Winter Wonderland

Hello!

I’m here with my first Crafts-U-Love DT post for September.

This month, I received a couple of products by Studio Light, the Essentials Clear Stamp Set – No.393* and the A6 Paper Pad – No.121* plus the Eleganza Craft 4 mm Glitter Gems – Silver* .

Unfortunately, only the clear stamp is in stock right now, so I have just used that one for my card this time. If you are wondering about the paper pad, I thought that it was great value for money – some fabulously festive designs and the perfect size for A6 cards – no trimming needed! The glitter gems remind me very much of Nuvo glitter drops – but of course no worrying about getting the drops the same size.. or waiting for them to dry! Two really useful products with a great price point!

I kept things simple with my card as the image contains a sentiment already so it would be perfect for using for any batch cards you needed. I embossed the image using white embossing powder and then simply blended distress ink (Antique Linen, Dried Marigold, Victorian Velvet and Seedless Preserves) over it. I used a microfibre cloth to remove ink from the image before splattering some water on top of the scene and blotting the ink dry.

There are some festive fabulous images in this line from Studio Light. I particularly like this Tree and the Reindeer!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Products marked with a ‘*’ were sent to me by Crafts-U-Love for this DT assignment.

Color Throwdown Guest Designer Week 2

Hello everyone!

This month, I have the honour of being the Guest Designer over at one of my favourite challenges, the Color Throwdown. I’m beyond thrilled!

It’s another beautiful colour palette this week – green, yellow, light blue, kraft. I decided to use kraft as my base colour and do a little colouring with my Prismacolor pencils.

I stamped the fabulous Penny Black Flower Cascade image using versamark ink and started colouring. First, I applied white pencil and then added layers and layers of colour. I wasn’t too sure about the leaves – I found it difficult to get the depth of colour that I wanted. Anyway, once I was reasonably happy I stopped colouring and revisited my initial plan…

You see, I’d originally intended to heat emboss the image in gold once my colouring was complete, but I really liked the subtle brown lines the versamark had made. So in the end, I stamped over the image a second time using Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide. Thank goodness for my MISTI!

For full details of how to enter this week’s challenge, please head over to the Color Throwdown challenge blog. As usual, the design team has some amazing inspiration:

Amy Rohl

Amy Rysavy

Barbara Anders

Broni Holcombe

Jodi Collins

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put

Vickie Zimmer

Wanda Cullen

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Be Happy

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I’ve been struggling with my mojo recently. I was so motivated to create during my Christmas in July series but it’s just disappeared this month. To be fair, life has been busy with a few home/garden challenges…

To kickstart my mojo, I decided to play along with the Global Design Project, which has a colour challenge this week. I chose a fun set my PaperArtsy (ref EKD03) and got to work. I actually embossed and coloured the image first and then thought about the design. Not the way I usually work and I ended up spending a bit of time trying out various designs before settling on this one. I’m still not completely sure about it, but sometimes you just have to stop and tell yourself, ‘that’s enough’!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Color Throwdown Guest Designer Week 1

Hello everyone!

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to say that I have the honour of being the August Guest Designer over at one of my favourite challenges, the Color Throwdown. I’m so excited!

I have to say that this week’s fabulous colour palette of green, yellow, pink and lavender was a little challenging for me… It’s a beautiful palette with some amazing possibilities BUT I have a bit of a difficult time with lavender! Whenever I try to use it for a colour challenge, I always end up with a shade I feel is too purple or too pink!

So, for this week, I played it safe and used Milled Lavender distress ink!

I thought this palette would be perfect for a flowery card and decided to use a somewhat neglected background die that I bought last year (Daisy Mosaic by Creative Expressions) and one of my favourite techniques – inlaid die cutting. I started by creating four ink blended panels (in addition to Milled Lavender, I used Spun Sugar, Scattered Straw and Mowed Lawn). I then cut each of these panels using the background die. I also cut a piece of white card with the die.

I removed all the little pieces from the white die cut panel, adhered the negative to my card base and got to work inlaying all the little bits from the ink blended die cut panels. It’s time consuming but I think it’s totally worth it!

I had originally planned to add a green frame to the card, but as I was about to cut the frame, the green negative die cut panel fell onto my card base. I really liked the green outline and so I adhered the whole green negative panel on top of the inlaid background, effectively hiding all the white!

I added a Winnie & Walter die cut sentiment and a Penny Black butterfly to complete my card.

For full details of how to enter this week’s challenge, please head over to the Color Throwdown challenge blog. As usual, the design team has some amazing inspiration:

Amy Rohl

Amy Rysavy

Barbara Anders

Broni Holcombe

Jodi Collins

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put

Vickie Zimmer

Wanda Cullen

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Hello lovely whittle cat!

Hi Everyone!

Well its been quite the stressful weekend with various house/garden issues; the atmosphere has not been conducive to creating. But I finally managed to make a card against all the odds today!

I’m playing along with a new-to-me challenge, the Global Design Project, which has a CASE the designer challenge this week. I loved the rustic feel of the inspiration card by Janneke de Jong and the design was fabulous. I’m so glad that it helped me get down to creating!

I used the cute Whittle Cat die from Poppystamps plus a couple of butterfly dies from Simon Says Stamp and Memory Box. The sentiment is by Mama Elephant and the embossing folder is by Taylored Expressions.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.