Birthday

Birthday leaves

 

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards and this fortnight we have a sketch for you. Our sponsor is Happy Little Stampers.

I love this CAS sketch – lots of ‘white space’ with a great focal point! As we’re now into September (how did that happen?), I decided to use a stamp from Happy Little Stampers’ Doodled Flowers set and create an autumn-themed card. I had such fun using my Altenew watercolour paints again. Love how vibrant they are!

I then cut a circle from a square piece of white card to create a frame to go on top of the leafy background. I knew I wanted to raise the frame a little, but didn’t want to use funky foam. Instead, I created another frame from card and adhered one on top of the other to give my card some very subtle dimension. Finally, I added a Happy Little Stampers sentiment.

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by Alex as our Guest Designer. She has some fabulous creations – you must pay her a visit!

Thanks for stopping by – I do hope you play along with us!

LucieG.

 

Enjoy your day

Hi everyone!

Today I have my next DT post for Crafts-U-Love using the ‘Always Flowers’ stamp set by Pink Fresh Studio. As usual, links to all the products are at the end of my post.

I noticed that my past couple of DT cards have been rather pink, so I was determined to use a different palette this time!

Step 1 – ink blending

Over the past few years, my style has definitely changed and I always tend to make my own backgrounds. My piles of pretty patterned paper are quite unloved, but I just can’t bear to part with them. I’m sure I’ll end up using them at some point (maybe!).

Anyway, when I started on today’s card, I hadn’t decided the size, so I used a larger piece of cardstock and blended three distress oxide inks. This ink is fabulous for blending!

 

Step 2 – stamping

Once I was happy with my blending, I randomly stamped images from the stamp set.

Step 3 – ink lifting

One of my favourite techniques with distress ink (regular and oxide) is ink lifting. I usually do this with larger images, but it’s easy to do with smaller images too.  I simply ‘painted’ water onto each image and then blotted it off to remove the ink. As usual, when working with smaller images, it’s best to use a small brush for all that detail work, and also ensure that the brush isn’t too wet. I also made sure to wipe off my brush at regular intervals – otherwise I’d start applying some of the colour I’d just removed!!

Quick, easy and effective! Once I finished, I almost stopped and started to assemble the card as I love the effect so much!

Step 4 – colouring

But in the end I decided to watercolour the images using my distress inks, diluted with a bit of water.

After colouring the images, I felt that the gaps between the images was a little too large so I stamped a couple of images from the Pinkfresh Studio ‘Happy’ set.

I then cut down the panel to fit on a square card base. I stamped a Hero Arts sentiment onto a strip of card which I adhered to the base. (The remainder of the background card will go into my ‘bases box’ as I know I can use it on another card!) I then stamped, coloured and fussy cut a couple of flowers and adhered them and a few gems to finish off the card.

I’m also entering this card into the current Pinkfresh Studio challenge as I was inspired by their summer theme and loved their colour palette (although I was determined to stay away from pink!)

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Supply List

Here are the links to the products I used on my card. Products marked with an asterisk (*) were kindly sent to me to use.

Pinkfresh Studio – Always Flowers stamp set*

Hero Arts – Happy Birthday Messages stamp set

Pinkfresh Studio – Word series stamp set – Happy*

Distress Oxide ink

Distress ink

Brilliance ink

Papermania adhesive stones*

Happiest of birthdays

Happy Friyay people!

My Altenew Watercolour paints arrived this morning so I had a fun afternoon swatching and playing with them! They made using this week’s Color Throwdown challenge palette (aqua, peach, light grey and white) very easy indeed!

I finally inked up and embossed part of the Simon Says Stamp Centre Cut Flowers stamp and coloured it with my new paints.  I dry embossed a strip of grey cardstock and adhered it to my base card before adding the coloured image.

To finish off the card I added a sentiment from My Favorite Things.

I’m also entering this into the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge (anything goes).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Spots and Butterflies

Hi there everyone

I’m back with another guest post for CAS Colours & Sketches challenge.

This week, the team has come up with a great sketch which is perfect for CAS cards.

I’ve recently reorganised my craft room a bit and came across my old punches which I still can’t bear to part with. So I was delighted when I saw this sketch as it gave me the perfect opportunity to use them again! I cut the circles from some old rainbow backgrounds that I created with distress inks and adhered them to my base card. I then cut a selection of butterflies (from Penny Black, Poppystamps and Simon Says Stamp) from some glitter card and stuck them to the larger circles.

To  finish off the card, I added a sentiment from Woodware.

Thanks for stopping by!

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.

 

Birthday Butterflies

Hi there everyone!

My two new distress oxides inks have arrived and I had to have a very quick play with them straightaway! I did some basic ink blending with them – the Tumbled Glass is gorgeous and l love the Spun Sugar as well! I had been hoping for Dried Marigold, but I won’t have to wait too long for the final release in October and the Spun Sugar is a fabulous ‘consolation’!

I spritzed the blended piece with perfect pearls and then cut it using butterfly dies from Simon Says Stamp and Poppystamps. I decided to play along with the current Case This Sketch Challenge and arranged the butterflies around a Presscut sentiment die.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.