Encouragement

Hummingbird wishes

Hello Friends

I’ve been busy in my craft room this long weekend! First up today is the card I made for this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge using products by Penny Black.

I knew I wanted to use the wonderful fuchsia die (51-045) as well as the gorgeous hummingbird stamp from the Flying Colors set (40-739) set.

After colouring the fuchsia with distress inks, I googled images for hummingbirds…. which I don’t think I have ever seen in real life – they aren’t native to Europe and I don’t recall seeing them on my travels at all. Anyway, I digress, I couldn’t believe it when I found this image – look at the colours of that bird – and he is with a fuchsia! Amazing!

I coloured the hummingbird with distress markers and then fussy cut the image. I created a blended background with some distress inks and then cut a panel using the Antique Frames dies (51-397).

Following the sketch, I added a die cut strip (Geometric borders – 51-196) and then adhered the panel and images. To complete my card, I added a few iridescent gems and a sentiment from the Snippets set (30-283).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

AAA Cards One Third challenge with woodland twist

Hi there!

It’s time for the a new challenge at AAA Cards!  This fortnight we’d like you to create a CAS card using up to one third of the card base only; our optional twist is ‘woodland animals’! Our sponsor is Craftyscrappers .

For my card, I used an older Cottage Cutz die which I coloured using distress inks. The sentiment is by Woodware.

 

My team mates have come up with some beautiful cards which are on the AAA Cards challenge blog. We are also joined a previous challenge winner, Maria, who has some lovely inspiration on her blog!

Hope you can play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

AAA Cards Sketch challenge with movies twist

Hi there!

It’s time for the a new challenge at AAA Cards!  This fortnight we’d like you to create a CAS card using the sketch we’ve provided; our optional twist is ‘at the movies’! Our sponsor is Casual Fridays .

I’ve spent the last few weeks overhauling my craft room. Still haven’t finished, but I have discovered that my boxes of random stamps and dies contain some real gems which haven’t had a chance to shine on my cards. I wasn’t originally planning to play along with the optional twist this time, but when I saw this quote in a forgotten Stamping Bella sentiment set, I thought it would be perfect to use.

I really wanted to pair it with an evil dark dragon like the one towards the end of Enchanted, but I don’t have anything like that! I even searched through my patterned paper mountain, but couldn’t find anything…. the closest thing I had was paper with cutesy dinosaurs that looked anything but scary! So in the end, I used an old wood-mounted dragon stamp, Seedless Preserves distress oxide and some kraft paper. This turned out to be quite a different card for me, but I like that the quote has centre stage.

My team mates have come up with some beautiful cards which are on the AAA Cards challenge blog. We are also joined a previous challenge winner, Ma-mi, who has some lovely inspiration on her blog!

Hope you can play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

One in a million

Hi Everyone!

I’m playing along with the current colour challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. This week, we have a couple of shades of purple and yellow…. hmm a tricky combo !

I created a few ink blended panels and cut them with butterfly dies from Bright Rosa. I then masked off a section of my base card and stamped an image from the Garden Treasures set by Julie Hickey. The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.

Thank for stopping by!

LucieG.

Hang in there!

Hi there!

It’s time for a new challenge at AAA Cards! This fortnight we’re challenging you to use one image and the optional twist is positivity. Our sponsor is Precious Remembrance Shop

While I’m focussing on Christmas in July this month, I decided to make a non-festive card for my take on the challenge theme. I’ll share my Day 21 card a little later today.

When I saw the optional twist, I knew I had to use the fabulous ‘Newton hangs out’ set from Newton’s Nook which has a couple of super encouragement sentiments. I wanted to create a little more height with the main image so I stamped a section of the tree trunk twice. I coloured the image with my Twinkling H2Os and then masked it off. I added a few clouds cut from masking paper and then gently applied some Tumbled Glass distress ink. I love removing the mask from an image, don’t you? Almost as satisfying as heat embossing!

My team mates have come up with some beautiful cards which are on the AAA Cards challenge blog. We are also joined by the talented Sharon from the From My Craft Desk blog – she has some fabulous cards on her blog, so please do check them out too!

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.