A Star this Card Ain't...

It's time for another fun challenge from the Fusion team and here is our newest sketch and inspiration photo.

When I designed this challenge, I had great intentions of making a galaxy background like in the photo, but as I mentioned yesterday, I have a really bad cold and didn't get to make my card for this challenge until that cold was full-blown and my brain was not working at all right.  So after 4 days of trying to come up with a card, this the is best I could do.

So on Tuesday, I managed to spread some glitter embossing paste over a stencil and set it aside to dry.  Today (Thursday), I came back to it, looked at it for a long time, looked at it some more and finally came up with the card you see.  Nothing flash, but it's a card and it meets both the sketch and the photo, so win-win 😄

The "You are a" was stamped with an alphabet stamp and the "star" was die-cut from an alphabet die.

Here are another couple of photos.

Thanks for visiting!  The design team have come up with some fabulous cards for this challenge, so I hope you'll check them out.

Products used:

Stamps:  Calli Letters Upper and Lower (Mama Elephant)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Black, Silver Foil

Dies:  Pierced Heart Stax (MFT), Urban Alpha Upper (Memory Box)

Accessories:  My Monthly Hero Dec 17 stencil (Hero Arts), Licorice Glitter Paste (BoBunny), star sequins

Cheers

Karren

Gumboots

Hi and welcome!  Today's post will be short as I'm currently suffering from the worst cold I've had in years!  Luckily I made my card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge on the weekend while my cold was deciding whether to come out fighting or give up.  Unfortunately, it came out fighting and I've been off work since Tuesday.  Anyway, enough about my cold.  Here is Narelle, my fellow downunderer's (her term!) sketch:

And here's my card.

As you can see, I flipped the sketch to better accommodate my main image.  

I stamped, quickly colored and die-cut the gumboot image before mounting it to a Berrylicious stitched circle die-cut.  I also die-cut a Sour Apple stitched strip and adhered that to a white top-folding card base.  After adding the gumboots, I finished with a white-embossed sentiment and called it done.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps:  Showers & Flowers (SSS) KIS:  Just Because (PTI)

Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Versamark

Cardstock:  White; Sour Apple, Berrylicious, Black Licorice (MFT), X-Press It

Dies:  Showers & Flowers (SSS), Inside/Out Stitched Circles, Blueprints 1

Accessories:  Copics, White EP

Cheers

Karren 

Alcohol Trellis

Hi and welcome!  It's Freshly Made Sketch Challenge day and this week I am the hostess.  I came up with a very CAS sketch which leaves the way clear to use your imagination as much as you want!

I had plenty of ideas for the sketch, but decided to use a NBUS cover die from WPlus9 and a rainbow of alcohol inks to come up with this card.

After dropping a rainbow of alcohol inks onto a sheet of Yupo paper, I waited until it was nearly dry then placed a copper foil sheet over the top and burnished it with my hands before peeling it away to reveal some beautifully foiled spots on the panel.  I then die-cut the panel with the Trellis background (to be honest, I don't know if it is Trellis 1 or 2 as I have both and didn't mark each one with its number).  Rather than throw away the negative pieces, I added them back into the die-cut piece , which was a painstakingly slow process, believe you me!  Once they were all back in place, I placed a piece of Press n Seal over the top and carefully adhered all the pieces to a panel of white cardstock.  So now I have another background for another card, some day 😄

I added the positive panel to a white top-folding card base then embossed the sentiment onto a black strip and added that to a copper foil strip, leaving only a hint of copper at the top of the panel.  Here's a view from a different angle so you can hopefully see the shine and foil.

Thanks so much for visiting.  The design team have all done wonderful things with my sketch so I hope you'll head on over and check them out.

I'm linking this up to the current challenge at Just Add Ink as well as the Create Your Own Background challenge at Simon Says Stamp.

Products used:

Stanps:  Lots to Say (Reverse Confetti)
Ink:  Versamark
Cardstock:  Black, White, Copper Foil, Yupo
Dies:  Trellis (WPlus9)
Accessories:  Alcohol Inks (Poppyfield, Limeade, Aquamarine, Sunshine Yellow, Indigo, Amethyst, Valencia Orange), Antique Gold EP

Cheers
Karren

Birthday Dancer

Welcome to another Fusion challenge! 



I played with the sketch this time, throwing in a couple of the colors from the photo.

Funny story about this card - I originally only had the patterned paper mounted onto black and then onto the card base, but after I added the sentiment it looked too stark, so I decided to stamp this NBUS ballerina.  So I carefully positioned her to fit onto the panel and stamped her and her outfit.  Looked quite good, if I say so myself.  I added the Nuvo Crystal Drops in black and took the photos.

But, when I was editing, I noticed that the pattern on the paper looks like a great big rock is smashing down onto her face!  Doh!  Oh well, it was too late to remake it and hopefully the recipient won't notice 😄And, I know the panel looks crooked on the card base, but it really isn't!

Thanks for visiting!  The DT have some fabulous cards to inspire you and our August guest designer has created a total wow card as well.  Head on over and find out who it is...

Products used:

Stamps:  Arabesque (Rosie's Studio), Essential Sentiments (MFT)
Ink:  Extreme Black, Coral Crush (MFT)
Cardstock:  Grout Gray, Thick n Thin Patterned Paper, Black Licorice (MFT), Salvage District (Prima)
Dies:  Linen Cover Plate (PTI)
Accessories:  Nuvo Crystal Drops (Ebony)

Card Chain Challenge

Hi!  I don't know if you've heard of the Card Chain Challenge, but it's an ingeniuous challenge whereby as well as making cards to meet challenge guidelines, we also send those cards to another challenge member.  How cool is that!  I've seen the reveal posts for months and always meant to play along and last month, I finally committed to just that.  Here were the challenge guidelines.  You can pick one, two, three or all four options.

Theme options:  Fish/Beach/Friendship

Product/Technique Options:  Rubberdance/Washi Tape

I went with the sketch and beach themes and came up with this card, which I sent to Dawn, who is also in New Zealand but in the North Island.

This card uses the June 2018 My Monthly Hero kit and I created a sunset scene by blending some distress oxide inks onto a masked off piece of Bristol Smooth cardstock.  Once that was finished, I stamped the ocean with Altenew inks then added Versamark ink to the bottom and embossed with the amazing sand embossing powder.

I finished with a die-cut Adirondack chair and a sentiment embossed onto a vellum strip, in keeping with the sketch.  Also in keeping with the sketch, I scattered a few sequins onto the card.

This was great fun!  I am always making cards but very rarely actually use them, so to make a card and then send it to another cardmaker was so cool.  If you want to check out the next challenge, there are still a few days to sign up, so head on over to Card Chain Challenge sign-up page.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps:  My Monthly Hero June 2018 (Hero Arts)

Ink:  Versamark, Black Soot Archival, Sea Glass, Ocean Waves, Dusk (Altenew), Abandoned Coral, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide

Cardstock:  White, Black, Bristol Smooth, Vellum

Dies:  My Monthly Hero, Slanted Sentiment Strips (MFT)

Accessories:  Sand EP (from kit), Clear EP, Sparkling Clear Confetti (Pretty Pink Posh)

Cheers

Karren

Peaceful Palm Tree with Video

Hi everyone and welcome!  I'm back with a card using the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and this week our hostess is the wonderful Jen Brum.  Check out her sketch - it's very cool!

So, I sort of enlarged the squares on Jen's sketch because I wanted to create a scene on my card - like looking through a window.

I used a stitched square die to die-cut four windows from a white panel and then set to work on my scene.

I used Distress Inks to create my beach scene onto a panel of Bristol Smooth cardstock and once I was done ink-blending, I added some "sand" with a stamp from Distressed Patterns, then added foam and waves with a white gel pen.  I stamped, colored and die-cut the palm tree and set that aside.

I stamped a sentiment and some birds before adding both panels onto the card base.  Finally I adhered the palm tree and called it done.  I have a video of how I made this card and also how I worked out where to cut the "window panes" if you're interested.  You can watch below or over on YouTube.

I'm entering this into Addicted to CAS's Summertime challenge (hope it's CAS enough!)

Thanks for visiting!  Head on over and check out how the rest of the DT have used this sketch - I hope you'll give it a go, too!

Products used:

Stamps:  Penguins in Paradise, Distressed Patterns (MFT), My Monthly Hero June 2018 (Hero Arts), Special Delivery (SugarPea Designs)

Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Extreme Black, Grout Gray (MFT), Unicorn White (Hero Arts), Antique Linen, Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Bristol Smooth

Dies:  Penguins in Paradise, Inside/Out Stitched Squares (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, White Gel Pen 

Fabulous

Hi!  Ever have one of those days where nothing crafty turned out right or easy?  Yep, that was me today.  I look forward to Saturdays so much, because as well as being the weekend, it's also the day that I dedicate a few hours to crafting - making my upcoming DT cards and also, hopefully, playing along in a challenge or two. 

Well today, everything was hard work.  My cards aren't horrible (at least I don't think so 😀) but it didn't go smoothly, they didn't come out as I envisaged and they took way too long. 

Anyway, enough of the pity party!  Here's the card I made for the latest sketch challenge at MFT.  I've said it before, but angled panels make me twitchy and I really, really want to straighten them, but I didn't and here's my card.

It's been a while since I did any ink blending so I decided to create a sunset behind this cute flamingo.  Originally, I masked a circle on a white card base and ink-blended inside the circle.  That looked fine, so I removed the mask and then thought to darken up a couple of areas.  Yup!  Without the mask!  Doh! 

To fix that problem, I die-cut the circle from the card base, darkened up where I wanted to and then glued it down to another card base.  I stamped, colored and die-cut the flamingo and set him to one side while I white-embossed the sentiment onto black cardstock.  I die-cut the sentiment with a die from Blueprints 29 which has stitching at either end, but you can't see that in the photos.

Finally, I added the flamingo, then I colored all the pink areas with a clear sparkle pen and added a dot for his eye with a black glaze pen.

Thanks for visiting and reading through all my woes 😁It's getting on for Saturday evening now, so I think I'll do some coloring practice.

Products used:

Stamps:  Let's Flamingle (MFT)

Ink:  Extreme Black (MFT), Versamark, Salty Ocean, Faded Jeans, Abandoned Coral, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxide Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, X-Press It

Dies:  Let's Flamingle, Blueprints 29 (MFT), Circle Infinity Dies (Hero Arts)

Accessories:  White EP, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, Black Glaze Pen

Cheers

Karren