Technique – ink blending

Featuring ink blending

Somewhere over the rainbow…

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards and our theme this fortnight is ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ – we want to see your rainbow cards! Our sponsor is Stamplorations.

Last year, I took the ‘Rainbow Maker’ class from Online Card Classes and practiced a lot of rainbow techniques – I love using them on my cards, so I really had fun coming up with a card for this theme!

In the end, I decided to use a Poppystamps die cut from a rainbow background that I created with distress inks. My inspiration for today’s card was this fabulous card by the talented Lisa Addesa! To finish my card, I added a sentiment from My Sentiments Exactly and a few gems.

I’m also entering this into the current Poppystamps challenge – ‘Birthday Party’.

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by our sponsor Shery as well as the fabulous Karen from Kenny’s Cards as our Guest Designer. She has some super creations – you must pay her a visit!

Thanks for stopping by – I do hope you play along with us!

LucieG.

Bask in your Awesomeness

Hi everyone!

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge today and paired my new Hero Arts seal stamps with a great Paper Smooches sentiment that I purchased at the same time.

Isn’t that seal cute? He reminds me so much of one I saw in Alaska who was having a glorious time showing off for us in the sun-drenched waters as our boat went past him!

Anyway, I followed a technique by Tim Holtz/Jennifer McGuire to create the background using distress oxide inks on glossy paper – I can’t use alcohol inks so I love that they showed us how to create a similar effect with distress oxides!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

Geometric circles

Hello everyone!

My name is Lucie and I may have a problem with background dies! Love them all! But they have a higher price point so I often dither before committing….

But as soon as I saw this fabulous background die from Revere Confetti, I knew I had to have it and snapped it up as soon as it was in store! Isn’t it fabulous?

I have so many ideas for it, but today I simply popped the die cut on top of one of my rejected distress oxide backgrounds. I’m so glad I save them like the guru Tim Holtz suggests – what might not be right immediately is often just right at a later date!

The sentiment die is from Winnie & Walter.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Pink Birthday

Hello everyone!

Today I have my second DT post for Crafts-U-Love using the fabulous Pinkfresh Studio stamps. You can see the first card I made with these stamps here.

I really wanted to use the large ‘Happy’ stamp from the Word Series set – I love the pretty flower and leaf details and knew I had to include it as a focal point. As you can see, these sets also have a lot of smaller images and as I rarely use a lot of smaller stamps on one card, I thought it would be good to challenge myself to use them on my next card.

I remembered seeing a cute card that May Park created last year using small stamped images and used this as my inspiration. I loved the idea of colouring all those cute images, but felt that a monochromatic colour scheme would support my ‘Happy’ focal point.

I started by embossing the sentiment in gold embossing powder – the ‘birthday’ is from the Hero Arts Happy Birthday Messages set (which coincidentally is actually part of this week’s Limited Time Offers at Crafts-U-Love this week!).

I then blended a background using Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide ink before randomly stamping the images using the same colour of regular distress ink.

Once I had decided on the design, this card came together really quickly and I enjoyed using those smaller images. Think I will definitely be reaching for smaller stamps more frequently in future!

Have a lovely weekend – thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Supply List

Here are the links to the products I used on my card. Products marked with an asterisk (*) were kindly sent to me to use.

Pinkfresh Studio – Itty Bitty Elements stamp set*

Pinkfresh Studio – Word series stamp set – Happy*

Hero Arts – Happy Birthday Messages stamp set

Distress Oxide ink – Worn Lipstick

Distress ink – Worn Lipstick

Embossing Powder – Nuvo Classic gold

 

It’s a frame up!

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards! This fortnight we are challenging you to ‘use a frame’ and our sponsor is Stamplorations.

I often use frames on my cards, but it’s been quite a while since I used this sketch frame die from Simon Says Stamp. I inlaid a blended background that I created with regular distress ink and then added a Simon Says Stamp flower die cut on top.

I wasn’t going to add a greeting at first but then I decided to include one. I planned to add a small die cut sentiment but didn’t have any that could fit into the space I wanted to use – so this is actually cut with a ‘happy valentine’s day’ die – but I think it works quite well!

I’m also entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge – ‘Anything Goes’ and the current Timeout Challenge – ‘warm’.

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by our sponsor Sherry as well as the super-talented Natasha as our Guest Designer. Natasha’s instagram handle is ‘craftawaywithme’ but she has just started her own blog – craftawaywithme.com. She has some fabulous creations – you must pay her a visit!

Thanks for stopping by – I do hope you play along with us!

LucieG.

 

Stamplorations birthday

Happy Friyay, people!

My first Stamplorations order arrived this morning – I had been coveting the ‘Birthday’ die cut for quite some time so I knew I had to use it straightaway!

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge and used a panel I’d made with distress oxide inks to cut the base panel and the word die. I cut the second, smaller rectangle from some fabulous handcrafted cotton paper by Tonic Studios – isn’t it beautiful? It really shimmers in the light. Finally, I stamped a small ‘happy’ greeting onto a white banner and adhered everything to  a kraft card base.

I’m also adding this to the Stamplorations ‘Never-ending Anything Goes’ linky.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.