Best Wishes Bouquet

Hi and welcome to my blog!  I'm here today with a sketch by Narelle for the latest Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

Now, being a Narelle-sketch, how could I not use flowers? 😄

I created a couple of bouquets of flowers using MFTs Painted Prints stamp set and dies.  I stamped the images with Altenew inks and positioned them onto a white panel stenciled with a brick wall stencil and Grit Paste.  It's hard to see in the photo, but it has a lovely bumpy, grainy texture - just like a brick wall!  You can see a close-up down below.

The sentiment was white embossed onto black and I have to confess to cutting apart the sentiment as it was all one stamp, but I wanted a white "congratulations" and a black-framed "and best wishes" so I cut apart the stamp.  It was a really tight fit and I actually nicked the bottom part at one point, so had to fix the stamped image with a black marker.  You can't tell in the finished product, so it's all good!

I filmed the making of this card so you can watch the video below, or over on YouTube.

Thanks for visiting.  The design team have a beautiful selection of cards so I hope you'll check them out.

I'm linking this up to The Flower Challenge and chose the previous challenge from November 2016 for an Occasion card, as well as Work It Wednesday's Summer theme.

Products used:

Stamps:  Painted Prints (MFT), Loads of Wishes (Avery Elle)

Ink:  Versamark, Versafine Onyx Black, Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, Heart Beat, Rose Quartz, Puffy Heart, Purple Wine, Bamboo, Parrot, Olive, Moss (Altenew)

Cardstock:  Coral Crush, Black Licorice (MFT), White

Dies:  Painted Prints, Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT)

Accessories:  White EP, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, English Brick Wall Stencil (MFT), Distress Grit Paste (Ranger)

Cheers

Karren

Birthday Cow

Hi

I'm closing in on the end of my weekend and I've got a card to post for a couple of current challenges.  This uses the sketch at MFT Stamps and the "farm" theme at CASology.  I'm also linking to the challenge at The Male Room (Little Boys) and the Favourite Things challenge at Shopping our Stash.  My favourite things are, without a doubt, My Favorite Things stamps and dies 😄

I created a wee farm scene on my stitched tag, using Watercolor Wash patterned paper.  Oh how I love that paper - it's perfect when you don't want to use plain cardstock but you also don't want to use a busy pattern that detracts from the focal point.

I stamped, colored and die-cut the cow and put him (her!) aside so I could create the background.  I die-cut the tag from white cardstock and then from the blue and green patterned paper.  I also cut the green piece with the hill die from the Spring Scene Builder die set, and some clouds with the pale blue patterned paper.  There is no brown in the paper pack so I used Hot Fudge cardstock for the fence.  

I arranged the elements onto the tag and adhered them in place.  I added some "grass" along the bottom before adding the cow.  I was originally going to add a sentiment strip under the fence, but thought it would look too crowded, so added the sentiment along the bottom, which doesn't strictly follow the sketch, but hopefully it's allowed 😄

Thanks so much for visiting!

Products Used:

Stamps:  The Whole Herd (MFT)
Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  White, Hot Fudge, Watercolor Wash (MFT)
Dies:  The Whole Herd, Tag Builder Blueprints 3, Spring Scene Builder (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics

Cheers
Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at CASology.

Not a Cupcake in Sight...

Hi!  Welcome to another Fusion challenge.  Check out the gorgeous cupcakes on offer this week:

I have to admit, when I came up with this challenge, I never thought I'd struggle to make a card using the inspiration photo, but for weeks now I had nothing!  So I decided to work with just the sketch and one of my new Newton stamp sets.

Yep, it's another Newton card!  Sorry, not sorry 😂I thought the oval in the sketch would work well with Newton drifting up into the sky with his balloons, so I created a little scene behind him that also used the elements of the sketch.  I die-cut the grass three times and sponged some Mowed Lawn ink on the top of the blades to add dimension.  I used the Mini Cloud Stencil and some Tumbled Glass ink to create the clouds and for the sentiment panel, I white-embossed the sentiment onto a strip of black cardstock.  The black was adhered directly to a white card base, but the sky and grass were popped up on foam tape.  Finally I added Newton.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you check out the rest of the design team's cards - they're gorgeous as always.

Products used:

Stamps:  Newton's Birthday Balloons (Newton's Nook)

Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Versamark, Mowed Lawn, Tumbled Glass Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Sour Apple (MFT)

Dies:  Newton's Birthday Balloons (Newton's Nook), Grass Border (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, Mini Cloud Stencil (MFT), Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, White Gel Pen

Cheers

Karren

Newton's Boxes

Hi and welcome!  I'm here with another sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and this week it's my turn to be hostess.  Here is the simple sketch I came up with.

My teamie, Jennifer Timko, is on the Newton's Nook design team and after seeing her release posts, I had to go visit the store and buy up large, so expect to see a few Newton's Nook cards on the blog for the next wee while as I ink them up and turn them into cards 😄So here's the first:

I colored up this adorable image and cut it with my Scan n Cut before setting it aside to work on the rest of the card.  I had it in my head that I wanted an embossed resist background, so I partially embossed the Prism Lines stamp by Hero Arts and then added distress inks with my finger to create a sort of rainbow background.  I then stamped the sentiment at the bottom and added thin black strips of cardstock down either side.

I added foam tape behind that panel and adhered it to a top-folding white card base.  I then added more foam tape behind the Newton image and adhered that to the top.

Thanks so much for visiting!  My teamies have done some amazing things with my sketch, so I hope you'll head on over and check them out and I'd be thrilled if you joined in and added a card to the gallery.

I'm linking this card up to the Paper Players Animal Antics Challenge

Products used:

Stamps:  Newton Loves Boxes (Newton's Nook), Prism Lines (Hero Arts)

Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Versafine Onyx Black, Twisted Citron, Squeezed Lemonade, Worn Lipstick, Candied Apple, Peacock Feathers Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, X-Press It

Accessories:  Black Nuvo Drops, Copics, White EP

Cheers

Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Paper Players.

Muse and Muse

Hi all!  I'm here with a card I made yesterday using the inspiration from both the Muse challenge and the Muse Christmas Visions challenge.

When I first saw Anita's Muse card, I thought the white die-cut along the bottom was snowflakes and that gave me the idea to create a snowflake card.  Looking closer at her card, I can now see they are flowers, but the inspiration still stands.  I was also inspired by the white and blue color scheme and the white die-cut sentiment, although I added a touch of ink to my sentiment.

From Pam's Muse Christmas Visions card, I was inspired by the layout, the "joy" sentiment and the inky, masked circle.

I die-cut a stitched circle from masking paper and added it to a white top-folding card front.  I then sponged distress inks into the circle, keeping the centre lighter.  Before removing the mask, I spritzed the card with clear shimmer spray.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the ink had gone through the stitch lines in the circle die-cut, adding more interest.

The snowflakes are stacked three high and were also spritzed with shimmer spray before being added to the card.  The "joy" is also stacked three high and on the top one I lightly sponged the same inks I used for the circle and then also spritzed with shimmer spray.

Here's a side view where you can just see the shimmer.

Thanks for visiting!  I'm also linking this up to Southern Girls challenge and HLS June Christmas challenge.

Products used:

Ink:  Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Broken China Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White

Dies:  Let it Snowflake Too, Jumbo Peek a Boo Circle Window, Joy (MFT), Maryanne, Melody (SSS)

Accessories:  Sheer Shimmer Spray

Cheers

Karren

Shades of Blue

Hi and welcome!  I'm heading into the last day of my time off from work 😢but it's been a great break, so I'm thankful to have had it at all.

I made this card yesterday, but had to wait for the Nuvo drops to dry before taking photos.  I used the sketch and color challenge at MFT for this card.

I hope you can see the sketch under all those layers!  I had intentions of using a cover plate but I don't actually own a cover plate with three horizontal cut-outs (time to go shopping!), so I comprised and used this Snow Drifts Cover Plate but added three horizontal panels underneath in the two blue shades from the color challenge (Sno Cone and Summer Splash).

On the Sno Cone panel I stamped the sentiment from the latest card kit and, leaving the stamp in my Misti, I positioned the cover plate die-cut and re-stamped the sentiment.  I then layered two cover plate die-cuts together and added them to the card.

The flowers were stamped in various shades of the challenge colors and die-cut with the co-ordinating dies.  I arranged each bouquet into a mirror image of each other and then added them to the card.  Finally I finished with some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew.

Thanks so much for visiting.

I'm also linking this up to The Flower Challenge, where you get to choose a previous challenge.  I've chosen "Occasion" from their second challenge.

Products used:

Stamps:  Painted Prints (MFT), Brushstroke Expressions (MFT)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Buttercream, Warm Sunshine, Caramel Toffee, Dew Drops, Aqualicious, Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, Heart Beat (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Sno Cone, Summer Splash (MFT)

Dies:  Painted Prints, Snow Drifts Cover Up (MFT)

Accessories:  Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, Nuvo Crystal Drops (Morning Dew)

Cheers

Karren

Penguin Joy

Hi!  This is my second post today.  I'm enjoying having time to just craft this weekend.  I'm also trying to complete a few coloring lessons as well and this card is the result of one of those lessons.

This little image was colored as part of a lesson in pencil coloring by Alyce at Kit and Clowder, so the only credit I can take is sort of following instructions 😆

After I colored this cute digi penguin printed on Neenah Desert Storm cardstock, I die-cut the panel with a stitched rectangle die and adhered it to a top-folding Chili Powder cardbase.  The sentiment was die-cut with black cardstock and adhered across the bottom and then painted with clear sparkle pen

Thanks so much for visiting!  I'm going to link this up to Merry Monday who have a penguin challenge at the moment and the "Outside" challenge at Just Us Girls

Products used:

Stamps:  Penguin Elf digi (Whimsy Stamps)
Cardstock:  Neenah Desert Storm, Black Licorice, Chili Powder (MFT)
Dies:  Stitched Rectangle Stax, Joy (MFT)
Accessories:  Prismacolor Pencils, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Cheers
Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Merry Monday.