Slothy Birthday

Hi and welcome!  I'm here with the latest challenge from Freshly Made Sketches and this week it's my turn to be challenge hostess.  I came up with what I think is an easy sketch - just right for this time of year when everything seems to be rushed and panicked!

My oldest is turning 21 on Monday (how did that happen!?!) He had a thing for sloths a few years ago, so when I saw this Art Impressions stamp set I just had to buy it to use for his birthday card.

Onto a white top-folding card base, I applied some gray embossing paste over the Tap Dance stencil from SSS.  While that was drying, I die-cut a rectangle frame die from Cement Gray cardstock.

I used the image of the sloth hanging upside down from the tree branch as my "star" in the sketch.  I colored the image and cut it out with my Scan n Cut.  Quite serendipitously, the image had a single balloon but my Scan n Cut didn't register the thin string line and cut it off.  I was going to glue it back together, but then had the idea to create my own balloons from dies.  This way, I get the balloon on the card and it also means I didn't have to find somewhere to stamp a sentiment.

I adhered everything onto the card base, popping up the sloth with foam tape.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you'll check out the rest of the DT's cards and also join in our DT call.  This is the last week, so have a go!

I'm playing along with a few challenges as well.  Lately, I haven't had the time to do any more than meet my DT commitments, so I'm killing several birds with one stone, so to speak.

Addicted to Stamps and More - Make Your Mark challenge
The Male Room - Celebrate challenge
Southern Girls Challenge - Anything Goes

Products used:

Stamps:  Slothsome Set (Art Impressions)
Ink:  Amalgam, Hickory Smoke Distress Ink
Cardstock:  White, Black, Tropical Teal, Cement Gray (MFT), X-Press It
Dies:  Pierced Rectangle Frames, Balloon Numbers (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics, Tap Dance Stencil (MFT), Embossing Paste, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Cheers
Karren

How Ya Bean?

Hi, everyone!  I'm thrilled to be here guesting at Coffee Loving Cardmakers in December.  I've decided to go with a critters and coffee theme for my guest spots and here is my first card:

As soon as I saw this stamp from Stampendous, I had to have it.  The image is so adorable and it's a nice, big stamp.  I stamped it onto some X-Press It cardstock with Amalgam ink and coloured it with Copics.  The stamp already has lots of shading, so it wasn't too difficult to colour - because I'm certainly no expert!  

I used the colour guide on the Stampendous website to colour the mice, which was a great help.

Once I was finished colouring, I went hunting for a small, coffee-related sentiment and found the perfect one in the (retired?) Oh Frappe! set by Essentials by Ellen.

I white-embossed the sentiment onto black and die-cut it with one of the sentiment dies in the Sentiment Labels die set by Simon Says Stamp, before adhering it to the coloured panel.  

I went looking through my cardstock to find something that matched the coffee cup and found a sheet of Peacock cardstock by Simon Says Stamp, which was a pretty close match, so I made a card base from a half piece of Peacock and then adhered the panel with foam tape.  Here's a photo of the Copics I used, but as there are a lot of E's in this container, I've split out what I used for each element of the image.

Mouse in Sack:  E53, E35, E57, E50, E51, E93

Gray Mouse:  W3, W5, W6, E50, E51, E93

Mouse Drinking:  E21, E23, E25, E50, E51, E93

Sack:  E47, E44, E43, E42, E40

Coffee Beans:  E37, E33, E31, E30

Coffee Word:  E47

Coffee Cup:  BG57, BG34, BG32, BG11

Shadows:  N2, N0

Thanks so much to Amy, for inviting me to be a Guest Designer.  Please head over the the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog and have a look around.

Products used:

Stamps:  Coffee Break (Stampendous), Oh Frappe (Essentials by Ellen)
Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versamark
Cardstock:  X-Press It, Peacock (SSS), Black Licorice (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics, White Embossing Powder

Cheers
Karren

Santa Ride

Hi!  It's time for the last Fusion challenge of the year and we're going out with Santa...

For my card, I pretty much replicated the inspiration photo and used the sketch as well.

Funny story with this card.  I originally made it without the stenciled snowflakes but then I kept looking at it and wishing I had snowflakes as the white Distress Paint wasn't showing up enough.  So after photographing the card (see the original photo below), I very carefully laid a snowflake stencil over the top of the four panels and applied white embossing paste through, hoping like heck that it wouldn't ruin the card.  Luckily it worked, but these are mighty big snowflakes against those little tiny houses 😄 . Here's the original

So back to the design of the card.  I was looking through my Christmas stamps and found a My Monthly Hero Kit from a couple of years ago.  It had all the elements I needed for my card so I went to work.  I masked off the snowbank using one of the dies in the kit and some masking paper, then white-embossed the tree twice - once on top of the mask and once with the mask removed.  I then applied distress ink for the night sky, after masking the moon with a circle die-cut.  Once I'd finished ink blending, I added some Weathered Wood ink to the moon to take away the whiteness.  

The little buildings were stamped in various inks to try and match the inspiration photo and then I colored the windows with a yellow Copic marker.  The Santa was stamped several times with black ink.  Finally I splashed on some white Distress Paint, slightly diluted with water and cut the panel into four pieces.

The sentiment was stamped onto the card base then I added the four panels with foam tape.  Card done - until I decided to add the snowflakes 😄

This is our last Fusion challenge of the year, so I hope you'll have time to join us.  Be sure to check out the gorgeous cards created by the design team.

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  MMH Oct 16 (Hero Arts)

Ink:  Amalgam, Versafine Onyx Black, Broken China, Faded Jeans, Black Soot, Weathered Wood Distress Inks, Schoolhouse Red (SSS), Silver Stone, Industrial Diamond, Teal Cave, Galactic Stream (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White

Accessories:  Copic, Picket Fence Distress Paint, White EP.

Holiday Owl

I'm back because it's time for another fun sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches and this week our hostess is the lovely Cecile Ribon.  When I saw the striped background on her sketch (see below), I immediately thought of this Reverse Confetti die, which I extended slightly to suit the image more.

This cute little owl was quickly colored and then cut with my Scan n Cut.  The card base was stenciled with a snowfall stencil and then I added the die-cut background with liquid glue.  The sentiment was white embossed onto black and finally I added the little owl with foam tape.

Thanks for popping by.  I hope you'll check out the cards made by the rest of the DT.

Products used:

Stamps:  Warm & Feathered Hugs, Sweet Holiday Penguins (MFT)
Ink:  Amalgam, Versamark
Cardstock:  White, black, Tropical Teal (MFT), X-Press It
Dies:  Straight Strips Pretty Panels (Reverse Confetti)
Accessories:  Copics, White EP, Embossing Paste, Falling Snow Stencil (SSS)

Cheers
Karren

Challenge Me a Stencil

Hi and welcome!  I'm here today playing along with Michelle Lupton in her annual Challenge Me a Christmas Card event.  I chose to use stencils in our cards - one of my favourite things to do and as my other favourite thing to do is Copic colouring, I decided to include that as well 😄

I have just bought the Radiating Stars stencil by Neat & Tangled and decided to use that with some distress ink and glimmer paste.  I positioned the stencil off-centre on a panel of white cardstock die-cut with a stitched rectangle die.  I then blended on some Peacock Feathers, Cracked Pistachio and Twisted Citron ink from the bottom left, fading out as I got to the top right.  Once that was finished, I removed and cleaned the stencil before re-positioning it on the panel.  I then took some Moonstone Glimmer Paste and applied a thin layer of that over the stencil.  Once that was done, I set it aside to dry while I worked on the poinsettia.

After I coloured the poinsettia and a couple of leaves, I cut them out with my Scan n Cut and adhered the leaves behind the flower.  I used some Antique Gold EP to emboss the sentiment onto a strip of black cardstock which I then die-cut with a stitched fishtail flag die.  I adhered that behind the flower then added both the flower and sentiment to the stenciled panel with foam tape.

Finally, I adhered the whole panel to a white card base and added some glitter drops to the centre of the poinsettia.  Here's another shot of that gorgeous shimmer.

Thanks, Michelle, for inviting me to play along again this year.

If you haven't already, head on over to Michelle's blog and see all her Challenge Me cards.  They're fabulous!

Products used:

Stamps:  Poinsettia Delight (Poppy Stamps), Birdie Brown Greetings Galore (MFT)
Ink:  Amalgam, Versamark, Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachiom Peacock Feathers Distress Inks
Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Black Licorice
Dies:  Stitched Rectangle Stax, Stitched Fishtail Flag Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Radiating Star Stencil (Neat & Tangled), Antique Gold EP, Moonstone Glimmer Paste (Nuvo), White Blizzard Glitter Drops (Nuvo)

Cheers
Karren

Bunny Slope

Hi and welcome!  The team at Freshly Made Sketches have another fun challenge for you and this week our hostess is the delightful and elegant Jen Brum.  Here's the card I made using her fun sketch.

And here is Jen's sketch:

If you're observant you will notice that I got my top and bottom rectangles the wrong way round.  Doh!  Still, I think it's a cute card with this ski-ing bunny.  The images were stamped and colored with Copics and cut out with my Scan n Cut.  The rectangles were die-cut with a rounded rectangle die and I then temporarily adhered them together to stencil the sky.  I die-cut a slope and then carefully die-cut it to fit both rectangles and also continue the flow of the slope.

On top of the slope I added some snow marker for some interest and then I added the colored images - some popped up on foam tape and some directly onto the panels.  To finish the card, I added some white gel pen to his scarf and Crystal Glaze to his goggles.

Thanks so much for visiting!  The DT have some fabulous cards, so be sure to check them out.

I'm linking this up to Cupcake Inspirations Challenge who have a Holiday Card challenge going on.

Products used:

Stamps:  Ready Set Snow, Snow Globe Sentiments (MFT)

Ink:  Amalgam, Broken China Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Bristol Smooth

Dies:  Rounded Rectangles (Hero Arts), Stitched Snow Drifts (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, Snow Maker Pen, Nuvo Crystal Glaze, Mini Cloud Edges Stencil (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

Cosy Christmas

Hi all and thanks for popping by!  It's time for a new challenge at Fusion and this time we have a wonderful homely inspiration pic or a CAS and fun sketch.


I created a fusion and came up with this card - inspired by the woollens in the photo and the pop of red against the neutrals.

I used a new-to-me set called Cozy Christmas by Concord & 9th and an old-to-me (!) set called Spruce & Sprigs by PTI.  I see that my teamie Jen used the same Spruce & Sprig sets to create her gorgeous card so be sure to check that out on the challenge blog.

The sentiment was white embossed onto some Cherry Crisp cardstock and then adhered onto a Grout Gray panel which was dry-embossed with the Knitted Pattern embossing folder.  I stamped the foliage and berries with MFT inks and arranged them to fit to the right of the sentiment.  Once that was all glued down, the whole panel was adhered to a white top-fold card base.  

I really wanted to color the berries with clear sparkle pen, but I've had an unfortunate accident in the past coloring over red ink with a sparkle pen which caused the ink to bleed, so I left well enough alone.

Here's a close up of the dry embossing.

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the rest of the DT cards as they're all beautiful, as always.

Products used:

Stamps:  Cozy Christmas (Concord & 9th), Spruce & Sprigs (PTI)

Ink:  Versamark, Jellybean green, Cherry Crisp (MFT)

Cardstock:  White, Grout Gray, Cherry Crisp (MFT)

Dies:  Spruce & Sprigs (PTI)

Accessories:  White EP, Knitted Pattern EF (Richard Garay)

Cheers

Karren