap die by The Greetery for both the white panels in the background and for the numbers.  The number panel was a leftover piece from a previous session where I ink-blended the panel with Distress Oxide inks before die-cutting.  I then adhered the shiplap back onto a sheet of copy paper before die-cutting with the numbers.  I stacked the numbers with two black die-cuts as well for dimension.

The white shiplap was adhered to the patterned paper with foam tape and I finished with a simple sentiment - not really birthday-ish but true.

Thanks for visiting.  Please check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products Used:

Stamps:  Squared Spring Florals (Honey Bee)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo Distress Oxide

Cardstock:  White, Black, Grain & Grunge Patterned Paper (Honey Bee)

Dies:  Shiplap (The Greetery), By the Numbers (PTI)

Cheers

Karren

Fishing

 Hi and welcome.  Today's card is for the latest Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge  where I went right down the centre with Slimline-Stenciling-Fishing to come up with this masculine card.

I stenciled the circles onto a mini-slimline card base and then added the stamped, Copic-coloured and die-cut elements.  Finally I finished with a stamped sentiment and called it done!

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll have time to play along!

Products used:

Stamps:  Fishing Legend (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.), Versafine Onyx Black, Aqualicious (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It

Dies:  Fishing Legend (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories:  Fading Circles (SSS), Copics

Cheers

Karren

Paw Thanks

 Hi, I'm back with my card for the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches, where our sketch hostess this week is Narelle Farrugia.  I took the opportunity to make a thank you card for the surgeon who operated on my daughter's puppy, as he is based at a university in the North Island.

As this is for a male, I kept it clean and simple.  The white card base was embossed with the Subtle embossing folder and then I added a gray pierced square frame die-cut.  The sentiment is white-embossed onto black and the paw print was also embossed with the same embossing folder before being adhered with foam.

All in all, a very simple but heartfelt card.  Here's a photo of the patient wearing her smart new rainbow ombre sweater.  She had her stitches out last week and now you would never even know she had stitches apart from the fact her back is half shaved.

Anyway, I hope you head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Many Thanks (Altenew)

Ink:  Versamark

Cardstock:  White, Black, Amarent Cherry, Gravel Gray (MFT)

Dies:  Paw Prints, Pierced Square Frames (MFT)

Accessories:  Subtle EF (SU), White Embossing Powder

Cheers

Karren

Fishing Birthday

  Hi everyone and welcome.  It's time for a new sketch from the team over at Freshly Made Sketches and this week our sketch hostess is Jen Brum.  I used the sketch to make a birthday card for my father's upcoming 91st birthday.

I was guided by the Colour Cubes and also took a few minutes to plan out my card in the Trinity Stamps Cardmaking Sketchbook, which makes execution so much quicker!

This is a NBUS stamp and die set from Honey Bee Stamps.  I stamped, Copic-coloured and die-cut the images and then went to work on my background.  I embossed a green card-front-sized panel with the Castaway embossing folder, then lined up the brown strip to exactly match and ran that through the embossing folder.  The tiny sentiment was white heat-embossed onto a Jellybean Green strip and I added a copper metallic die-cut circle, onto which I added the images.

Thanks so much for visiting.  The DT have some gorgeous cards so I hope you'll head over and check them out.

Products used:

Stamps:  Fishing Legend (Honey Bee Stamps), Curio Labels (The Greetery)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.) Versamark

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Forest (Spellbinders), Jellybean Green, Milk Chocolate (MFT), Copper Metallic

Dies:  Fishing Legend (Honey Bee Stamps), Infinity Circle Dies (Hero Arts)

Accessories:  Copics, White Embossing Powder, Castaway Embossing Folder (Spellbinders)

Cheers

Karren

Masculine 18th

 Just a quick post today as I’m running out of time to get this published.  Today’s card was made for a young man who celebrated his 18th birthday last week. 

Patterned paper, distress mics stains and my favourite number dies meant this card came together fairly quickly.

Linda Callahan is our hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week so pop over and check out the fabulous cards made by the design team. 

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Cardstock:  Milk Chocolate (MFT), White, Black, Spooktacular Patterned Paper (Honey Bee Stamps)

Dies:  By The Numbers (PTI), Hexi-Gem Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Fallen Acorn Mica Stain Spray (Tim Holtz), Tasteful Textile EF (SU), Gold Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

On The Farm

Hi and welcome to our new sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Narelle Farrugia.

I had just received this die set by Honey Bee Stamps and thought it would work well for the sketch, so I set about putting all the elements together, using a combination of coloured cardstock for the larger pieces and Copics on white cardstock for the smaller pieces.  

Once I had everything assembled, I die-cut some circles from white cardstock and also patterned paper.  On the green patterned paper, I die-cut with a snow drift die to mimic grass.  I then layered everything onto the circles.

The sentiment was a hot-foiled sentiment I had already made.  I didn't add any embellishments as I envisage this as being suitable for a masculine birthday card.

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out all the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Cardstock:  Whip Cream, Cranberry Cocktail, Jelly Bean Green, Steel Gray, Cement Gray (MFT), Lemon Tart (PTI), white, Spiffier Speckles (Lawn Fawn)

Dies:  On the Farm (Honey Bee Stamps), Circle Infinity Dies (Hero Arts), Snow Drifts (MFT), Hexi-Gem Sentiments Hot Foil (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copics

Cheers

Karren

Lighthouse

Hi and welcome to the newest challenge from the team at Tic Tac Toe . I chose red-nautical-stripes and a very old stamp set for my card.

I stamped the images and die-cut them. On a white card base I added two strips of patterned paper on the outer edges.  On a smaller panel, I added the sentiment, lighthouse and birds before adhering it to the card base with foam tape.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Guiding Light (PTI)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Cranberry Fizz (Catherine Pooler), Lost Shadow Distress Oxide

Cardstock:  White, B&W Stripes (MFT)

Dies:  Guiding Light (PTI)

Cheers

Karren