Christmas, New Year and Winter

Non-traditional Ornaments

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge which has a combo of orange, peach, red and pink.

I found this a bit of a challenging combo… probably because I immediately though of creating something flowery but my initial design would have needed a green and I couldn’t get that out of my head. In the end, I pulled out some Simply Graphic ornament dies and distress inks and got to work on (yet another) non-traditional Christmas card. I wanted a bit of sparkle so used a Tim Holtz stencil to create a subtle glittery background. The sentiment is by My Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

AAA Cards sketch challenge

Hi there!

It’s time for another challenge at AAA Cards!  This fortnight we’d like you to create a CAS card using the sketch below and if you want to join with our optional twist, please use a gnome!

For the main image, I used my new Fir and Foliage No. 2 set from The Greetery. So pleased that Seven Hills Crafts is stocking this brand now! I added a bit of silvery twine and a Mama Elephant sentiment.

My team mates have come up with some beautiful cards using  LOTS of gnomes (or gonks as I know them as!) which are on the AAA Cards challenge blog. We are also joined a previous challenge winner, Fran, who has some lovely cards on her blog – go check it out!!

Hope you can play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Magical wispy trees

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today, I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge  which has a fabulous  combo of pink, lavender and aqua.

I used the fabulous new Winter’s Wispy Trees from the Stamp Market plus a die cut and sentiment by My Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

A die for all seasons

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge  which has a fabulous autumnal combo of orange, brown  and grey. I really liked the shade of orange in the inspiration photo and I used a blend of distress inks to get close to it!

Penny Black released ‘Making Spirits Bright’, their fabulous festive collection yesterday. There really is something for everyone in this massive collection – I am particularly delighted by all the dies. They are gorgeous! What’s more, so many of them can be used all year round. For my Color Throwdown card, I used Berry Sprig (51-719) and the branches from Nestled (51-722). The branches actually bend to the right rather than the left but I saw that Jill had used the reverse of the dies cut for a few of her cards in this release and I decided to do the same. I smoothed out the edges using a bone folder, and was very happy with the results! To complete my card, I added a sentiment from my current go-to autumnal set – Autumn is Calling (30-863).

Want to see the first card I made with Berry Sprig? Well, it’s a festive one – and here it is!

I paired this beautiful die with a sentiment from the Season to Believe set (30-868) and coloured it using a variety of watercolour paints, including my Twinkling H2Os.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas Card Throwdown – Birds

Hello everyone!

I’m honoured to be the Guest Designer for the current stash challenge over at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown! The challenge theme is ‘birds’.

I decided to create a tree of robins and cardinals for my take on the theme – I used dies by Memory Box, Poppystamps and Simon Says Stamp. The sentiment is from an older SSS set.

The Design Team have some amazing inspiration over on the challenge blog – you must check it out! Hope you can play along with the challenge!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

CAS Christmas Guest Designer

Hi there!

I am so delighted to be a Guest Designer for this month’s CAS Christmas Challenge.  The theme this month is ‘ornaments’.

For my CAS card, I used a beautiful PaperArtsy stamp which fits the theme but is rather unusual! I’ve has this set for a while now, but I don’t think I’ve ever used this image. It was such fun to colour with my Twinkling H2O paints – the shimmer is amazing in real life but always so difficult to capture on camera!

I was a bit nervous about adding a sentiment as the first few sentiments I tried seemed a bit too large, so I was quite relieved when I found this small sentiment by Mama Elephant.

The CAS Christmas DT has come up with some amazing inspiration over on the challenge blog. I hope you can play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.