Author: luciegcards

Peeking Easter critters

Hello Friends!

When I was at Simon Says Create, the Peeking Bunny and Peeking Chick dies flew into my basket! I’ve been playing around with them for a little while, trying to figure out a ‘different’ way to use them as the SSS inspiration team came up with some great designs.

Then, I stumbled across an old Spellbinders background die that I found in the bargain bucket at the Alexandra Palace craft show last year – perfect for showcasing my new little critters!

I used an old rejected rainbow background and added a Lawn Fawn egg to complete my card. The sentiment is from an older SSS set.

I’m entering this into the current SSS Wednesday Challenge (animal antics) and the SSS Flickr Challenge (anything goes).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Wild spring meadow

Hello friend and happy Saturday!

Today I’m playing along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge. As soon as I saw the sketch I thought of my Arrow Mat border die from Avery Elle which I haven’t used enough yet! Perfect for the border!

I inked up the gorgeous Mama Elephant Wild Meadow stamp, which were so much fun to colour! I blended some distress ink to create the sky and then added a generous spritz of watered-down Pixie Dust. Hope you can see that gorgeous shimmer! To finish off the card, I added a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp. I bought the set on clearance and whilst I rarely use the images in the set, that sentiment gets a LOT of use at this time of year. There aren’t that many spring sentiments out there!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Turning autumn to spring

Happy Friyay!

As soon as I saw the rather sad Instagram post by Hero Arts today, I decided to make a card to reflect how I feel about the company that got me into this wonderful world of cardmaking! Its leaders seem to try to balance business and kindness/generosity/transparency – all admirable traits. But quite honestly, it has always been about the quality of their products and amazing designs for me.

Anyway, I fell in love with the My Monthly Hero September 2018 kit as soon as I saw it! I have been stalking the website for a while – I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t sold out and I finally snapped one up last month. While it is clearly an autumn set, I decided to repurpose it for spring, inspired by the fabulous Color Throwdown challenge colour palette (purple, yellow, green and grey). I turned a couple of sprigs into two beautiful yellow spring shrubs, kerria and forsythia which was actually the easiest part of the card! Everything else seemed to go wrong – even stamping the sentiment! But I got there in the end!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Easter comparison

Hello Friends and happy almost Friday!

With Easter only a few weeks away I decided it was high time I dusted down my Easter supplies and get to work as I do like to make and send out Easter cards!

I unearthed a cute stamp set by Pink & Main which I think arrived too late for Easter last year so I decided to use them for a super quick CAS card. I wanted to play along with the colour challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches and selected a few Altenew inks which seemed to match the challenge colours. Then my eyes landed on my newly-acquired Gina K inks and I decided it would be good to test them out on these stamps – so I ended up with two cards!

 

First up here, the Altenew inks card. I LOVE the Altenew inks and find they stamp very well – in fact I have all of them in my collection! I added a Lawn Fawn sentiment which I had smothered in Nuvo Aqua shimmer – love the delicate sheen!

 

 

Next my Gina K inks. I won some at Simon Says Create and have been trying to swatch them since I got home. They also stamp very nicely and the colours are so vibrant. Think I’ll be reaching for these a lot too! I used the same Lawn Fawn die cut but in the interests of comparison, I painted the die cut with a layer of Ink On 3’s Pixie Dust. Oh my goodness! Can you see that shimmer? Wonderful! Now I want to PIXIE DUST ALL THINGS!!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Birthday Pomander

Hello all!

Today I’m playing along with the current Case This sketch challenge. It’s one of THOSE sketches this week – you know when you have a thousand ideas but have to choose just one!

In the end, I decided to use my new Altenew Prettiest Pomander set. I played with this set at the Simon Says Create Make and Takes and of course I HAD to have it after!! I don’t usually stamp the outline image when doing layered stamping, but this one need it because there’s at least one berry that wouldn’t have a stem otherwise. I used a black ink outline for the card I made at Create and I felt that was a little too heavy for the delicate image. This time, I chose a very light grey Altenew ink (Limestone) and a very gentle touch and I’m happy with how it turned out this time!

The sentiment is by Hero Arts and the embossing folder that I used is Radiant Rays by Creative Expressions. I saw Jennifer McGuire use this folder at the weekend and started to hunt for it online afterwards! And then I discovered that I bought it in January!! Honestly! Well at least I made that discovery before I bought it again!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Mondo Sakura

Happy Monday everyone!

It’s been a glorious spring day here in London, sunny and quite warm. The magnolias are in full bloom and cherry tree blossoms are starting to appear. I love watching the evolution of the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC at this time of year. They reached peak bloom today and look absolutely magnificent!

So it seemed fitting that I (finally) ink up the beautiful Mondo Sakura stamp from Ellen Hutson today!

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge – at first glance the sketch is pretty minimalist – but then I saw how the design team were filling all that ‘white space’ and decided to follow suit!

I also used a border die from Penny Black and a sentiment from Mama Elephant.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.