Other cards

Pretty Blooms

Hi there!

There’s a really interesting sketch for this week’s challenge at Freshly Made Sketches. At first I thought I may pass on entering this week because nothing sprung to mind immediately. But as is so often the way with crafting, I suddenly had an idea!

I realised that elements from the Pinkfresh Studios Pretty Blooms washi product suite by that I received in the February Create & Connect event kit would work very well. I also used a frame and sentiment stamps from the event kit.

The gold element is a Paper Rose Studio Honeysuckle die cut – I thought the shape tied in nicely with the sprigs on the washi.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Nordic Hello There

Hello everyone!

I was disappointed when a crafty order didn’t arrive as hoped yesterday… but honestly, it’s not as if I don’t have any unused crafty supplies! So my entry for the first Color Throwdown challenge of March uses a new-to-me Poppystamps die set called Nordic Drifting Flowers.

I have to say that I completely overlooked this set when it was released last year. It was only when I saw it used on the Poppystamps website that I knew I had to have it! My inspiration is that very Poppystamps card – and I used Craft Consortium paper in the challenge combo of light brown, blue and dark brown.

I cut the die four times, once in each colour and again from the blue paper and then had a lot of fun assembling the flowers. I used a frame cut using a Pinkfresh Studio die set to house my images which I then arranged…. this part always takes me far too long because I always second guess myself. This time, I took photos of each iteration before I landed on my favoured layout – I think it helped having photos of previous arrangements to look at!

The sentiment is by My Favorite Things.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Colourful Bold Butterfly card

Happy Monday everyone!

It’s the second of our three holiday Mondays this month and after an amazing Coronation weekend, I’m feeling slightly disorientated!

Anyway, this week, my fabulous order from Spellbinders’ recent Warehouse Clearance showed up. It included the amazing Butterfly Card Creator die set. I have looked at this set so often, but was a bit nervous because the dies are BIG and I tend to lean towards the smaller designs. But as soon as I saw it on sale at a truly bargain price, I snapped it up. I’ve used it today to play along with the Color Throwdown which has a colourful combo of sage green, yellow, pink and brown.

The sentiment is by Birch Press Design.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Die cuts only – tulips

Hi again everyone!

Next up today is my entry for the Poppystamps challenge where the theme is ‘die cuts only’.

I knew I wanted to use my newest Poppystamps die set – the Layered Tulip die set so started by cutting some old inky panels with the dies while I thought about the rest of the card. I wondered if I could use an embossed background but given the theme I played it safe with the leafy frame from the Fern and Daisy Pop up Easel set. I added some foliage from a Memory Box flower set.

Then I spent a little while looking at all my sentiment dies – I was rather surprised that I don’t have many generic sentiments by Poppystamps, but fortunately this Hello worked well!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Just Us Girls Guest Designer Week 2

Happy Saturday!

I’m so honoured and excited to be the June Guest Designer for the Just Us Girls challenge! Thank you to all the lovely design team for making me feel so welcome last week – you are all so kind!

The theme of this week’s challenge is ‘add a moving element’. Now I’m not really into making interactive cards but I have always had fun making them in various cardmaking classes! Today I decided to keep it super simple with an action wobbler. And I have a story again too!

First, the card, which I made using some products sent to me by Penny Black. I started by masking an area on my card base and blending some distress ink. Then I cut and adhered the Geometric Circles background die (51-644) on top. Then I turned to the fabulous Sweet Sip mini set (30-905) which I stamped twice with my Frayed Burlap archival ink. I fussy cut the kitty and her tail from one image and fussy cut the whole of the second image, and trimmed off most of the kitty so that I would have room for the wobbler. I coloured in the images using my Twinkling H2O paints.

I then adhered kitty’s tail to the mail image and then used two layers of foam tape to adhere the cup to the card base (I didn’t want a big gap between the kitty’s head and the cup). I added the action wobbler under the kitty’s head and positioned it on my card. I then stamped out the sentiment, which I had straightened slightly on my stamping block (as it is a curved sentiment) and added it to my card base along with some tiny gems.

And now for the story. My action wobblers had gone AWOL but while I was searching for them, I finally found a tiny pinecone stamp that I have been searching for for ALMOST ONE YEAR! It was from a long-retired set and was one of my favourite pinecone images. I was so upset when it went missing during Christmas in July 2021 – I knew it hadn’t been thrown out with my craft room rubbish, but also knew it could have ended up anywhere in the house… I never gave up hope, but didn’t expect to find it in a drawer right to where I sit!

Head over to the Just Us Girls challenge to see the amazing inspiration from the talented design team – we hope you can play along this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Just Us Girls Guest Designer Week 1

Happy Saturday!

I’m so honoured and excited to be the June Guest Designer for the Just Us Girls challenge!

The theme of this week’s challenge is ‘paintbrush’ – and I wanted to share the story behind the card! Sorry this is rather on the long side!

I’ve been crafting for almost 15 years…. but do I own any paintbrush dies or stamps?? The short answer is no. The longer answer is I spent a ridiculous amount of time going through ALL my craft supplies as I was CONVINCED I had a paintbrush stamp from back in the day. I was SO SURE that I even recalled colouring the image…. but ‘it’ was nowhere to be found. I did come across an old Elzybells Art Stamps set which included some fun sentiments and a small image with some paintbrushes, but I wanted the brushes to be more of a focal point….

I have a rule that I don’t buy supplies just to make a challenge card and although I could think of ways of incorporating brush MARKS, I felt I had to stick to the theme of paintbrush…. so I broke my rule and ordered the My Favorite Things paintbrush die set from my go-to craft store that usually dispatches the same/next day… can you see where this story is going?

Well, yes, this time they did not dispatch my order for 3 days and as it’s the Platinum Jubilee super-long weekend in the UK, I knew that I wouldn’t get the die set before the challenge launch.

So what did I do? Well, I went through my dies and created my own paintbrushes using parts from die sets by My Favorite Things and Simon Says Stamp!

I stencilled some glitter paste on my card base before I added the ‘paintbrushes’ and a pot. And all that searching wasn’t wasted as I even used a Pablo Picasso quote from that old Elzybells set!

What do you think of the outcome?

Head over to the Just Us Girls challenge to see the amazing inspiration from the talented design team – we hope you can play along this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.