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✿

AAA Colourful's latest colourboard

I'm liking the Halloween vibes of the latest colour board at AAA Colourful so I thought I'd play with my favourite moon stamp and do some ink blending to make a wee scene. It also gives me the chance to play along with Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge to go spooky and/or add some purple and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge to go Halloween/spooky.

I masked my moon after stamping with the 3 inks (I stamped off the Paper Bag ink once as it was too deep a brown stamped directly), masked and then added the following Distress oxides; Dusty Concord, Wilted Violet, Villainous Potion and Black Soot. I also added some white pigment ink directly around the mask. I used my darkest green oxide I own to go behind my die-cut to ground my trick and  treaters. I now wish I had added some Black Soot to it too for the colour challenge to tone down the green .

Supply List:

Stamps: To the Moon (ALT)

Paper: Basic Black (SU!), Pumpkin Pie (SU!), Mango Melody (SU!), Grape Soda (C9), Buttercup (C9), Distress Heavy (RNG), black glitter (CTMH)

Ink: Buttercream (ALT), Warm Sunshine (ALT), Paper Bag (ALT), Unicorn white pigment (HA)
Distress Oxides (RNG): Dusty Concord, Wilted Violet, Villainous Potion, Black Soot, Rustic Wilderness

Dies: Halloween silhouettes (Sizzix), Mini Alphabet (SU!)

Other: Masking Magic (GKD), foam blending domes, white Gelli Roll pen, black gel pen, white paint (SP), Frost shimmer spray (imaginecrafts)

Challenges: AAAC#9, SSS Monday challenge, SSS Wednesday challenge

 

✿Karen✿

Easy thank you card for the latest Tic Tac Toe Challenge

It's time for another fun challenge board at Tic Tac Toe and this week's board has been created by Felicitia. I had so many ideas looking at the board, it is a fun one but at the time of creating my card  I was  having surgery in 2 days time, so  I went with embossing, thank you and free as I seem to be needing thank you cards lately. I'll also enter my card in Simon Say Stamp latest challenge to add some texture.

I wanted to play with the new to me Spotlight on Nature stamp set and dies from SU!. I bought this bundle as the dies are really cool circle dies and I had nothing like that in my stash. I die cut out the 2nd to largest circle from watercolor paper and then stamped with Versafine Desert Sand ink which is a water proof ink. I did some very simple watercolouring with my ZIG real color brushes (Bright Flamingo, Sage Green and Leaf Green) and a Wink of Stella clear glitter brush on the flowers and a water painter for the leaves.

Otherwise I think it's all pretty self explanatory.

Supply List:

Stamps and Dies: Spotlight on Nature (SU!)
Versafine Ink: Desert Sand and Acorn
Paper: Petal Pink (SU!), Soft Suede (SU!), Watercolor (Fabriano Artistico - cold pressed), coral (?name in my SSS kit papers)
Other: ZIG real color brush markers, Wink of Stella Clear, water painter brush, Exposed Brick 3D embossing folder (SU!), linen thread (SU! - original one), Master Layouts 2 (GKD - tag die), 2mm foam squares (SP), distress tool (SU!)
Challenge: TTTC #258, SSS Wednesday

Well I hope you can find time to play along with us, as always you have 2 weeks to have a go - just choose a line (vertical, diagonal or horizontal) and have a play.
✿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✿

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✿

Who's ready to play Tic Tac Toe??

If you've ever been scared about entering a challenge I personally think Tic Tac Toe Challenges are a great starting point as you get to choose a line and when you have 3 parameters to work with it makes it really easy to get the creative juices flowing. This week's fab board was chosen by Betty and its got some lovely choices, my only dilemma as I had lots of ideas looking at it, was which one to do!

In the end I chose the first column: foliage, layers and butterfly and working with the Fluttering Butterflies set from Pinkfresh Studio which I've blogged a few other cards using this set HERE and HERE.

I received this set and a lot of the products I'm using today from a Virtual Create and Connect event but the products are widely available now. I'm also going to play along with Inkspirational Challenges as they have a challenge to use products from 2 companies; now this is a great challenge and most of my cards have more than one product on my card. I've used mostly Pinkfresh Studio here but have the fantastic sentiment from The Ton Stamps.

And I'll also play along with both Simon Says Stamp challenges, Wednesday's would like some sparkle and Monday's would like some layers.

I've backed up all die cuts with at least one layer to help stabilize them and the frame has 3 extra layers behind it.

This is a 5 layer stencil set and these are the colours of PFS inks I used:

• Stencil 1: Lemon Whip, Marigold
• Stencil 2: Sunkissed, Mango Sorbet
• Stencil 3: Marigold
• Stencil 4: Waterfall, Turquoise
• Stencil 5: Waterfall, Turquoise, Fruit Punch

Other Supplies used (all PFS unless stated otherwise):
Stamps: Fluttering Butterflies, Easy Expressions Birthday (The Ton)

Ink: as above, Acorn (Versafine), Versamark

Other: Gilded EP (BM), Octagons coverplate die, Notched corner frame die, Rose gold glitter card, Gems: Clear with gold dust, 2mm foam squares (SP) 
Challenge: TTTC#252, Inkspirational #320, SSSM, SSSW

Thanks for fluttering by and hope you can find time to join in with us at TTTC, its easy just choose a line and create. As always you have 2 weeks to submit a card and if you are chosen as the winner you are invited to be the Guest Designer on a future challenge.

✿Karen✿

Masculine Card for AAA Card Challenge 267

It's time for another CAS Challenge at AAA Cards and this week the optional twist is masculine. Personally I like to play along with the twist as it gives me some direction for my card to get started but OMG masculine and CAS, now that is a challenge but the Design Team has some great ideas for masculine done CAS. Someone bet me to the plane so I decided it was finally time for one of my Simon Says Stamp kits from JULY 2015 to finally see ink!! The kit was called Sail Away. It's funny or meant to be BOTH the SSS Challenges are wanting masculine cards so will enter my card into their challenges too.

I have in my stash from about the same time a porthole die from MFT Stamps which I thought would be a great starting point. I found in my scrap bin some ink smooshing by the look of it with Lindy's Magicals or Nuvo Shimmer sprays as it definitely has a shimmer as well as the "splash" which I used as my background. The wee yacht has been stamped and Copic coloured up, fussy cut out on the stamped line and the edges darkened with a Memento dual tip marker.

Supply List:

Stamps: Sailing (SSS)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black inkpad and marker pen
Paper: Light brown woodgrain (LF)

Other: Oceanview porthole die (MFT), Copics, blue shimmer powder, 1mm foam squares
Challenges: AAA#267, SSS Monday (masculine) and SSS Wednesday (masculine)

I hope you can join in with us as it's great to have some masculine cards in your stash but anything CAS goes as well. Do check out the great inspiration from the DT to get you started.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

AAA Colourful Dreamy Moodboard

It's time for another challenge with AAA Colourful and I am so delighted to be joining them as a Guest Designer this month. I love colour and was very excited when this new challenge blog started up and here we are at month four, doesn't time fly! 

This month's moodboard is so dreamy and it really reminded me of Craft Consortium's Ink Drop Papers which are perfect for those of us that would like the look of alcohol ink backgrounds.

I'm sure I not the only person who has watched a Jennifer McGuire video and went and bought what she was working with and I must admit this is how I own some CC Ink Drop papers and also some coverplate dies from Honey Bees (Delicate Daisy A2 Top and Base plates) after watching her create her usual magic. I have blogged about my first plays HERE and HERE. When Jane invited me to be the Guest Designer this month I went this will be easy that moodboard looks just like my DSP so I'll just tweak the card design using this time Vivid Ink Drops DSP (CC) and use a different "leaf" and the coverplate dies Jennifer "made me buy" for the background.

I'm really happy with my card but feel that my 3/4" paper strips maybe too green and the yellow seems to have disappeared in the strips. This is a no stamping card as the sentiment is a ready-made foiled sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio. The lovely leave die is Whirl Leaves (SSS)

Well I hope I have provided some inspiration for the moodboard or to just to use up some DSP in your stash as this truly is a really effective card and quite quick to put together which is always appreciated if you need a card in a hurry, this design would also work so well for Sympathy cards. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Design team came up for the challenge so hope you can join in, you have plenty of time to play along.

I'm also feeling like my colours are quite representative of the colours at The Paper Players at the moment so will join in with their latest challenge. Also Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge is to add a die cut and when you add a SSS die cut to your card it would be foolish not to enter as who doesn't want to win a $25 gift card to their store (it will pay for my postage back to NZ).

Thanks so much for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Just Add Ink 700th Challenge

Gosh what a worthy achievement, now I thought I would start of by reminiscing about MY Just Add Ink journey, as they have been a BIG part of my challenge life and blogging. 

The very first challenge of theirs was January 2010 and I was a day too late to enter - that's often the story of my challenge life I get the closing time wrong. You can read that blog post HERE and this is my card and the challenge colours (sob I loved all of these colours and ALL retired). Gosh what a fab card even if I say so myself, I still love it, feeling like I need to recreate it again!

I also see I didn't know how to blog as well as I do know and I've just linked to the generic Just Add Ink blog with my blog post.

Back in 2010 I was pretty busy with a full time job running a hospital laboratory plus running my Stampin' Up! business which included prepping for classes, workshops, extravaganzas etc. so I wasn't really into challenges but tried to play along with Just Add Ink, NZSU Blogs (which I ran for awhile) and my stamping idol Kristina Werner's Make a Card Monday's. In all honesty the card I entered for the first challenge I can see was totally inspired by Kristina looking at it now.

So skip forward to 2022 and again I decided I was going to restart doing card challenges to refind my lost MOJO and Just Add Ink (and CAS on Friday) was the first challenge I chose to play along with and you can read about that card HERE. Again it was a colour challenge and no. #598.

So thanks to all the Design Team over the years I see Chantell has been their since the beginning and I can see why I played along originally, my friend Delys Cram was on the original DT. HERE is the link to the first Challenge FYI. I love that Just Add Ink has a range of things for us to do with their challenges, each week is different.

So here we are in 2024 and they want shimmer and shine, now I might have gone overboard and I don't think my photo taking skills have improved but you may need some sunglasses when I really show the shine I got on my card to celebrate this FAB MILESTONE WITH JUST ADD INK.

I decided I would try to do a Mixed Media Technique Libby Hickson taught for WCMD 2023 which I meant to try and never did at the time. So a call out for Shimmer & Shine deserved me having a go at it.

I'll start off with the FINAL card and then show how the card was created and the supplies used. Libby's name above is linked to the blog post with a video if I'm not explanatory enough.

Just in case you can't see the shimmer and shine above:

This is how I KReated my card, I used Hero Art's Neon Bright Watercolors : Brights Sunshine, Brights Orange and Brights Pink and added to a wet watercolour paper panel.

Apply Hero Arts White paste through a stencil; I used Art Deco Dancing Lights stencil (HA).

Remove stencil carefully and throw the stencil and palette knife into water (clean later). Sprinkle Iridescent Gold embossing powder (HA) all over, I was a bit shocked as I thought my panel should have been dried as I had left it for 2 hours plus I had also dried with my Ranger heat tool. At this stage looking at my panel I was worried powder was stuck to more than just the paste.

But nothing to lose so onwards and you heat the paste/powder with a heat embossing gun until the powder "bubbles and bursts" and hopefully you can see below all the "extra powder" actually brushed off.

Now this is where I wish I hadn't used my deckled rectangle die to cut out the panel as I can see it has flattened my puffy gold paste and also my plates have scratched it . You don't see the scratching looking at the card IRL but you can see it is flattened a bit. I actually own Tim Holtz's deckled edge guillotine so wish I had used that but always think a die is more accurate. The deckled rectangle comes from a Mixed Frame rectangle die set by Altenew.

Card stock mat is Sweet Pea (C9) it seemed to tie in with the pink in the watercolours, the fab glimmer paper is an old Rainbow Glimmer paper from SU!. Wee butterfly is from Memory Box Intricate Mini Butterflies and has been die cut out of black glitter paper with a Magenta glitter drop (PFS). The many thanks die is an oldie from Essentials by Ellen.

Well that was a lot of fun and this card packs a wow IRL so I know whoever  receives it will think it's pretty cool as who doesn't love shimmer and or shine!

Once again HAPPY 700th challenge Just Add Ink. Hopefully I'll still be around to do your 1000th ;) I'll also enter my card in Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge for feminine cards as I have been  stuck in bed with a cold but really wanted to make sure I played along with this milestone for the JAI team.
✿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✿