Author: luciegcards

Turnabout thanks

Hi everyone!

A quick card from me today – I was inspired by the Ellen Hutson Colour Trend mood board  – an amazing selection of colours and the earrings on the mood board photo reminded me of the Concord & 9th Mosaic Turnabout stamp that I bought earlier this year. I hadn’t even inked it up because life got busy… so I had fun playing with lots of different colour combos using my regular distress inks as well as the oxides.

After settling on a combo I liked best, I trimmed the panel down and I added an Essentials by Ellen sentiment die cut that I had cut from a background blended with Tumbled Glass distress oxide ink and then embossed with clear powder. I wasn’t too sure about the blue against the background as it’s something I wouldn’t normally put with purples, but I liked the pops of blue/light aqua in the mood board photos and I think it works! What do you think?

I’ve combined a number of challenges for today’s post:

Ellen Hutson Colour Trend

Freshly Made Sketches

Where Creativity Meets C9 (anything goes).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Stop! It’s Tinsel Time!

Happy Saturday, people!

It’s a typical British summer’s day (overcast, cool) and I should be in the garden as some shrubs need serious attention…. but I’m in the craft room instead playing with my fabulous new Avery Elle Quirky Trees stamp set!

Last month, I told myself I would be more restrained with Christmas supplies this year – I have so much already! And what do I do as soon as the first release hits the stores… But at least I only got the one set I suppose!

Anyway, I couldn’t wait to ink up those quirky trees and decided to use the lovely colour scheme that the Color Throwdown has this week (grey, teal and pink). I cut out a middle section of the card as I love the see-through effect and was please that the card turned out to be quite stable!

To finish off the card, I added some Stickles and my favourite sentiment from the set. Am I the only one thinking of the ‘Stop! Hammer Time!’ lyric from the MC Hammer song (U can’t touch this)?? Yes? I know, it’s not just these trees that are quirky!

Anyway, I’m also entering this into the current CAS Christmas challenge where the theme is ‘tree’.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

It’s summer!

Happy Friyay everyone!

Today I’m celebrating the return of British summer as I know it (ie rain, chilly etc). The heatwave lasted a little too long for me and the garden and I’m very happy that temperatures are much more bearable.

I’m also celebrating the three-week adoptoptoversary of my mum and dad’s new cat, Oscar. Their resident cat, Minnie, is adapting well and less feisty than we all expected her to be! To mark this occasion, I inked up my latest Newton’s Nook purchase and tried to replicate Minnie and Oscar. It’s fair to say Oscar has a VERY healthy appetite so guess which cat he is!!

I’m entering this into the current Inky Paws challenge which has the a summer/beach theme!

Have a great weekend!

LucieG.

Oh Alstroemeria

Hello everyone!

What did you do last weekend? Me? I stamped a gazillion alstroemeria and leaves using the gorgeous Japanese Lily layering stamp set from Altenew. I wasn’t going to buy it at first as I thought it’s a lot of stamping (10 stamps) for one flower. But then I saw Jennifer McGuire’s video using the stamps and I was SOLD! The stamps were quite easy to line up and I think the end result is definitely worth all that stamping! Mind you, once I had the stamps positioned correctly, I decided to make lots of flowers using them. Be warned crafty friends, if you get a card from me this month, there’s a high probability that it’ll contain an alstroemeria or three! I used Altenew inks for the images and the die cut sentiments are from Simon Says Stamp.

For the first card I did, I followed Jennifer’s stamped see-through card technique. I must say using the press n seal to create the front was GENIUS! Once I had the whole front assembled, I couldn’t bring myself to create a hinge on my stamped images as I was sure I would mess it up. So, I made a separate hinge which I then attached to the back panel. Same effect as Jennifer’s card as the back panel still created a small border around the front panel, but this was far less nerve-wracking!

 

I created a hinge for my second card as well, but this time, I just scored and folded my base card/back panel as I didn’t want to have a border like I had on the first card.

My third card was the easiest to create. I lined up and glued the images using Jennifer’s press n seal technique but then I simple attached the whole image panel to the front of a card, added a sentiment and called it done!

I had such fun creating these cards. I love alstroemerias and these images are just so life-like. And thanks, Jennifer McGuire, for the inspiration!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

 

Feeling Grateful

Hello everyone!

I am so honoured to be the August guest designer over at the CAS Colours & Sketches challenges blog.

I’ve been experimenting with the challenges I play in and this was one that I discovered more recently. I love that it’s still a weekly challenge and the team alternates between colour palette and sketch-based challenges. The first challenge this month is a colour palette challenge.

The colours were quite a challenge for me but they did feel quite autumnal so I pulled out my foliage and floral dies and got to work.

The team uses Stampin Up! colour names as a reference but I was able to match up the colours quite well using distress inks. To create the background, I smooshed some Blueprint Sketch distress ink onto my base card and when it was dry, I blended another layer on top. I cut an oval from a square piece of white card and layered that on top of my base.

To create the die cut image, I blended a mix of Fired Brick (in oxide format) and Rusty Hinge to create a shade which I felt was close to Cajun Craze and on a separate piece of card I blended Peeled Paint and Forest Moss. I cut the panels using a couple of older Poppystamps dies and positioned them on the blue oval. To finish off the card, I added an embossed sentiment from My Favorite Things.

I am totally grateful to the team for inviting me as GD this month. Check out their amazing inspiration on the CAS Colours & Sketches challenges blog.

I hope you can play along too!

Have a great day

LucieG

 

Copper butterflies

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along with a couple of my favourite challenges – the Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches.

The Color Throwdown’s palette this week is very neutral – black, white and copper and so I spent quite a while pondering how I would use it. I remembered my Bellina Butterfly Triptych dies which I hadn’t used for a while and thought they’d be perfect as I have so many butterflies in my garden at the moment. And of course, they would work well with the Freshly Made Sketches challenge. For the fourth square, I decided to use the largest butterfly from the Devyn Butterfly Trio set. Funny story, as I was making the card, I was struck by how similar the butterflies were and congratulated myself for using them all together. When I was putting my supplies away, I realised they are all Poppystamp dies and the packaging actually suggests using them all together! Honestly!

Anyway, to finish off my card, I added a stamped sentiment from Clearly Bestotted.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.