A new challenge at Cardz4Guyz

Are you in need of a little light relief in these dark and depressing days?

well over at Cardz4Guyz we have a brand new challenge to show you that making cards for the  men in your life isn't as difficult as you may have thought.

This time our theme is :-

USE A STENCIL

Here's my card for your inspiration.

I used a STAMPlorations stencil called Art Spatters, to create the background for my Copic coloured and fussy cut boots.

The boot is from Woodware's Rock Dude set and to make the pair I used the mirror stamp technique and some masking before colouring with Copic markers. After fussy cutting, I marked the placement of the boots with a few pencil marks before inking through the stencil with some Faded Jeans DI.

Carefully rubbing out the pencil marks, I added the sentiment strip and then popped up the boots up on pads.

For more masculine stencil inspiration, check out the rest of the DT here.

Joining in over at:-

    

Birthday                                   Male Birthday

Something for the youngsters

Birthday

Pure Florals Cosmos, Uniko BA Inspiration

It's time for some more inspiration over at Uniko. 

Today I'm popping by to share this card made for my BA inspiration spot.

I was inspired to make it after seeing the latest challenge at CAS Mix-Up.

Many years ago I tried painting in acrylics but didn't get on with them and the tubes lay abandoned in their box, unused and unloved. However, after deciding I would have a go, I ferreted them out from the back of the cupboard all ready to try and create a background as per the video. Sad to say that they had mostly dried out, only Crimson Alizerin one that was usable.

I did come across some DoCrafts acrylics I bought to paint an Advent calendar for my Grandson a few years ago but the colours were too dark, except for the white. Not willing to give up, I eventually came up with this card.

Having a limited palette made me think hard about how to get a colourful but cohesive background.

The blue is straight out of the bottle, the teal is a conifer green mixed with white and the lime is white added to Altenew's Bamboo ink!

The stripes were made by placing small dots of colour at the top of the panel, then dragging an old credit card down in a smooth motion. There must have been less of the lime paint to create the patchy effect but I didn't really mind, I think it adds to the arty effect.

When dry, the sentiment and flowers from Pure Florals Cosmos were stamped in black and heat embossed with clear EP. Love the fresh look of these colours.

A second card using these fab stamps can be found on the Uniko blog.

I'm joining in over at:-

Stamping, Acrylic background and heat embossing

Uniko challenge

Good morning.
I hope you are all well and not struggling too much with everything going on at the moment.
If you are struggling to occupy your spare moments, perhaps you might like to join us for Uniko's latest challenge.
Here is my card based on the theme.

As usual I needed to get some inspiration for my design, so used a couple of challenges out there. I used the colour theme at Less is More and the layout from Freshly Made Sketches.
The gifts were made by stamping Background Blocks Scattered Polka Dots and Background Blocks Pinstripe I on scrap card. The pink dotty one was embossed with white EP and inked with Picked Raspberry DI, The tall red one was inked with Altenew's Ruby Red, then stamped with Pinstripe Blocks and embossed with clear gloss EP. Finally the smallest was stamped with Picked Raspberry DI and heat embossed with clear gloss EP.

The little bows were die cut from grey using a Memory Box die as well as some thin strips of the same grey card. A larger strip of the grey card was attached to the base card before adding the sentiment strip, made from Pure Forals Peony.
The completed 'gifts were added and a few tiny sequins added to complete.
I think the design is quite versatile, leave the sequins off and change the colours and it would make a great masculine card or use Christmas stamps and change the sentiment for a quick Christmas card.

Check out the rest of the team at the Uniko blog for more inspiration.
Before I forget please also check out the work of our guest designer, the fab MacMable.
All Ts and Cs can be found on the Uniko blog.

Joining in over at:-

 
  

STAMPlorations Challenges - a reminder

Just popping by to remind you that there is still time to join us over at STAMPlorations for the current challenge.

Here is my card inspired by the photo below.

I've tried this stencil technique before and thought it would work with the above photo. At first I was going to use the lolly theme again but the die cut lolly that matches the Sweet Cravings set is a little too small so I went with a heart and romantic theme suggested by the colours. I love the way the colour changes but the pattern continues over the whole panel.

I took a panel of white card and a similar sized one of masking paper. From the masking paper I cut a heart shape then laid the mask over the card panel. Removing the out mask but leaving the inner heart in place, I then placed the Old Rose Print stencil over the whole creating a hinge with some masking tape and inked through with a light grey ink to match the background of the photo.  Replacing the outer mask, after lifting up the stencil, I removed the central heart and laid the stencil back over. This time I added some red ink in various shades before removing the stencil and inking over the whole with a pale pink ink.
Finally the mask was removed completely and the sentiment s added. The congrats was cut three times and glued together before adding, the sentiment strip stamped in black with part of the Smile set was added with pads. A few sequins complete the design.

For more inspiration and all the Ts and Cs about the challenges check out the blog here.

Joining in over at:-

    

Altenew's Garden Picks Again!

Good evening peeps.

We are almost halfway through March already, can you believe it?

Anyway that means that we have a brand new challenge over at Perfectly CAS.

Here's my inspiration using those gorgeous Altenew Garden Picks dies.

Our theme if you couldn't guess is -

The Garden Picks dies were still fresh in the memory after making this card for HLS CAS.
Other than the splatter and the sentiment the whole of this design is made with die cuts. This time I used Copic markers to colour using the colours suggested by Altenew's latest challenge. The colour range used was from the BV and V section for the blooms and BG for the foliage.
The splatter was done with some watered down Broken China DI and the stamped sentiment was also from Altenew, Adore You stamp set.
A simple design and easy to make once the blooms were put together.
For more CAS inspired die cut inspiration check out the rest of the team here, then why not join us.

Joining in over at:-

    

Revisiting Pure Florals Gerbera blog hop and giveaway

Hi and welcome to another fun non release Brand Ambassador blog hop at Uniko!

This month we are giving some love to my favourite stamp set and one of my first purchases from Uniko too, the Pure Florals - Gerbera. I've used it lots of times over the years but here is my latest creation.

I went for a watercoloured effect this time, with a little bit of fussy cutting.

The large outline gerbera was stamped on watercolour paper with Versamark and embossed with white EP. I added the stem by drawing a couple of thin lines with the fine tip of a Versamark pen and embossed with the same EP.

Using a small paintbrush, I added water to the petals and stem before adding colour with my Zig pure colour brushes. When dry, I added some details to the petals with the same pens.

Then I repeated the process around the edge of the flower, but with more water adding some Salty Ocean DI around the petals. Adding water further out than needed, allows the final area of colour to have a softer edge.
After deciding on how large to make my panel, I trimmed it to size, fussy cutting the petals where they over hung. The trimmed panel was then attached to a slightly larger one that I edged with Picked Raspberry DOx . I popped the whole lot up on pads over a white top fold A6 card I'd previously stamped with the sentiment from Birthday Sentiments in Altenew's Pure Graphite.

My second card uses the colours from this week's Color Throwdown, tricky colouring the blooms in white on white card and the theme at Seize the Birthday!

To start, I took a panel of white card and stamped and masked my design using Altenew's Silverstone ink. Then I used Copic markers to colour, using shades of grey to give the shape to the white blooms.
My sentiment strip was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with white EP using elements from Pure Florals Peony.

If you are interested in checking out some more of my older gerbera designs, here are some from the archive, just click on the pic for more details on how I made them.

        

        

    

As I said it's one of my favourite stamp sets, outline or solid stamp, Copic marker or watercolour. It's such a versatile set and so pretty too.

There's even more gerbera love over on the rest of the Brand Ambassador's blogs, why don't you pop over there.
As usual we have our giveaway, so be sure to comment along the hop for your chance to win the Pure Florals Gerbera Clear Stamp Set. 
(An alternative prize will be offered if the winner already owns this.)
You have until midnight Sunday 22nd March 2020 to comment along the hop.

All the details can be found on the Uniko blog as well as the BA links if you get lost along the way!

Bev
Carol 
Hannelie

Izzy 

Jane 
Julie - That's me
Linda

Rahmat

Sarah P
Wiebke 

Happy hopping


Joining in over at:-


Took inspiration from the colours and the flower elements


Pretty Pastels


       

Happy Birthday Joe

Morning all.

It's time for a brand new challenge over at Cardz4Guyz, you know, where we try to convince you that making cards for the men in your life isn't as difficult as you may think!

This time our theme is:-

SOMETHING BEGINNING WITH F

Well what can you think of? I thought of the numbers 4, 5, 40, 44, 50, 55, or perhaps you might go down the route of farm, fish, frog, friends, fur or even fashion. Well for mine I went with football with this card made for my football mad Son in law's birthday tomorrow!

Yes I know it's tomorrow but I don't think Joe will be checking my blog out!

I saw this cute card on my Pinterest feed that Gmail flags up occasionally. I decided to use the same LOTV image but colour him in the colours of Liverpool FC. The sentiment was cut from a panel of white card, eventually, using Altenew's Fine Alphabet die set and some Sizzix sticky grid sheets. This was the 4th attempt as first I got the sentiment the wrong way, then I got a couple of the letters the wrong way, then I missed out the h in birthday! Anyway I persevered and hopefully it was worth it. 

The grass was cut from green oddments using a Heffy Doodle die I got last year from Port Sunny.

The footballer was coloured with Copics and fussy cut as was the ball.

For more masculine inspiration check out the team here.

If you fancy being on the DT there's a spot going, if you're interested, just check out the blog for details.

Joining in over at:-

               

                                                                    Cards 4 Boys or Anything Goes for kids

Garden Picks

Evening folks. 

Hopefully as March has started here like a lion weather wise, it will finish like a lamb, as the saying goes. I do hope so as the land cannot take much more water, I have never seen so many 'lakes' and we have already had two of our smaller trees blow down in the hedgerows. The lambs will be appearing soon and although they can survive the cold, the wet and cold is not good.

As it's the start of the month we have a brand new challenge for you at HLS CAS.

Here is my card for your inspiration based on this month's theme.

I couldn't decide what my favourite technique would be but in the end I went with die cutting and added watercolouring into the mix as well!

This is the first outing of Altenew's Garden Pick set, I have been wanting to try them for sometime as the other set I have is fabulous. My only bug bear with this set is the size of the flowers, the really tiny layers get mixed up with the waste and they are a pig to glue down when you finally find them!

I made this whilst crafting at a friend's last week, it was really good to craft in company for a change. She also cut out some of the flowers and found the same problem, still I think the effect was probably worth it! The smaller blooms should work with my other set.

I decided to use a black base card and contrast it with some Shabby White embossing powder in the background. It gives a good splatter effect, more solid than white paint I think. All I did was add some spots of Versamark with a pen and then added the chunky embossing powder. The Versamark captures some of the granules rather than them all blowing away! Once heated with the gun on slow to stop the powder blowing off, I added the watercoloured flowers and leaves.
A stamped and embossed sentiment banner complete.

For more of the teams favourite techniques, check out the HLS CAS blog here, then why not join in?

Joining in over at:-


Favourite Flower and why
I love roses but the OH hates them with a passion, the first thing he did when we moved to our last house was dig all the roses up! So the only way to enjoy them is on my cards!