#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!

#900 – Thanks with Pumpkins

Hello and welcome! Today is another day to be glad – I’ve been asked over to be the Guest Designer at the Retro Rubber challenge! This is a wonderful challenge where the main requirement is to use a stamp that is more than a year old in your creation – a great reason to get out those old stamps and put them to good use!

The theme for this challenge is a color theme – to use Black, Orange and White only, with the picture inspiration

And here’s what I made –

A fairly simple card to make! I first started with creating the pumpkins. I drew a rough outline and watercolored each of them. Once dry, I fussy cut them out. For the background, I used Concord & 9th Sketched Stripes stamp set and stamped it in Black Soot distress ink on a white card base. It didn’t stamp properly, but that ‘sketchy’ look was what I was going for, so that was perfect! 😀

Next, the sentiment came from Ranger Letter It: Thank You stamp set. I stamped this also in Black Soot and then fussy cut it. I foam mounted all the pieces on the card base. And that’s it – that’s my finished card!

I’m joining the following challenges with my card –

Global Design Project #263: Season of Thanks

CrafTangles October challenge: Masculine Projects

Inkspirational Challenge #224: Picture Inspiration (Fall Photo)

Stamplorations October challenge: Stamps + Autumn colors

Thank you to the Retro Rubber team for having me over! Step over to the Retro Rubber challenge blog for more inspiration from their awesome team!

Thank you so much for stopping by as well! 🙂

#892 – Color Hues challenge Guest Designer!!

Hello and welcome!! After becoming the winner of the very first challenge of Color Hues – which in itself is a big win for me – I even get to be the very first Guest Designer for the challenge!! What a big honor!! Thank you so much Nancy, for this wonderful opportunity!

This the the third challenge and here are the colors for the challenge –

That’s a beautiful and elegant set of colors! And here’s what I made –

I was inspired by this beautiful, elegant card by Therese Calvird. I chose rustic cream cardstock from Paper Trey Ink for the card base and the top most layer of the flower die cuts. The die cuts, of course, are from the Altenew 3D Rose Flurries die set. Those petite roses are just perfect for any occasion!

So, anyway, I used white for the first layer, vellum for the second (I used double sided tape on a piece of vellum and die cut it after), gold foil cardstock from CrafTangles for the third layer and the same rustic cream cardstock as the card base for the fourth layer. I used black and gold on the leaves to get some contrast on the otherwise plain card.

I am not so sure it is all that apparent on the images here – well, blame it on the cloudy weather and my overly used contrast image manipulated to counter it for it!! ;P

I used splatters of black and two kinds of gold – all of which I got from the Gansai Tambi watercolors – on the card base. I then adhered the die cut pieces on top.

For the sentiment, I used WPlus9 Fresh Cut Floral. My initial idea was to directly stamp this sentiment on the card base directly, but when I ended up moving the card on my Misti while stamping, I had to abandon the idea. Instead, I stamped it on another piece of the same cardstock, added some gold foil washi tape on another piece, trimmed them both and then adhered this to the card base. No loss there, and I loved that gold shine from the washi!!

And that’s my card! Head over to the Color Hues challenge blog for more inspiration from the Design Team – I assure you, they won’t disappoint!!

Thank you once again for having me over, Nancy!

And thank you so much for stopping by!

#867 – Guest Designing at Tic-Tac-Toe challenge

Hello and welcome!! Guess what – I am guest designing at the Tic-Tac-Toe challenge! So excited to join Felicita and her talented team this week!

Here’s the board for Tic-Tac-Toe challenge #65:

I chose the diagonal from top left – Stripes/Checks – Square – Emboss. And here’s my card –

I started with cutting out strips of vellum, which I then colored in shades of pink, green and yellow-orange using my Zig brush marker pens. I arranged these pieces on a white card panel, applied double sided tape on the back of the panel, tucked the sides behind and trimmed off the excess. I then foam mounted this on a white card base.

Next came the focus. I die cut several pieces of Spellbinders Birds on a Wire and adhered them together. I then heat embossed the top panel with a custom mix of mine. I applied two coats of the embossing for some additional texture.

To perch the birds, I die cut a piece of square, combining a couple of dies from My Favorite Things Pinking Edge Square and Itsy Bitsy Square dies. I foam mounted this on the vellum striped panel, and then foam mounted the birds on top.

The sentiment comes from Clearly Besotted Scrumptious Script stamp set, which I stamped using a dark grey ink, fussy cut and then foam mounted. To embellish I used sequins from Ranganjali.

Checkout the Tic-Tac-Toe DT in their challenge blog – they’ve got some awesome inspiration for us!! And thank you so much Felicita, for inviting me!

Come by once again…my next post is in a few more hours!

#749 – Enjoy Your Day

Hello! I am so very pleased and honored to be joining the Sovushka Slavia Sketch Challenge as a Guest Designer yet again. This is one of my favorite challenges, which requires CAS cards and the sketches are beautiful. Here’s the sketch for the latest challenge –

And here’s what I made –

I used the Paper Trey Ink Mighty Bloom die cut twice, on Yellow and white card stock, and adhered these on some newsprint. Laying this at an angle, I foam mounted it on a white card base and trimmed off the excess. The sentiment is die cut from Paper Trey Ink Wet Paint die, stacked and adhered on the die cut. The stamped part of the sentiment is from the co-ordinating stamp set, Paper Trey Ink Wet Paint, which I have white heat embossed, before adhering it to the card.

Check out the wonderful creations from the DT of Sovushka Slavia for more inspiration!

With this card I am also joining the following challenges –

Tic Tac Toe challenge #45 (Yellow – Free – Punch/Die cut)

Addicted to Stamps challenge #289: Clean and Simple

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Thank you so much for stopping by!! 🙂