Balloons

Is the challenge at AAA Birthdays and Seize the Birthday at the moment. It's a nice easy challenge if you want to have a go, the challenge is deciding which of your many balloon stamps to use or even a stencil or a die-cut, so many possibilities. As well Happy Little Stampers "Anything Goes for Birthdays in May". HLS are a new challenge blog to me but I really like they have multiple challenges for the whole "month" when you are as slow as me deciding what to KReate, 2 weeks is about right as I may forget too, but I do appreciate longer than a 7-day turnaround.

I decided to go with one of my oldie stamp sets that I love but I have to be honest I'm not that happy with my Copic colouring. I also decided to make a shaker card as I have too many sprinkles and my drawer is too full, shock, horror I can't fit anymore in! I may have to make a full panel shaker to use up a lot I'm thinking. I also die cut out 3 layers of my thickest white card stock to make my shaker panel, this is much easier than using thin foam strips.

Copics used (darkest >> lightest):

Bear body: E59/57/33/53

Bear muzzle: E53/51; R20; W5

Pink balloon:RV29/14/11 quite a lot of tip to tip marker colouring to get it to blend

Pink ribbon: RV14

Pink present: RV14/13/11

Supply List:

Stamps: Beary Special Birthday (MFT and it's matching die)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Early Espresso (SU!)

Paper: Ballet Slipper (LF), Guava (LF), Stamp Market DSP (LF), Xpress IT blending card stock

Dies: Scallop circles (PPP), Nesting circles (WF)

Sprinkles: Strawberry shortcake clay confetti (PPP), Sprinkles embellishments (SU!), Stars glitter (Studio Katia)

Challenges: AAA Birthday #49 , Seize the birthday #260, HLS May Birthday Challenge

EDITED 15/6/23: I made the Top 3 :)

✿ Karen ✿

Inspired by Grace

The latest Lawn Fawnatics Challenge is to create a card inspired by one of the design team OR anyone's card. What a fab challenge as if I'm honest the whole of the  Lawn Fawn DT are inspirational and it was  hard to pick one card by a DT member but I seem to be needing "happy retirement" cards lately and I thought this lovely card by Grace Camou would make a fab retirement card. Her card was also featured on the Lawn Fawn blog for the spring release freebie stamp set "Furever Friends" which was FREE with purchases over $60. You can see that post HERE.

I used the cats from the set to sit on the log from Wood You Be Mine as that was a no-brainer for this cat lover but the wee mice are also adorable but not as adorable as cats. 

I have made a standard A2 sized card and created my sunset using Watercolor Wishes 6 x 6" DSP. I stamped my cats onto some Xpress IT blending card stock with Memento Tuxedo black ink and then masked them up. I created a mask using Gina K masking paper which I had stamped on and fussy cut out.  I then stamped the log so the cats were sitting on top of the log. 

I wasn't that happy with my first log placement (the left cat's bum was in the air!), so that became my practice piece and can now go into my Copic blend notebook .

After colouring up the cats and the log I then fussy cut then out. For my background I sponged my "hill" of Kraft card stock with Tea Dye distress ink and splattered a bit on too plus a tad of watered down white acrylic paint to make my sandy beach. Everything else I think is pretty obvious looking at the card.

Lawn Fawn Supplies used:

Stamps: Furever Friends, Wood You Be Mine (log), On the Beach (shells and sentiment)

Dies: On the Beach, Outside In Stitched Rectangle Stackables, Stitched Hillside, Stitched Simply Wavy Borders, Everyday Sentiment banner

Paper: Watercolor Wishes 6 x 6" DSP

And here is Grace's fabulous shadow box card using Furever Friends I hope I have done an all right job casing her. Relooking at her card now I love the shadow she has on the log from the mice and must try that next time.

 The other fab thing about the Lawn Fawnatic challenges is one lucky entrant wins a $50 shopping spree in the Lawn Fawn shop which would be awesome to win, so wish me luck.
✿ Karen ✿

Adorable Birdhouses

I have been really loving and inspired by the cute bird cards Lynn Put from the DT at the Color Throwdown has created as inspiration last week and this week which you can see HERE and HERE.

This week's colours were screaming make a flower card but I wanted to make a bird card like Lynn and I knew I had a cute birdhouse set in my stash from Sunny Studio Stamps which I hadn't even snipped apart until today. Then I discovered I didn't really have a branch to hang my birdhouse on either. So after looking at all my dies I settled on the thin branch and leaves from SU!'s Cherry Blossoms dies which are now retired and they worked really well. I had to snip one end of the cherry blossom die off as it was a curved branch. I have to be honest I haven't used this die before either.

I used up lots of scraps of card stock and even a left over Lawn Fawn flower from making a magic iris card awhile ago. This card has ELEVEN different companies products in it which I think is a record for me. I tried adding a shadow to the leaves with my bundled sage distress oxide but it really was too close a colour and doesn't  show that well. I have added a tad of snowflake Pops of Colour to the flower centre. Otherwise I think it's quite explanatory. The scalloped rectangle was a die set from my SCT class with Lawn Fawn from "Fall 2022" and hasn't been released as yet. It is also possible it is "part of another" Lawn Cuts set already. It measures 3.25" x 4.5" and the inner rectangle is 2.5" x 3.75".

Supply List:

Stamps: So Tweet (CTMH)

Ink: Early Espresso (SU!), Bundled Sage distress oxide (RNG)
Paper: Neenah White #110 and #80, Soft Suede (SU!), Kraft (SU!), Mango Melody (SU!), Lemon Chiffon (SSS), Ballet Slipper (LF), Sage (SP)

Dies: Build-A-Birdhouse (Sunny Studio Stamps), Cherry Blossoms (SU!), Sunflower Greetings (LF), Magic Iris Floral Wreath (LF)

Other: Blending Brushes (TE), Connect glue (GKD), Snowflakes Pop of Colour (SBC), 1mm stamping foam (SP)

Challenges: CTD #741, NBUS#50

Well I am really happy I have used my birdhouse die and didn't make a floral card plus there is still a few days to join in too but if you are time-poor do check out all the fab cards on display at the challenge site, you too maybe inspired to snip apart a die set bought and never used.

I also thought as I try to use never before used stuff for the challenges that I might as well embrace it openly and enter my card also at the official Never-Before-Used-Schtuff challenge site.

EDITED 9 May : I caught their eye at the Color Throwdown

✿ Karen ✿