Altenew Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop

Hi there!

I’m excited to say that the AAA Cards Challenge was invited to join a fun blog hop that Altenew is hosting. A total of 12 challenge blogs are participating and you have the chance to win one of 10 $25 Altenew gift certificates. Full details are on the Altenew blog.

Some of the AAA Cards DT have already joined in with the fun and created some cards using Altenew products – check them out on the AAA Cards blog!

I love Altenew products and have all their ink cubes – they are my go-to whenever I do layered stamping! I also have so many of their floral stamps but as my cardmaking preferences are leaning more towards die-cutting nowadays, I decided to pull out some of my beautiful Altenew dies for my card.

I cut and coloured some foliage from the Branches and Berries die set using my Twinkling H2O paints – can you see that shimmer?! Next I cut the vases from the Mantel Decor – Spring Die Set. You would not believe how I stalked UK retailers waiting for this set! I just love the size of those vases!

I wanted to use the Textured Burlap die to ground my vase cluster but felt that the whole die cut competed with the delicate florals. I toyed with embossing it on the card base but in the end I decided to use part of the die cut to ground the vases. Finally I added a sentiment from the Flower Vine stamp set.

Hope you enjoy the blog hop and can join the fun by sharing your own cards on the Altenew link up!!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Totally Amazing Poppies

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along with the colour challenge at The Paper Players and the sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

When I first saw the sketch challenge, I struggled with it a bit and it was only when I saw the colour challenge that I thought that tall poppies could work perfectly for both challenges! So I cut my Memory Box Prim Poppy die and coloured it with distress ink and added a bit of detail with a coloured pencil. Next I cut two yellow strips from some of my patterned paper mountain and added a Whimsy Stamps sentiment and a few die cut stars to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Sealiously Amazing

Hello again everyone!

Next today I’m playing along with the colour challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. It’s such a fun palette, but it did take me quite a while to decide what to create!

I had toyed with using this beautiful Simply Graphic seal die for another challenge this week, but in the end decided it would be perfect for this challenge. To create my little scene, I made an ink blended panel using a couple of distress inks (Seedless Preserves and Candied Apple) to create the razzleberry colour and cut a few Poppystamps Whittle Mounds from it. I then inked a blue square in the centre of my card base and arranged the mounds and seal.

To complete my take, I added a sentiment by Reverse Confetti.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

AAA Two Quarters with Favourite Colours Twist

Hi there!

It’s time for a new challenge at AAA Cards!  This fortnight we’d like you to create a CAS card using two quarters of your card. Lots of rules with this one:

  • there needs to be two distinct quarters on your CAS card
  • two quarters could be one half, but we’d like to see a space between the quarters if this is the layout you opt for
  • ideally we’d like to see all images and the sentiment confined to the two quarters, but we will allow a sentiment to straddle the two quarters or even a sentiment outside of the two quarters as long as it’s not too big or dominant
  • the rest of the card should be plain empty ‘white’ space without any pattern, texture or embossing

The optional twist is ‘favourite colours’.

I must confess, this is my least favourite challenge theme! I know DT members have to stick to the rules and I’ve really struggled with designs for this one. Luckily, I remembered that the last time we had this theme, there was some AMAZING inspiration in our gallery – I particularly loved the designs that Sent Sue and Darnell came up with. Many thanks to all of you for inspiring me with this challenge theme!

I chose the elegant Bali corner die by Memory Box for my take. At first I tried the design on a UK A6 card base but it looked like each die cut took up more than a quarter. So I tried it with a larger (7″x5″) base. It looked perfect! However, like Sue, I got out my ruler and calculator and got measuring. Turns out each die covers exactly one quarter of the card base! Amazing!

I used to say my favourite colour was purple but I don’t really have a favourite colour at the moment. I have lots of favourite colour combos but in the end I decided to keep the colouring very simple and just blended some wilted violet distress ink on the flowers.

To complete my card, I added a Clearly Besotted sentiment.

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 and one of my favourite cardmakers, Trina, who always comes up with the most beautiful cards. I’m guessing blue will make an appearance on her card!! You know, I still think Tim Holtz should have named his latest colour Trina Blue!

Hope you can play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

White Berry Wreath

Hi there everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge where the colour combo is grey, kraft and white. This would have been perfect for another Christmas card, but I decided to go with a non-festive card this time!

For my card, I cut the beautiful Joy Crafts Circle of Berries die from kraft and coloured it with my white Prisma pencil. I then cut it twice from vellum and layered all three wreaths to my card base. I adhered the beautiful Pinpoint Butterfly Trio (Memory Box) and then an Avery Elle sentiment before adding LOADS of baby sequins to the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

CAS Christmas Guest Designer

Hi there!

I am so delighted to be a Guest Designer for this month’s CAS Christmas Challenge.  The theme this month is ‘ornaments’.

For my CAS card, I used a beautiful PaperArtsy stamp which fits the theme but is rather unusual! I’ve has this set for a while now, but I don’t think I’ve ever used this image. It was such fun to colour with my Twinkling H2O paints – the shimmer is amazing in real life but always so difficult to capture on camera!

I was a bit nervous about adding a sentiment as the first few sentiments I tried seemed a bit too large, so I was quite relieved when I found this small sentiment by Mama Elephant.

The CAS Christmas DT has come up with some amazing inspiration over on the challenge blog. I hope you can play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.