Birthday Letter

Hi and welcome!  It's a long weekend here in New Zealand as it is our national holiday today, Waitangi Day.  I took some time to make a card for some challenges.  I'm so happy that MFT Stamps have started up their card challenges so I had to play along with the first challenge, which is a sketch.  Even though MFT Stamps has closed its shop doors, I will continue to use their products, partly because I have more MFT in my craft room than anything else, but also because I love their products.  

I am also playing along with the hearts die challenge at Just Us Girls, the birthday challenge at Krafty Chicks and the pink and red challenge at Color Hues. 

All the stamps and dies on this card are MFT Stamps.  I started by making the little envelope and letter and then I found an already coloured hand so had to incorporate that.  I adhered it all to a vellum pierced heart die and set it aside.  The pink background was stamped with the Romantic Script background stamp using pink ink.  

Onto a white card base, I embossed the bottom portion with the Subtle embossing folder and then added the pink panel.  I put some liquid glue behind the vellum where it wouldn't show and added that.

Finally I white heat embossed the sentiment and adhered that, making sure it covered up the edge of the hand so it wasn't floating in mid-air 😄.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps: Romantic Script, Mini Messages & More, Bitty Birthday Wishes (MFT)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Versamark, Dusty Pink (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Black, Vellum, Blush, Dahlia (Spellbinders), red scrap

Dies: Paper Goods, Crafty Hands, Pierced Heart Stax (MFT)

Accessories:  White EP, Copics, Subtle Embossing Folder (SU)

Cheers

Karren

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Thinking of Cosmos

Hi! It's Freshly Made Sketches time and this week our hostess is Kim Singdahlsen.  I went from memory when making my card and sort of got my angled panels at the wrong angle but I hope you can still sort of see the sketch!

I have been waiting for these Garden Cosmos dies to come back in stock for a long time and snapped them up as soon as I got the notification from my NZ retailer, Krafters Cart.  They are just gorgeous and I'm so pleased with them.  I die-cut everything with white cardstock and did some ink-blending on all the pieces, going for a soft apricot look to the flowers.

The angled strips were cut, then stamped then embossed before being added to a white card base for a white-on-white look.  If you've been following me for any length of time, you might have known that I really struggle with angled panels so this sketch was a bit of a challenge, but by keeping it tone-on-tone, it was easier to work with.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps: Assorted Greetings (Gina K Designs)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Apricot Frost, Citronella (Altenew), Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink

Cardstock: White

Dies: Craft-a-Flower: Garden Cosmos (Altenew)

Accessories: Burlap Embossing Folder (Honey Bee Stamps), Tea Party Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers

Karren

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Star

Hi and welcome back!  It's time for a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and this week our hostess is  Jen Mitchell.  Jen gave us a square sketch which is always a fun change.

I dug out some NBUS dies from MFT Stamps for my card and paired them with some patterned paper and some ink-blending to come up with my card.

It's all fairly self-explanatory so not much to say about the card this week.  I arranged all the die-cut and ink-blended elements together and adhered them to the card base after adding the patterned paper and a strip of red cardstock.  Finally I added a simple sentiment.

Thanks for looking.  The design team, as always, have created some fabulous cards so I hope you'll check them out.

I'm linking this card up to the Addicted to CAS challenge which has a prompt of "food".  

Products used:

Stamps: Movie Night (MFT)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Scattered Straw, Lost Shadow, Vintage Photo Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, Black, Poppy (Spellbinders), Paradise (Hero Arts), Paper Bag (Lawn Fawn), Floor to Ceiling Patterned Paper (MFT)

Dies: Movie Icons (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

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Blue Leaves

Here I am back again - two days in a row - that must be a record!  I made this card for the Color Hues blue and white challenge and the Inskpirational shades of blue challenge.

I was drawn to the blue squares in the Inskpirational visual prompt so after embossing and ink-blending my leaves, I decided to go with a postage theme and die-cut pieces with both a rectangle and a square postage edge die set.  I backed both pieces with a Midnight postage edge border and overlapped them for added interest.  I found the Herringbone Parquet panel already die-cut with my Midnight cardstock, so decided to go with a blue-on-blue theme.

Finally, I went looking for a pre-foiled sentiment and found this one which worked perfectly.  The postage images and the sentiment are popped up with foam tape to provide some separation from the background.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Ink:  Uncharted Mariner, Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink

Cardstock: White, Midnight (C&9)

Dies: Postage Edge Rectangles, Postage Edge Squares (Spellbinders), Herringbone Parquet (The Greetery), Wonderful Sentiments hot foil and dies (Pink Fresh Studio)

Accessories: Leafy Splendor Embossing Folder and Stencils (Altenew), black hot foil

Cheers

Karren

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Bluebird

Hi and welcome!  I'm trying to spend more time in my craft room this year to try and bring back some of the joy in the hobby that disappeared when my son passed in 2019.  Today, I made a card for a few challenges, which I used to do every week, but now do so very rarely.  This card is for Addicted to Stamps & More (Any Occasion), Time Out Challenges Favourite Technique (stenciling and ink-blending), Krafty Chicks Masculine Challenge and Just Us Girls Stencil Challenge.

Any New Zealanders reading this post will hopefully recognise my inspiration for this Valentine card for my husband.  For those that don't recognise it, this is a play on one of the most popular potato chip brands (see photo of packet below).  He loves potato chips so buying this die and stencil set from Hero Arts was a no-brainer.  I die-cut the elements from white cardstock and used Distress Inks to colour them.  I went looking through my stash for a penguin and did some masking to remove the cocktail glass this one was holding up.  I then filled in the gap with a black Copic pen (although in hindsight I didn't need to because the chip covered it up anyway).

I took the "originals" from the chip pack and added the sentiment (although I wish I had white-embossed it now, but never mind).  

On the card base, I stenciled over the Geo Leaves stencil with Distress Grit Paste and once dry I assembled all the elements.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps: Penguins In Paradise, Be Original (MFT), Peony Memories (The Ton)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K), Scattered Straw, Fossilized Amber, Tea Dye, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire, Fired Brick, Festive Berries Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, X-Press It

Dies: Snack Attack (Hero Arts), Penguins In Paradise (MFT)

Accessories: Geo Leaves stencil (SSS), Distress Grit Paste, Copics

Cheers

Karren

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Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Just Us Girls and Krafty Chicks

Dramatic Strawberries

Hi, I'm here with my card for this week's challenge over at  Freshly Made Sketches where our sketch hostess is Jen Timko.  I decided to play with some NBUS dies from Honey Bee stamps and went with a dramatic dark green background to showcase them.

I die-cut the strawberries, leaves and flowers from various coloured cardstock then added some shading with a bit of ink-blending.  For the background I embossed a card panel with the Molded Frame embossing folder to mimic the additional layer in the sketch.  I then die-cut some embossed circles from the same green cardstock and adhered to the embossed panel.

After adding the strawberries, I went looking for a sentiment and found this one already foiled, so score!

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Ink:  Green Opal, Lemon Ice, Mid Yellow, Dark Chocolate (Altenew)

Cardstock: Forest, Pomegranate (Spellbinders), Jalapeno Popper (MFT), Reindeer Moss (Altenew), Harvest Gold (PTI), White 

Dies:  Lovely Layers: Strawberries (Honey Bee Stamps), Embossed Circles (Kat Scrappiness), You Are Everything BetterPress (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil, Molded Frame Embossing Folder (Spellbinders)

Cheers

Karren

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Leafy Birthday

The team at Freshly Made Sketches is back with another sketch and this week our hostess is Judy Rozema.  This card was fairly simple for me to pull together as the leaves were already stamped, stenciled and die-cut.

I decided I wanted the big oval to be some form of foliage so I went through my One Note app and came across this set.  When I pulled it out, I found the already prepared images, so it was a no-brainer!  I chose matching cardstock which I embossed with the Leafy embossing folder.  I then stamped the sentiment onto a strip of white cardstock and matted the bottom with black.

Finally I finished with some black enamel dots and a single heart.

Thanks for visiting!  Please head over and check out the gorgeous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps: Friendship Leafy Cluster (SSS), Propagation Garden Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Mountain Mist, Lagoon (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Black, Lagoon (Altenew)

Dies: Friendship Leafy Cluster (SSS)

Accessories: Friendship Leafy Cluster Stencils (SSS), Leafy Embossing Folder (Spellbinders), Essential Black & White Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers

Karren

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