I'm trying Colour Blocking again

Colour blocking was one of the cool techniques I learnt recently at Online Card Classes Spring Camp 2022.

I thought it was a really effective use of colour and would be a perfect technique for Just Add Ink's colour challenge this week. They're really dreamy colours and a great colour combo to tuck away for future use. 

I've seen some  YouTubers making colour swatches of colour combos they like which is a great idea and I'm going to start my own swatch tag using this colour combo!

Now the tricky thing with this technique is being able to read your ruler right I thought to start off with 1/16" was 1/8" but my partner Pete helped me get it sorted out!!

When I did my class we were given a template to follow which was for the front of the card but I like drawing on the back of my cardstock so I don't have to rub out the pencil marks so have drawn it up for what you draw on the reverse of your card front.

Supply List:
Stamps: Perfect Sentiments (PF)
Ink: Starry Sky (SU!)

Paper: Mint Macaron (SU!), Fresh Freesia (SU!), Starry Sky (SU!), Neenah White (#110), Vellum Paper (SU!)

Dies: Perfect Sentiments (PF), Hexagon Tile coverplate (PF), Forever Flourishing (SU!)
Other: 2021-2023 In-Color Jewels (SU!), mini stampin' dimensionals

If you interested this is the link to the card I KReated whilst doing my classes. Thanks for popping in.

✿ Karen ✿

Playing with colour blocking

I decided I have to work smarter and combine a few challenges at one time. I used to be really organised and copy all the challenge buttons to a word document but a bit ad hoc here whilst I remember how I incorporated doing challenges as part of my crafting day. So today's blog post combines 2 challenges and it actually helps a lot working out what you are going to do with more "parameters" to work within.

I wanted to take part in Just Add Ink's challenge to use large letters or numbers and I had 2 ideas in my mind but thought I would have a go at Keisha Charles colour blocking a die-cut. This was one of the fab classes at the OCC Spring Camp 2022 and I loved all of Keisha's cards and this is a blogged card I made at the time that you can see HERE.

The card I am sharing today Keisha used to teach this technique but I've tweaked it to also play along with The Card Concepts spring flowers in blue/pink/grey and white and I LOVE, LOVE the final result. Imagine a more vibrant card with hot pink/bright yellow/bright orange and that would be Keisha's card ;)

My card has turned out quite dreamy and the really cool thing about this technique is you don't need any coloured card stock, all the bits in the coverplate die you want to be coloured,  you just ink-blend to create. I have "cheated" as the skies are getting really dark and I want to snap a photo before the light has gone and used a tiny strip of Smoky Slate card stock to add the wee sentiment strip. I didn't really have time to wait for the ink to dry so I could heat emboss on it.

There are some really good tips in the picture below:

• Favourite tape for holding my dies in place is Highlighter tape (Lee Products) - best ever never sticks or tears your paper. In NZ we can buy from Ribbon Rose or Krafters Cart.
• Run the die facing up (a lot of people do this but I don't normally do it this way) so the bits don't fall out of the die
• Use a piece of an old mailer bubble bag between your card stock and the cutting plate, it adds a bit more shim and awesome with dies that have lots of little chads in them, they seem to pop out real easily. You can use it until its lost all of it's air (I've used mine about 6x now and think it's too flat now) 
• When the die-cut comes out use a similar piece of Glad Wrap Press 'n Seal to hold in all the bits and press firmly to make them stick

Here is my die cut with the back of it "stuck" to the press 'n seal

Remove the frame carefully, use your fingers to hold the bits in as you lift up the frame. Attach the frame to your card base. I have gone back to using Gina K's Connect Glue in a fine tip bottle, as much as I love the nozzle on the Bearly Art glue, the glue itself has no wiggle time.

Remove the pieces of the card you want to colour block and using a small blender brush ink blend. It may look messy but dries smooth and lighter.

And the final card:

Supply List (all Pinkfresh Studios unless stated otherwise):

Stamps: You (PhP)

Ink: Sparkling Rose, Sky Blue, Misty Coast, Versamark

Paper: Hammermill White, Smoky Slate (SU!), Vellum (SCT)

Dies: Ornate Floral, Sentiment Suite : You

Other: Blush glitter drops, medium foam squares (SP), Alabaster white EP (BM), small blending brushes (TE)

Challenges: JAI #650 , TCC #194 

Well I sincerely believe doing my colour blocked card with large letters using the dreamy colours of the Card Concept made my original idea better; so definitely 2 heads are better than one or in this case 2 challenges were better than one. Hope you can play along but do check out all the fab ideas on show at both challenge sites.

Thanks for popping in.

EDITED 4/5/23: My card was an honourable mention at JAI. 

Here's what some of the design team had to say... "Love the inlaid design and colour scheme", "Wow! What a show stopper!", "I love the soft colours and dimension in her card. The vellum under the sentiment is perfection". Thank you all for your kind words!

✿ Karen ✿

Colour Blocking

What a simple but effective technique I learnt at Spring Camp with Online Card Classes, day 6's tutor was Keisha Charles from The Paper Mint and she showed us 3 amazing techniques with colour and cover dies.

She also only used white card stock and used blending brushes to colour up the white card stock which was highly effective. I went with the cleaner way and used coloured card stock and followed the pattern we were given to mark and cut out the 3 panels. I can see I am a wee bit out with one of my measurements as the gaps should all be 1/4" but still highly effective and I still have the pieces to make 2 more cards so really quick and easy to make 3 cards.

Now I only have one cover die so I could only try one of the techniques but in time I hope to try the other 2 examples as they really packed a big WOW. No stamps have been used in KReating my card today too. My card is an A2 card as is the cover die.

Supply List:

Dies: Dotted Tile debossing cover die (Altenew) and Artistic (SU! - leaves)

Paper: White (SSS), Pumpkin Pie (SU!), Coastal Cabana (SU!) and So Saffron (SU!)
Other: Rainbow Sentiments (Pinkfresh Studios), adhesive strips, dimensionals, jewels (TE)


✿ Karen ✿

Farm Fresh Flowers

Yesterday I decided it was time to get started on my Pinkfresh Studios Create and Connect event from way back in February. I love PFS and they and my SCT Cardmaking big box are the only TWO virtual events I sign up for, they both are biannual and both are my second time doing them. They're such great value as you get more than you pay for even with shipping costs and you get so many ideas from fellow students plus the "classes" themselves.

This is a much smaller event with only 5 kits and 6 classes, the final class is a mashup of all the kits plus we get some sway in our box as well. this time we received their pokey tool (aka embellishment wand). It's an awesome tool as the ends don't fall off when you look at them (unlike my Trinity Stamps one which does and I find really annoying). Also the pokey end is actually rounded, it's small enough to go through the holes but not sharp to stab you. It also came with 2 replacement wax tips in the box, so another plus. Plus our instruction booklet.

We also received a fancy rounded and braided rectangle die with 6 dies, which is the top die set showing below, the bottom die is part of Class 3's kit.

I also got a new generic stamp set, which has BEAUTIFUL fonts and sayings, some new ombre glitter drops (Sparkle and Shine) and a pack of foiled sentiment strips, watercolour papers for our watercolour class (class 4).

Last but not least all the stamp sets, dies, washi tape and stencils for the other classes, packed in individual bags.

The only thing you have to provide is your card stock and basic stuff. The team at PFS always use Hammermill and I am fortunate that I can now source this at Krafters Cart in NZ. Krafters Cart also stocks the Pinkfresh Studios current range and Meetu is very obliging if there is something you want from past releases.

Saying that the first class kit has NOT been released as yet but in time all items we receive are released.

This is a snap of my first class's stamp set, matching 4 stencils and 5 piece die-set. This class was taught by Heather Hoffman from Pinkfresh Studios.

The classes are very relaxed and you have 2 hours to create the 2 cards, they are extremely easy to keep up with in my experience. My booklet has instructions to make one more card which I will do when I finish all the classes plus the great thing about my box getting trapped at Customs somewhere and why all of us from down under missed out on doing the event live, is now we can do the bonus card and also attempt to make any that fellow "students" have created that catch our eyes too. Sometimes it's good to be late! It was about 10 days too late for me to do live (I was the last registrant to get their kit, fellow kiwis were 2-4 days earlier than me). At the time I did receive it, it was much too close to my event with SCT to attempt to start on it.

Some cool tips/techniques I learnt from my first class:

• leave your blending in the middle of the jar non-existent to make it look curved, slightly transparent
• when we attached our stemmed flowers we had a plain white jar which we hadn't coloured up and attached some removable tape and then we could attach the flower stems on top and get the arrangement how we liked it. We could tweak the stems/flowers very easily before adding our real jar on top
• one of the cool things about PFS is that you stamp one image and when you die cut it out it gives you all 4 images (or how ever many are in that set) which makes it a lot easier, Heather also reminded us that once you have your photopolymer stamp on your stamp positioner window just put the die over the top of it to make sure you haven't stretched your stamp pulling it off the backing sheet, it should fit perfectly inside the die, otherwise, lift gently and try again, this is only important if you are die-cutting out
• this class is also where I learnt the tip about using a bubble wrap/mailer bag to die-cut out very detailed dies with lots of chads

The stencil for the set of flowers makes it very easily to add the darker highlights as stencil 3 and 4 are just a wee slither to add the next layer.

 

I started nearly 2 years ago buying the PFS inks as I love stencils and I hated my SU! yellow inks when I saw how beautiful the PFS inks were in comparison I started buying them all, a set or a two at a time. They currently have 12 sets of 4 inks in each set and I am looking forward to them introducing another 6 sets to fill in the gaps.

Pink inks used: Sparkling Rose and Bubble Gum. This is the 2nd and 3rd darkest pink currently. I used Sparkling Rose on my big YOU card the other day to do colour blocking which you can see HERE if you missed that blog post. The Sky Blue ink from that post can be seen in card 2 too.

Green inks: Meadow and Emerald City (again 2 and 3 in intensity).

Aqua blue inks: Ocean Breeze, Aquamarine and Mermaid Cove  (1, 2 and 3 in the range).

We made the second card a bit more fancy using the braided rectangle die and then each flower is coloured with different colours and a darker colour to add the depth for the top layer. I mucked up the colours a tad and made my heather yellow and the buttercups violet ;) But still a pretty wee bunch of flowers for my jar. 

Again we have blended "brown" inks over the jar leaving the middle very lightly blended; inks used are Warm Buff, Doe and Espresso (1, 2 and 4). The sentiment has been stamped with Espresso. I chose to use the sentiment "thanks a bunch" from our kit swag (Beyond Happy stamp set) as I thought it was perfect for a bunch of flowers card.

Orange inks: Peach Fuzz and Apricot (1 and 2)

Blue inks: Sky Blue and Summer Shower (1 and 2)

Violet inks: Soft Lilac and Candy Violet (1 and 3)

Yellow inks: Lemon Whip and Sweet Mustard (1 and 3)

Green inks: Fresh Pear and Grassy Knoll (1 and 2)

Well that was a lot of fun and I am very happy to finally start on my February classes, when I did their Holiday event last November there was no problem with receiving our kits quickly and I am glad the problems with shipping happened for this kit in February and not for the Holiday cards in November as those cards are time-sensitive and needed for Christmas. They are going back to treating us for "down under" as "down under" and "not as rest of the world" i.e. Europe as that did not work at all for us.

It's another grey gloomy day in NZ so thinking cap needed for a few challenges and getting onto Mother's Day card (for Pete's mum).

Have a good day all.

✿ Karen ✿