AAA Card Challenge 286: and it's time to follow Kristin's lead!

Hi everyone and it's time for another challenge at AAA Cards Challenges and our latest challenge is to be inspired by our lead Kristin Sluhan's card below.

I thought that looks pretty easy and have ink blended up a panel with Sweet Mustard and Salvaged Patina distress inks. I decided there wasn't enough green created at the overlap of the two colours and bought my Sweet Mustard down further. When I see how my die cut looks that might have been the wrong decision as I don't have enough blue showing on my die cut or I needed to have placed the die further down.

I had 3 ideas for my die-cut : either a flower OR 3 small butterflies OR a leaf with whirls; I went with the die Whirl Leaves (SSS).

 I'm still really happy how my card turned out and I splashed a bit of re-inker to make my splats with a wee paint brush. The lovely sentiment is from Tulips Treasure (ASD), I just loved its font. I think this is a lovely card and could even be used as a sympathy card if required.

Thanks Kristin for the inspiration! I certainly made a card I wouldn't normally create but love it. What inspires you in Kristin's card. It's really rather cool seeing what everyone takes from the same card and the design team at AAA Cards has some great ideas to inspire you too, so do check them all out! I'm also going to play along with Just Add Ink who have a very cool inspirational photo with lots of tropical leaves. I have to admit their photo has got me dreaming about a tropical holiday.

Thanks for popping in.

EDITED 20/3/25: My card was chosen as an honourable mention at Just Add Ink

✿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✿

Going green (again)

Looking at my fav challenges sites, there's quite a few wanting "green" still so thought I'd try the luck of the Irish again and play with a free stamp set I earned from Simon Says Stamp 1 or 2 years ago (End of the Rainbow). It has a cool big sentiment complete with a shamrock and a lucky horseshoe but no Leprechaun just a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which was cute but I green rainbow wasn't doing it for me, so I thought I'd try and colour up a wee gnome "leprechaun-style" complete with gold beard from my Little Gnome Agenda set (ME).

Lots of firsts here I'm not really sure how you are supposed to use Distress embossing glaze but I bought it as I love lime green awhile ago. I used it on the card like embossing powder i.e. stamping sentiment with my Versamark, coating with the Twisted Citron embossing glaze and then melting with a heat gun, it's definitely a pretty lime green. I added a few metallic gold pearls to add a tad more gold to the card.

Challenges I'm entering:

Just us Girls: Green, Lime Green and one other colour - hope gold is a colour

Inspired By: I've been inspired by the green shamrock plus a touch of gold

Colorful Options monthly challenge - this is a new site I have just discovered but it looks like it will be a colourful and fun one - this month the colour is green. 

I'll re-enter at Simply Clean & Simple as they have the option for March of Green as well. And it seems silly to not add to SSS Wednesday Challenge as they just want/need a sentiment.

This was totally different than my last green card which you can check out the wee frog and green clouds HERE. Well it looks like we all need to play with our greens a bit more which is perfectly fine with me. Do check out all the fab cards on all the sites, it certainly makes me happy.

EDITED 13/3/24: My wee card got a shout out at Just Us Girls "where they loved my fabulous CAS design."

✿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✿

Sketch for a teen take TWO

Hi all, this is my second go at the sketch for a teen. This time with some random colour either side of the image. With my limited range of teen-friendly stamps the challenge at AAA cards has certainly challenged me. I blogged yesterday with take one which I was really happy with until I went to enter it via Mr Linky and then realised I hadn't got what the challenge actually was!

Today I've tried to make the card still uplifting with a positive message and have added some "splashes" of colour as real splashes using the ink smooshing technique around the mermaid's tail which I had embossed plus masked off at this stage. I used a few of my blue Distress inks for the smooshing.

I used some Nuvo shimmer powders (Lilac Waterfall and Atlantis Burst) and Lindy's Magicals (Time Travel Teal and Shabby Turbine Teal) to colour in the tail. It's very sparkly and shimmery IRL.

Supply List:

Stamps: Be a Mermaid (SSS) and matching dies

Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Unicorn White pigment (HA)

Distress inks (RNG): Salvaged Patina, Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean

Paper: Distress White watercolor (RNG), Neenah Solar White #110, Teal Topaz (SP)

Other: Black and white embossing powder, Lindy's Magicals, Nuvo Shummer powders, Large Stitched stackable rectangle die (LF)
Challenge: AAA #147

That was fun and quick to whip up the hardest thing was ink smooshing in a smallish area, a few spots got on the wrong side but overall I'm happy with the effect.

✿ Karen ✿

Dry embossing with CAS on Friday

CAS on Friday has a fab and easy challenge to do some "Embossing", it can be dry or heat embossing plus it should be CAS (clean and simple).

I am very thrilled to be a guest designer this week. It's been quite a while since I have used an embossing folder and I had a lot of ideas but decided to not make a white card and to make my "white space" Crushed Curry and add a few bees and a wee hexagon shaker, I love how it all turned out and you forget how fab embossing folders really are and how much dimension they can add to a card, this really old Hexagon folder is long retired from Stampin' Up!. Googling, it looks like it was released about 2014 but it's still a goodie and it's not 3D and doesn't need any fancy set-up, so easy to use.

Supply List:
Stamps: Bee Yourself (SSS)

Ink: Memento Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper: Crushed Curry (SU!), Black, Neenah Natural White, XpressIT blending

Dies: Bee Yourself (SSS), Honeycomb shaker (LF)

Other: Sequins for Everything (SU!), stamping foam (SP), Honeycomb textured impressions EF (SU!), Quickie glue pen (Sakura), Prisma glitter (LF), white gelli roll 10 pen (Sakura)

Challenge: CAS on Friday - Embossing

Copics (darkest >> lightest): 

Gold: YR04, Y17, Y11

Black: W6/3/2

Wings: BG11/10

Cheeks: RV10

Well I hope you can join in with the fun but do check out what the other DT and entrants come up. One of the things I really love about being a guest designer is I don't know what the rest of the DT are doing either, so it's great fun to see what everyone else comes up with.

Thanks for buzzing in, have a fab day.

✿ Karen ✿

More magical mess!

I played 2 weeks ago with my shimmer powders and at the time I wasn't really that happy how it all worked out, you can see that post HERE. I thought I would have another go with some subtler colours from Lindys Magicals range.

I had seen a video of someone after my first attempt using an old stamp packaging packet to smoosh on some colour to make a watercolour wash so that was my starting point. 

I still think it looks a hot mess but it was my first go using CTMH Watercolor Paper which you can purchase as 12" x 12" packs, I'm guessing to make a watercolour page to scrapbook on. It's a lightweight watercolor paper so I wouldn't want to add too much water but it worked fine for what I was attempting to do here. You get 10 sheets in a pack (Z3146) but it doesn't seem to be available anymore to purchase, so no bargains of the year to be had.

Supply List:
Stamps: Floral Bliss (SSS), Inky Bouquet (PFS - sentiment)

Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Versamark

Paper: Watercolor (CTMH), Terracotta Tile (SU!), Neenah White #110

Lindy's Magicals: Salt Water Taffy, Cape Cod Coral

Other: Pixie Dust Ombre glitter drops (PFS), white EP

I wasn't happy with the white opaque film in some places, doing some research it seems like their are opaque and transparent Magicals. My magicals came from a Nantucket Pearls set, so I'm guessing these are "opaque".

I thought I'd have another go dissolving some Magical in a few drops of water and then painting this time using a thicker watercolour paper. I think this was better and then thought I'd do a few splatters. I should have left well enough alone but then decided to do a more diluted wash and I'm not sure if that was a good idea as the "splatters" reactivated with more liquid touching them.

Supplies as above but Smoky Slate card stock from SU! and Fabriano Artistico extra white cold pressed watercolour paper. Starry Night Ombre drops and I have clear embossed the "thank you". I have added a few more magicals to the mix (Whale Watch Blue, Sea Grass Green and Rusty Lantern Lime) plus Lemon Yellow Color Burst powder from Ken Oliver Crafts.

The 2 cards side by side:

Well again the cards didn't turn out how I wanted but think I'm learning a wee bit more each time, hopefully I'll be closer to how I envisage it appearing in "my head" where all card ideas are waiting for me to try. Thanks for popping in.

✿ Karen ✿

Floral Bliss

Good morning all, its still pouring down with rain in Hamilton and if I didn't need to go out to finish of Mother's Day present etc I'd think yah I can play all day in my craft room. My poor country, parts of it are under emergency management, we no longer are land of the long white cloud but land of the torrential weather bomb.

But back to the crafting I was trying to play along with the gorgeous inspiration board from the latest Just Add Ink challenge and also combine it with The Flower Challenge "soft pastels", theoretically a match made in heaven as JAI is soft and dreamy Also it's interesting that JAI's picture has inspired more lilac cards than pink ones, I saw pink as the predominant colour but thought I would do a SOFT wash of pink and lilac to cover all bases.

Well I now know no matter how much water you try and tone down Nuvo's Cherry Bomb shimmer powder it's never becoming a soft pink!  I really like the concept of what I was trying to do for the challenges and going to share my card but trying to tone down the Cherry Bomb made it a bit of a mess. it's still pretty and the good thing was I had fun making it.

Supply List:

Stamps: Floral Bliss (SSS), Stripe-tastic Edge (YNS), Inky Bouquet (PFS and it's matching die)

Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Versamark, Dragonfruit (C9)

Paper: Distress Watercolor (RNG), Black, Neenah #110

Nuvo Shimmer Powders: Cherry Bomb and Lilac Waterfall

Other: Twilight Ombre glitter drops (PFS), white EP

So back to the challenge and hopefully a more pastel look, this time I thought I would watercolor in with a paint brush so I could control the intensity of the colour. So I got out my Gansai Tambi Pearl paints (pink, lemon yellow, may green, white gold)  and my Zig Pearlescent watercolours (black pearl) to play with. Well I've managed to mute it down but I like the brighter one best but am using this card for the challenges as much softer. 

Supply List:

Stamps: Floral Bliss (SSS),  Inky Bouquet (PFS and it's matching die)

Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Versamark, 

Paper: Distress Watercolor (RNG), Black, Neenah #110

Other: Magic Potion Ombre glitter drops (PFS), white EP, Gansai Tambi Pearl paints, Zig Pearlescent watercolour paints, Master Layouts 1 die set (GKD)

Challenges: JAI #651 , TFC #80

I may have another go at the Flower Challenge, not that I am very good with pastels as it's a monthly challenge but unfortunately Just add Ink's closes today so I'll finish with both are "better than horrible" and I'd have no problem using them to give to somebody.

✿ Karen ✿

You're the bee's knees

When I saw the AAA card challenge I knew exactly what I wanted to create but getting ready for my BIG BOX card event next weekend is consuming all my crafty free time at the moment but thankfully I only have 5 classes to prep now so I should be blogging most days going forth.

I have used a Gina K 1/2" masking strip to leave a border on the LHS of the card base, which I have ink-blended through a Honeycomb stencil (Lawn Fawn); Squeezed Lemonade and Dried Marigold distress oxide inks.

I then Copic coloured up one of the bees from a cool card kit I got from Simon Says Stamp awhile ago called "Bee Yourself" and it has matching dies for all the wee bees. The sentiment comes from that set too and the bee trail comes from Lawn Fawn's Hive Five set as I was trying to leave as much white space as possible; as AAA are a CAS challenge site. I have added Prismacolor glitter (LF) to the wings.

Copics used (darkest > lightest):
Yellows: Y17/15/11

Grey: W3/1/0

Blue (wing): B000/0000

There is still a wee bit of time to play (4 days more), I was cutting it tight but I love how their challenges are 2-weekly, as to be honest I need a week to think what to do.

Even if you don't have time to join in check out the DT and other entries, there are some fab cards to see. ✿ Karen ✿

Christmas in August has commenced

For those that have followed me for awhile way back when I was a SU! demo my team and I ran our Christmas events "CIA" in August mainly because originally it was when we could get stamps, DSP as we used to be behind the States by a month. 

I am still trying to do at least 2 card challenges a week but I'm especially making sure I do any Christmas ones I find. I'm hoping come Christmas with stamping classes and extravaganza and online events I have signed up for I will have enough cards in my swag to send out. I have to admit I don't like bulk producing cards and it kind of sucks the pleasure when you do the same thing over and over.

Anyhow I found a new site and it's linked on the RHS of my blog with the Challenge sites called 52 Christmas Card Throwdown they may do a challenge every week all year so I'll be well and truly set up in 2023. 

This week's challenge is their 28th of the year and is a technique challenge - watercolouring.

I knew exactly the set I wanted to use as it's a set I have had in my stash a very long time and never been used! It was SSS monthly kit in December 2016 which is all honesty meant it turned up in NZ at Christmas or in the new year of 2017. So too late for me to use but I have always loved it as it's so adorable. I'm also going to play along with a couple of Simon Says Stamp challenges. 

I do easy watercolouring smooshing my mini distress ink pads on my stencil mat and then using a no. 2 round paint brush I fill in each section I want to paint with water then the smooshed ink colour. It's actually very quick and easy the hardest thing was fussy cutting them out as watercolour paper is quite thick.

I also managed to incorporate my new Whimsical Woodland 3D embossing folder from SU! in the background. I have swiped over the top of the embossed images with my white pigment ink pad.

Supply List:

Stamps: Merry and Bright (SSS monthly kit Dec 2016)

Ink: Versamark, Unicorn White pigment (HA)
Distress inks: Brushed Corduroy, Festive Berries, Fossilized Amber, Gathered Twigs, Kitsch Flamingo, Lucky Clover, Peacock Feathers, Salvaged Patina, Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade, Tattered Rose, Twisted Citron

Paper: Granny Apple Green (SU!), silver glitter, watercolour (RNG)
Other: Alabaster White EP (Brutus Monroe), no. 2 round Silver Velvet watercolour brush, Waffle Flower stencil mat, Honey Bees gem stickers : Hugs & Kisses, Whimsical Woodland 3D EF (SU!), single stitch line rounded square frame (MFT), mini stampin' dimensionals
Challenges: 52 Christmas Card Throwdown #22-28, SSS Instagram Challenge (layers), SSS Wednesday Challenges (anything goes)

My lovely card got an honourable mention at Christmas Card Throwdown.

✿ Karen ✿

CAS Shaker Card

AAA Cards challenge site this week has a gorgeous picture of macarons which look delectably scrummy plus the brief to make a shaker card. 

Now I love making shaker cards but making it CAS was a challenge all right and when I look at my supply list I have to laugh out loud so many supplies for so little but so "stinking cute", even if I say so myself. 

Supply List:
Stamps: Circle Sayings (SSS), BB Beary Special Birthday (SU!)
Ink: Intense Black (SSS), Flirty Flamingo (SU!), Bermuda Bay (SU!), Sunshine (Pinkfresh), Highland Heather (SU!)

Paper: White, Xpress-IT blending

Copics: B00/02/05, R000/30/32, V01/15/17, Y00/02/06/08
Dies: Layering Circles (SU!), Stitched Rectangles (SSS)

Other: Confetti stencil (Lawn Fawn), blending brushes, acetate, red tape, foam adhesive strips (SU!), Wink of Stella (clear), Pinata Party mix (PPP), powder tool (so I could dust of the inside of the foam strips so the shaker bits don't stick to it)

A close up so you can see the shiny presents with their Wink of Stella on them. It's about to pour down here so not the best picture but hopefully you can see the sparkle.

There are some absolutely fab example of tiny shaker cards so even if you don't join the challenge check them all out as they are very inspirational!!
✿ Karen ✿

Edited 20 June 2022 : OMG my wee card was picked as the winner :) Thanks to Jane for the challenge at AAA cards and for picking my wee shaker as her favourite.

Teddy bears, balloons & presents

Guess that means someone must be having a birthday!! I have a dear friend who always hand draws big bunches of balloons on her cards, so I knew what stamp I wanted to use for her birthday card this year plus I wanted to do some more colouring for the 30 day coloring challenge.

My first challenge was how do you actually colour a teddy bear with Copics, lots of people post really cute cards but they don't say what colours they used. So I looked at the E markers I had & worked out 3 brown combos I could do, then coloured up the wee teddy.

I thought the red-brown combo (E11, E13, E17) would probably work best on reindeer, the other 2 combos I liked & I thought the yellow brown was the most teddy bear-like. FYI in case you can't read my scribbles yellow-brown combo was E31, E55, E57 and gray-brown combos was E41, E42, E43 & E44.

I made my background by white embossing a wee star stamp. Then blended 2 distress inks  to make the stars pop. I then spritzed with water, then sprayed with shimmer spray.

I stamped my Happy Birthday saying then die cut out the circle using the 2nd biggest stitched circle die.

I think the rest of the card is self-explanatory but leave me a comment if it isn't.

Recipe:
Stamp sets: Beary Special Birthday (MFT), Circle Sayings (SSS), Starring You (SU!)
Ink: Versamark, Memento Black, Intense Black (SSS), Worn Lipstick distress ink, Squeezed Lemonade distress ink
Paper: X-press It blending card stock, Whisper White (SU!), Cotton Candy (SSS)
Dies: Stitched Rectangles (SSS), Stitched Circles (SSS), co-ordinating Beary Special die (MFT)
Other: white embossing powder, Ranger mini ink blending tool, sheer Shimmer spritz (Imagine Crafts), clear Wink of Stella pen, dimensionals

Copics used:
Bear: E31, E55, E57
Muzzle & inside ears: E30
Nose: E59
Balloon: Y11, Y15, Y19
Present: R32, R35, YG13, YG17

Does anyone have any fav colour combos they would like to share for teddy bears for Copics, please comment below if you do!!

Well the 30 day coloring challenge is ongoing for the whole of November & Mindy Baxter AKA My Creative Scoop has also started a Monday challenge to post any hand coloured images for a chance to win a free class from her.

✿ Karen ✿