Monday 30 September 2024

Flippin' Seasonal Fun Day 1, Christmas Star Revisit

Good morning, hope you had a great weekend. 
Today sees the start of release week at Uniko but before the new releases feature the team are sharing a couple of previously released stencils. Today we focus on Christmas Star, though as you you can see from my example it can be used for more that just Christmas!

To make this I first took a panel of white card and inked through the Mini Mix Geometrics Stencil with Hero Arts Unicorn white ink and then left it to dry completely!! Don't rush this step as the next process wont work! 
Next I took the Ink n Flip Christmas Star and created a rainbow of inking, I used DIs in Candied Apple, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron, Salty Ocean, Chipped Sapphire, Wilted Violet and Picked Raspberry. If you take care and only ink lightly the white pigment ink catches the colour to reveal the pattern beneath!


Finally I added a die cut ring of black card, left over from another project and a sentiment made up of layered die cut circles and text from Doodle Flower. I made lots at once in my MISTI awhile ago so they were on hand.

Why not hop along to the rest of the team to see what they've been up to with this stencil.



Julie - me



I'll be back tomorrow with another Ink n Flip revisit.

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Tuesday 24 September 2024

One for the Girls

Good morning.
The rain has finally stopped, well for the moment that is. Although it wasn't quite the Biblical single event from the beginning of the month when the yard flooded, we must have had non stop rain for 48 hours. The trough we had out for the dog to paddle in when it was hot the other week is over 6 inches deep and is now overflowing. 

Anyway all this rain means that I've been in my craft room and not in the garden making a few DT cards for later this month and browsing challenges. I found a few that sent me thinking and I thought I would share this cute girlie card I made before the housework and washing call!


The image is LOTV and the papers NitWits, the layout I found online on Pinterest. To compliment the image, I die cut some more balloons and coloured them to match my DP and image, also coloured with Copics. The doily edge is a really old MS edge punch, number 2 MFT small numbers and the sentiment an LOTV stamp. I debated long and hard about drawing in the balloon tails but as you can see went with it.

That's all from me, have a good day and thanks for visiting.

Joining in over at:-

#198 Birthday Girls


For a Child

Hand Coloured Image


Wednesday 18 September 2024

Uniko Autumn Colours

Good morning. 

I'm helping out on the Sparkles Challenge DT up until Christmas and their latest challenge is Autumn/Fall, so I thought I would have a go using some Uniko stash that I haven't used or one not in a while! Here is my card using the Nature's Treasure stencil and the French Script stamp.


On a panel of white card, I stamped the script with Versamark before heat embossing with gold EP, then inked through the stencil, roughly covering the text and trying not to overlap the sprigs.
Rather than use a single colour for each leaflet, I blended a couple to get a graduated effect. The colours used were Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. Once the text was covered, I dried the ink and then as the background looked a little too stark, I blended Antique Linen over the panel before trimming and adding to my cream base card. A strip of gold mirror card and a heat embossed Happy Birthday complete.

While I had the inks on my desk I had a play with the MCM shapes stencil adding a stamped element from Nature's Treasures II.


All the details for this are on the Uniko blog

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday 17 September 2024

Target Practice

Morning, time for a new challenge at Cardz4Guyz. This time it was my turn to choose the theme, so I went with.

EMBOSSING, WET OR DRY

For my inspiration I went with just dry embossing using an embossing folder. Regular visitors here will know I like to use EFs to create focal points for my cute stamped images, some may also recognise one of my favourite layouts in this card!


I used a cute Nellie Snellen stamp from the Little Rebels collection coloured with Copics and teamed it up with some NitWits DP and an old Cuttlebug EF for the central panel. The colours were dictated by those of an archery target. The sentiment was customised from an LOTV sentiment, colouring the outer ring of the stamp in pale blue and then topped with a couple of small die cut circles cut from red and yellow card mounted on white to make the target, the die cut number is MFT.

So where will this new theme take you, as always there's some fab inspiration over on the Cardz4Guyz blog if you need it. 
Looking forward to seeing where my theme takes you.

Joining in over at:- 

To layer or not to layer
Normally I'm a CAS sort of girl but sometimes a design requires a few layers for impact even if there are no twiddly bits! I suppose this is what some term Clean and LAYERED!


Monday 16 September 2024

CH #95

Afternoon and welcome.
Today sees the start of a new colour combination from Color Hues. I've had fun with this new pairing and a fun technique, so be prepared for a long post!
Here's my first card using the colours.



The ladies over at Group of 7 card makers are playing with vellum and embossing this month, so that was my starting off point. 
I took an A6 panel of thickish vellum and embossed it with an old Cuttlebug EF, then on the debossed side, inked the center with Picked Raspberry DI. I tried Kitsch Flamingo but it was too pale as the vellum dilutes the colour when you look from the front. With this in mind I went with a touch of Salty Ocean DI near the pink but mainly Chipped Sapphire DI for the blue. 
Once complete I flipped it over to the right side and cut in half to make two cards from one panel! This was my second design made using a slimline landscape die set from Whimsey Stamps to create this wintery scene. The sentiment from Uniko was stamped in more Chipped Sapphire.
To assemble I creased the top of my embossed panel where the EF missed and taped it to the back of my base card with doublesided tape so that it draped over the front of the design and secured to the front with more tape. The die cut landscape was glued on top and all the vellum fixings were covered up!

This is the first card I made with the other half of the vellum panel.


This is a much simpler design using a STAMPlorations die cut and a Woodware sentiment.

At this point I was on a roll and decided to try heat embossing on vellum and came up with this.


I started with another panel of vellum and inked it with Picked Raspberry and Chipped Sapphire, I did away with the Salty Ocean this time. Then on the other side I stamped a Penny Black tree, Joy to All, a couple of times along with some twiggy stalks, before heat embossing with white EP. To finish off, I added some chunky EP to create the falling snow 
To secure the vellum panel this time, I used a frame, MFT, but before adding that I had a little leftover snow drift from the previous card which I think neatens up the scene. I left a sentiment off this time.

Here are all three cards together


So what will you do with this new colour duo?
Remember you don't have to match the colours in the challenge pic, just use whatever hues you want so long as its pink or blue, neutrals are allowed too.
The rest of the team and our GD Ishani have some brilliant ideas for you, so if you need more inspiration why not check them out here. See you in the gallery I hope.

Joining in over at:-



Embossing Vellum

 
Anything Goes option

Tuesday 3 September 2024

Nautical

Morning all. 
The summer holidays have come to an end for another year and most are back at school, so the weather is bound to improve! We used to call it an Indian Summer but a local farmer friend calls it Mother's Little Summer and its his hope of making hay after a year when the Met Office has struggled to get the 10 day forecasts as accurate as we would have liked. Rain in the middle of 'hay' making twice ensured that we have no unwrapped hay this year from our fields only wrapped haylage. 
Anyway all the rain means more time for the craft room, as did the mini heatwaves we had!

So this Tuesday morning sees the start of a new challenge at Cardz4Guyz, here's my take on the theme of:-

NAUTICAL


I love this LOTV image Sailing By, one of the first I ever bought. Now no longer available from them BUT the image has a new life over at Penny Black! When I first saw it on their You Tube channel being demonstrated, I was confused as to why would PB pinch the design. I found out later that the design rights had passed, so LOTV's artist was free to sell their rights to someone else.
Anyway, I based this card on another of PBs Jill Foster's Permission to Play sketches, with a slight twist. In her sketch the embossing goes from left to right and covers the whole of the card base.

The reason for the border is simple, my EF was too small for a full A6 panel, but I thought the embossed pattern went well with the Nautical theme. As always, Copics to colour the image as well as the Wplus9 HAPPY die cut. Not sure about the EF make, think it's DoCrafts, and the birthday is part of a LOTV sentiment stamp. This will probably go to my daughter for my Grandson's party card box, that boy has a hell of a social life!

So where will this new theme take you? If you need more inspiration why not check out the rest of the team here and then join in.

Joining in over at:-

Hand Coloured Image
or AG

Sunday 1 September 2024

Color Hues #94

Happy 1st September!
Well that must mean there's a new colour duo from Color Hues. This week team mate Carol has chosen an autumnal pairing for you. Here's my take on the new colours.


With green in the pairing, floral would seem the way to go but instead I decided to get out another of my Stampingbella Uptown girls, Uptown Girl Quinn in her boots. She's perfect for those colder month cards, all wrapped up in her hat, scarf, boots and winter coat.

I used my preferred colouring medium of Copics, just love the way they blend smoothly and for the most part the colours are great, the green element was easy to decide on, I chose G28, G46,G24, and G20. The rust element was a little trickier. My first attempt used the earthy E04, 07,and 09 but it didn't have the right look, so after some research I used, B93, YR24, YR27 and E09. I know, B93, but it works as the darkest layer under the E09!

The background panel was a NBUS EF from Honey Bee and the frame an IO die that I picked up a couple of years ago for a bargain £2, reduced from £18 and never used. It was TOO good a bargain to miss!!! The ground is just a scrap of white cut with a landscape die. My sentiment is a magazine freebie from years ago and never used, stamped in black on a circle of white card and glued onto my textured base before adding the frame on pads, along with Quinn.

So that's about it from me but please check out the rest of the team here, along with our GD Colleen.
As always we look forward to seeing your makes.

Joining in over at:- 

#66

Favourite Colouring Medium
I used my preferred colouring medium of Copics, just love the way they blend smoothly and for the most part the colour range is great