AAA Card Challenge 275: and I try a new technique to me

Hi everybody it's time for a new challenge at AAA Cards and this week it's anything CAS goes with the optional twist to use Autumn colours. I'll also play along with CAS on Friday's challenge to add leaves to a card.

I bought the Soft Seedlings (SU!) stamp set awhile ago as it's one of their Distinktive stamps but trying to make the leaves multi-coloured with a blending brush wasn't really happening for me and then I saw Lisa Freeman create a card with this set doing the baby wipe technique which you can watch HERE if you want to know how to do it. I've never done the technique before so thought I'd give it a go, basically you add drops of re-inker to a baby wipe and then stamp and smoosh your stamp.

I've used the following inks Sweet Potato Pie (TE), Citron (PFS), Guava (TE), Mulled Wine (TE).

My original plan was to have one leaf cascading from the top LH corner with the sentiment flowing from it but thought my first "stamp" wasn't that fab so ended up going across the top with the maple leaf and added one little floating seed which was the best stamped image, so maybe I needed more ink or more smooshing into my homemade ink pad to mix the colours. I've splattered with some Rose Gold Gansai Tambai paint and stamped the sentiment in the Mulled Wine ink. It's all been stamped directly onto an A2 card base and I think it's a really lovely card to send to a friend, so much better than my ink blended leaves I was trying to do. So a fun and easy technique to try your hand at.

Well I hope you can join in with the fun at AAA Cards with an Anything CAS goes card or play along with the Autumn colours twist, even though it's definitely Spring in New Zealand now it was still fun to play with the colours.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Seize the Birthday: use the word CELEBRATE

This is my last card for my guest designing the topper for Seize the Birthday and I thought I should finish with a cute card, as I really do love my wee cute animals that I can colour up with my Copics. This week's challenge the topper is to use the word celebrate on a birthday card. I'm also going to play along with the fun at Just Add Girls who have a "stencil" challenge.

I made a background using 3 inks to make a "rainbow" of colour and a stencil I received from Pink & Main in one of my big boxes from Scrapbook and Cards Today titled Fall 2022. I've used the yellow ink (Sunshine) for approximately 2/3rd of the stencil and then bought in the pink ink (Bubblegum) to make an orange and then from the bottom the teal (Turquoise) to make green.

Supply List:
Stamps: Moody Unicorn (GSD), Approaching Perfection (SU!)
Ink: Sunshine (PFS), Bubblegum (PFS), Turquoise (PFS), Lavender (PFS), Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Polished Pink (SU!), Neenah Solar White #110, Xpress IT blending

Dies: Frames & Flags (NN), Featured Sentiments (ALT)

Other: Celebrate stencil (P&M), blending brushes (TE), 2mm foam squares (SP), Prisma glitter (LF), Copics, white Gelli roll pen #10 and Quickie glue pen (Sakura)

Challenge: STB#292, JUG#746

Well I hope you can join in and celebrate along with the topper for my final Guest Designer spot with STB and a big THANK YOU to the Seize the Birthday design team for inviting me to have fun and play along with them in August and September; I've had a blast!

✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 720: Just Add Rainbows

The latest challenge at Just Add Ink is to just add a rainbow/s. Now this is a cool and fun challenge. I've gone back to an old rainbow die which I have blogged about HERE and even though I thought I used bright card stock last time I've gone even brighter this time and I really love the brighter version.

As I had the old card still in my stash I've put the 2 cards side by side in this photo.

I've also added a wee Moody Unicorn to make a 5th birthday card for a special wee girl who loves rainbows and unicorns.

Supply List:

Stamps: Rainbow of Happiness (SU!), Moody Unicorn (GSD)

Ink: Fig (C9), Polished Pink (SU!), Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper: Fig (C9), Polished Pink (SU!), Parakeet Party (SU!), Tahitian Tide (SU!), Rainbow Glimmer (SU!), Xpress IT blending

Dies: Brilliant Rainbows (SU!), Slim Strips - 1/2" (PFS), Elements (Crafter's Companion)

Other: 2mm foam squares (SP), Copics, Prisma glitter (LF) 
Challenges: JAI #720

Well I hope you can make time to create some rainbows; as always the Design Team at Just Add Ink have knocked it out of the park, so make sure you do check out the inspiration.

Thanks for popping in.
✿Karen✿

AAA Card Challenge 274: The most challenging sketch ever!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone handles the latest sketch at AAA Cards as OMG this one had me totally stumped as all I can see is a mass of blobs and not very pretty at all IMO.

I've taken quite a few liberties with interpreting the sketch and have used a leaf stencil with some pretty and spring-like colours as in the Southern Hemisphere it is now "Spring" but when I had created my leaf cluster I thought to myself that looks like it would make a lovely Sympathy card. I've also flipped the sketch on it's side.

I'm also going to play along with The Paper Players as they have a CAS and Back to Nature challenge happening.

Supply List:

Stamps: Sentiment Staples (TE), Falling for You stencil and clear stamp combo (TE)

Ink (all TE): Sweet Basil, Mint Julep, Pink Champagne, Confetti Cake

Paper: Neenah Solar White
Other: Inside-Out Stitched rectangle die (LF), Blue Gold Gansi Tambi paint

Challenges: AAA#274, PP707

Well I'm pleasantly surprised how much I like my card and I feel like my blobs AKA leaves look rather pretty in their Spring-colours.
✿Karen✿

My first Tic Tac Toe board

It's my turn to design the board for Tic Tac Toe Challenges and my prompt for this week was to use Fall on the board and then the rest was up to me. Now living in the Southern Hemisphere I always struggle with Fall challenges as we don't celebrate the season fall/autumn at all or send cards to celebrate it's arrival, if anything we'd send a sympathy card.

I do love seeing the leaves on the trees change colour but they almost turn brown over night and just fall off and make a mess. So to cut a long story short I added Spring as an option to my square with Fall.

So if you live down under I hope you can play along with me and make a "Spring" card. I've chosen the left hand column to play along with Spring/Embossing/Layers.

I've actually stopped watching Jennifer McGuire videos as she makes me buy stuff and Honey Bees last Spring release was no exception, I bought most of it including the Lovely Layers : Dogwood dies and until now haven't used them, but aren't they gorgeous. I've added a Sweet Birdie (SP) in Spring-like colours (to be honest I just grabbed scraps that I liked the colour of and Spring-like). I've used Glacier card stock for my background to make the diecuts have a contrast behind, as it adds a hint of blue.

Supply List:

Stamps: Tweet Sentiments (SP)

Ink: Warm Buff (PFS)

Paper: Glacier (SP), Persimmon (SP), Rainforest (SP), Lemongrass (C9), Honeysuckle (C9), Pink Lemonade (C9), Harbor (C9), Soft Suede (SU!), white and black scraps, Neenah Solar White #110

Dies: Lovely Layers: Dogwood (HB), Sweet Birdie (SP), Stitched Banner stacklets (TE)

Other: Cloudy Day EF (SU!), foam squares (SP)
Challenges: TTTC#256

Well I hope you can join in with my very first Tic Tac Toe board; when I was creating it I tried to imagine me making a card using any line and I had ideas for all but I had to make a SPRING card to justify buying something after watching Jennifer McGuire creating with the new release at that time.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Seize the Birthday: adding stripes

Hi everyone this is my 3rd Guest Designer card for Seize the Birthday and the optional topper is stripes this time, but as always you can just enter a birthday card to play along.

 

I normally love adding stripes using a stencil but thought I would try something different and use my Pinstripe background stamp by Altenew. One of the cool things about Altenew is that all stamps come with an idea booklet with multiple examples. I've played with one of the ideas for my card and used some left over flowers etc. from a Virtual mixed media event I took part in awhile ago with Hero Arts using their Beautiful Day set, so this was a very easy card to create and packs a bit of WOW. The sentiment comes from Pinkfresh's Simply Sentiments. I've also added some black splats using Liquorice IZINK Dye Spray by Seth Apter.

Well I hope I have inspired you to go "stripey" with your birthday cards this week.

✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 718: Just Choose Two

It's time for another fun challenge at Just Add Ink with a Just Choose Two option.

I decided to play along with texture and foliage (but also have added some gold thread as well, so some pretty "string"). I'm playing with the Festive Foliage stamp/die/stencil combo from The Stamp Market which I received in a virtual card class kit. When this class was taught it was taught using very delicate pale pinks I have tried to make it brighter and tweak it up and am really happy with this colour combo plus the gold paste. You can see my original cards and blog post HERE if you are interested.

I've added texture using Cosmic Shimmer Moonlight Gold Luna Paste through one of the stencils in the set and then die cut out as an ornament/circle when dried. This is a clever versatile die set the ornaments are actually cut out with the "O" die from the word JOY.

Other supplies used:
Ink: Mint (PFS), Meadow (PFS), Versamark

Paper: Petal Pink (SU!), Flirty Flamingo (SU!), Gold glitter 

Other: Gems: clear with gold dust (PFS), Alabaster white EP (BM), gold thread (SU!), foam squares (SP)

I hope you can play along and I look forward to seeing what you choose as your two (or 3).

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

AAA Card Challenge 273: Sympathy card for a "pet"

I'm at that certain age when unfortunately I need Sympathy cards in my stash but also I do like to send a wee card when someone's beloved pet has passed on. For the latest challenge at AAA Cards this week it's an "Anything Goes CAS" with the optional twist of Get Well or Sympathy.

I have one set in my stash which is fabulous for making Sympathy cards for pets called Rainbow Bridge (CTMH) and have shared a card before which you can see HERE  I've gone really minimal and CAS with this card and stamped the fab heart of pawprints using Acorn (Versafine) on Crumb Cake card (SU!) and then die cut it out with some square dies and matted up. As Versafine inks stay wet longer I've learnt my lesson (the hard way) and often clear emboss if I use it, as I have here. I also like it when it's glossy, to me it makes it a bit more special.

I hope you can find time to play along this week and will you choose to go anything goes, or make a get well card or make a sympathy card. Just remember to make it CAS.

Thanks for popping by,

✿Karen✿