Southern Girls Challenge - is this an easy challenge or not - just use a die cut

Hello, its time for another challenge with the Southern Girls. And it's a real easy one you just use need to use a die cut on your card.

I also managed to squeeze in my first play with some Distress Oxide inks (see the balloons) but I only had 3 colours to work with as they had sold out of the pretty colours.

Even so if you look especially at the blown up pink balloon you can see we have some reaction/oxidation going on!

This card evolved from the original concept in my mind as I wanted to use my very newly purchased Distress Oxide inks to make the background but they were too strong a colour. So I went back to my original Distress inks to make the background.

Below is my very first play on a scrap piece of watercolour paper. I smooched the ink pads onto an old plastic bag which was sitting in my rubbish bin then spritzed with water; then smooched & scrunched each colour onto the watercolour paper, drying each colour with my heat gun. You certainly could layer up more colour. I stamped the balloons  with Versafine black ink & then clear embossed.  You can also see the whoopsie if your water colour paper is not completely dry below you get a puddle of clear embossed powder ☹

But back to the challenge & not the wonders of Distress Oxide one of our fab sponsors is Krafters Cart which is a new addition to the NZ market. I discovered them at SENZ 2016 & was delighted that a local company was bringing in the brands I love such as Altenew, My Favorite Things, Avery Elle, Gerda Steiner & Whimsy Designs to name just a few. I've personally done bigger orders to the States in the past to justify the shipping costs which always seem horrific. Now I don't have to worry about that so I can budget my shopping more carefully, just getting one or two items at a time especially as Meetu from Krafters Cart often has free shipping on stamps & dies.

I think the rest of the card is pretty self explanatory so the full recipe is below starting off with the DIE CUTS instead of the stamps as we're all about the die cut this challenge. To be honest I often won't buy a stamp set if it doesn't have a die as I don't enjoy fussy cutting.

Recipe:
Dies (all MFT): BB Adorable Elephants, Wonky Stitched Rectangles, Stitched Sentiment Strips
Stamp set: BB Adorable Elephants (MFT)
Paper: Watercolour, Soft Sky (SU!), Sunkissed DSP (Prima - very OLD)
Distress Inks: Twisted Citron, Dried Marigold, Tumbled Glass
Distress Oxides: Fired Brick, Peeled Paint, Iced Spruce
Zig Real Colour brushes: Pale pink, green gray, light grey
Other: Watercolour brushes, Versafine Black ink, clear embossing powder, dimensionals, MISTI, various sequins (also bought at SENZ 2016), heat gun.

So I hope you can join in on the just use a die-cut challenge (see the SG Challenge site for the rules, which are very minimal) and as always we have TWO amazing sponsors for this challenge, so there's goodies to be won too. Winners are drawn randomly, so nothing to lose.

Our awesome sponsors for this challenge are....

❀ Karen ❀

It's starting to feel like autumn is rapidly approaching

So I'd bettter share this very cool shaker card using Cool Treats stamp set which I made awhile back at a class at Debbie Lamb's.

It uses the Cool Treats stamp set, Tasty Treats DSP and Sprinkle embellishments all which can be found in the latest Stampin' Up! Occasion catalogue. The stamp set also has a matching die for easy popping out all the treats & wow there are a lot in the set (looks like 7 to me).

In my opinion one of the coolest things SU! released  with it's last annual catalogue was long foam adhesive strips which make the making of shaker cards a real doddle. In a pack you get 40 strips plus 4 long sides so really 44 strips which measure 3.2 mm x 22.9 cm. I've also found they're really good when attaching something on a box etc. If anyone is interested in ordering they are $17 which works out about 39c a strip (kiwi prices). I noticed recently Jennifer Macguire is also using them now. And anyone that follows Jennifer knows she is always on to the latest & greatest in the stamping world.

I really like the mix in the sprinkle embellishments having round & square sequins and wee pearls. It is perfect for a shaker card.

Well I hope we get a wee bit more sun and a few more ice creams but if not the images in this set should make us reminiscent.

✿ Karen ✿

Wedding Bells are ringing

Well it's been a week since Cassie & Jake got married at the beautiful Boathouse at Lake Karapiro, the wedding has been 18 months in the making & gosh weren't we lucky the event was last weekend & not this weekend when an awful lot of New Zealand is flooded. In a lot of places we're getting our monthly average of rain in a day or in some places more than double. But last weekend the sun shone & we had a fabulous time celebrating this special day.

I was really fortunate that I had the perfect card sitting in my card stash for the day. I made this card at one of Sally Williams' card classes and at the time I went ohhh this is just stunning, I'm saving it for Cassie's wedding day.

All products are Stampin' Up! & we used the Floral Phrases stamp set & detailed Floral thinlit dies.

Thanks Sally for such a fab card.

✿ Karen ✿