A real CRAFTY card!

Gosh this card was so fun to create!

It truly is a work of art. This is another card from Jenn Shurkus 2024 Creative Art Retreat. In our kit we received the stamped images and sentiments as well as our Distress watercolor paper. These were from a Honey Bee set called Crafty, we received in our kit the dies from a set called Lovely Layers: Paint and Palette to create our artist palette.

I did a lot of the fun bits for this card last year and as I recall we ink blended on the Distress card stock with our Distress ink pads and blending brushes and then we added more layers on top with the corresponding or a darker Distress watercolor pencil. We added the layer on top by wetting the pencil in our water pot letting it get soupy and then scribbling a line on a cello bag which we made into a U and smooshed down on top of the "matching" colour below. Dry with heat gun and repeat with next colour. It really made a fun background with so much interest. We also watercoloured in the palette and the "paint spots" using the Distress watercolor pencils. Then added a double layer of Glossy accents.

I'm going to have another go at recreating this card but will use the wee artist mouse we received in our 

kit from CCC as I couldn't justify buying a stamp set and die with paint brushes and paint tubes but I definitely want to practice creating the background like this plus make another palette!

Thanks for popping in (3 cards to go now I think from this kit)...

✿Karen✿

Tofu Hugs time

Gosh it's been awhile since I've blogged about a class card. I went through a phase of signing up for countless card kits and I love them but as I've shared last year the breast lump found mid-year effectively wiped out the last six months of 2024, so my class kits have got on top of me with my DT commitments which never seemed to go away. Which is why my resolution for 2025 was less class kits and only one DT commitment. I hope to resume doing challenges again but I really want to finish of what I started in 2024 and in some cases I have a few kits left from 2023 too.

The relentless heat is finally dissipating in NZ as we head into Autumn so I thought it's time to finish of a class kit that I received in June 2024 as only a few cards to go. It was part of Jenn's Shurkus' Creative Art Journey and this if I'm honest is the only kit I will sign up for as long as I can afford too. She still has a few spots left for 2025 if you wanted to join in on the fun.

I've ended up doing the card twice with both the stencils that came in the kit, the one on the left is Flower Garden by Gina K Designs and the one on the right is an exclusive stencil designed by Jenn for the event called Sun Arch. Tofu has been stamped, then Copic coloured as a calico cat and I loved the technique she shared for doing this. The colour is laid down with 2 darker colours and then 2 lighter colours are added as a dab to make it more organic I think it worked great by the way. We then masked Tofu and stenciled over the top finishing at his tail. We just blended our pink ink to finish it off and we made the "ground" by using two of our darker Copic colours. A bit of Prisma glitter to birdie bottoms as it wouldn't be a Jenn card without some glitter! Tofu Hugs by the way is a Purple Onion Designs stamp.

Four cards to go to finish of the kit, all the Copic colouring done, its just a matter of creating the backgrounds so hopefully this kit will be put to bed in the next week. 

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Anything CAS with a twist of Spring

This is the new challenge at AAA Cards. Thinking about Spring I think of lambs, spring bulbs, green grass, green leaves and flower blossoms. So pretty easy to make a CAS card.

I started off looking through my bin of small Altenew stamps when I spied this mini delight set called Apple Blossoms. Even though it's a mini set it has multiple layers of stamps (4 for the petals, 2 for the centre/stamens and 2 for the leaves). I've used all Altenew inks apart from the stamens where I used a PFS ink called Sweet Mustard (A6). Altenew inks: Blush (A1 and A2), Rouge (A3), Crimson (A4), Buttercream (A5), Frayed Leaf (B1) and Forest Glades (B2). The wee set comes with 3 dies one for the flower, one for the leaves plus the mini care die. I always look forward to seeing what the Mini delight set is in each Altenew release as (a) they work perfectly with CAS cards and most importantly (b) I can still afford to buy them!

Well I'll start reminiscing about Spring now, we are still in the heat of Summer and it's being very hot, dry and at the same time humid but I can tell at night that Autumn is coming down under.

Hope you can play along with us, as always you have 2 weeks to play along and if you don't like the optional twist of Spring or Spring colours; "anything CAS goes too".

✿Karen✿