AAA Card Challenge 289 : and it's OUR birthday party

Last year AAA Card Challenges celebrated our 10th birthday, gosh and we're another year older and turning eleven. So we'd love if you could join in with us and share clean and simple birthday cards.

I decided I would use a NBUS stamp set so I could justify buying it in the first place and Fabulous Flamingoes (MFT) fitted the bill; it would be fun to play with and it's been sitting uninked for a year in my stash. I've been inspired by Carly Tee Miner who inspired me to buy the set if I recall rightly to create a mono-chromatic CAS card, my card does have a tad of yellow too but overall it's pink, pink and more pink with a wee splash of summery yellow.

To create the card I masked off an area on my card with post it notes top and bottom, then ink blended some Kitsch Flamingo distress oxide ink (RNG). Removing the top post it note I stamped  the tropical island with Versafine Clair's Glamorous ink.

The flamingo and hibiscus flower were Copic coloured up and die cut out and popped up with 1mm stamping foam. A wee white Gelli roll dot to the cheek and a teeny bit of Prisma glitter (LF) to the flower centre.

Our sister blog AAA Birthday Cards is also celebrating it's 6th birthday so I will play along with them too. 

Well I hope you can join in with one or both of the AAA challenges celebrating another year of bringing you card challenges. Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Birthday Critters

Hi everyone thanks for popping in, I'm delighted to be the Guest Designer for AAA Birthday and their latest challenge to make a Birthday Card with a Critter. Now that's a cool and fun theme, the problem which critter to choose??

I bought a new stamp set this year called Party Animals and have slowly been working my way though all the images - today it was time for the bear to shine and eat cake. You can see my other cards HERE, HERE and HERE. I have to admit this has been one of my favourite purchases in 2024, I just love how cute they all are and I still have a few more party animals I haven't used as yet!

I started off with colouring with 3 distress inks to make a rainbow using a splashy stencil from MFT. I also used a few stamp sets from Lawn Fawn to make some bunting and add some balloons and a sentiment and all done.

I then coloured my wee stamped images with my Copics. I colour most of my animals up with this brown combo below but the other colours were chosen from what was in a big tin on my desk I normally take a picture of my jar of Copics but there's too many so will list the colours here (darkest > lightest):

• Bear: E37/33/53/51/50 R20 BV000/0000
• Aqua: BG13/32/11
• Yellow: Y38/15/11
• Red:R35/32/30
• Pink: RV13/21
• Green: YG05/01
• Violet: BV04/02/00

Supply List:

Stamps: Party Animals (P&M), Really High Five (LF), Elephant Parade Add-On (LF), Fangtastic Friends (LF)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne, Squeezed Lemonade (RNG), Kitsch Flamingo (RNG), Salvaged Patina (RNG) 
Paper: Really Rainbow 6"x6" DSP (LF), Xpress IT blending card stock, Neenah White

Other: Watercolor wash free form stencil (MFT), blending brushes (TE), Outside In stitched rectangle die (LF), 1mm and 2mm foam squares, Copic markers.

Challenge: AAAB#64

As always you have a whole month to create a birthday card with critters if you would like to join in with the fun. It's always great to have spare birthday cards in the stash but do definitely check out the fab creations from the DT at AAA Birthday.

✿Karen✿

Bold Bouquet Revisit

AAA Colourful have a really vibrant colour board this month which is stunning and I've revisited a class from Altenew which was part of SCT's March 23 event to play along with them. 

At the time of the class the die for cutting part of the embossed image hadn't been released but when I heard they had released it, I think myself and the 3000 other attendees went hallelujah as it sold out real fast! For this class we added ink to the embossing folder and we were using coloured card stock. In class I used red onto pink card stock. This time I took a strong red ink onto a strong orange card stock and let the magic happen.

I also think adding the die-cut flower back is a real pop and makes the card shine. My first go I just ink blended my die-cut with a small blending brush and it was pretty but I felt it wasn't quite right, so reread the class instructions and the light cream ink was swiped over the raised areas of the flower and then the die-cut flower placed back in and the ink looks like its flowed out and definitely is smoother. 

I ended up mounting the panel on some natural white as I had a card base made in my stash and I liked that it wasn't a stark white. I think the rest is pretty obvious, this technique works for all sorts of embossing folders. I'm really happy how the red and orange worked together for this technique. If you'd like to see the original card that I created in class you can click HERE to see them.

I'm also going to enter into Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge as this weeks challenge is beautiful flowers with Altenew, plus AAA Birthday is looking for Fabulous Flowers this month too.

Supply List:
Stamps: Easy Expressions: Birthday (The Ton Stamps) - sentiment and in my case of ready made sentiments

Ink: Berrylicious (PFS), Buttercream (ALT)

Paper: Pumpkin Pie (SU!), Neenah Natural White and Solar White
Other: Bold Bouquet EF and Flower die (ALT), Aura Opalescent sequins (SP)
Challenge: AAAC#6, SSSW challenge, AAAB#63

There's still 2 weeks to play along with the fab colourboard at AAA Colourful and it is rather cool with the reds, yellows and oranges. These colours pushed me a wee bit outside my comfort zone but I do love how vibrant my card is and the bonus is I have an "adult" birthday card to give away.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Clean and simple birthday card

Two of my favourite challenge sites have something I love "cute" at AAA Birthday and "embossing and obviously CAS" at CAS on Friday, so thought I could easily make a card to suit my style with those  parameters.

I thought I would play with a really cute Panda stamp set I had recently purchased which hadn't seen ink for a card but my grand daughter likes stamping with it for fun, the other thing I'd also purchased and been on the lookout for ages was MFT's rectangle peek-a-boo window. I've used their square one a lot but the rectangle is normally out of stock. I found a fun embossing folder so we were good to go and using a panda stamp I only needed a few Copics to colour up the teeny wee heart balloon, party hat and the cheeks.

Supply List:

Stamps: Cheerful Panda Moments (ASD)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne

Copics: RV13/21/10 (darkest  > lightest)

Other: Bunch of Balloons 3D EF (ALT), Rectangle peek-a-boo window die (MFT), white Gelli roll pen #8, Prisma glitter (LF), 1mm foam squares (SP)

Challenges: AAAB#62, CAS on Friday #285

This was such a quick but in my mind really effective cute birthday card design so I am pleased I played along with both challenges.

✿Karen✿

AAA Card Challenge 265: Celebrating our 10th Birthday

Hi everyone! Welcome to the next challenge for AAA Cards. We have an anything CAS goes with an optional twist of Birthday.

We are celebrating our 10th Birthday!!

So we want to party with you as it's not everyday you turn TEN (10).

We have prizes! Quite a lot of prizes!

Some are only available to certain countries/zones due to postage, so please make sure when you link your card to also add your country letters to your name;

e.g. Maaike-NL, Karen - NZ, Kristin - USA, Tristan - AUS etc. etc. etc.

.

Please check out AAA Cards Challenge Blog for all the finer details and to check out the prizes!

We also do not have a guest designer as we want everyone to be in with a chance to win a prize, so get cracking and remember to make it CLEAN AND SIMPLE.

  Only CAS CARDS will be considered for a prize.

Wow ten years that truly is a worthwhile achievement for any Challenge Blog. I've chosen my inspiration to make a fun card from the cute monkey with balloons on the challenge photo, but you can just submit a Clean and Simple card as well but who doesn't need a birthday card in their stash. 

But we truly would love you to join in with us to celebrate. If you'd like a chance to win a prize definitely think about how CAS is defined at AAA Card Challenges.

I have KReated a monkey with balloons birthday card as I just love the cheeky monkey in the challenge photo. I have Copic coloured up my image. Once die cut out I have also added 2 blank die cuts to the image for a bit of dimension. I have very lightly blended Salvaged Patina distress oxide behind it all as I'm sure s/he is floating in the sky. This really cool monkey comes from Party Animals (Pink & Main). Then just a tad of Diamond Stickles to the balloon highlights and the bottom of the ice-cream as it is a PARTY!!!

Copics used (I colour dark >> light):

Monkey: E37/33/53/51 E53/51 and RV 21/10

Pink: RV13/21 (10 also added to balloon)
Orange: YR16/Y17

Yellow: Y17/15 (11 also added to balloon)

Green: YG05/21 (09 added to balloon first)
Blue: BG13/11

Well I hope you can join in with us at AAA Cards Challenge and celebrate this momentous occasion, as always you have 2 weeks to create your card. If you can't make it do call by the Challenge Blog and wish them/us a Happy Birthday;)

It's also ironical our sister blog AAA Birthday Challenge challenge for May is a CAS Card so I will enter my card there to play along with them too.

EDITED 15/6/24: I'm so delighted Helen chose my wee card as her favourite at AAA Birthday which made my day, even more exciting as this is also the first time my card has been picked as the winner there. I've had a top 3 or top 4 pick before but have never been chosen as the winner before.

✿Karen✿

Shaker birthday card

It's been awhile since I've made a shaker card and I should make more as they are fun, pack a wow, and I might get to use up all those shaking bits I can't help myself collecting.

When I saw AAA Birthday's April challenge was for a shaker card I knew exactly what die I wanted to use as it had taken me a long time to track one down and that die is the Happy Birthday Circle Frame die from MFT stamps. Inkspirational also has a very cool rainbow mood board which I feel my rainbow colours play along nicely with as well (especially as I have rainbow letters). I'll also play along with Seize the Birthday's anything goes or I might be off the edge enough to be doing the "topping"  with STB. And as you have to be in it to win it, I'm always pleased when Simon Says Stamp has an anything goes challenge.

I've just die cut my HB Circle frame out of white card stock and then Copic coloured the letters in a rainbow, made my shaker and then had to decide what image to add for some extra cute appeal. I'm still in love with my Party Animal set from Pink and Main so used the party chick and cupcake this time. As the chick is yellow I used the complementary colour which is supposed to be Violet for the background colour of the mat and for the cupcake icing. My final card is a 4-1/4" square.

Supply List:

Stamps: Party Animal (P&M)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper: Orchid Oasis (SU!), Neenah Solar White, Xpress IT blending

Dies: Happy Birthday Circle Frame (MFT), Stitched Scallop Square (PFS), Master Layouts 3 (GKD), Sweet Circle Stack (HB)

Other: Copics, acetate scrap, foam tape, Rainbow Sprinkle mix (PPP), white Gelli roll pen

Challenges: AAAB#60,  INK#313, STB#282, SSSW#116,

Well I'd better go tidy up my wee craftastrophe but this in all honesty is a relatively easy card which is always fun to give, thanks for popping in and hope you can play along with some of these fabulous challenges.

EDITED 15/3/24: My sweet shaker was a Top 3 card at AAA Birthdays

✿Karen✿

Geometric Fun with AAA Birthday Challenges

Hi everyone I'm absolutely delighted to be the Guest Designer at AAA Birthday for their March Challenge, as soon as I saw the graphic it reminded me of a hot foil plate I had sitting in my stash.

I hot foiled the plate with black foil and then thought maybe I should have just stuck to gold so did another one this time with matte gold. My first go was with the matte gold and Slumber, Sapphire, Lavender and Raspberry Bliss inks using my 1/2" blending brushes. It was pretty but it wasn't as dramatic as I wanted, partly because I'd graduated my blending and the colours faded back more than I thought they would when they dried. I also used 4 of the 5 stencils in the set as I wanted some areas to remain uninked and white.

So it was back to PLAN A and the black foiled image and this time I just went for the 3 darkest inks and also used my bigger blending brushes so easier and quicker to do a heavy ink blend for each stencil layer. I've only used 3 of the 5 stencils so I also have more uninked areas and more white spaces.

I wish I could show how vibrant the black foil is in real life but it is crisp and shiny, a bit like it has been black heat embossed. I've also laid 2 plain die cuts under the sentiment to make it have a bit more dimension.

Supply List (all Pinkfresh Studio unless stated otherwise):
Hot foil plates: Modern Design Blocks (and stencils), Perfect Sentiments (and cutting die)

Ink: Sapphire, Lavender, Raspberry Bliss (plus Slumber for gold foiled card)

Paper: Hammermill White (foiling), Neenah Solar White #110 (base card)

Other: Glimmer Hot Foil machine (SP), Black glimmer foil (SP), Matte Gold glimmer foil (SP), Magenta glimmer drops, blending brushes (TE) and 1/2" blending brushes

Challenge: AAA Birthday #59

Well I hope you have time to play along, you have a whole month to get creative, I for one am really interested to see what the Design Team came up for this Challenge as it certainly is different than the norm.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Let's Celebrate with Cake

It's obviously the month of February, a lot of my favourite challenge sites want hearts and/or pink and red. As one of those sites was AAA Birthday I had to include birthday in the mix too, and to be honest I have too many Valentine Cards in my stash at the mo, though I have decided to send out my V-cards to my girlfriends  this year (plus Pete can also have one), rather than my wee nieces with a simple sentiment inside saying Happy Galentine's day and that I appreciate them being part of my life. 

I used an old Penny Black stamp set which is called Furry Hugs, most of the images seem to have hearts on them but I thought the one I chose was appropriate with a wee cake for the "birthday".

I ended up stamping it directly onto my XpressIt card stock and colouring in with my Copics as it is old school and doesn't have a matching die. I didn't like my original colours I chose so it ended up getting a second blend on top. These are a guesstimate of what I used in the end:

Hedgehog body: E43/E50/R11

Hedgehog quills: I started off using T8/6/4/2 and then decided it needed some brown in the mix so also added E59/57 and the E43 again as they were sitting on my desk.

Cupcake pink icing: RV29/ R35/R32/R30

Heart: R35/RV13/RV21

Cupcake wrapper: RV13/21/10

Wee sprinkles: R35

I added Prisma glitter to the wee hearts and Crystal Glaze to the big heart, so it's lovely and shiny IRL.

Supply List:
Stamps: Furry Hugs (PB), Itty Bitty Celebrations (MFT)

Ink: Jet Black (LF), Versafine Nocturne Clair

Paper: Xpress IT blending, Neenah Solar White #110, Poppy Parade (SU!), Stripes n' Sprinkles DSP (LF)

Dies: Small Stitched Rectangle stackable (LF), Party Banners (MFT)

Other: Copics, Prisma glitter (LF), Crystal Glaze (Nuvo), white Gelli roll pen #8 (Sakura), black glaze pen (Sakura), Quickie glue pen (Sakura)

Challenges: AAA Birthday #58, Addicted to CAS #251, Color Hues #80, Just Us Girls #712

Well I enjoyed playing along with the 4 challenges and it's always good to have another birthday card in your stash. I know I've had a lot of birthdays lately and my stash was getting low.

Thanks for popping in.

EDITED: 15/3/24: My card was chosen to be in the Top Four at AAA Birthday which is always a lovely surprise to be noted.

✿Karen✿

Rainbow birthday card

The first official challenge card created in 2024 was an easy one to pick up and run with and today I'm playing along with AAA Birthday Card challenge wanting rainbows or rainbow colours.

I always think of Laura Bassen when rainbow colours are mentioned and I'm using some products that she taught with at SCT's Fall 2022 class and I loved that card and was going to remake it using different colour inks this time, when I had a brainwave; maybe because I'd had the DSP pad out to use for the tag card I made the other day, just to use rainbow DSP. 

You can see my tag card HERE and the card I made with Laura and SCT HERE.

There's actually minimal colouring, the DSP does all the heavy lifting but still a rainbow of colours in the jar of Copics used:

I've used die-cuts to add dimension as "dimension is life" and I've slightly offset a black HOORAY die-cut to add a hint of a shadow. I have to admit the scalloped mat was one I had cut for another project and didn't use and as I am still tidying up odds and sods for the grandkids day care to create with that seemed a really good use of the mat.

Supply List:
Stamps: Little Gnome Agenda (ME), Yah! Birthday (HA), Itty Bitty Celebrations (MFT)

Paper: Really Rainbow DSP (LF), Chamomile (SP)

Dies: Scalloped Contour (SU!), Large Stitched Rectangle Stackables (LF)

Other: Copics

Challenges: AAA Birthday #57

Well it's great to start replenishing my birthday card box as I must admit it's been full on Christmas cards and tags creating at the end of 2023 and if you do join in you have until the end of January to enter, so lots of time and who doesn't like a cheerful rainbow card for their birthday.

✿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✿