More Spring Botanical Inspiration

Good morning.

Today I'm up on the Uniko blog with a couple of cards I made using the fab Spring Botanicals - Tulips.

I had a few challenges in mind when I designed them but I also wanted to share my makes with this seasonal set over on the Uniko blog.

Here are my cards, which use watercolours to colour and my favourite use of a frame to focus the eye.

This card was inspired by the colours at Color Throwdown, pink, yellow and green, cue word Bloom at ATCAS and the theme of Easter at CAS on Friday.

This next card uses the same set but in a square format to please the ladies over at The Flower Challenge, as well as AAA Colourful.

All details on the makes can be found over at Uniko here.

Joining in over at:-

EASTER

 

A quick CAS make

Good morning, time for a new theme at Cardz4Guyz.

This week we would like to see your masculine cards on the theme of:-

DOGS or PUPPIES

I've had a busy few days what with shopping for my mother of the groom outfit for my son's summer wedding, a visit from the pension guy and a weekend visit from both the kids, their partners and offspring, including supervising art homework for the eldest, I totally forgot to make my card for this challenge. So on Sunday afternoon I was scrabbling around for inspiration. I thought I had a few things printed off that just needed a bit of colour but whilst I was looking I found this ready to use image that came with a Making Cards mag more years ago than I care to remember!! I thought it was perfect for a quick CAS card.

The image was from a sheet of 4 which I cut out using a stitched rectangle die, mounted on some kraft packaging and then onto a white base card. The sentiment, Uniko, was stamped in the space above the little boys head. I do love those beagle pups with their soulful eyes and doleful expressions.

Simple really, not much else needed. If you would like more inspiration, please check out the rest of the DT here and then why not share your take in our gallery.

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Fur or Feather

Color Hues #83

Good afternoon. 

We are halfway through March so it's time for a new colour combo from Color Hues.

We've a full house today so I hope the auto publish is working! It's lambing time here, so everyone wants to see the cute new lambs, especially our granddaughter!

Here is my take using the new pairing.

When I was deciding what to make using these two colours, I saw a card using these two sweet girls and remembered I had them in my stash and never used them, so here is their first outing. I thought the colours worked really well with their faintly Victorian attire. To be honest my starting point was a selection of blue and cream DP that my friend gave me years ago, so not even sure of the make. Anyway, I decided to use one of the DPs in the background, only a snippet but just enough to create a background behind the MFT, square frame. The Copics used for the blue element are not quite what I had in mind but overall they worked. As always neutrals are welcome along with our challenge colours.

So after colouring, fussy cutting the girls out, I attached them to my frame and glued the snippet of DP onto my pale cream coloured card. I stamped the Uniko greeting with Altenew Mangrove Root, I thought that black would be too much of a contrast on the pale cream card. I chose the square frame as the original image had the girls sitting on a wall, but I cut it off to better fit with the design.

Well that's all from me but for more cream and blue inspiration why not check out the rest of the Color Hues DT here along with our GD here. 

Revisiting Spring Botanicals

Good morning and welcome.

Today the Uniko team are revisiting a previously released stamp set, well a series actually!

There are 4 stamps in the Spring Botanicals set, Daffodil, Snowdrop, Tulip and Crocus. In my card I've used 2 of them, Crocus and Snowdrop.

My inspiration was the flowers that were blooming at the time I made it. The snowdrops were in full bloom at the top of the drive and the crocus were adding some welcome colour to the long grass in the back garden. I chose the purple ones as the birds have decimated the white and yellow ones!! Still they do look fab pocking up in the longer grass. I did think of adding some daffodils but thought it would be too busy. This uses the same technique as this card, I really like how it focuses the eye but I used a slightly larger pair of dies to accommodate the flowers.

On a panel of white card, I stamped and masked the crocus and snowdrops to create a pleasing arrangement, then coloured the flowers and leaves with Copic markers. I was tempted to colour the background but left it white in the end. I took two nesting circle dies and lined them up evenly to create a frame die, securing with tape so they didn't move whilst cutting. Once cut, I removed the dies and cut a frame from fun foam, gluing the foam behind the coloured, die cut frame.

Using the largest circle, I die cut a circle from scrap paper and glued the frame onto it and then the center was placed back and glued too, matching the pattern of flowers. The finished panel was then added to a 5 x 7 base card and the simple white on black sentiment, Pure Florals-Peony, added on pads.

Well that's what I came up with but what about the rest of the team?

Just follow the links to see what the rest of the BAs and Bev have made using this great group of stamp sets.

 Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie -me

Steph

Vinita

Don't forget to leave a comment as you hop along because as usual Bev is offering a prize to one lucky comment left along the hop. Simply leave some comment love before Midnight GMT Monday 18th March 2024 and she will select a lucky winner to receive a £15 eGift Code to spend in the store!

Before I go, how about some March Madness from Bev?

Happy Hopping!

Joining in over at:-

First signs of Spring                                                      

Namesake Day

 Good morning. We've got a brand new challenge over at Cardz4Guyz today, something of a new one to me, we are celebrating Namesake Day, always the 1st Sunday in March. Namesake Day is all about the origins of surnames and given names or who or what they were named after. While you share your name or surname with many other people, there is always a reason why your parents gave you that name!

USE A LETTER FROM YOUR NAME IN YOUR DESIGN

My given name is just Julie, no middle name but if my Mum had had her way it would have been MYRA! Thanks Dad for standing up for me, and apologies to any Myras out there but I do prefer Julie!! There were a lot of Julies born around the same time as me, there was even a Julie with the same birthdate as mine at school. No idea why that was, must have been someone in the news. My married name is self explanatory, BEECH, of or near the Beech tree but my maiden name was Hilton, meaning of the farmstead on the hill. I do love a bit of family history so surnames have always had a fascination for me.

So here's my card using another LOTV image, a Judo Boy, using my initials, JB, as inspiration as well as B for birthday! It will be another card for the Grandson stash, the youngest has a really busy social calendar!!

After printing him off, I coloured with Copics and fussy cut him out and then put him to one side.

I printed off some NitWits DP, when the computer deigned to work and cut my white panel with an MFT border die. I repeated the cut and coloured the second one with a green Copic to match my DP. 

DP was added to an A6 side fold card and the panels added, then the Uniko sentiment was added to one side. Finally the 'Judo Boy' was added on pads and some of the marks from the original image lost when it was fussy cut replaced using a black fine liner.

So where will your name take you? We'd love to see your takes in the gallery.

Check out what the DT have come up with here if you need more ideas.

Joining in over at:-

Masculine or Feminine

I know a lot of people struggle with masculine cards but I love making cards for my Grandsons and their friends. I'm not really a girly girl and flowery embellishments just look wrong on my makes, with masculine makes I don't need to worry!

Color Hues #82

Is it really March? Well it must be as there's a brand new challenge at Color Hues.

This time we've got a lovely fresh, springlike combo. Here's my take.

My teamie Carol has made some fab cards using Concord & 9th's turnabout stamps over the years, so I was tempted to treat myself to their Blooms Turnabout set a while ago and this colour combo was the perfect time to ink it up.

I don't have the jig but by making sure my base card panel was the same size as the placement sheet, it worked out fine. I chose a couple of Altenew mini cube sets for the inking, Tropical Forest and Sweet Dreams. There are four turns so I used all 4 of each set, makes it so easy!!

Once the panel was stamped, I stared at it for quite awhile trying to decide what to do with it! Loved the panel and didn't want to mask all those pretty blooms, so simply added a sentiment roundel, Uniko, from my stash, white embossing on pale grey. Trimmed and mounted on a simple matching white A6 base card to complete.

So where will these new colours take you? As always we love to see your makes in the gallery. For more inspiration check out the rest of the team here, along with our GD.