Love and Friendship

This category includes: Valentines Day, engagement, wedding, anniversary, friends

Purple and Green be bold blooms

 

Hi there!

I finally got hold of Spellbinders’ Be Bold Blooms die set and I love it even more in real life! I’ve been kicking myself for not grabbing it when I saw it at the start of the year, so I certainly didn’t dither when I saw that Sir Stampalot had them back in stock at the end of last week.

So for my first of undoubtedly MANY cards using this set, I’m playing along with the Color Hues challenge where the two colours are green and purple. I had fun with all my old Bazzill Basic cardstock – and I’m very grateful for all the monochromatic packs I bought back in the day!

After cutting the blooms, I pulled out the Welcome Fall (Happy Harvest) die set by Nichol Spohr for Spellbinders and die cut the apple basket. This basket has open sides and I always like to fill it with foliage rather than see the background through it! So I cut a few extra leaves and adhered them to the back of the basket before arranging the Be Bold Blooms.

Finally, I added a Woodware sentiment to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Love Big

Hello Everyone!

Today I’m using Penny Black products to play along in the Color Throwdown challenge which has a virbant palette of pink, orange and green.

As I was going to use mainly dies, I decided to get inky first and made a few panels using distress inks and sprays which I then die cut. I used the fabulous wreath and butterflies from the Soaring die set (51-731) and leaves from the Garden Greens set (51-652). Can you see the shimmer on those leaves? That’s from the distress mica spray! I cut the flowers from the Cherry Blossom set (51-419), coloured them with distress ink and added a few white Nuvo drops.

I stamped a sentiment from the Love Big set (30-898) before splattering some green paint across the card base – I did cover the sentiment first though  because you never really know with random splatters, do you!!

Anyway, I then adhered all my die cuts to the card base and added a few gems and pearls to the butterflies to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Just Breathe

Hi there!

Today I’m playing along with the sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches using Penny Black products.

As soon as I saw the New Adventures clear stamp set (30-902), I wanted it! I’ve mentioned before that I found yoga in 2021 and I have continued it… my daily practice is really part of my way of life now, and I love it! Anyway, I decided that the image of the girl doing cobra (or maybe that’s upward dog?!) would work perfectly with the sketch so I stamped it with my Frayed Burlap Archival ink and coloured it with my Twinkling H2Os. Then I fussy cut around the image – I left a small white border but later decided I didn’t want that so I cut right up to the ink – fortunately this is a really easy image to cut!

I then created a blended centre panel using distress inks and adhered the image using foam squares. I added a sentiment from the Yoga Builder set (30-714) and a few butterflies from the  Soaring die set (51-731) to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Make a Splash!

Hello Everyone!

Today I’m playing along with CAS challenge at The Paper Players where the theme is ‘April Showers’.

I pondered this card for a while as I really wanted to use a sentiment that says ‘April showers bring May flowers’ but I couldn’t come up with a design that I liked using the sentiment (which is quite large)…. Then I remembered the My Monthly Hero February 2017 kit…

Confession time here, friends…. I am ashamed to say that I bought this kit when it came out… but I have NEVER used it. In fact it still had the bow around it. How embarrassing! At least I know I tend to use my new stuff quite quickly nowadays… and at least I am using the kit now… albeit five years on.

I created a soft background using a hexagon stencil and then stamped/die cut the images before colouring them with Twinkling H2Os. I wanted to use a different sentiment from those in the set and tried an old Simon Says Stamp sentiment first. Sadly part of the stamp wouldn’t stamp out so I had to abandon that idea and rather than add a sentiment to cover it up, I quickly created another ink-blended hexagon.

This time I added a Reverse Confetti sentiment without incident (phew)!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Les fleurs piquantes

Hello Everyone!

Today I’m playing along in the Just Us Girls challenge which has a colour combo of red, black and white.

What a bold combo! I toyed with using a black background, but chose to use white in the end. I decided to use my new Fleurs Piquantes die from Simply Graphic as the focal point for this card and coloured the die cuts with black and red alcohol markers. I added detail to the flowers using red pencil, but it’s pretty difficult to see that.

I wanted to add something extra to the background and so stencilled some glitter paste using a star stencil. I added a Simon Says Stamp sentiment to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

The Sweetest Koala

Hello Everyone!

Today I’m playing along in the Just Add Ink challenge where the theme is favourite animal.

My favourite animal is a seal but I made a card with a seal relatively recently so I was quite keen to use another favourite – the koala.

I always remember when I saw my first koala in the wild – on Magnetic Island. It was so special spotting him high in his tree looking very annoyed to see a few people invading his peace and quiet! I remember the whole trip so clearly… and I am shocked to realise that it was almost 20 years ago. How is that even possible?!

Anyway, onto my card. I decided to use Simon Says Stamps’ Picture Book koala. Last time I used him was in tribute to the shocking Australian fires in 2020. It feels like that has long been forgotten by the rest of the world now, but hopefully work on the koala breeding programme is on track.

I cut the koala from a couple of pieces of card that I’d covered with distress oxide ink. I sprayed them with water to oxidise the ink a bit as I wanted the fur to be a bit speckled. After assembling the koala, I added eyelashes and rosy cheeks – I have to confess, I was a bit nervous adding those eyelashes as I often mess up fine lines!

I then die cut the Poppystamps Frieda Wreath from a green inky panel I made some time ago and adhered all die cuts to my card base. I added a My Favorite Things sentiment to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.