Congratulations

The Peppermint Zone

Hello friends!

I’m playing along with the latest Color Throwdown challenge where the combo is navy, aqua and coral.

I decided that it was time I broke out the fabulous Winnie & Walter Peppermint Zone background die that I have coveted since it was released in December. I was lucky to snap it up in March!

I adhered the die cut to a piece of glitter card using some foam tape. Hopefully the tape is strong enough to hold it in place! Then I turned my attention to the coral accents and created a background panel using Abandoned Coral distress oxide ink.

I think the background die itself is absolutely eye-catching and really didn’t want to cover any of it! In the end, I chose a classic word die, also by Winnie & Walter, which I offset slightly, and a few stars.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Deco Diamonds

Hello everyone!

Today I’m sharing a card I made using the fabulous Deco Diamonds background stamp from Simon Says Stamp.

I embossed the image using gold embossing powder and then added some Ken Oliver Color Bursts and Nuvo shimmer powder. I left it to dry naturally as I didn’t want to ‘over cook’ my gold embossing. I was very pleased when I saw how sparkly it turned out!

To finish off the card, I added a sentiment and star die cuts, all by Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Happy World Cardmaking Day

Hello everyone!

Life has been busy with no crafting time, but I had to make a card today, right! After all, it’s world cardmaking day!

I was really pleased to see a list of prompts that Susan Opel shared on Instagram as I was finding it quite difficult to decide what to create! I chose ‘dry emboss’ with a Spellbinders folder, ‘3 or more ink colours’ (crushed olive, Victorian velvet and antique linen) and ‘no stamping’ (Simon Says Stamp dies). However, this card took me FAR longer than I expected!

This was mainly down to a few issues with my embossing folder. It’s new – I found it at Alexandra Palace a few weeks ago after looking for it for YEARS (I think I first saw it in Simon Says Stamp in 2014). It’s a wonderful design and embosses very deeply, but unfortunately it also causes the paper to crack or tear in a few places. After googling this, I tried a suggestion to wet the paper before embossing. As I was creating an ink-blended background, I could only wet one side of the paper so I still had some cracking but a definite improvement. And the strategic positioning of die cuts hid the rest of the cracking!!

I’m adding this to the SSS blog linky today – they are offering a gift card and magazine subscription to two winners. I just realised that we have until next week to link our cards! I thought the deadline was tonight! But I’m pleased that my misunderstanding helped me focus on actually making a card today!!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Bask in your Awesomeness

Hi everyone!

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge today and paired my new Hero Arts seal stamps with a great Paper Smooches sentiment that I purchased at the same time.

Isn’t that seal cute? He reminds me so much of one I saw in Alaska who was having a glorious time showing off for us in the sun-drenched waters as our boat went past him!

Anyway, I followed a technique by Tim Holtz/Jennifer McGuire to create the background using distress oxide inks on glossy paper – I can’t use alcohol inks so I love that they showed us how to create a similar effect with distress oxides!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

Color Throwdown Celebration

 

Good morning everyone!

This week, I have the honour of being the Guest Designer over at one of my favourite challenges – the Color Throwdown Challenge.

The palette for this challenge is navy, blush, gold and white, another fabulous combination, don’t you think?

I had a lot of fun with this combo and ended up making several cards!

I wanted to celebrate the 500th challenge – isn’t that an amazing milestone! I’ve only been playing along with the challenge for a couple of years and whenever my mojo goes AWOL I always look back for a past colour combo to get my creativity flowing again! Many congrats to the whole team, past and present!

Right, onto my cards…

For the celebration card, I used a new embossing folder that I found at Michaels during a recent trip to the US. I used dies from My Favorite Things and Crealies for the balloons and added a die cut  sentiment by Penny Black to an Avery Elle banner to finish off the card.

 

 

For the hello card, I heat embossed a Penny Black image with Altenew Peach Gold embossing powder and added some die cut butterflies by Simon Says Stamp. The frame and sentiment are by My Favorite Things and Sizzix/Karen Burniston.

There’s some amazing inspiration from the Color Throwdown DT over on the challenge blog – I do hope you can play along this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

You totally did it

Hi everyone!

It’s been quite cloudy here so I decided to pull out some sunny Distress Oxide inks to play with today.

After creating the blended background, I added some water speckles and then die cut a Simon Says Stamp circle and sentiment. I used another scrap of card to blend some yellow ink for the fringe (cut using a Mama Elephant die).

The embossed sentiment is by My Favourite Things.

I’m entering this into the current Case This Sketch challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge (ink blending).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.