#1004 – Mixed Media card

Hello and welcome! Today I have the honor of being the Guest Designer for the wonderful Color Throwdown challenge!

Its a color challenge that helped me groom my coloring skills when I first started card making, and continues to do so today. The design team always have such wonderful inspirations with any pick of color! Speaking of which, this is the color combo for this time –

Beautiful set of colors! And this time I took up a personal challenge to make the card look like its made up of ATC elements. Here’s what I made –

I used a lot of older stamps and die cuts on this one – and that made me happy as well! I used Tim Holtz’s stamp set that I got as a part of Alcohol Inks kit, Ranger Entomology, Nature’s Elements, My Favorite Things Bold Diagonal Stripes in the background, and to make the butterfly piece look like an antique piece, used stamps from Ranger Entomology and CrafTangles Halftone Dots and a couple of washi tapes. The die cuts are Paper Smooches Flower 2 and Sizzix Flowers, Branches and Leaves. I doubt most of them have been available for a long time now! The sentiment, from Altenew Label Love is probably something that’s available.

I used distress inks and with the help of brayer and gel plate, made butterfly panel a bit more variegated. I also colored the top wings of the butterfly in green, though I doubt its that visible. Well, once all the pieces were done, I just arranged them adhered them together on the card base. The only dimension being behind that BnW diagonal background.

I’m glad this card came out so quickly, given that I had been taking very long to make my cards until recently. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity – I had a lot of fun with this new design style of card making!

Do stop by the Color Throwdown challenge blog to checkout the creations of the design team, who manage to impress me, at least, every single time! 🙂

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#990 – Color Hues – Support for Ukraine

PE: Addicted to Stamps and More Honorable Addict!

Hello and welcome! Today is a special post, where members of the Seize the Birthday DT are joining the sister challenge, Color Hues challenge to show support for Ukraine. It’s heart wrenching to see people suffer because of some completely unreasonable people. I don’t have words to express the frustration, the helplessness, the fear. I hope these people are able to return to their lives soon, they deserve peace and simple everyday as much as rest of us. Prayers!

In the challenge this time, the Color Hues team has added an option to make a card in the challenge colors and/or to make a card using the Ukraine flag colors of Blue and Yellow. Of course, since we are making our cards in blue and yellow.

So, here’s the card I made –

I knew what I would make as soon as saw the colors. I thought of using an embossed background in blue and flowers in yellow.

I first made the background using Itsy Bitsy Leaves embossing folder on Navy cardstock. Before running it through, I inked the flatter side of the inside with Memento Tuxedo black ink – now my ink pad was a little dry, so it wouldn’t give a perfect black, but instead darken the cardstock a bit. Exactly what I wanted!

I then adhered this on a bright yellow cardbase, along with a strip of the same cardstock on one edge. Next, I made a distress ink panel to die cut the flowers from. I used a few shades of yellow ink to create an ink-splotched panel and die cut the flowers using Simon Says Stamp Crocus Flowers. I also die cut a few more panels from scrap yellow cardstock to adhere behind the main piece to get some dimension. I then adhered this on the card and also added few gold sequins to embellish. Finally, I gold heat embossed the sentiment from Concord & 9th Lots to Say, trimmed it and adhered it on the card as well.

I’m joining the following challenges –

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #424: Any Occasion

Do join the Color Hues challenge. You can take up the original set of colors (Green and Gold) or show your support for Ukraine and choose to go with blue and yellow.

Thank you very much for stopping by.

#987 – Guest Designer at Timeout challenge!!

Hello and welcome!! I am so so thrilled to be over at Timeout challenge as the Guest Designer this time!!

This time we are CASE-ing one of the cards that the incredible talented Michele Ferguson has created. This challenge is also sponsored by STAMPlorations. Winner gets $25 in store credit and an offer to Guest Design with Timeout challenge for a future challenge! So don’t forget to join the challenge!!

Before going to what I made, here’s a closeup at Michele’s card –

Isn’t it gorgeous? Lovely shades of pink surrounding a beautiful heart. The CAS look, even when using so many die cuts! Love it!!

Here’s my CASE of her gorgeous card –

I picked the following from Michele’s card: the shades of pink and leaf die cuts, the center heart, the sentiment.

I used Simon Says Stamp Eucalyptus Leaves die to die cut multiple pieces from white cardstock and a few more from scrap cardstock. I then adhered one from each group to the adhere to get some dimension. After they dried, I sponged pink tones of distress inks on them, misted them with water, then added splatters of darker color on top. A lot of splatters. The splatters weren’t staying there because of the indentations the dies had, but a lot of splatters did the job. Well, once they dried, I adhered them on the card base.

I then added the heart – two layers of two die cuts using Winnie & Walter True Dotty Heart, topped with the ‘XO’ die cut using Winnie & Walter Typecast Cary Letters. I water-colored the letters using distress inks before adhering it on the card.

And that’s my CASE of Michele’s card. I thoroughly enjoyed making this one!!

Thank you so much to the Timeout challenge team for having me over!! Do stop by the Timeout challenge blog to checkout all the different wonderful ways Michele’s card has been CASE’d by the team!

And thank you for stopping by! 🙂

#959 – Rainy Day’s Smile

Hello and welcome! Today I have the honor and pleasure of being the Guest Designer at the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge!

And the challenge this time is one of my favorites –

Since I am getting into pencil coloring these days, I thought this would be the perfect time to try something out. I wanted to try coloring in a small scene for myself. And here’s what I created –

I wanted to color on something darker, non-white, basically. I have this sheet of kraft paper that I had initially bought for making envelopes, but there’s so much of it, and the texture being just right, I thought I could use it for some coloring as well. I chose the cute piggy from My Favorite Things Piggy Pebbles and the cute doggo from Purple Onion Designs Puddles Dog, stamped them using a dark brown ink.

I had to make a small mofication to the image, since the umbrella that the piggy carried was too small to shelter both of them. I stamped it the spine of the umbrella, and then leaving the rest of the umbrella, I stamped the tip of it, then I drew the umbrella’s shade, exanding its coverage a bit to cover both the animals. I colored them using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils.

Once done, I drew the fence behind them, stamped the puddles as well, and colored them both. I thought of adding a tree and a windmill in the background, but then decided aginst the windmill, since I wanted the scene to be relatively small. I drew the tree only instead, which, lets face it, didn’t come out as well as I hoped. Anyway, I can learn how to draw a beautiful tree in time! 😀

In the end, I colored and drew some grass. I then trimmed this sheet and added it on a kraft card base. Finally I stamped the sentiment, from My Favorite Things Well, Hello stamp set in white pigment ink.

And that’s my card. Do stop by the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge blog to see more wonderful creation from the DT – they always manage to inspire me! Thank you Kylie for having me over!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#928 – A Poinsettia Christmas

Hello and welcome! Today I have the honor of Guest Designing at the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge! I got this generous offer from Kylie after winning one of their previous challenges.

The theme this time is Christmas! Yes, Christmas in the middle of the year. I guess this challenge might give many of us a headstart at getting ready for the end of the year!

And this is the card I made –

I brought this pretty pretty poinsettia die set from Lawn Fawn recently, and thought it a waste that I wasn’t making Christmas card any time soon. So this challenge was a welcome opportunity! 🙂

Before I started die cutting, I thought making some pattern papers using the gel plate that I have had for so long! My sister uses it for her mixed media stuff, but me not so much. But I was very inspired by the recent videos regarding using gel plated with distress inks by Jennifer McGuire and thought it would be a great idea to try. I was anyway going to make a Christmas card with non-traditional colors, so I started my experiments. I used distress inks and few stencils and stamps and created a few beautiful prints, then used the dies to die cut from them and some white card stock as well. I then adhered the flowers together. Thinking that I might need some black too, I stamped a few images from the Winnie and Walter In Bloom: Elsa’s Flora in black ink and fussy cut them out.

For the background, I stamped an image from Neat & Tangled Landscape Textures with a light grey ink, then trimmed the panel diagonally. This I foam mounted on the white card base, and then adhered all my poinsettias with the leaves and added a white stone in each of the floral centers.

For the sentiment, I went with Neat and Tangles Art Deco, stamped it in black, trimmed the piece and rounded a couple of the corners and adhered that also using foam tape.

And that’s my card. Make sure to stop by the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge blog to get more inspiration from all the design team. And thank you, once again, Kylie, to give me this wonderful chance!

Thank you so much for stopping by!