Christmas, New Year and Winter

Blue Christmas trees

Hello there!

The palette for this week’s Color Throwdown challenge is cobalt blue, aqua, grey and white and although the inspiration photo was of a gorgeous Mediterranean sea view, I thought of Christmas cards!

I decided to enter the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge as well and so this is my take on both challenges.

I used dies from Simon Says Stamp and Tonic Studios and blended Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean distress oxide inks to create the die cuts.

After I finished the card, I felt the background still needed a little something extra, so I added some stars and dots from a Lawn Fawn background die.

I’m also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (use a die or punch), the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (Christmas in July) and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge (a favourite technique – inlaid die cutting).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Dashing through the snow

Hello there!

I’m sharing another one of my Christmas in July cards today. Seriously, I can’t believe we’re over halfway through the month! Time is certainly flying by!

Anyway, I’m playing along with the current Case this Sketch challenge and decided to use one of my sweet Memory Box reindeer dies. I coloured the deer using distress oxide inks which I sponged onto the body with an ink blending tool. I then coloured the scarf using the inks with a splash of water.

To create the background, I applied a light coat of Shaded Lilac distress oxide ink through an Echo Park stencil and then added a coat of Tonic Studio moonstone glimmer paste! Love all the sparkle!

The sentiment is from a set by Marianne Designs. I’m delighted to say that I located it very quickly using my new Evernote system. I’ve only just started uploading my supplies to the system (that process is going to take forever!) but really pleased with it so far!

I’m also entering this into a number of other challenges:

CAS Mix Up challenge – colouring die cuts, stamping and my choice (stencilling)

Shopping our Stash challenge – Christmas in July

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas goes

Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

The Merry Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

CAS on Friday challenge – Christmas in July

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Let it snow… in July!

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards! This fortnight we are celebrating Christmas in July and want to see your CAS Christmas Cards!

AS I mentioned in an earlier post, I actually decided to embrace Christmas in July after a crazy cardmaking frenzy last year! I was determined to avoid that again! I’ve already made a few cards – it’s the perfect chance to use the supplies I purchased in the sales or when they came back into stock. It’s also a chance to show some love to some overlooked supplies before I get dazzled by this year’s products!

Anyway, for my card, I used an older snowflake stamp set from Hero Arts and stamped them with various layers of distress oxide inks (picked raspberry, wilted violet and seedless preserves). Once I was happy with the colour mix of each stamped image,  I spritzed them with perfect pearls. I even used one of my very old square punches to cut out the snowflake squares as it was the perfect size for the images!

The sentiment stamp is also from Hero Arts.

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by our sponsor Kylie from Happy Little Stampers as well as our Guest Designer – Maria from White Mood. She has some fabulous creations – you must pay her a visit!

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

LucieG.

Poinsettia Flourish

Happy Friyay people!

It’s ridiculously hot here in the UK but I’m powering on with my Christmas in July cards!

For today’s card, I used a gorgeous Memory Box die and my current favourite product – Tonic Studios Nuvo Crystal Glaze. After colouring the petals, I added some Nuvo Aqua shimmer to the petals before applying the glaze – I just can’t seem to capture the shimmer on camera, unfortunately. It’s really interesting to watch the colour lighten as the glaze dries – the petals were coloured with dark red but clearly I must remember to make my colours evendarker before applying the glaze in future! The sentiment is by CAS-ual Fridays.

I’m entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge, Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge (both red, white and/or blue), the CAS Christmas challenge (poinsettia) and the CAS-ual Fridays challenge (heat embossing).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Twinkling lights – inspired by Yana

Hi Everyone!

After last year’s crazy Christmas cardmaking frenzy, I promised myself that I would start earlier this year! So despite the crazy temperatures here at the moment, I am embracing Christmas in July!

It’s fun to play with the supplies I got in the sales or when they came back into stock, like this fabulous Hero Arts background stamp that I was so sure I didn’t want until I saw what the talented Yana Smakula did with it.. by then of course it was already out of stock.

Anyway, I finally got hold of it earlier this year and today I got to case one of the backgrounds that Yana created last year. So much fun!

To finish off the card, I added an embossed sentiment from Cas Fridays.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

 

New Year balloons

Hi there everyone!

For this card, I finally inked up the gorgeous balloon background stamp from Create a Smile stamps. I’d wanted this stamp for a while and was so pleased to see it in stock when I placed an order with them earlier this month.

Anyway, I embossed it with white embossing powder and then set to colouring! I decided to try out the ‘Stained Glass Watercolour’ technique Jennifer McGuire showcased a few weeks ago. I decided to use distress markers. Not sure if it was me, but I found it quite difficult to move a lot of colour and went back to a number of balloons several times until I was happy with how they were looking… I have a few Tombow pens so I may try with them….

Once I was happy with the balloons, I had to cut the watercolour panel. I was a bit hesitant because I often change my mind about the design of a card when I’m assembling it….. However, I was following a sketch, so bit the bullet and cut! I ended up making a birthday card with the other half.

I layered my panel onto some coloured card and finished off the card with a Hero Arts sentiment stamp.

I’m entering this into the current Freshly Made sketches challenge and also the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge .

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.