Christmas Card for Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge

Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to Desire Flourie from South Africa who joined us as a new follower this week. Desire is a gifted cardmaker who creates for many different Design Teams, and she also finds time for photography, gardening, hiking and scrapbooking as well as going to work!  She must get her energy from the sunshine and all the chocolate she likes to eat!  Thank you for joining us Desire.

Today is time for another challenge over at the Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge where we are asked to make a card that has 3 of something, 2 of something and 1 image.

We are kindly sponsored this time by

Oak Pond Creations

and 

Eureka Stamps

                  

I came up with this card that has 3 papers, 2 sentiments and 1 image

I have been taking part in the Online Card Classes Stretch Your Stamps 2 class, and Day 3 was all about using alphabet stamps. I pulled out this Monogram Alphabet from My Favorite things and stamped the Be Merry in red down the side of the panel. I then stamped the Christmas Fairy from Woodware Fairy Delight by Francoise Read and coloured her with Copic Markers, adding some polka dots to her dress. I embossed the panel with my favourite Canvas Impression Plate from Papertrey Ink and then covered her wings with Wink of Stella Glitter Brush. I added the strips of paper at the side, then mounted the panel onto the base card with foam tape, but it looked a bit stark, so I went in and covered the panel with a tiny snowflake stamp and some glitter to finish it off.

What I learned

I found it hard to get a good impression with the new alphabet stamps and my beloved PTI Red Poppy Ink. I tried stamping lots of times to get the stamps to take up more ink and I also tried using Versamark as a base but I still wasn't terribly happy with the results. I normally get great impressions with this ink so I don't think the ink was the problem. Perhaps the stamps just need a bit more 'seasoning'.

I need to look beyond the big images on my stamp sets. The tiny stamps that come with lots of stamps sets can be very useful, and this little snowflake stamp made a really big  difference to the end result.

I originally just had the red stripey paper on the edge of the panel but adding the strip of green somehow made the tree and crown pop.

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges.

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - favourite things. Mine were red poppy ink, canvas impression plate and Wink of Stella Glitter.

Sparkles Christmas Challenge - snowflakes

Sweet Stampin - Christmas in August.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.

Hugs
Carol x
 

Clearly Besotted card

Hello everyone,

We have been having some wet and windy weather around here, but it is settling down a little now. It gave me some time to get on with class so I'd like to share another card  made for the Online Card Class Stretch Your Stamps 2. I'm cheating a little because I'm still playing catch up but I decided to go straight to Day 7 and catch up with the others as I can. Day 7 was all about using graphic images on a card and as I had the Clearly Besotted Geometric Style 2 stamp set sitting in my basket of 'not yet used stuff', I though it was the ideal time to show it some ink.

I used some Papertrey Ink in Summer Sunrise, Hibiscus Burst and Aqua Mist to colour the diamond shapes and I lined them up in pairs on my block to stamp them in lines. The sentiment is from the PTI Happy For You stamp set and I stamped this in black. I wanted to keep the graphic feel of the card so I layered it onto some black card and set the panel off to the right on some foam tape. Some flower sequins in the same colours softened the look and finished it off.

What I learned

It is really hard to line up small shapes and stamp them in straight lines - even with clear stamps. Don't ask how many attempts ended up in the recycling bin lol!

Layering the sentiment over part of the image is a really nice look.

Adding the black card really framed the panel and gave it a more finished look.

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges

Muse card Challenge - I was inspired to try the black frame, have a white card base and keep the image to the right.

Ladybug Crafts Challenge - CAS

Crafting When We Can - Use bright Colours

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Carol x

Summer Card Camp 2 Birthday card

Hello everyone, and thank you to those who visited yesterday after my absence.

For Day 2 of the Summer Card Camp



we were asked to use the same colours but try a masking and inking technique on a large stamp. This was a technique I haven't tried before and I don't have many large stamps but I decided to have a go. I took all my rubber stamps off their wooden blocks a while back and I found a lovely large flower stamp but I didn't note the name or manufacturer, so if you recognise it, could you please let me know so I can credit it correctly?

I took the stamp and masked off areas at an angle and inked it up in three colours before spraying the ink with water and stamping it onto watercolour card. Whilst it was drying I die cut a tab and embossed the word happy in white,

cut the the word 'birthday' in pink, and cut a double ended banner in blue, before assembling the card

At this point I thought the card was lacking something so I added some tiny hearts on the tab and inside the letter D of birthday, and cut a larger heart and stamped it with orange polka dots. As I said yesterday, I don't often use bright colours but, I'm loving this combination. I'm going to enter this card into the Birthday card challenge over at Moxie Fab World

Thanks for looking in.

Hugs

Carol x

Papertrey Ink Engagement card

Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to Marjoram and Donna  who are recent new followers. I'm sorry to have been absent for so long but life has been busy with holidays and summertime activities which are wonderful but keep me out of the craftroom. Well to get me back in the flow I've enrolled on the Online Card Classes Summer Card Camp 2.



For the first week we are asked to use certain colours and try a sketch or two and I came up with this card for a member of our choir who has just got engaged.

I used the Papertrey Ink Wine Bottle tag die for the yellow banner and when I had finished the card I could see it was missing something, so I cut the bottom of the die again in blue card and placed it underneath the yellow one, along with a sliver of card at the top and it looked much better. I die cut the two cute little birds from felt

to give some texture, and added a little pink tag and button to finish it off. This card took me out of my comfort zone because I don't often mix bright colours but I'm quite pleased with the results.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Carol x