Cheery winter wishes

Hi there!

Today I’m finally using a beautiful cling stamp called ‘Cheery’ (40-909) that was kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

I stamped the image in the centre of my card and coloured it with my Twinkling H2Os. I then added a frame from the Border Beauty Stick and Shine collection (15-008) and applied silver foil (21-001). The shine is so difficult to capture – this photo shows it beautifully but the angle of the lighting means that the greens are off – they are far closer to the colours in my first two photos!

Anyway, I masked off the frame and softly blended some Tumbled Glass distress ink across the background. I cut a couple of bows from the Jumbo Bauble die set (51-743) – one from white card which I coloured with my Twinklings and one from some silver card. After arranging them on my image, I added a sentiment from the Holiday Snippets set (30-307) and a few gems to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Beware of the Cat!

Hi everyone!

There’s an amazing sketch over at the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week – lots of layers!

I chose to make another Halloween card using a bargain Simon Says Stamp embossing folder and a fabulous cat stamp by Picket Fence Studios.

I stamped and embossed the cat image on vellum as I didn’t want to hide the ghosts completely. I ended up using a couple of additional layers of vellum behind the stamped image to soften the ghosts a little.

The sentiment is from the same Picket Fence Studios set.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

A gliding fly by!

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along in the Color Throwdown challenge using some products that arrived this week in my order from Simon Says Stamp.

The combo this week is orange, pale blue and cream – another set that’s perfect for autumnal cards and I loved the inspiration photo so much – I was VERY tempted to pull out my pumpkin dies! But my keenness to use some of my new purchases won instead!

I love the Simon Says Stamp Gliding Butterflies embossing folder and stamp set as soon as I saw it in this year’s Stamptember release! I rarely pay full price for embossing folders but this one is too special and I’m to impatient to wait for a sale. I coloured the butterflies with Altenew and distress inks and thought about using some foundry wax like Nichol Spohr did with her AMAZING inspiration canvas. But I decided against it in the end because I need more practice with that medium!

As I wanted to use a lot of butterflies, I chose a slimline cardbase and applied a few sprays of Unravelled distress mic spray. The shimmer is amazing!!

I stamped a sentiment from the Thinking of You set (30-825) that Penny Black kindly sent me before adhering the butterflies to my card base.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Snowcup

Happy Festive Friyay everyone!

I have to confess that I almost didn’t play along with the challenge at the 52 Christmas card challenge where the theme is ‘Christmas Cup’. I do have a few Christmas mug stamps but I wanted to do something different…. Then today I remembered a bargain cup set that I go from Simon Says Stamp YEARS ago. I’ve never used the cup, but I did use the spoon from the set to make this card last year. Anyway, today was the day that the cup die finally had a chance to shine!

I also used one of my newest stamp sets – the Snowmen layered stamp set by Kitchen Sink Stamps, which sadly you can’t get from a UK store as far as I know (come on Seven Hills/ Dies to Die for/ Bumbleberrys!!)

I used three Altenew inks for the snowman and added extra die cuts coloured with distress inks. Lastly, I used a stencil with Tumbled Glass and Frayed Burlap distress inks to ground my die cuts and a sentiment from the Shine Upon You mini set (30-928) which was kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Fall flourish

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along in the Color Throwdown challenge using some products kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

The combo this week is orange, yellow and green – another set that’s perfect for autumnal cards! In fact when I saw this combo, I thought about doing a die cut leaf card…. but I really want to try my new mica stains for that idea and they haven’t arrived yet… hopefully they will get here this week!

Anyway, I LOVE Chinese Lanterns and thought that the beautiful Fall Flourish stamp (40-783) would work perfectly with the challenge colours. I coloured the image with my beloved Twinkling H2O paints and then fussy cut around the image – which wasn’t as tricky as I was fearing.

I decided that the yellow would serve as my backdrop and used a stencil from the Background Basics set (25-021) – I love how there are several sizes of stencils in this set – especially as I often use UK card sizes which are different from the US sizes. For this card, I used a larger rectangle stencil and blended Squeezed Lemonade/Scattered Straw distress inks before splattering some yellow paint on top.

I adhered the image with some foam tape and added some sequins and the sentiment from the Fall Fence set (30-931) to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Bat and Hats

Happy Saturday friends!

I wasn’t planning on making a Halloween card this weekend, but when I saw the Freshly Made Sketches challenge, I could not get a Halloween idea out of my head… so this morning, I got busy with some products kindly sent to me by Penny Black.

This card evolved a LOT as I played around with the stamps and dies! The bat and hats were the only constant! The bat is from the Ghostly Greetings set (30-594) and the hat is from the Sweet Witch mini set (30-597). I didn’t mask the witch’s face when I stamped the images but then I decided that I wants to add some depth to the image. So, I cut some ovals from black card, adhered them under the hat image and then fussy cut around it to leave a thin white border.

I had originally planned to include two more stamped images but when I started to assemble the card, I decided a couple of glittery die cuts might provide some nice contrast! As I went through my newly-organised dies, I spotted the vine die in the Hanging Planter set (51-501) which I thought would work well – I cut into the back of the glitter card to reverse the image.

I wanted to add some colour to the top of my card to ground the images, but I didn’t want to blend ink as I had done that on my Big Boo card. So I smooshed some Frayed Burlap distress ink instead and added a tiny amount of Crooked Broomstick Mica stain as well.

Finally and I hung the images from one of the branch dies in the Nestled set (51-722) and added white Nuvo drops to create the berries and complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.