Sunday 23 August 2015

Just Add Ink Card for Males

This week's challenge at Just Add Ink is to create a card for males. That really is a challenge! So often, my cards for males are 'not' cards: not flowery, not pastel, not beribboned, not with butterflies. They're more like not feminine rather than actually masculine.

Many of the masculine stamp sets that are available are so not the men in my life. My menfolk are just not interested in cars (vintage or modern) or handyman tools or old-style hats or moustaches, as lovely as some of those sets are.

Taking on board a business model, I asked my stakeholder (i.e. my husband) what he wanted in a card. "A golf card," he said. Not surprising, given the amount of time he spends at it but given how many people play golf, I'm surprised at how thin on the ground golf stamps seem to be.

It took some thinking and actually started with my No Bones About It dinosaur set. I looked at the 'have a dino-riffic birthday' and wished it said 'tee-riffic.' That chain of thinking, along with the masculine card challenge, eventually led me to this card....







I couldn't help but take a photo of the card beside the recently earned hole-in-one trophy. I'm not sure whether this happens in other places too but when someone gets a hole-in-one at his golf club, the ball is whisked away and returned the next week as a trophy, engraved with the details of date and hole!

At first, I wasn't entirely sure that the Wild Wasabi polka dot was manly enough but I chose it to echo the dimples in the golf ball and the colour of the greens at the golf course but manned it up a bit by distressing it with Early Espresso.

I made the tee with a surgically altered letter T from the letter thinlit dies. The ball is cut with a circle framelit, embossed with tiny dots and then sponged around the edges with crumb cake to give the illusion of three-dimensionality. The grass stamp I found in a box of Church Fair jumble. I used a marker to pick out the '-rrific' part of the dino-riffic birthday stamp.

Update: Delighted to have this card chosen as the Winner at Just Add Ink.

Ingredients
Card: Early Espresso, Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Wild Wasabi DSP
Stamps: Unknown grass stamp, No Bones About It
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake
Other: Letters thinlit dies, circle framelit, dimensionals, Early Espresso marker, metal brads, Kaisercraft scrabble letter stickers, Provocraft Swiss Dots embossing folder.

Saturday 22 August 2015

Freshly Made Sketches 200

It seems to be the week for challenge blog birthdays and for Freshly Made Sketches, 200 is a pretty amazing number to get to! Congratulations - and may there be many more!

For their two-hundredth birthday, they've given us a very open sketch. So open, it was quite hard to decide what to do with it!


In the end, I went for a favourite colour combination of mine: Blackberry Bliss, Lost Lagoon and Crumb Cake, along with a favourite stamp set: Kinda Eclectic.




Ingredients
Card: Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White, scrap of Crumb Cake.
Stamps: SU Kinda Eclectic and Hardwood, Clearly Besotted Fabulous Fuchsia (sentiment)
Ink: Crumb Cake, Lost Lagoon, Blackberry Bliss
Other: Blackberry Bliss stitched ribbon, linen twine, brad base and Crumb Cake candydot, circle framelits, Elegant Butterfly punch, Blackberry Bliss marker to outline the cut edge of the butterfly, dimensionals.


Thursday 20 August 2015

Paper Players 258

This week, there is a theme challenge at The Paper Players. The idea of a beach challenge was very appealing as we've struggled through yet another week of wintery weather: spring seems a long way away just at the moment. I was determined to enter this week as it is almost exactly one year ago that I discovered card challenges and entered my first card challenge and one of the first was at The Paper Players.


So, I've pondered various possibilities all week and have finally settled on this one. I started by white embossing the Hardwood background stamp onto white paper and lightly sponging it with Pool Party. I used acrylic block stamping, with Crumb Cake, Lost Lagoon and Pool Party, to create the background for the centre panel then highlighted the birds with a Stamp and Write marker to make the birds more distinct that their shadows.




Update: Delighted to have this card picked as A Cut Above at The Paper Players.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Crumb Cake
Stamps: Wetlands, A Dozen Thoughts, Hardwood, Acrylic block
Ink: Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Lost Lagoon, Soft Suede, Versamark
Other: White embossing powder, linen twine, dimensionals, sponges, Lost Lagoon stamp and write marker.



Monday 17 August 2015

As You See It 100

 I was so pleased when I discovered this challenge site, As You See It. I've played here about ten times in the last year and I especially enjoy the way the challenges are presented on the page - they all look so enticing - and the variety of challenges. So, since this is challenge number 100 for them, I made it a point to play this week.


The fireworks in the picture made me think about my experiments with ink smooshing a few months ago. I used Distress inks Barn Door, Spiced Marmalade and Scattered Straw to create the smooshes, which are supposed to be representative of fireworks, and I think you can see it. I gold embossed the clock face before cutting out the 'celebrate' and stacking it back in with black underlays. I put the top layers slightly off the inlaid layer to create a definite shadow outline.




Looking forward to the next 100 challenges at As You See It!

Update: So very delighted to be chosen Featured Artist at As You See It!

Ingredients
Card: Watercolour paper, Tangelo Twist for the card base, black scraps for the underlayers
Stamps: W&W Big, Bold and Party, Clearly Besotted Time to Celebrate
Inks: Distress inks Barn Door, Spiced Marmalade, Scattered Straw, Versamark and Tuxedo Black Memento ink.
Other: W&W Big, Bold and Party die, Tangelo Twist marker to edge the watercolour paper.

Sunday 16 August 2015

Freshly Made Sketches 199

Yesterday was a miserable old wintery day but I had the pleasure of spending part of it at a Stampin' Up Extravaganza with a group of friends. The four of us drove over to Napier together and made five cards with the leadership of demonstrators Jacque Williams and Mary Reeve.

One of the cards we made used an acrylic block stamped background, which regular readers will know I played around with a couple of weeks ago, here. Yesterday, we white embossed on it and used the new Awesomely Artistic set. Last night with the weather still miserable and not wanting to watch the All Blacks against Australia, I played around with the same idea to create this card, based on this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.





I used the combination of Lost Lagoon and Pear Pizzazz again because it looked so lovely together, the last time I used it, here. That this was a good choice was confirmed when I found this striped DSP from last Christmas's All is Calm collection.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Lost Lagoon, Smoky Slate, vellum, All is Calm DSP.
Stamps: Awesomely Artistic, Crazy for You, acrylic block.
Inks: Lost Lagoon, Pear Pizzazz, Whisper White, versamark.
Other: White embossing powder, dimensionals, rhinestones, Lost Lagoon marker pen.



Saturday 15 August 2015

Colour Me 84 and CAS Colours and Sketches 137

It's a bleak old wintery day in Hawke's Bay, which made the bright colours from this week's challenge at Colour Me all the more appealing.


I've paired it up with this week's sketch from one of my favourite challenge blogs, CAS Colours and Sketches.






As I don't have any Tangerine Tango, I've substituted Tangelo Twist. I love the bright cheeriness of this card - the grey skies seem just a bit further away!

Update: Delighted to be chosen as Captivator at Colour Me!
Further update: So pleased this card was a winner at CAS Colours and Sketches.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Tangelo Twist, a scrap of black
Stamps: SU A Dozen Thoughts and Summer Silhouettes
Ink: Cucumber Crush, Tuxedo Black
Other: MFT Gerbera Daisy die, MFT Circle Dot dies, dimensionals



Wednesday 12 August 2015

Cas-ology Aquatic


I was absolutely delighted to win the Cas-ology Wings challenge recently.  Being offered a chance to guest design is slightly panic-inducing while being both a thrill and a challenge.



Today's Aquatic Challenge immediately brought to mind a combination of  lovely aquatic blues with white, along with my trusty By The Seashore set of stamps.



I was looking for a way of adding interest without adding texture, while still keeping a lot of white space on the card. I have a lovely set of Winnie&Walter Big, Bold and Party dies which I've not used very much so today's card was an experiment, at least for me. This is my first flirtation with inlaying and then stacking up layers of die-cuts. I used Island Indigo to cut the back layers so that a slight shadow was created.





Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Island Indigo
Stamps: SU By the Seashore, W&W Big, Bold and Party
Inks: Island Indigo, Night of Navy, Versamark
Other: White embossing powder, W&W Big, Bold and Party dies, sponges



Sunday 9 August 2015

As You See It 99

It's funny how when I sit down to do a one-layer card challenge, I'm often stumped for ideas but when I'd finished this card, I realised how easily it could have been a single layer.

This card was inspired by the utterly fabulous colours at this week's As You See It challenge.


As I don't have any Bermuda Bay, I have sneaked in with the closest match I had: Coastal Cabana. The trickiest thing was to get the colours in the masked column to blend without a harsh line but without forming an unpleasant sludge. I do love the vibrancy of these colours and in this combination. Great choice by Desiree!




I'm also entering this card into the "Anything Goes" challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More.

Update: So delighted to be Featured Artist at As You See It Challenge!

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Coastal Cabana (standing in for Bermuda Bay)
Stamps: SU Summer Silhouettes and Awesomely Artistic, Clearly Besotted Say it in Style
Ink: Cucumber Crush, Watermelon Wonder, Coastal Cabana, Black
Other: sponges, masking tape

Saturday 8 August 2015

CAS Colours and Sketches 136

Such beautiful soft colours in this week's colour palette at CAS Colours and Sketches!



I've been thinking baby cards this week, since someone in my Book Club asked me if we could do a card class instead of book club and include a baby card in the doings. Well, for me that's really only my recently acquired Zoo Babies stamp set. So all the stuff was on my desk, waiting for a good idea to come along. And those lovely soft pastels just seemed to be asking for a baby card... so here's what I came up with.




I'm not sure if this is the card we'll make at Book-cum-card Club this coming week, but I like it anyway and am in need of a baby girl card myself!

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Blushing Bride, Wisteria Wonder
Stamps: Banner Blast, Zoo Babies.
Inks: Blushing Bride, So Saffron
Other: Decorative Dots embossing folder, Banner punch, Itty Bitty punch pack (retired), Blushing Bride baker's twine, brad bases, Blushing Bride and So Saffron candy dots, dimensionals, Crumb Cake marker pen to colour the cut edges for extra definition.

Currently reading: Gifted by Donald Hounam (YA fiction)
Best recent reads: Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel and The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi


Friday 7 August 2015

Paper Players 256

Friday night and I've zoomed home after work in the hopes I'd complete the card I've been planning all week in my head for this week's challenge at The Paper Players before the deadline.


I'm also entering in The House of Cards August Challenge.



Some time ago, I watched a YouTube clip, by Dreaming About Rubber Stamps, about creating a faux patina effect and there is also a tutorial at The House of Cards. For this card, I'd imagined a rich, opulent central panel and decided to try out the faux patina effect for that. I started with a square of whisper white, inked up the Beautifully Baroque embossing folder with Crumb Cake and embossed the paper. Then I sponged over Pear Pizzazz and Lost Lagoon before adding some Early Espresso. Finally, I added spots of versamark and heated up some gold embossing powder. I do like the richness of the effect ... but that dictated a wedding or anniversary card.




I kept the metallic theme going by adding some touches of gold to the sponged flower centres, using some gold ribbon and gold twine as well as a gold heat-embossed sentiment.

Sneaked in before deadline and still time for a Friday night wine!

Update: Delighted that this card was selected as "A Cut Above" at The Paper Players.
Further update: Delighted that this card was tied for top place at House of Cards.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Pear Pizzazz, vellum scrap
Stamps: Flower Shoppe, Petite Petals, Zoo Babies (sentiment)
Inks: Pear Pizzazz, Lost Lagoon, Early Espresso, Versamark
Other: Beautifully Baroque embossing folder, Lost Lagoon ribbon, gold ribbon, gold embroidery thread, dimensionals, sponges, IOS curly die, gold embossing powder

Sunday 2 August 2015

Cas-ology Wings and Fab Friday 69

I like it when ideas align and this morning I woke up with two challenges in mind and a single idea.
The cue word this week at Cas-ology is wings and there is a beautiful colour combination at Fab Friday.



I've used butterflies a lot in the last few months, so decided that I would not for the wings challenge and used a Dragonfly die instead. It's a little cutie, especially with the vellum wings I gave him today.




I made a circular mask and sponged Lost Lagoon and Blackberry Bliss as a backdrop. I stamped the leaves in Mossy Meadow, using the leaves from Summer Silhouettes. Using the white on white panel gave a subtle frame without sacrificing white space and I like that effect for this card. I used the new thick Whisper White for the base. It's the first time I've used that product and it's fantastic - another great idea by SU.

Update: Delighted to win at Cas-ology
and also to be one of the Fab Four at Fab Friday!


Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Blackberry Bliss, vellum
Ink: Lost Lagoon, Blackberry Bliss, Mossy Meadow
Stamps: SU Summer Silhouettes, W&W Big, Bold and Party
Other: Spellbinders Dragonfly die, rhinestones




Saturday 1 August 2015

Colour Me 82

I just managed to squeeze in another card today, this time the challenge at Colour Me. When there is a fifth challenge in a month, there is a choice of colours.


I went with "Team Tara": Tip Top Taupe, Wisteria Wonder and Blushing Bride. I got a little experimental and had a go at acrylic block background stamping. I like the semi-random watercolour look it produced. I also used one of my new stamp sets, Summer Silhouettes. All products are Stampin' Up.



Ingredients
Card: Tip  Top Taupe, Whisper White, scrap of Wisteria Wonder, vellum
Stamps: Acrylic block, Summer Silhouettes, Awesomely Artistic (splatters), A Dozen Thoughts.
Ink: Tip Top Taupe, Wisteria Wonder, Blushing Bride, Stazon for the sentiment.
Other: Wisteria Wonder candy dot.