Show Us Where You Live

This is the latest challenge at the Lawn Fawnatics Challenge blog is to "show us where you live" and they generously are offering a random winner $50 credit to spend in the Lawn Fawn shop too. I have loved working out where everyone is based looking at their cards and so far I have been pretty spot on with guessing right. It also means they have enough clues on their card.

I was a bit stumped if I'm honest for quite awhile as don't have anything that looks like a kiwi bird or a fern in my Lawn Fawn collection and shock horror I don't own a sheep stamp either. I can see Lawn Fawn has a really cute stamp set called Hay There which is now on my wish list but if I'm honest I like the other animals on the farm better than the sheep in the set.

I was thinking I am not sure that I can enter. Then had a brain wave and thought about the alternative name for NZ; Aotearoa: Land of the Long White Cloud, so that is what I hope I have conveyed in my card. Aotearoa is the name that the Maori/Polynesians called New Zealand as the long white clouds were used for navigation. It is becoming more widely used and we are almost known as Aotearoa New Zealand in the 21st Century. Kia ora is the Maori greeting for hello etc. with an almost have a nice day connotation too.

I have ink blended my background sky with Shaded Lilac and Tumbled Glass distress oxides. My puffy cloud border die I have used Lawn Fawn's chunky glitter on the edge (it's quite holographic). I have added a hint of Twisted Citron to the grassy border which has been die cut out of Spiffy Speckles 6x6" DSP.

Lawn Fawn Products used:
Stamps and matching dies: Over the Mountain Borders, All the Clouds
Dies: Puffy Cloud border, Grassy border, Henry's ABCs, Outside In Stitched Rectangle Stackables

Other: Spiffy Speckles DSP, chunky glitter

Other Supplies:
Paper: Lavinia smooth white, Black glitter (CTMH)
Copics used: BV02/31, BG000, G20

Distress Oxides: Shaded Lilac, Tumbled Glass, Twisted Citron

Other: Quickie glue pen

Well that is cute and when I buy the Hay There stamp I'll add some sheep to my grass. There's still approximately 6 days to enter as long as you don't have a mental block like me on how to do it.

Rules for the Challenge: Your project should feature Lawn Fawn stamps, dies, stencils and papers. The challenge closes on Sunday, March 5 at 11:59PM ET.

✿ Karen ✿

Gina K's ink blended holiday cards

Yes I have completed another card class from my "fall event 2022" and do not ask me why I didn't complete this before Christmas but I especially love the ink blended cards and they were so easy they make great mass producible cards.

Gina K does incredible ink blended cards with a lot of wow and is a fab teacher and she didn't disappoint with these.

Gina used her inks for class and her blend was Tranquil Tide, Wild Lilac, Innocent Pink, Peach Bellini. I used my Stampin' Up! inks and I loved how they turned out especially the water reaction on the "merry christmas" card. I used Pretty Peacock, Gorgeous Grape, Calypso Coral, Grapefruit Grove. I had to work quite hard to make the blend happen but that might be more to do with the cardstock I was blending on. I know Gina K inks have something added to them to make them easier to blend.

I also liked how we made the hanging snowflake ornament pop with a white gel pen.

I used a cheap black card stock from Spotlight as I was really low at the time I was doing my pre-event prep and the colour is all right for the mat (1/8" bigger on all sides) but it's quite nasty on the die cut. I made this whilst away at a girlfriend's place otherwise would have re-cut out and also layered up on 2-3 die-cuts. I'm sure girlfriend would have had black card stock but I didn't have my die with me. I also don't have my stamp set, she borrowed it to use it as she loved the sleigh and reindeers.

My cards close up:

We got heaps of stuff in our kit box for this class: Holiday Silhouettes stamp set, Holidays and shadow wee die, Happy Holidays sentiment strips, Graceful Snowflake stencil, 2 large Gina K blending brushes and 1 small, I must be special as I actually got 2 small ones. Last but not least a Gina K Tidy Towel.

Well I only have 2 classes to go and 3 weeks till the "spring" one commences but the last 2 are tricky and fiddly but one a week should be real doable.

#cropandcreatedelivered #SCTbigboxevent

 
✿ Karen ✿

First play with Lawn Fawn's Magic Iris

I see one of my favourite challenge sites Just Add Ink has an interesting challenge this week (a) to create a card with a "surprise" and now I go to blog about the card the next challenge will be (b) to link it as Mr Linky is playing up - now I have never ever seen that before and their DT work so hard I hope they can get it fixed.

Even the design of this card was a challenge, I watched the videos again how to use the dies and there's sausages, stabilisers and flux capacitors and multiple layers but wow it is an engineering feat and very clever and I think the designer of this die would have been top of the Star Fleet engineering squad. I had decided I wanted to use card stock for my layers with a stitched greenery background and then do some paper piercing to make my flowers but after 3 goes of various colour combos they all went into the bin.

And you know what was the easiest thing to do: just Copic colour up my floral wreath add-on as Kelly from Lawn Fawn suggested, it was so easy and you can customise it to work with whatever colour scheme you want. It literally took me less than 5 mins to colour once I got my Copics out. So I had a coloured floral wreath then I played with lots of  DSP in my stash and to be honest I returned to my Lawn Fawn DSP they actually are sized "just right" - i.e. not too big a stripe and don't overwhelm the image but are still colourful. I ended up using Flower Market on the front panel and wow have I used this pack a lot it's just about all gone and Spiffy Speckles on the "sausages" which create the iris.

Anyhow enough burbling here's the fab card which I just love. I know the next one I'll be able to whip up in a flash. 

Fully opened iris:

As you're pulling down on the lever:

How the recipient would receive the card with the iris closed:

And close up:

The Magic Iris die so you can see the sausages, flux capacitor etc ;)

Supply List (all Lawn Fawn unless stated otherwise):
Stamps: Circle Sayings (SSS)

Ink: Mango Melody (SU!)

Dies: Magic Iris, Magic Iris add-on, Magic Iris floral wreath add-on

Paper: Flower Market DSP, Spiffy Speckles DSP, Natural Neenah #110 (card base), naturals (SU! - retired - inner circle I thought white was too white), Neenah #80 for Copic colouring wreath

Copic colours used (darkest >> lightest): R22/20; Y38/35/32; YG17,25,21

Other: Mini glue dots, mini thick square foam squares (SP), sparkle glaze

Challenge: JAI #640

This was a fun challenge and there's lots of inspiration on the Just Add Ink blog, so go check them all out and if you have time, have a go too.
✿ Karen ✿

Trying again with my distress watercolor pencils

Hi everyone, I know after doing this class from comments in the live chat that I was not alone in rushing off and buying the tins of distress pencils when they were released. 

I at least had had one play with them and at the time I wasn't really that impressed. You can see that play in this blog post HERE.

The first playtime Jenn Shurkus aka Creative Chick was recreating a card that Scrapbook and Cards Today had published of hers. My card was cute but I felt it would have been easier to use Copics for colouring and create a background with my Distress Oxides.

Now I have done a few of Jenn's online classes and she is a fab teacher so when she advertised she was going to do a full 5 hour class with the pencils I decided the $30USD was probably money well spent (that's probably about $50 kiwi dollars) so $10/hour, so awesome value and I also have a 31 page booklet/teaching resource to look back at, plus I can visit the videos anytime I want. The class is available forever and if you bought one or all three tins and haven't opened them or struggle to work with them I can certainly recommend this class as a great start (& finish). All the details are on Jenn's website HERE. As we know the pencils weren't cheap though not that expensive so it's money well invested so we do use them

Look at this gorgeous riot of colour for the class sneak peek.

I thought I would do the class live in case I had some questions but my 5am start became a 3am wake up - it was like when you're flying somewhere exciting; you awaken hours before the alarm and can't go back to sleep. It has reinforced that I don't get up in middle of night to do a class, the replay is just fine but then again it is a lot of fun sharing the excitement and sharing with the other attendees. I am telling myself this, as I have 2 big virtual events coming up - one is 2 days long, the other 3 and a half days.

We started off with warmup exercises in which I learnt so much about how you actually use them, we had 18 practice things to do.

Then we had a break before we stamped images we had prepped yesterday by embossing Versafine black ink with clear embossing powder or just plain Versafine Clair Nocturne. I was thinking about using my Archival black but Jenn says it is not a true black (it has some blue in it) and to get the Black Soot one but the only way to get that one is to buy the pack of 4 and I'd happily buy the pack of four but no one in NZ seems to sell the reinkers for all 4 shades and I am over buying ink pads if I can't get the re-inker at the same time. 

I've always been happy with Versafine being waterproof but I haven't tried getting it really, really wet.

We also did some background techniques which I must watch again, plus we coloured directly on red rubber stamps and photopolymer stamps. So lots and lots of techniques put into practice. I also have my pencils in ROYGBIV order now, which is what Jenn does, as it does makes more sense.

The 2 flowers on the bottom LHS above; the purplish rose has a watercolour wash of speckled egg around it and it has also been splattered with black soot from the pencil. I wasn't brave enough to do BIG splatters but it was a cool technique so it was a shame to die-cut it all out and lose it.

Anyhow I used those 2 flowers and 2 of my backgrounds and made 2 cards this afternoon when I awoke from a cat nap.

I loved the watercolouring on my rose with Seedless Preserves/Prize Ribbon and Peeled Paint/Crushed Olive. My background uses Seedless Preserves and Peeled Paint and I was scared it was going to become "mud" so didn't smooch to hard. After the class I inked up the grid stamp with Peeled Paint distress oxide, the sentiment with Rich Razzleberry (SU!).

Supply List:
Stamps (all TE): Sketchbook Florals, Field Notes (sentiment), Rough Draft Background (grid)

Paper: Distress Watercolour (RNG) and Neenah White #110 for card base
Other: Blanket stitched rectangle die (PFS), foam squares (SP)

The greens are the same as above. I've used Mustard Seed and Rusty Hinge on the petals, Black Soot, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain on the "cone". The background uses a Dylusions Stamp set called Branching out and it's red rubber and I inked up the stamp with my pencil, wet and got 3 backgrounds with it. I have used the same stamps as listed above but this time I used Antique Linen Distress Oxide with the grid stamp and Early Espresso ink (SU!) for the sentiment and a few gems from Studio Katia's sparkling crystal mix to finish off. I also tried the splatter technique again, this time using the Vintage Photo pencil.

It's funny I bought these stamps in a monthly kit from Taylored Expressions with Karin watercolor markers August 2021 but this was the time when we were moving (3 houses in a year) and all my crafting stuff was in boxes, so I never watercoloured the images up at the time of purchase, so it's great that they finally get some love as they are all fab. I checked the Taylored Expressions website and the floral set is definitely still available and it is reduced at the moment but I didn't investigate too fully.

Well I still have lots more images and backgrounds to play with so sure you'll see some more KReations from this fab Creative Chick class.

#creativechickclasses

✿ Karen ✿

Mary Brown's aka Stamper Camper Best Butterfly card

I still love that my old SU! team Star Stampers upline Rhonda Fawcett still includes me in team events.

Even though my heart and passion are not with SU! anymore there's lots I still love (apart  from the latest mini catalogue). So I was quite excited to catch up with everyone this coming weekend for a shoebox swap which I have never ever done but in a nutshell you prep everything and have the stamps, ink etc in a shoebox. So the card/project  has to be relatively quick and easy to do plus more prep than normal. Unfortunately the event is not going ahead as in the end only 3 of us could make it, so that is a shame and I'm so organised I have had my 8 kits prepped for 2 weeks.

The first thing that jumped out at me from the new catalogue last year was the Best Butterflies because it's different and quite modern to what has come before it. But I have tried to use it a few times and I'm actually not that sold on it anymore but it has fabulous dies that match the stamp set so my first plan was to make this cute gift box I found online from Stampin' Amore I thought this looked perfect until I made one and it's so tiny. I hate small boxes, it would fit small jewellery items  OR a few Kinder Minis chocolates for us kiwis but the main problem which is nothing to do with us being A4 and the States being US Letter 8.5" x 11" it really used a lot of card stock and DSP for such a teeny tiny box and thought that was really wasteful.

So thinking cap back on and I saw this fab card of Mary Brown's - her blog link has all the US measurements and below is the conversion to metric. I used So Saffron rather than Pale Papaya which is retiring shortly, so thought best to make a card for a demonstrator that still has current colours going forth.

• Calypso Coral – 10.5 x 29.7cm folded in half to make a “mountain-fold”
• So Saffron – 10.5 x 14.8cm, use the Dots and Spots Dies (line up on top left hand corner), add to card front
• Night of Navy – 8.6 x 12.9cm, cut out 2 1/2″ circle as below
• add vellum 3 ¼” square behind the opening in Night of Navy panel, add this panel to card front using dimensionals
• Calypso Coral – cut out large detail butterfly, add to card front
• Stamp out sentiment with Night of Navy ink and die-cut out, attach with dimensionals
• Add some Iridescent Pearls to finish off

I was really worried that the spots and dots coverplate die wouldn't have all the spots and dots in but if you line your card stock up with one corner it fits exactly but very tight.

✿ Karen ✿

It's been awhile since my Copic 101 journey has been blogged

Hi everyone I started my Copic Journey with you all in September 2016 and I have 3 blog posts, which I have all linked to the original blog post:

• Copic 101 - discovering and starting off with Copics
• Copic 201 - skin and hair
• Copic 301 - learning to colour with Kit and Clowder

I sometimes feel like crying when I see my Copic 301 story as I know I can't colour as well as that anymore and I am so far behind with my colouring classes with Kit and Clowder, that I have put them on hold as I have so many to do, I may die before I complete them. I'll keep blogging the ones I do complete so my blog is a complete record of my journey with INK.

Anyhow I thought I would share a fun FREE colouring I just did with Amy Young on Facebook you can watch the replay HERE and also get the free download from Sweet November stamps HERE so you can colour along with her. This will be my Copic 202 class story.

Amy shares some cool tips about working with a limited palate of markers and reminded me about using the "tip to tip" technique which I had forgotten about to help with blending. I'll share some of the key take home messages from the class "for me" below as my scribbles mayn't make sense in the future.

We didn't know what colours she was working with as she didn't want to pigeon hole anyone but some of the blending won't be as smooth as I never knew what was the next marker and my markers are behind me or they could be on the desk so I had to search for a bit between markers. As you will see she deliberately works with markers across different first numbers but increasing in intensity of colour for her blend eg E23/E57/E79. Amy also colours from light > dark > light and I colour the opposite way. I have tried both ways but you work out what works best for you.

We started of with the folds on the dress and the interesting thing was to create a shadow (not a highlight) as I have written with the complementary colour in the valley. So violet for yellow and green for the red on the colour wheel.

So red dress G14 > R14 > R17 > R59 > R17 > R14, leaving white space.

So yellow dress V12 > V02 > Y15 > Y18 > Y15, also leaving white space. We then used a dirty yellow Y26 to add small speckles in the shadow and a bit of E37 and then Y18 (darkest yellow). Lots of white gel pen dots in highlight area.

Next was the hair. I liked this blend and a new one to me E23 > E57 > E79 > E57 > E23

Eyes she made them watery to start off  BG000 around outer edge to make a "(" and a ")" > C2 (or C1) lightly over the top, trying to leave a wee gap > BG0000. You could also use the B series to make them watery. These are cartoonish eyes. Wait a minute to let everything dry before making the eyes green. We then did a thin line of YG03 to circle the whole pupil, leaving a white gap inside > YG17 half circle up top and then the same for G99. 

Skin: Amy's favourite skin combo for Caucasian skin is E04/E00/E11/E000, she also said E04 is not one of the first markers people buy and that you could also use BV01 or BV02 which is more realistic as our skin has a blue undertone as the blood is deoxygenated on the peripheries. I like using BV00 so I went for the BV02 today and it did a whoopsie and a big blob. I think I like my BV00 but got to try new things.

I was going to cut her out but will now stick this in my notebook for skin and hair combos which is probably a much better use for it. She uses R00 for the cheeks when everything wet and before she blends all over with her E000.

I think that's the main points she also added small lines of C3 to collar and shoes and I was impatient I coloured my hair clip Y18/Y15 but she coloured hers a pink colour just on the bottom and said she would glossy accent it.

I often watch her colouring on my Sunday morning (this class was 8am Sunday morning in NZ) but in the States it is at 11am PST.

Big thanks Amy that was fun. Sweet November/Amy provided us with a PDF file with 4 Simple Bettys on the page so you didn't even have to work out how to print digital images to colour and the image too. You just needed to print the PDF out on the card stock you like to blend on, in my case Xpress IT blending card stock and I use a Canon Pixma desktop printer as my HP ink used to bleed.

✿ Karen ✿

Oh Hey (again)

I loved my Oh Hey stencils from Concord and 9th that I blogged about the other day and I thought they would be perfect for the latest challenge at Just Add Ink which is a colour combo: Tahitian Tide, Orchid Oasis and Polished Pink.

After making the card I think the title of my blog post should be:

Oh Hey you missed out on the coolest stencil ever! But guess what C9 just released a SENDING HUGS one which is identical to all intents and purposes except it says sending hugs, check it out HERE.

Or it could also say, Oh Hey the 70s are calling as this card with that colour combo has a real retro vibe to it.

Supply List:
Concord and 9th: Oh Hey Bundle (exclusive for SCT)

Stampin' Up!: Tahitian Tide ink, Orchid Oasis ink, Polished Pink ink and card stock, Magenta Madness enamel dots

Other: Blending brushes (TE), embossing buddy, Alabaster white EP (BM), Make Art Station (RNG)

Challenge: Just Add Ink #639

Well it's a very gloomy day, wet, raining and windy here but so far, so good Cyclone Gabrielle is not hitting us too hard in the Waikato. Hoping my fellow kiwis further North and East are faring well.

EDITED: My card received an honourable mention and these kind comments from the DT.

Here's what some of the design team had to say...

An awesome stencil and such a fun card.

Crisp-clean-bold & beautiful! Love that stencil in the challenge colours.

Fabulous layering and use of simple embellishments to offset the large sentiment.

✿ Karen ✿

EZCZ

My Concord and 9th class from the #sctccdfall 2022 was taught by the fabulous Cathy Zielske aka CZ Designs.

I zoomed through the class today as we had 4 fab stencils to make a big Oh Hey and then it had a matching die-cut, so we could pop it up. These cards were so Cathy  with great graphic design making the "triangle" for the embellishments, using enamel dots, die cut pieces to give a dry-embossed look and flowers.

They all look sensational and were quick and easy.

Concord and 9th were very generous with our kit swag; we received the 4 Oh Hey stencils, greeting stamps and wafer dies. Mini ink cubes in Grapefruit, Sorbet, Poppy, Aqua Sky, Oceanside and Midnight. Plus Dove, Aqua Sky and white cardstock and matching enamel dots.

The 3 cards together:

The first card  used all 4 stencils starting with Grapefruit >  Oceanside > Sorbet > Poppy inks. Grapefruit ink has been splattered on the card base too. A few white enamel dots for our "boop" moments.

A more masculine theme using all the blues and only 3 layers starting with Aqua Sky > Midnight > Oceanside.

The last card is my favourite with all the peach inks and I love the white flower accents. Again we only used 3 stencils starting with Grapefruit > Poppy > Sorbet. We have made our own sorbet card stock for the banner using a scrap of white card stock and the ink left on our bending brush.

Anyhow what cool cards I love them, they are so happy and bright. Cathy was fun and sang silly ditties to us so I'm looking forward to her next class at the Spring event which is now approximately 6 weeks away. I also now only have 3 more classes to go from this event which is great but also sad, so I am very pleased I have the Spring event to look forward too and if I am lucky a Crop and Create with Pinkfresh Studios in 2 weeks time but I fear that class kit is stuck with German customs.

#cropandcreatedelivered #SCTbigboxevent

✿ Karen ✿

First play with Lawn Fawn's pop-up platform die

My stamping buddy Sarah let me use her platform die to play along with Lawn Fawn's Create with Us Rainy Day class. These are FREE classes they host via their website which also includes PDF instructions to download showing the completed project, your prep before class and the Copic colouring guide. They host these classes regularly on Facebook or YouTube. This class was from April 2022.

When I created the first card in the class it was 30 December 2022 and we had gone into a heatwave and summer overnight but it's raining now complete with tropical cyclones and flooding in New Zealand. It was a cute card using liquid stardust through a stencil and you can see it HERE.

The second card for this class uses their pop-up platform die which wasn't on my radar. Sarah says try mine I love it, she was right I now love it, so much so I went and ordered one. It's so easy and they show you how in the class which is always at a very slow pace so you "create with them" plus there are instructional videos on the Lawn Fawn site. The platform folds down into a flat card for posting until you push up the bottom and you have a display piece.

A few tricks which I will share. The first one was to apply your glossy accents/Crystal Glaze etc rather than apply when the item is on the card, attach it to some low tack tape (mine from SSS was so low tack I had to tape it down). It only takes approximately 30 minutes to dry but I left it for a few hours. I saw this trick on the Essentials by Ellen Instagram feed after I had just coloured everything up, so thought that was a sign to try it!

The second one which is so obvious I should have worked this out was when cutting acetate put it between 2 bits of copy paper to protect it from getting scratched from your plates. I was looking at mine thinking these will scruff it up and chose the least cut up side, amazingly they didn't. I used Lawn Fawn's acetate which is very clear and very thick and I had to use my metal shim plus 2 pieces of card stock to cut out my circle that we use in the middle of the platform instead of another T/hill die-cut. It's a really cool effect to have things floating.

Trick one in action:

The platform construction is nearly complete:

Normally when you stick the 2 halves together you add another "T" for your third layer but we used an acetate circle which looks fab but OMG it makes taking photos hard, added to the fact there was depth so my normal f stop of 5 meant the back layer was out of focus. 

I followed along with the Create with Us but coloured up my bears, umbrellas and clouds differently and I think when it was time to stick it all down after the first panel was attached I just stuck them directly or with little acetate strips where I thought there were gaps. The papers were from my stash and as I cut my platform out about 6 weeks ago using Sarah's dies I have no idea what I used at the time.

The card actually fits in a standard envelope, it's very sturdy and you just push the bottom up to make the platform, which the lucky recipient can display if they want. The message goes on the back panel, the die actually comes with 2 stitched rectangles. All the raindrops and puddles have Nuvo Crystal Glaze on them. They stuck to the acetate with just my Bearly Art Glue and a pair of tweezers to place. I do have to remember not to use up every scrap of my blending card stock as one of my bears had a badly stamped cake on his back but I just cut out a plain white one with the die and covered it up.

Unfortunately it does look like we maybe jumping in puddles come tomorrow as Cyclone Gabrielle is heading our way, so hoping it will not be as devastating as the last one that struck 2 weeks ago.

The Lawn Fawnatics current challenge is to create an interactive card using Lawn Fawn products. OMG you do need to check them all out, so much fabulousness and cute cards on display. 

✿ Karen ✿

CASE-ing Gina K

Wow Time Out Challenges has a CASE the Designer this month and they asked the very talented and giving Gina Krupsky from Gina K Designs and of course she said yes, as that is what Gina would do!!

She is a legend and probably the first person sharing videos on how to stamp back in the 2000s on her Stamp TV before YouTube or Facebook Lives were a thing.

Gina's card is "so Gina" with masking, blending, and of course the famous tiny black border. Her masking paper is my favourite and I love her Master Layout dies for the perfect tiny border they give you and if you haven't watched one of her regular lives with her hubby Tom and herself you are missing out.

I took inspiration from her fabulous card (which I truly will CASE one day as it is so fab) the rainbow of colours and made a rainbow card. I thought I should think outside the box and not just "copy her card".

I used my Pinkfresh slim stripes dies which made making the strips/stripes easy and yes, perfect! I chose my Concord and 9th card stock as they were my most brightest rainbow of colours I owned.

Supply List:
Stamps: Rainbow of Happiness (SU!)

Ink: Poppy Parade (SU!), Bermuda Bay (SU!)

Paper: Poppy (C9), Marmalade (C9), Buttercup (C9), Parsley (C9), Oceanside (C9), Gorgeous Grape (SU!), Orchid Oasis glimmer (SU!!)

Dies: Brilliant Rainbow (SU!), Perfect Stripes (PFS)

Other: Clear drip drops (SCT), foam squares (SP)

Challenge: Time Out #231

There is still a week to enter plus there is a chance to win a $25 credit at Gina K Designs, so get your thinking caps on and be inspired by Gina's fab card.

✿ Karen ✿

I had to play again.

I had so much fun with my card yesterday I thought I would try another colour combo, yes I bought a few more Lunar Pastes after the freebie in my SCT Cardmaking event box. At the time there were no "gold" Simon Hurley ones available for sell in NZ which is why I bought the Creative Expressions Cosmic Shimmer gold one.

It was actually interesting playing with the 2 brands in such a short time my gold one was a much thicker paste and easier to work with, but maybe it's dried up more as today's card uses a brand new unopened pot of Simon Hurley's Bee Sting, but as you will see I had much more run with today's card, so note to self attach stencil more firmly. I saw a good tip to add a layer of glad wrap to our pots so they don't have too much air but it's quite messy. I think I just need to use it all up making fab backgrounds but a little goes a long way.

I loved my teal and green combo but I wanted something brighter and pinker but didn't have any pink pastes (yet) so settled on Sweet Sorbet ink (Stampin' Up!) and Bee Sting Lunar Paste (Simon Hurley) and a  cake and candles stamp so I could play along with Just Add Ink's latest challenge and another entry for AAA birthday card challenge.

Supply List:
Stamps: Mini birthday cake and matching die (Studio Katia), Monster Fun (GSD)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Sweet Sorbet (SU!), Versamark

Paper: Xpress IT blending, Vellum (SU!), Neenah White #110, scrap of black

Other: Bee Sting lunar paste (RNG), half circle stencil (RNG), sweet circle dies (HB), foam squares (SP), Alabaster white EP (BM), Copic markers

Challenges: JAI #638, AAA Birthday #46

Copics Used (darkest  >> lightest):
Raspberry icing: R59/29/27/24

Chocolate Icing: E29/27

Chocolate Cake: E25/23/21

Candles: W0/00; Y02; YR16

EDITED: My card was an honorable mention at Just Add Ink. This is what the DT had to say which is really sweet.

"OMG, so funny! Such a fun background for the wonderful cake"

"Love the shiny textured background fabulous backdrop for a fun cake"

"Cool background for that tasty cake"

✿ Karen ✿