Just Add Ink 730: just add fruit

What a fun challenge at Just Add Ink this week, there are so many fruits one can add to a card, which is why I ask myself why am I still trying to decide two days before my DT card is due which one to use!! As I have procrastinated so long I decided I would take the easy route out and use up some left over lemons I had watercoloured for another card which you can see HERE.

After that it was pretty easy I had the wee sentiment already white heat embossed and the thanks die-cut was also sitting with the die. The other cool thing about my card is all the papers are "fruit-inspired" in their naming.

Supply List:

Stamps: You're the Zest (LF)

Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Versamark

Paper: Lemon Lolly (SU!), Granny Apple Green (SU!), Melon Mambo (SU!), Fruit Salad 6x6" DSP (LF), Distress watercolor (RNG), Basic Black (SU!), Neenah Solar White

Dies: Thanks Jotted Script (Memory Box), Sunflower Greetings (LF: I've used the wee scalloped rectangle)

Other: Foam strips and squares (2mm), ZIG Real Color brush markers, white Gelli roll no. 10 (Sakura), Alabaster white embossing powder (BM)
Challenge: JAI730

Well I hope you can join in with the fun, Summer is definitely hitting us down under so lots of fresh fruit to enjoy IRL too :)

✿Karen✿

CAS Christmas Card Inspired by Therese for AAA Card Challenge 279

Hi everyone its time for another anything CAS challenge with AAA Cards and this week the optional topper is Christmas/Winter. Living down under it's definitely not Winter as we head into Summer and I always need one more Christmas card, so Christmas topper for me.

Looking at my Christmas sets I decided I would play with one of my oldest sets called Santa's Elves by My Favorite Things as it was known back then. It's so old the die is solid and when I first started working with these dies I got really really frustrated until some kind person suggested I die cut out a blank shape and then use that to line up my die and that works fine. Today I've made it even trickier as I have been inspired by a set of cards Therese Calvird from Lost in Paper created using this set which you can see HERE. So as well as trimming close to the image I then had to put a solid die on top and line up my Big Shot's top plate to cut out at the line. 

I only  Copic coloured my image once I knew I was successful. Like Therese, I also added some stripes to the cap as I thought that looked really fun, I used minty greens and strawberry pink tones for my colouring. Copics used: G00/02/05; RV13/13/21; E000/00/11/13; N0/2/4. I then added some Stickles, when dry I added my wee panel to the front of an A2 card base using foam strips, you could add directly but it's kind of fun it's "floating". To be honest if you didn't pop up with foam you could stamp and colour directly to an A2 panel and attach to your card base to hide the bleed from the alcohol markers.

Supply List:

Stamps: Santa's Elves (MFT)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne

Paper: Neenah Solar White #80 and #110

Other: Copics, Diamond Stickles (RNG), Black glaze pen (Sakura), Gelli roll 10 (Sakura), Sharpie pen. foam strips

Challenges: AAA#279

Gosh this was a quick and effective CAS card and Therese has lots of great ideas, so do check out the link to her above, this design would work for so many images. I hope you can find time to join in with us this week. Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 728: Just Choose Two

Hi everyone and time for another fun and fab challenge with the Just Add Ink team and this week we have an easy challenge to choose two from: pens or pencils or patterned paper. I chose to play along with Pens and Patterned Paper.

I'd seen a few examples of a simple corner fold using DSP which looked to me quick and easy and quite effective. This design is great for creating a lot of cards quickly. I've used an A2 card base and then just made all my mats 1/4" smaller, i.e. white mat is 4" x 5-1/4" and the DSP mat is 3-3/4" x 5".

I've used a really old DSP in my stash as it's good to actually use some of it up and not admire from afar. The original colours that coordinated with my DSP were Lost Lagoon and Pear Pizzazz (both SU!). I've used C9's Tidepool as my Lost Lagoon alternative.

I've used Copic markers to colour up my image as listed below (darkest > lightest), in case you are wondering why the additions of Toners Greys to my blend, SU! colours have a lot of grey in them which is the main reason I personally have moved away from using their inks:
Red toboggan and hat: R27/24/22

Teal scarf: T1 then BG72

Bright green scarf: YG03/01 then T0

Pom poms: C3/1

Bear: E33/31/01 R20
Bunny: E43/42/40 R20

Supply List:
Stamps: Snow One Like You (LF), Merry Messages (LF)

Ink: Tidepool (C9), Poppy (C9), Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: All is Calm Specialty DSP (SU!), Tidepool (C9), Poppy Parade (SU!), Neenah Solar White

Dies: Spotlight on Nature (SU!)

Other: Copic Markers, Quickie glue pen (Sakura), Prisma glitter (LF), Black glaze pen (Sakura), White Gelli roll pen #8 (Sakura), 1mm and 2mm foam squares (SP)
Challenge: JAI#728

Yah another card for my Christmas stash, how do you create cards for Christmas - do you make one design and bulk make or are you like me and make all through the year so everyone gets a card that I feel suits them. If you do bulk make this is a really effective design and easy to recreate.

I hope you can find time to choose TWO and play along with us this week.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

More Cheesy Christmas

Hi everyone I blogged the other day HERE about the so cute and fab Christmas cards I recreated at the Create with Us class with Lawn Fawn. The day after that class Jenn Shurkus was offering a paid class, I tweaked the cards quite a bit to make them "more me" as I do like my CAS and "white space" on a card. 

These are my fab 3 cards I KReated and I've commented what I've done differently from "Jenn's".

Card one: I liked Jenn's concept of making a background piece using Candy Canes stencil with pink inks but I added a glitter paste to stencil 2 as well. I also used my woodgrain card stock to make a window as I don't own Build-a-Christmas Tree die so was just working with the stamped cheese tree for all my cards. I went with pink and lime green tones for this card as lime green is my fav colour.

Card two: I left the front of the card plain white and used a pastel pink glitter paper for my Winter Wonderland Window. I also think (unlike Lawn Fawn staff etc.) we work with the 6"x 6" DSP (as that is easy to buy) which is littler and cuter but "also more busy" as everything condensed. I just found the concept of 2 busy DSPs to be too much IMO which is why I didn't add a 2nd DSP.

Card three: I still worked with Ballet Slipper and Guava card stocks but used a piece of left over DSP from yesterdays class for my "floor" and then used a coverplate die to add more white with just a hint of guava and also no multi-coloured candy cane background.

I love all 3 cards and am very happy to have been inspired by Jenn to keep KReating with this stamp set. I'm also going to enter CARD ONE into the latest Lawn Fawnatics challenge as my card is sufficiently different from Jenn's, I feel I can call it my own design.

 I'll list the additional items I used which are not part of Jenn's supply list for this class:

Stamps: Ho-ho-holidays (LF - extra present on card 2)
Inks: do-si-do (CP - my pink ink for stenciling), Watermelon (C9 - used for sentiment in card 3)
Paper: Woodgrain - light brown (LF), delicate pastel glitter pad (Memory Box)

Dies: Frames & Flags (NN), Outside-in stitched rectangle (LF), Itsy bitsy polka dot backdrop (LF)

Thanks for popping in and have a mice day!

✿Karen✿

AAA Card Challenge 278: Sketch time again

I decided it was time I broke out my Waffle Flower Postal Collage die and matching stencils to play along with the latest sketch at AAA Cards. I fell in love with these when they were first released and have been slowly collecting all sorts of sets but until today I haven't actually used them. Now I have I'm kicking myself for waiting so long, gosh they are super fun!!! I'll also enter my card into the current SSS Instagram challenge to make a Holiday-themed project as well and Inkspirational Challenge to "layer it".

To play along with the sketch I've used the small square in the top left hand corner of the die 3 times, using 2 different stencil sets, one image (the reindeer) I had to mask of 2 of the edges as it is supposed to be stenciled into a bigger square. I've tried to only stick to a few colours so it wasn't too busy but have added some stencil paste to 2 of the images the gold looks amazing IRL and my photography hints at it's glory; the Stardust Butter snow is subtle but quite sparkly IRL too.

Supply List:
Stamps: Postal Collage (WF), Holiday Large Sentiments (PFS)

Ink: Cherry Blossom (PFS), Peony (PFS), Apricot (PFS), Mint (PFS), Warm Buff (PFS), Gathered Twigs (PFS), Versafine Clair Nocturne
Stencils: Postal Collage Snowman (WF), Postal Collage Christmas (WF)

Dies: Postal Collage (WF)

Other: Moonlight Gold Luna paste (Cosmic Shimmer), Opalescent Stardust Butter (TCW), blending brushes

Challenges: AAA#278, SSS IG Challenge, Inkspirational #328

Well I hope you can find time to join in with all of us at AAA Cards, maybe whip out a Christmas card too, as gosh it is approaching fast.

Thanks for popping in.
✿Karen✿

Cheesy Christmas

This is the name of the latest Lawn Fawn stamp set for Christmas 2024, it's also the name for the latest Lawn Fawn Create with Us fun and free class.

These classes are great they provide written instructions and colouring guides as a PDF and the class is live on YouTube. If you can't make the Live the videos and PDF for class will remain available for us to use afterwards. 

You can recreate the cards or play along with something similar. I have to admit I had everything that was being used for this class and the cards are just adorable!!

The supply list can be found in the link above; the only substitution from the guide is I used Poppy card stock (C9) as my red card, but everything else is identical.

It was a really "cheesy" weekend as today Jenn Shurkus offered a follow-up paid class which I had instantly signed up for. I'll blog about that class another day as I went quite rogue and swapped quite a lot of stuff around but here's a sneak peek of my cards all together.

I can't believe how cute these cards are in real life plus how many little details and dimension my poor photography skills don't reveal.

✿Karen✿

Loads of Joy with Tic Tac Toe

Hello and welcome to another fab Tic Tac Toe challenge and this week the board has been chosen by Vicky and I had so many possibilities looking at it but I had to go with the left hand vertical row as it contained 3 of my favourite things to do on a card: ink blending, CAS and die cut. I could also have chosen the top line: ink blending, snow and tree; as well as diagonal from top left hand corner: ink blending, foliage and festive sentiment.

I'm also going to play along with Simon Says Stamp Instagram Challenge for November wanting Holiday-themed projects.

To KReate my card I blended a sky with three Distress inks; Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves and Chipped Sapphire on Distress Heavy white cardstock. I sprayed the background with a shimmer spray to create some "snow" but ended up with some big blobs which I did not like so have added a few dots with a very fine paintbrush.

I've used my Copics to colour up the scene and tried to only use a few colours to keep it as clean as possible. I've used RVs to work with my sky. Colours used follow (darkest > lightest):

Presents and hat: RV19/17/55

Trees and presents: YG17/25/21 E13
Greys: N8/6/4/2/0

Yellow: YR12/21/20
Snow: B000

Other Supplies Used:
Stamps: Loads of Joy (MFT)
Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne - sentiment, Memento Tuxedo Black - images

Paper: Neenah White, Sahara Sand (SU!), Distress Heavy white (RNG)

Dies: Sweet Stacks: Circles (HB), Stitched Hillside border (LF), the cool wee rail track is part of the dies included with the Loads of Joy set (MFT)

Other: Prismaglitter (LF), blending brushes (TE), clear embossing powder, Quickie glue pen (Sakura), Frost shimmer spray (imaginecrafts)

Challenges: TTTC#260, SSS IG Challenge

I hope you can find time to play along with us at Tic Tac Toe Challenges team this week, we'd love to see what you create with any line; remember it can be horizontal, diagonal, vertical; there are so many possibilities

✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 726: be inspired

It's time for another fun challenge at Just Add Ink and this week we have an inspirational mood board to inspire you.

Pic credit: https://ar.pinterest.com/pin/241575967501293188/

What do you see when you look at the mood board? I saw terracotta/apricot and sage greens plus the wee ginger kitten stole my heart. So I have ended up working with different greens than I normally would, which was actually quite a lot of fun. I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets stuck in the same rut and would normally work with bright yellow-greens to craft with. I've also added a wee kitty as well - one ginger and a wee grey tabby one, representing my fur baby Cinder.

I started by lightly blending some Shabby Shutters Distress Oxide ink in the top left hand corner. I then used a Leafy Background stencil (PFS), which is a set of 3 stencils to add Cracked Pistachio, Evergreen Bough and Lucky Clover. 

I have Copic coloured up Newton's Blooms (NN) and tried to only colour with Apricot/Terracotta/Sage green tones. 

Copics used:

Ginger kitty: Y38 YR21/20 E000 R32/30

Grey kitty: W6/4/2 R32/30
Terracotta pot:  E19 YR27/24
Green leaves/grass/ pot: G85/82

Apricot flowers: Y38  YR02/61/20

White flowers: Y38 BG000
Bee: Y38 YR27 BG000

Well I sincerely hope you have a purr-fect day and you can find some time to play along with us. Do check out the fab inspiration from the Just Add Ink team, we'd love to see what inspired you.

Thanks for popping in.