AAA Card Challenge 288: Sketch Challenge and my first Christmas card for 2025

It's time for another fun challenge with AAA Card Challenges and we have an easy sketch to play along with. As we're half way through April I thought let's make a Christmas card so I can say I have started! I'm not sure about you but I never ever seem to have enough every year.

This is the sketch to play along with:

I've used as my shape a die cut circle with the same sized circle die-cut with a snow die on top. I've kept the background circle colour very light to let my Copic coloured image "shine" and pop out. I've also added some stickles and glossy accents to parts of the image as well.

Copics used (darkest > lightest):
Wee reindeer: E37/33/53/51 R20 R35/32 Y35/21
Car: BG01/000/0000 N6/4/2 Y35
Tree: YG17/25/21 Y35 R35/32

Supply List:
Stamps: Loads of Joy (MFT), Itty Bitty Holiday (MFT)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne

Paper: Neenah Solar White, Pool Party (SU!)

Dies: Snowfall - Vertical (MFT), Sweet Stacks: Circles (HB), Itty Bitty Strips (MFT)

Other: Copics, white Gelli roll pen, Diamond stickles (RNG), Glossy accents (RNG), 1mm foam square (SP)

Challenges: AAA#288


✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 732: just add a sketch

Hi everyone and it's time for another "fun" sketch with the Just Add Ink crew and I say fun with clenched teeth as I personally never find sketches fun and require thinking outside the box. Today's sketch is no different and I have been KReative and decided the sketch reminded me of mountain tops and as I still need more Christmas cards I've combined those 2 elements to create a fun card which I know the recipient will love.

Now don't ask me why I decided I would do a no line Copic colouring of such tiny critters but I ended up restamping over the images again with the pale grey ink I was using on the car (Jellyfish) and changed up the presents and animals to a light brown (Crunchy Leaf) as they had lost a lot of definition and then die cut them out. 

I also added a frame as I grabbed the wrong die to cut out a panel with a stitched edge to my Ranger Heavy card stock for blending; I had grabbed a stitched rectangle frame die instead of the stitched rectangle die. As the heavy card stock which is great to blend on is too expensive to waste I just blended on the cut out piece and popped the "frame" up with foam strips. I actually think this was a great mistake, I love the frame, it's almost like a window. 

There's a lot of sparkle and shine on the card from the Pixie dust mountain tops, Distress rock candy glitter border edge and Frost Shimmer spritzed over my ink blended sky, plus Prisma glitter added to the bows etc.

Supply List:

Stamps: Car Critters (LF), Car Critters Christmas Add-on (LF), Over the Mountains (LF), Holiday Helpers (LF)
Ink: Salvaged Patina distress oxide (RNG), Shaded Lilac (RNG), Watermelon (C9), Jellyfish (LF), Crunchy Leaf (LF), Versafine Clair Nocturne

Paper: Vellum (LF), Pixie dust sparkle (LF), Distress Heavy (RNG), Neenah Solar white

Dies: Stitched Mountain borders (LF), Stitched Hillside borders (LF), Stitched Rectangle Frames (LF)

Other: Copics, blending brushes, Glossy Accents (RNG), Distress Rock Candy glitter (RNG), Prisma glitter (LF), Quickie glue pen (Sakura), white Gelli roll pen (Sakura), Black glaze pen (Sakura), foam strips and squares, Frost shimmer spray (imagine crafts)

Challenge: JAI#732

This is my last Design Team card for 2024 and I'm going to spend my time entering challenges and making a few more cards and tags for Christmas. I sincerely hope everyone has a "very Merry Christmas", thanks for supporting my blog and the Just Add Ink challenges and I hope to catch you all in 2025 and hopefully you can squeeze in one more challenge too and join in with the sketch challenge as well. If time is tight do check out what clever ideas the design team came up with for this sketch.

✿Karen✿

Mantle Village with Tic Tac Toe

Hi everyone we have a new Tic Tac Toe challenge board to play along with and I thought I would play with my new to me Mantle Village dies. I only bought the houses and trees but now wishing I also bought the accessory dies to hang under the mantle but I'm really happy how it all turned out. I used the picture on the die packet to colour up my images and also added Distress inks to darker the card stock and shimmer sprays to make "shimmery". I've used an embossing folder to add embossing and to also add "snowflakes" which was one of the criteria. I've used a die set from Newton's Nook to cut out my panels on the card.

The line I chose was the middle horizontal line: gems, dry embossing, snowflakes.

I'm also going to play along with Time Out Challenges "Happy Holidays" Challenge. Also Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge is to add some blue.

Supply List:
Stamps: Whimsical Trees (SU! - sentiment)
Dies: Mantle Village (SP), Frames & Flags (NN), Everyday Sentiment Banners (LF)
Ink: Cranberry (C9), various Distress inks to darken or shadow the card stock
Paper: Knit Picky 6x6" DSP (LF), Sahara Sand (SU!), Crumb Cake (SU!), Lemon Lolly (SU!), red, blue and green are all scraps of Spellbinder card stock
Other: Wintry 3D embossing folder (SU!), Gems: clear with gold dust (PFS), stamping foam 2mm, shimmer sprays

Challenge: TTTC#262, TOC#278, SSS Wednesday

I do love the sentiment on the stamp set and I sincerely hope "that the love of the season, warms your home and fills your heart".

Thanks for popping in and I hope you have time to play along with TTTC gang, if you're like me you are still making cards for Christmas as I never seem to have enough. If I'm honest I just like to share and give away as many as I can at this time of the year. This appears to be the last challenge for 2024 from Tic Tac Toe Challenges, so I'd like to personally thank everyone for supporting our challenge site and I look forward to catching up with you all in 2025. 

✿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✿

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 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 272: Sketch Challenge

It's time for another new challenge at AAA Cards and this week we have a sketch to play along with. Personally I found it a bit challenging but I've learnt with sketches is "you just do it" and they work, don't overthink it.

I tried drawing some hand drawn hearts with my Distress Watercolour pencils but didn't really like how they looked as my trio of shapes that and then thought maybe I can do the same and hand draw some wonky rectangles but again wasn't floating my boat. All of my practice runs were on scraps of Distress Watercolor paper (RNG).

At this stage I started thinking about Autumn colours and leaf outline dies but didn't have any that were right or small enough in my stash, when I spied a set of wee snowflake dies (Scribbly Snowflakes - Sizzix) and thought yes they are perfect! So then it was easy and viola ...

I've die cut the snowflakes out of Pixie Dust card stock (LF). My rectangles I 've actually painted directly through a Swatch stencil (Woodware) using some Ranger Distress Mica stains I bought last Christmas and never used. Colours used were Wonderland, Frozen Fog, Frosty Mint. The wee sentiment comes from Yeti or Not (LF). It's hard to see how sparkly this in real life but I love it and I'm sure the lucky recipient will too. I also love it that I have another Christmas card made too!

I look forward to seeing how you were inspired by the sketch as so many possibilities - it's fun just to play and see what magic you can create too when you play. Do check out the fab cards from the rest of the Design Team to inspire you.

I'm also going to enter my card at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge to add a sentiment and they are featuring Lawn Fawn this week. You don't have to use Lawn Fawn - any sentiment will do - but mine is a Lawn Fawn sentiment, I'll also enter in their Monday challenge which is all about sparkle and shine.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

AAA Card Challenge 270: Sketch Challenge

It's time for another fun sketch challenge at AAA Cards and this week we have in my mind, a really easy sketch to play along with. I had so many ideas what to do, it was hard to choose which one. Laughing as now the sketch has gone live I can see it's supposed to be an Ombre sketch, phew it's lucky I added some gradient by looking at the sketch! 

In the end I went for let's make another Christmas card as eek it's only 5 months away now. I decided I'd use my favourite "colour" for the blend and work with greens (Cracked Pistachio and a hint of Evergreen Bough as it is Christmas time).

To create my card I masked of my A2 card top and bottom with some Masking Magic (GKD)  and then white embossed the lovely dove from Holiday Silhouettes (GKD), ink blended on the 2 inks, cleaned of the dove. I spritzed lightly with White Iridescent Shimmer Spray (HA). Removed the mask and stamped the sentiment from the same set in the Evergreen Bough distress oxide ink. How easy was this and I can obviously do in different colour blends.

Well I hope you can play along with us as this truly is the easiest sketch to work with and please do check out what the rest of the fab DT have created at AAA Cards with the same sketch.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 708: Just Choose Two

Eek it's nearly half way through 2024 so thought I'd better get cracking on Christmas for the latest challenge at Just Add Ink.

I thought I'd play with my fab Holiday Silhouettes stamp set from Gina K Designs with a hopefully lovely ink blend behind and a big WHITE moon for Santa and sleigh to fly past. I've also used Gina's Masking Magic for my masking.

I love it when you peel away the mask to hopefully reveal the blend in it's glory.

If I wasn't so impatient I would have waited for my ink blend to totally dry and then add clear embossing powder to my Versafine black inks to tick off all three but it's cold and wintery down under so thought might take some time and safest to leave as is.

This is such a lovely set and this card was taught by Gina K herself at a Virtual cardmaking retreat I took part in. At the time I knew I would be revisiting this card design as it's so versatile I just tweak the colours of ink used or the orientation a bit. You can see my other efforts HERE and HERE.

Well this is a fun and easy challenge from Just Add Ink I hope you can join in with us too, maybe you too can get cracking on Christmas as well ;)

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

AAA Card Challenge 266: Sketch Challenge

I am so looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for this sketch challenge. I have struggled for months with it. The joy of being on the Design Team, I get to see a year's worth of challenges and can work away at my own pace. This one has had me stumped as all I can see is "Mickey Mouse". I was going to use some circle dies and make a Mickey but didn't really have anything to use with the 3 black circles etc. and I've never been very good with punch art on a card.

Imagine my relief when I got a new stencil set which has triangles on it and then it was like yah I can make Christmas trees with it. I have to say this was quick, easy and only required moving the post-it note around to cover up triangles I didn't want to blend by accident. So this would be great to recreate for bulk card making for Christmas.

Supply List:

Stamps: Itty Bitty Holiday (MFT)

Ink: Mint (PFS), Meadow (PFS), Ocean Breeze (PFS), Versafine Clair Nocturne

Paper: Hammermill White

Other: Leaf and Sky Blue clear drops (PFS), Overlapping Triangles stencil (PFS), 1/2" blending brushes (PFS)

Challenges: AAA #266, JUG#728

I look forward to seeing what the Design Team and the entrants create with this sketch so hope you can play along too. I'm also going to play along with Just Us Girls as they are wanting stencils this week and my card is 3 stenciled triangles.

✿Karen✿