Critters and Coffee

Hi!  It's Christmas Day here in New Zealand as this post goes live, so I'll say Merry Christmas to everyone!

I'm back with my second and last post as a guestie for Coffee Loving Cardmakers.  I had a great time coming up with my cards, and after deciding to go with a Critters and Coffee theme, it was fun to go through all my stamps finding the perfect images.

Today, I have two simple cards to share with you - both featuring critters and, of course, coffee 😄

I love Art Impressions stamps - they are just so fun and this first image is no exception.

I stamped this bossy-looking hen from Spring Chicken Set with Amalgam ink and colored her in with Copic markers.  I then used my Scan n Cut to cut her out.  I set her to one side while I worked on the rest of my card.  The Blu Raspberry cardstock nicely matched my old chook's coffee cup so I cut a panel and embossed this fun sentiment onto it.  

I then adhered it to a white top-folding cardbase, which I'd dry-embossed with the Subtle embossing folder.  You can see the texture in the close-up photo below.  The chook was popped up on foam tape and as a fiishing touch, I added Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen to her flower and 70's-themed blue eye shadow 😀

Below are the Copic markers I used to color her up.

And now onto my second card.  Again, using an Art Impressions set, called Sloth-some.

I did some masking to put the sloth in the coffee cup behind the sloth holding the banner.  Unfortunately, I hadn't planned on paper-piecing the coffee cup when I did the stamping, so that proved to be a bit challenging, lining everything up again to get the masked coffee cup.  It's not perfect, but it's good enough!

I colored the images with Copics and then fussy-cut the Petite Plaid Patterned Paper before adhering it over the relevant parts of the stamps.  I then die-cut the panel with one of the Stitched Basic Edges dies and set it to one side.

Onto my white top-folding card base I added some more of the patterned paper and then adhered my colored image with foam tape.  I finished off the card with some Nuvo Jewel Drops in Pale Periwinkle.  Here are the Copic markers I used:

I would like to say thanks to Amy for inviting me to be a December Guest Designer and thanks to everyone for the warm welcome.  

Products used:

Hen Card:

Stamps:  Spring Chicken Set (Art Impressions)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.), Versamark

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Blu Raspberry (MFT)

Accessories:  White Embossing Powder, Subtle Embossing Folder (SU), Copics, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Sloth Card:

Stamps:  Sloth-some (Art Impressions)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.)

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Petite Plaid Patterned Paper (MFT)

Dies:  Stitched Basic Edges (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, Pale Periwinkle Jewel Drops (Nuvo)

Cheers

Karren

White Poinsettia

Hi and welcome to the last Freshly Made Sketch challenge of 2018!  This challenge, designed by my Antipodean neighbour, Narelle Farrugia, will stay open until 31 December so you have plenty of time to play along. 

Now I really think Narelle was messing with my head when she came up with this sketch.  I have a fear of angled panels on cards and I really dislike ovals 😄 To combat both those obstacles, I came up with this card:

So the angled panels are white-on-white and not too noticeable and the oval transformed into a poinsettia, so all is well with the world again!    To add some interest both the angled panels were die-cut with a stitched rectangle die and then embossed - one with a 3D woodgrain folder and one with a knitting pattern folder.  I added them to the card base after dry-embossing that with a stitched rectangle die.

The poinsettia pieces were cut with white cardstock and then I spritzed them with gold shimmer spray before assembling the flower.  I added that to the card base and then gold-embossed the simple sentiment.  Here's a better shot of the texture in the background.

Thanks for visiting!  The DT have outdone themselves for our last challenge of the year, so I hope you'll head over and check them out.

I'm playing along with Sweet Stampin' Challenge who are looking for last minute Christmas cards.  Luckily this has a stamped sentiment on it!😄

Products used:

Stamps:  Snowglobe Sentiments (MFT)

Ink:  Versamark

Cardstock:  Smooth White (MFT)

Dies:  Perfect Poinsettia, Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT)

Accessories:  Lumber EF (Tim Holtz), Knitted Pattern EF (Richard Garay), Antique Gold Embossing Powder (SSS)

Cheers

Karren

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

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

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