Spotlight on Gerberas

I've been playing with my new Gerbera stamp from Altenew and if you ask me what are my favourite flowers I would honestly say orange and yellow gerberas. I just love how cheery they are so when I saw Altenew had added a gerbera stamp to their "Paint A Flower" series I was in!

As the series is called Paint a Flower I thought I would try some simple watercolouring with my Zig real color markers which I haven't played with for such a long time. Don't ask me why as they are so fun and so easy to use but I guess I grab my Copics more these days.  

AAA Birthday Cards and Just Add Ink card challenge sites are challenging us to use flowers  this week.

Supply List:
Stamps: Paint a Flower: Gerbera Revolution (Altenew) and Easy Expressions: Birthday (The Ton) and matching die set.
Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Early Espresso (SU!), Versamark

Paper: Neenah Solar White 110lb, Ranger Watercolor (as it is WHITE)
Other: Champagne Rhinestones (SU!), stampin' dimensionals, Zig real color markers, aquapainter, copper embossing powder

Technique: Spotlight Stamping
Challenges: AAA Birthday cards, Just Add Ink

There is plenty of time to enter both challenges so if you have time have a play with your favourite flower stamp set. Thanks for popping in.
✿ Karen ✿

Monster in the box

Hi everyone a couple of Challenge sites have one layer cards as their challenge this week so it was time for the "cute" factor! 

 I just love the monsters in Monster Fun by Gerda Steiner Designs and the set also has some really fun sayings too. 

I normally Copic colour on X-press IT blending card stock and love it but knew in the USA they use Neenah Solar White so that is what I chose to colour on as I was only allowed one layer.

Supply List:
Stamps: Monster Fun (GSD)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne

Paper: Neenah Solar White 110 lb

Other: Clear embossing powder

Copics: BG0000/000/01/10/11/13; BV00; E53/55/57; R20; RV21/23/25; Y02/06/08; YR23

Challenges: Less is More, The Paper Players

I think I'm going to add some Crystal Glaze to my present box spots and some Wink of Stella to my bow but it's a very grey day today so my photo is probably as good as I am going to get for today. It is a good day for crafting though :)

Edited 26/6/22:  a close up now I've jazzed it up with Crystal Glaze (Nuvo) and my clear Wink of Stella.

✿ Karen ✿

CAS Condolence Cards

I blogged the other day as I had a fab play day with all my shimmer powders playing along with AAA Cards challenge to make a 1/9th card using a butterfly.

Now my first play/attempt for the above challenge was with Nuvo Shimmer "Lilac Waterfall" which was so pretty I thought it was the perfect background to make a CAS Condolence card and this is the theme at CAS on Fridays this week.

The sentiment strip was one sitting in a box on my desk as the Easy Expression Sentiments from The Ton give you multiple sentiments (this is obviously the sympathy set). The butterfly comes from an old stamp set I have had for yonks called Up the Happy (Essentials by Ellen - Ellen Hutson)

I also had some more left over bits to made a second much brighter card and toned the butterfly down with some vellum paper but I really like the shadings on the lilac card and think it is perfect for a sympathy card.

Thanks for fluttering by.

✿ Karen ✿

My first Christmas Cards for 2022

I am so happy to report that CAS Christmas challenge site has started their Christmas Card challenge site as it's always good to get started early as the big day sure can sneak up on you fast as you approach the end of the year.

The challenge is to use a wreath and be CAS I probably have failed at both but rapt I have my first Christmas cards created and in fact I managed to make THREE  in the design process. 

My final Christmas card design in 2021 used SU! DSP Whimsy and Wonder which used non-traditional colours and I loved it as it was so cheery. So the colours I started off were Mint Macaron and Blushing Bride with the smallest Poinsettia leaf but I thought that looked to busy so swapped to the ??pine branch. I then decided I didn't like that colour combo so changed to Misty Moonlight and Polished Pink. Now I have made all 3 cards I like them all but I still like the brighter colours best.

Supply List (all SU! apart from the sentiment stamp from Lawn Fawn and Gina K Designs wreath builder):
Stamps: Poinsettia Petals, Spotlight on Christmas, Tiny Tag Sayings (Lawn Fawn)
Ink: Misty Moonlight and Polished Pink OR Mint Macaron and Blushing Bride

Dies: Tasteful Labels (white stitched inner circle), Stitched Shaped Framelits

Paper: Whisper White, Misty Moonlight and Polished Pink OR Mint Macaron and Blushing Bride

Other: 4" Wreath Builder Template (GKD), Basic Rhinestones, dimensionals

Well I very happy to see I was/am going to be challenged to start making Christmas cards; not so happy I don't actually own anything that looks like a wreath stamp or die. I fear I am not clean and simple enough but I'm really happy with my 3 cards and it's great to start on the Christmas cards.

So merry wishes to you all!

✿ Karen ✿

More Joseph's Coat with a stencil

The Joseph's coat technique using a stencil was one of my favourite cards I recreated from Online Card Classes Stamp Camp, last time I used a rainbow of colours and then stenciled over with Black Soot ink (this is my original blog post HERE). 

When I saw the colour combo at Just Add Ink this week I wondered if I could try doing the technique using the "basic gray" to stencil over the blended colours.

Now I don't own Basic Gray ink but own a dark gray ink from Hero Arts. I decided to use a different stencil and also to use a masking stencil to give me a rectangle of colour with a frayed edge as I needed Very Vanilla on the card and with this technique you can't leave any Very Vanilla un-stenciled.

Supply List:
Stamps: Just Saying (retired SU! and matching die)

Ink: Crushed Curry (SU!), Pumpkin Pie (SU!), Soft Granite (HA), Versamark

Paper: Very Vanilla (SU!), Pumpkin Pie (SU!)

Stencils: Frayed Edge Masking (TE), Flower Medley small (RNG - Dylusions)

Other: Clear EP, blending brushes, dimensionals

And the final card, which I really like as it's bright and "funky".

Again another fab colour combo to use in the future. Hope you can play along or if you don't have time check out all the inspiration on the Just Add Ink site.

Thanks for popping in.

✿ Karen ✿