Friday, 29 April 2022

Blue Butterflies

Hi all!  It's time for another Fusion challenge and this time we have a gorgeous blue palette featuring butterflies as well as a sketch featuring a big banner.  I chose to play with just the photo this time and made a Mother's Day card for my mum.


This card is pretty much only alcohol ink and hot foiling.  I created a alcohol ink background and die-cut the butterflies from it before using silver foil cardstock for the top, detailed layer.  I adhered them together, slightly off-centre for added interest.  The silver frame and sentiment are hot-foiled.  I added a black shadow banner to the sentiment and finished with some blue enamel dots and a heart.


Thanks so much for visiting.  Please head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.



Products used:

Ink:  Tranquil, Envy Alcohol Pearl, Foundry Alloy,  Clover, Aquamarine, Pool, Turquoise, Pitch Black, Mermail Alcohol Inks
Cardstock:  White, Black, Silver Foil, Yupo
Dies:  Detailed Butterflies Mini (Tim Holtz), Essential Duo Lines Rectangle, More Sentiments (Spellbinders)
Accessories:  Silver Hot Foil, Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Thursday, 28 April 2022

Just a Note

Hi all!  Jen Brum is our sketch hostess at Freshly Made Sketches and she has given us a fun sketch!  I went very simple and let patterned paper and hot foiling do all the work. 


The camera has turned these colours muddy but they're actually a pretty ombre pattern with a dark burgundy at the bottom, fading up to pinky tones.  Originally I was going to die-cut six pieces and line them up on the card base, leaving a gap for the sentiment (as per the sketch), but I had fits trying to get these all lined up so ended up cheating and using three panels and adding the sentiment over the top!


The sentiment is hot foiled and I found some Rose Gold foil cardstock to mat the sentiment to make it pop a bit more.  I finished with some pearls in a matching colour.

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

Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Rose Gold Foil, You Are Enough (CTMH)
Dies:  Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT), Essential Glimmer Sentiments (Spellbinders)
Accessories:  Rose Gold Hot Foil, Warm Pearls (Honey Bee)

Cheers
Karren

Tuesday, 26 April 2022

Striped Daffs

 Yesterday was ANZAC Day here in New Zealand and I decided to take today off work to make a 4-day weekend.  I had no plans but did get some time in my craft room to make this card using the sketch from The Paper Players, the board from Tic-Tac-Toe (Florals, Patterned Paper and Die-Cuts) and the Spring theme at Time Out Challenges.


When I saw the sketch at Paper Players, I knew I wanted to use black and white striped patterned paper with flowers over the top.  Luckily, I had these flowers already coloured and die-cut, so this card didn't take forever to make, like my cards usually do!

I die-cut the patterned paper with a wonky stitched square die and arranged them on the white card base, with the centre square popped up on foam tape.  The sentiment was die-cut twice from Harvest Gold cardstock and stacked and then I added a black die-cut at the bottom, slightly offsetting for a shadow effect.



It took longer to arrange the flowers than make the rest of the card!  Finally I was happy with the arrangement and added it with a mix of liquid adhesive and foam tape.  I finished with some clear drops.

Thanks so much for visiting.






Products used:

Stamps:  In Bloom:  Addie's Garden (Winnie & Walter)
Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K)
Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Black, Harvest Gold (PTI), Black & White Strips (MFT)
Dies:  In Bloom:  Addie's Garden (Winnie & Walter), Wonky Stitched Square Stax (MFT), Hello Poe Script (Poppy Stamps)
Accessories:  Copics, Clear Drops

Cheers
Karren

Sunday, 24 April 2022

Pastel Bouquet

 Hi!  I actually made this card last weekend for a couple of challenges and completely forgot to post it!  Luckily three of the four challenges I made it for are still open!  So I'm going to link this up the The Flower Challenge who are looking for a heart with the usual flowers, Happy Little Stampers' Stencil challenge and Seize the Birthday's Spring challenge.


For my card, I firstly stenciled the background with a heart stencil and glitz glitter gel.  While that was drying, I gold embossed then stenciled the floral bouquet.  I went with pastel colours as that was the challenge at the time (since closed), but I like the soft look of these colours together.

When I put the two elements together, it looked a bit bare, so I added a thin black frame to draw the eye in.  I finished with a gold-embossed sentiment.


Thanks for visiting.



Products used:

Stamps:  Joyful Bouquet (Pink Fresh), Essential Sentiments (MFT)
Ink:  Versamark, Mint Chocolate, Minty Mint, Lemon Ice, Buttercream, Warm Sunshine, Strawberry, Pink Diamond, Pinkalicious (Altenew)
Cardstock:  White, Black
Dies:  Joyful Bouquet (Pink Fresh), Fine Frames Cover (Altenew)
Accessories:  Speckled Heart Stencil, Joyful Bouquet Stencils, Glitz Glitter Gel (Gina K.)

Cheers
Karren

Thursday, 21 April 2022

Flamazing Day

Hi and welcome to a new challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches, where this week our hostess is Kim Singdahlsen.  Kim's sketch has a big open space and I used it to create a scene.


I made this card for friends of mine who have also lost a child.  Flamingoes have a special meaning for them and I wanted to give them something to smile at.  I created the background with distress inks and then coloured the trees and flamingo with Copics before cutting them out with my Scan n Cut.


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

Products used:

Stamps:  Flock Yeah (WPlus9), Let's Flamingle (MFT)
Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Antique Linen, Salty Ocean, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon Distress Inks
Cardstock:  White, Black, X-Press It, Bristol Smooth
Accessories:  Copics, Shimmer Spray, White EP

Cheers
Karren


 

Friday, 15 April 2022

Amazing Butterflies

 Hi and welcome!  I'm thrilled to be back with the Tic Tac Toe team as guest designer.  The board this week is so fun - I think I just about covered all the squares except Floral Bouquet and Vellum, although I intended to play with the top horizontal row of Butterfly, Encouragement, Slimline.


Full slimline cards can be a bit tricky to photograph and this is the best I could do, but you can see 99% of the card.  I started with a white card base and a die-cut cover die from The Ton.  Behind the first three columns of grid I adhered three strips of cardstock which matched the alcohol-inked pieces that formed my butterfly bases.  This alcohol-inked panel came from my stash so I can't remember which colours I used but I think they were Pearls I was playing around with when I first received them.


I wanted to keep the card light and airy so I cut the top layer of the butterflies with white cardstock and adhered them slightly off-centre for a fun look.  For an encouragement sentiment, I used "you are amazing".  The "you" was die-cut from Ripe Persimmon cardstock and backed with two layers of white.  The "are amazing" was white-embossed onto some Coral Crush cardstock.


I then placed all the elements onto the cardbase and adhered them down with liquid glue.  Finally, I finished with some co-ordinating enamel dots and a heart.



Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the cards made by the design team and give this challenge a go - it really is a fun one!

Products used:

Stamps:  Penned Rose (Altenew)
Ink:  Versamark
Cardstock:  White, Ripe Persimmon, Coral Crush, Peach Bellini (MFT), Yupo
Dies:  Slimline Grid (The Ton), Detailed Butterflies Mini (Tim Holtz), You (SSS)
Accessories:  Alcohol Pearl Inks, White EP, Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers
Karren

Tulips

Welcome to a new challenge at Fusion! I've played with both the sketch and the photo this time to come up with this card.


Originally I was going to colour some tulips with Copics, but I wasn't in a colouring mood so went through my stash and found this Build A Flower set.  I stamped the tulips in pinks and added some leaves and die-cut them with the co-ordinating dies.


I then went looking for elements to use for the vertical and horizontal strips in the sketch and found some washi tape in similar colours.  So that made the job easy!  I finished with a simple sentiment from my current-favourite sentiment set and called it done!


Thanks so much for visiting.  Please head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team and I hope you'll play along with us.


Products used:

Stamps:  Build A Flower:  Parrot Tulips (Altenew), Elegant Sentiments (Waffle Flower)
Ink:  Red Cosmos set, Parrot, Mountain Pine, Milk Chocolate
Cardstock:  White
Dies:  Build A Flower:  Parrot Tulips (Altenew)
Accessories;  Cherry Blossom Washi Tapes

Cheers
Karren

Thursday, 14 April 2022

Brickwork

 Hello!  Our Freshly Made Sketch designer this week is Linda Callahan and she gave us a sketch which can lead us in so many directions, but I went with the obvious and came up with this card:


The card I made prior to this one (not yet on my blog) featured peachy shades so I decided to go with a more masculine feel for this card and went with the blues.  I used a brick embossing folder on three pieces die-cut with a stitched mod square stax die.  From there is was a simple matter to add two strips of matching cardstock to a white card base, stamp a sentiment on one and add the embossed pieces.  


The darker panel is adhered with foam tape, the other two with liquid glue.  Some black pearls and that's it!

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the DT.

Products used:

Stamps:  Elegant Sentiments (Waffle Flower)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  White, Mist (Hero Arts), Blu Raspberry, Caribbean Sea (MFT)
Dies:  Stitched Mod Square Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Mini Brickwork Embossing Folder (Tim Holtz), Black Pearls (Honey Bee)

Cheers
Karren

Thursday, 7 April 2022

Daffodil Sympathy

 Hi!  It's time for another challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is our other "Camp Mother", Jen Mitchell.  Here's what I made using her sketch:


I had just received some new Waffle Flower goodies and wanted to put them to use, so this card is pretty much all Waffle Flower!  The daffodils were stamps and coloured with the co-ordinating stencils before being die-cut.  Unfortunately, I didn't stamp with a Copic-friendly ink and wanted to add some more shading, so I very carefully and sparingly added a few touches with Copics, but would have like to have added more but didn't want to chance my luck.

The flowers were arranged and adhered to a die-cut piece of Modern Neutrals patterned paper and then I went hunting for a card base to match the patterned paper tones.  This Stone Gray was a good match - a nice blue-gray - so it became the card base.  

Onto that I added the die-cut cover plate and then the patterned paper and flowers.  The sentiment was stamped, die-cut and stacked three high for stability and dimension.  Finally I finished with some yellow enamel dots and a heart.



Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll head over and check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.





Products used:

Stamps:  Daffodil, Elegant Sentiments (Waffle Flower)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Green Fields set, Golden Sunset set (Altenew)
Cardstock:  Stone Gray (MFT), White, Modern Neutrals (Waffle Flower)
Dies:  Daffodil, Elegant Sentiments, Geometric Cover Die (Waffle Flower), Stitched Mod Square Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Daffodil Stencils (Waffle Flower), Copics, Pocketful of Sunshine Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers
Karren

Friday, 1 April 2022

Old Man

 It's time fr a new challenge from the team at Fusion and this time I played with the sketch and took guidance from the colours in the photo.



As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my Dad's 89th birthday is coming up.  I made a card back then that I thought I would give him, but then was inspired to make this card which he'll get a laugh out of - especially because inside the card I've stamped the sentiment that says "For everyone's safety, please skip the candles this year" 😄

The navy blue half-circle is inlaid into the card base and then I added the strips of patterned paper, which I took from the patterns in the inspiration photo.  I stamped the sentiment vertically and then added the old man, which I'd stamped and coloured with Copics.


Thanks for visting!  Please head over and check out the wonderful cards made by the design tean.





Products used:

Stamps:  Festive Old Friends (MFT)
Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.) Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  Whp Cream (MFT), Dark Indigo (PTI), X-Press It, Homespun Gingham, B&W Stripes (MFT)
Dies:  Stitched Dome Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics

Cheers
Karren