Color Hues #30

Good afternoon. We are half way through November already and no Christmas shopping done. The road into town has been closed since the beginning of October for sewage replacement and was due to open at the weekend but is still closed until the beginning of December. The diversion is awful, takes about 20 minutes extra and is single track with very few passing places. As a result my forays into town have been limited to the basics of supermarket and hairdressers! I suppose I have had plenty of time to make my Christmas cards and I've used the new colour combo at Color Hues to make another for the stash. I'll have to take my overseas cards to the PO when I go for my hair cut at the end of the month or they wont get there in time! Anyway, rant over here's my card.

The starting off point was the wreath die from Joanna Sheen that I think I got free in a mag some time ago, but I may be wrong. I did win a few of her dies a couple of years ago so it could have been then!!

Anyway, its been in my die cut stash unloved so I decided to dust off the cobwebs, of which we have plenty I can tell you despite my daily spider patrol, and use it to make a wreath style card. I cut it from gold mirror card but instead of the little bits that come with the die, I added some bits I die cut from bits of silver and white card and the tiny snowflakes I punched from a scrap of holographic silver card.

To make the spray, I punched a small circle of gold card and added the foliage to it and to cover the joins, I added a punched snowflake in gold. 

My base card is made from a piece of hammered, dark, silver grey card that's been in my stash for years with a few dots of white gel pen to break up the starkness of the background. The gold die cut wreath was added then the spray. A few of the punched snowflakes were added too before the sentiment from Uniko was stamped and embossed in Platinum EP on a strip of white card and added.

So where will these latest colours take you, we'd love to see your takes in our gallery.

For more inspiration check out our GD and DT here.

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Christmas

Birthday Plaid

Good morning folks, time for a new challenge at Cardz4Guyz.

This time we would like to see your masculine cards that feature:-

GINGHAM, CHECKS or PLAID

Here's my card for your inspiration.

My starting point was the plaid DP from NitWits and the cute digi image from LOTV, Big Gift.

I was looking for an image for my Grandson's birthday and remembered this that I bought awhile ago. He comes in 3 different forms but I used the simple Big Gift Boy Alone. He reminds me of the comedian Harry Worth, if you are old enough to remember, who used to approach a glazed corner of a shop and raise one of his arms and legs. The effect was that he looked as if all four of his appendages were moving at once! Hands up if you've tried that when you were a kid, I know I did!!

This is a fairly simple design, I placed the digi to one side of a square on the computer and printed him off. I don't have the skills or programme to add details to the image so they are either die cut, freehand or stamped. Once coloured with Copics, I fussy cut part of the little boy and cut the square using my trimmer adding the lines and stars to match.

The NitWits DP was trimmed to size and added to a 7 x 7inch base card and the coloured, stamped panel was added on top with foam pads.

That's it from me but please check out the rest of the DT for more masculine inspiration and then why not join in?

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Uniko BA Inspiration - Pastel Baubles

I'm over on the Uniko blog today with a little bit of festive BA inspiration with these two cards using the floating strip technique. 

You'll find all the details on the make there.

You Are So Sweet

Evening folks, time for a new challenge at Perfectly CAS!

Here's my CAS take on this month's theme.

When looking through my stash for a stamp to use for this challenge I found this fun pineapple stamp that came free with a mag quite a few years ago. I think pineapples are quite tropical so I went with it!

After colouring the pineapple body and foliage with Copics, I fussy cut them out as the die that came with the set gave too large a border around the edge. My sentiment is from an Avery Elle set which I stamped on a die cut panel in Altenew's Sea Forest ink, then added the fussy cut pineapple. The panel was then added on pads to a white, linen effect, A6 top fold card.

So where will the cue word take you? We'd love to see your take in our gallery but please keep it CAS!!

For more CAS tropical inspiration check out the rest of the DT here.

Look what the postman brought!

 Morning folks. I've been playing with my newly acquired Altenew's Happy Together stamp set. I won it over at the Flower challenge together with a die cut thank you for their 5th Birthday celebrations with this card, thanks Viv. It dropped into the postbox on Friday so I've had some time to play and here is what I came up with.

I was influenced by the colours over at Altenew's November challenge and to start I made a background using the solid bloom stamp from the set and some DIs, blending out the stamping with a water brush. The finished panel reminded me of all the leaves in the cue picture but I wasn't satisfied so put the large panel to one side and had a play with the outline bloom spray.

Going for a no outline effect, I stamped with Altenew Limestone ink on MM paper and used a bright pink Zig marker to paint each petal which gives a more life like look. It's painstaking but so therapeutic, I get lost in the moment. I did the odd bit of Family History on the laptop whilst the petals dried, so I didn't smudge them! Some shadows were added with a purple Zig marker to give my bloom and bud some depth, before fussy cutting it out once dry. The rest of the panel of MM paper, I smooshed with a mix of Mustard Seed and Wild Honey DI and die cut a panel from it. The sentiment, I stamped on black and heat embossed with white EP and fussy cut.

I played around with both completed panel and rather liked the yellow panel over the fussy stamped background, so I die cut the panel to leave a border on an A6 note card, popped the smaller one up on pads and added the sentiment. It's not your typical autumnal thank you card but I was a bit orange and browned out!

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