Happy 2024

Happy 2024 all; it's less than 10 hours now until the clock strikes midnight in NZ and we start the New Year off. The last day of 2023 is being a bit of a meanie with really strong winds and rain and maybe later on we'll get Mother Nature's fireworks with thunder and lightning. Guess it's good to start the New Year off with a bit of a bang.

I finally got some time to play again and decided I would have a go at CAS on Friday's last challenge for 2023 which tied in nicely with the current Lawn Fawnatics's challenge, both wanting New Year.

This was a really simple card to put together with minimal Copic colouring, a bit of N1 to shadow the polar bears and RV14/13/21 for the pink scarves.

Lawn Fawn Supply List:

Stamps: Winter Skies, Window Scene: Winter
Ink:  Jet Black

Paper: Ballet Slipper, Guava, Let it Shine Starry Skies DSP

Other: Hearts & Stars skinny tag, Everyday Sentiment Banners

The Starry Skies DSP has such a pretty gold foiled starry background, it's really stunning when you see the light reflecting off it for real.

EDITED 6/1/24:  wow my wee card won the CAS on Friday challenge which is a great positive kickstart to my resolution to enter more 2024 challenges. 

Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky with the Lawn Fawn random draw but there's always another challenge at the Lawn Fawnatic site to win a gift card ;)
✿Karen✿

Use a Tag on a Card

AAA Birthday's have a fun challenge to use a tag on a birthday card for the December challenge. Somehow or other it's nearly the end of December and I finally get sometime to play along. I've been cleaning up my craft room and have sorted out the cards for January and February birthdays and I could see I was short of cards for littlies or young at heart so changed my mind and went for cute instead of flowers.

Also Paper Funday Challenges are celebrating their 5th birthday, now that's definitely something to celebrate, a very worthy achievement!! 

Copics used (darkest >> lightest)
Bear: E37/33/53/51 R20

Balloon: Y19/15/13/11

Clouds: BG000

Supply List:

Stamps: Happiest Wishes (SSS) and matching dies

Ink: Cummerbund (CP), Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne

DSP: Really Rainbow (LF)

Dies: A2 Nested Pendants (PhP)

Other: Chunky Glitter (LF), Crystal Glaze (Nuvo), Collage Medium Matte (RNG), white gel pen, bakers twine (SU!), foam squares (SP)

Challenges: AAA Birthday Cards #56, Paper Funday #60

EDITED 16/1/24: OMG my card has been selected as the winner of AAA Birthday Card challenges, I've been nominated to be in the Top 3 selection before but have never won one of their challenges as the standard is so high.

✿Karen✿

Seasons Greetings from me

Just popping in to say hi and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I've taken a wee break from crafting and just tidying my crafty space up after finishing the Christmas tags this last week.

I've made a few New Year resolutions re my crafting in 2024. I've decided to definitely cut back on signing up for Virtual Classes where I receive product. As much as I love playing with new stuff I couldn't actually keep up with what I was receiving so at this stage the only events I intend to sign up for where I receive physical items is (1) Jenn Shurkus's art retreat mid-year and (2) Pinkfresh Studios events. These 2 are my favs and may be Hero Art's mixed media event.

I've also restarted my colouring classes with Kit and Clowder so looking forward to colouring more with my Copics.

One of my online friends Anne is going to start using her NBUS stuff so I'm going to play along with her and use some never been used stamps from ALTENEW (she's starting with the A's) in January.

This year apart from AAA Cards I haven't entered many challenges and I seem to have forgotten how to make a card (unless it's in a class setting) so MORE challenges so I have to create something with what I own.

Well I hope everyone has a fab Christmas and at this stage I'll blog my homemade cards (yah I got some this year) late December. Then restart my crafting adventures in January.
✿Karen✿

AAA Cards Challenge 255 : time for me to get the Ugly sweaters out!

It's time for the latest challenge at AAA Cards and it's an interesting one, we've got a sketch to play with as our inspiration but also wanting cool colours. My first attempt was with some "faceted" stars just colouring in different areas on each star and gradually getting darker, it was OK but I wasn't in love with it, when I had an a-ha moment and thought let's play with Ugly and Bright sweaters (Lawn Fawn) and 2 of the sweaters even had snowflakes too, but they are not mandatory. Of course the sweaters are cute and not ugly, as Lawn Fawn doesn't really do ugly.

I've used my Copic markers to colour in gradually getting darker. LHS sweater BG10/11, middle sweater BG32/45 and RHS sweater BG13/49. A bit of Quickie glue pen and some Prisma glitter as you can't have a Christmas card without a bit of sparkle!!

Do check out all the fab inspirational cards from the other design team members and hope to see you in the challenge too (but do remember to keep it CAS). Because it's that silly time of the year you have nearly a month to do this challenge so hope you can squeeze in some play time and join in with the fun too.

✿Karen✿

OCC Relax & Rewind Holiday 2023 (part 1)

Gosh it truly feels like the silly season is here and we're out and about, the days are sunnier so less time stuck inside. My partner & I have just returned from a weekend trip to Waiheke Island to catch up with friends and this weekend we're back up to Auckland for 2 lunches and a show on Saturday night. I almost groaned so loud that I'm sure Kristina and Jennifer could have heard me in America when they announced a new Online Card Class; titled Relax & Rewind Holiday 2023. I wouldn't be around when live as away and unlike the USA it's Summer here and lots to do outside but their classes are awesome value and you can do them anytime with lifetime access so it seemed silly not to sign up.

This "CLASS" is a bit different than others I have done, it's shorter and all done in one day and is technique focused.

Session one is Jennifer McGuire and Cathy Zielske teaching 6 techniques over 2 hours. The second session follows the same format with Kristina Werner and Dana Joy teaching 6 techniques in 2 hours.

I managed to achieve the first three techniques yesterday so I'm a quarter done already. It was fun to just play and make a background. I used Strathmore Bristol Smooth card stock for the 3 inky backgrounds below.

The first technique to start it all off was ink smooshing. I've never done it by smooshing to glass before then wetting with a mister bottle. 

This is the inks smooshed down on my wee WRMK glass mat, before misting with my water bottle.

I started off using my Concord and 9 inks as they were similar to Cathy's blend. I'd already made my first panel when they commented C9 inks weren't probably that water reactive as a response to someone asking that question in live chat. The Lilac ink is definitely not dark enough and I tried re-smooshing it 2x more I couldn't seem to lose the "white space" where it was supposed to be.

I had a scrap of Strathmore left over so thought would try again with some Distress inks and instead of using water use my Shimmer "Sparkle" spray, the picture doesn't show the sparkle but it's there IRL.

The second technique was ink lifting using water or your shimmer spray I chose to use my shimmer spray again. In a nutshell make an ink blended background by inking directly to paper with the inkpad. I then used a blending foam to add a slightly darker colour for a more dramatic effect. This technique works better with darker inks.

I'm pretty sure I used Pine Needles and Prize Ribbon distress inks for my ink to paper. I used a red rubber background stamp Winter Foliage (PFS) to ink lift the image. In real life the panel looks real velvety with the shimmer spray.

The last technique I played along with was Colourful Paper Strips as I've never used a metallic in my mix before. I grabbed 2 colours and a matte gold that I had big enough scraps to make my panel out of, I used a die from Pinkfresh Studio that cuts 1/4" strips (x4) to speed up the process and the accuracy of the strip width.