Cutplorations, a new year and a new challenge

Afternoon peeps.

We've had our festive break at STAMPlorations and the new year's challenges are starting. Today sees the start of this month's CUTplorations one.

Here is my inspiration using the Bloomtangle #1 coverplate die.

The inspiration for the colors used came from the inspiration photo.

To start, I took an A6 top fold note card and embossed the front with the coverplate die. Check your die cutting machine's instructions for the correct sandwich but for my Big Shot its the base plate, pink shim, cutting plate, tan mat, card, coverplate die facing down and finally the other plate, then run it through as you would to cut. The tan or silicone mat allows you to emboss without cutting. 

On another A6 piece of white card, I cut the coverplate but tried to keep the pieces in place for the area I wanted to focus on. Don't worry if they fall out but try not to lose them!

Selecting the area I wanted, I then glued the pieces over the embossed section. Jennifer Mcguire suggests placing the whole die cut over the area, then allowing it to dry then removing the outline but it didn't work for me, didn't put sufficient glue on the small bits! 

Anyway, once the bits were glued and dry I used the colours from the pic to colour the various elements. A white embossed sentiment on black from the Balloons and Banners stamp set complete.

OK, that's about it from me for the moment but please check out the rest of the team here, where you'll also find all the Ts and Cs.

Joining in over at:-

AG

AG

Surprize Party Guest at Seize the Birthday

Afternoon peeps.
I'm back today with a card and a little bit of news.
To start here is my card, I was very much in festive mood when I made this birthday card.

The reason for creating it was because Nancy of STB asked if I would be their surprise party guest over at Seize the Birthday for the next couple of months! 

It was so out of the blue but of course I said yes, STB is one of my favourite challenges!

This time the theme is -

CONFETTI

But as usual so long as it's a birthday card your welcome in the gallery!

I'd seen quite a few black and gold New Year images on Pinterest such as this one, which together with the theme prompted me I to make this OL card. 
To start, I placed a top fold, black, A6 base card under the Uniko Confetti stencil and securing with a little bit of tape. To leave room for the sentiment, I masked off part of the stencil with some Post It tape, then inked over with Versamark and then carefully removed the mask. I chose some sparkly EP and heat embossed the confetti.
Using my MFT small alphabet dies, I cut out BIRTHDAY from some gold glitter paper and stamped the happy from the Happy Christmas in the Uniko Simply Said Christmas set  in Versamark and heat embossed with white EP.

I do like black and gold together, it always looks classy and is very celebratory!
So for more inspiration, please check out the rest of the STB team here and join us.

Joining in over at:-

Party Time


Anything Goes

Caseing Jennifer Mcguire

Good evening and Happy New Year!
New year, new month so new challenge over at HLS CAS.
Here is my inspiration card for this month's theme.

I don't use washi tape much at all and if it wasn't for my bestie who bought me some I wouldn't have much at all! I always struggle using it too, so had to go looking for inspiration and found it over on Jennifer McGuire's YouTube channel here.
Instead of the distress marker panel, I laid down some strips of Washi tape onto some white card then trimmed it down to size. The sentiment is one from STAMPlorations, stamped and embossed with white EP. A very simple design in the end.

For more CAS inspiration please check out the rest of the team here and then why not join us.


Joining in over at:-

Thanks a bunch

Congratulations Mr and Mrs

Well hello, hope you had a fab Christmas with friends and family.

All is now quiet chez Beech after a hectic but lovely couple of days with the kids and grandkids.

I've now got time to share a card I made for the wedding of the best friend of my son.

I didn't know what the brides colour scheme was so went down a traditional red and soft pink route.

I must admit to having been inspired by this fab card by Therese Calvird. I loved the bold die cut Mr and Mrs against the grey background. Her's was an A6 card but mine was a 5 x 7 so I needed to make the layout a little different. 

I decided to use those same die cut letters from the Altenew bold alphabet set and include a larger bouquet of roses, in fact I added a small one in the bottom left to balance the design. 

Despite having tons of coloured card in my stash, I have found it really difficult to find the right colours for these layering dies, so used my Copic markers to colour white die cuts before building up the layers. 

I liked Therese's idea of popping the letters up on red fun foam which matched the colour of the flowers, giving them a little more room to spread out on the larger format. A few Pretty Pink Posh clear sequins and a congratulations banner completed the design. I'm so glad that I bought these dies as they are so easy to use and create such great effects.

As it's review of the year time over at Altenew I thought I could share it there as the colours match the February colour swatch.

  

Simom Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

Anything Goes

Tartan Happy New Year

Good morning, back to share a card I made for the new challenge over at Cardz4Guyz. 

The theme this time is :-

NEW YEAR - NEW BEGINNINGS

So,  I thought about making a tartan inspired card. Scotland seems to celebrate the New Year or Hogmanay more than we do here.

The background to this card was made using the stamp strips from Uniko's Background Builders Christmas 2018 set. I was inspired by fellow Uniko DT member Sarah P to create the background after I saw this fab card. 

I used a panel of red card, a gold liner pen and three of the strips, the 3 stripes, diagonal lines and the wrong side of the Ho ho ho!

The diagonal line strip was laid across the panel and inked in Versamark before heat embossing with white EP, repeating to get the required pattern.

The 3 line stamp was inked in Altenew's Hunter Green and stamped in a tartan pattern followed by the Ho Ho Ho stamp which I reversed to get a plain image in Altenew's Ruby Red. When dry I added some gold lines with a fine gold marker and a straight edge.

The panel was then trimmed down to size and added to a white base card. 

From some gold glitter paper, I cut the 2019 and added it to the same cut from red fun foam.

On a banner of black card, I stamped the sentiment from Simply Said Christmas and heat embossed with white EP and then popped it up on a strip of foam.

For more masculine themed cards pop over to the Cardz4Guyz blog.

Hope we can prove to you that making cards for the blokes in your life is easier than you think.

A little bit extra

Just stopping by to remind you that there is still time to enter ALL the STAMPlorations challenges.

Here is my inspiration for you.

I've used the CUTplorations Peace, Love and Joy phrase die as well as some older stamps from Christmas Medley, Frames and Flowers and Trendy Spring Blooms.

I used the CUTplorations inspiration photo, focusing on the poinsettias and foliage.

The phrase die was cut from black card and placed centrally on a white base card, then using my MISTI, I stamped the sprays of foliage in shades of green. On some scraps of white, I stamped two of the poinsettias from Christmas Medley and embossed with gold EP. I used some Zig markers to colour and then fussy cut them. The centers of the flowers were made with tiny dots of white PVA, coloured with a yellow Copic. Before adding them I decided to add some red Nuvo drops to the foliage and some Wink of Stella to the Phrase die for some shimmer, which sadly does not show up in the photo.

OK, that's all for me but if you are short of the odd Christmas card, why don't you link up your creations to the STAMPlorations blog. The CUTplorations challenge can be found here.

I'm joining in over at:-


Make a Christmas card #2

Another one layer Christmas card

Afternoon peeps. Just taken the dog out before it got too dark, still not long now before the days start to lengthen!

Here is another Christmas card to share with you involving lots of masking.

I love a one layer card but they do require some planning!

I started by masking off a rectangle with Post-its on a white base card and added a torn piece at the bottom to make a snowdrift. It was then inked up with DI before stamping some trees in the same. colours. The main tree was stamped in black and I added some of the same DI over the branches. The snowdrift looked too bright so I knocked it back with a touch of  Vintage Photo. Some white chunky EP was scattered over the scene and heated carefully so it didn't blow everywhere!

Finally I added a simple sentiment.

I'm still in the process of decorating the main tree in the lounge, it got too dark to see what I was doing, but the one in the snug is finished. It was one that we grew from a seedling planted nearly 10 years ago and it was sad that it had to be cut down but it had to be done though as the others were being crowded out. This is the third cull from the plot and there is something very satisfying in decorating your own grown tree. The last two came with roots but this was too large a root ball to get out without disturbing the others. My Grandson and OH cut it down last week but the weather was so vile that we left it soaking in a bucket until Thursday. 

Joining in over at:-

Christmas Trees