Minty Christmas

Hi it’s time for another sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches and our sketch hostess this week is Judy Rozema.

The background was stamped with Lost Shadow DOX ink on white and a strip was stamped with Versamark onto Fog cardstock and white heat-embossed.  I then layered the gray panel onto the background and added two strips of black on either side.  The main image was Copic-coloured and die-cut and I added it to an ink-blended panel with foam tape.

The sentiment was stamped in the same ink colour as the background panel and an inked panel was cut for the second banner layer.  For the stitched part of the sketch, I decided to die-cut some scalloped borders and layer them.  Again, I used the same ink in a direct-to-paper technique.

Thanks for visiting!  Please check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Holly Jolly BG (Honey Bee), Letter to Santa (MFT)

Ink:  Lost Shadow Distress Oxide, Versamark, Amalgam (Gina K), Mountain Mist, Volcano Lake (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Fog (SSS), X-Press It

Dies:  Letter to Santa (MFT), Stitched Scallop Basic Edges (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, White EP, White Paint

Cheers

Karren

Brrrthday

Hi and welcome!  This is the last card I got to make as part of my week off work.  I used the colour challenge from Addicted to CAS, the Anything Goes challenge at Seize The Birthday as well as the Cold cue word at Inkspirational to come up with this card.

 

I stamped, Copic-coloured and die-cut the images and then arranged them onto a strip of black cardstock.  I did this partly because black was one of the challenge colours and also because it's a CAS theme and I didn't want to busy it up with a scene in the background.  I quite like the way the images pop off the black.

I stamped a sentiment onto a white cardbase, then adhered the black panel.  I added some clear sparkle pen on all the pom-poms and called it done.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps:  Snow Buddies, Ready, Set Snow (MFT)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.), Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Black, X-Press It

Dies:  Snow Buddies (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Cheers

Karren

Oak Note

Welcome!  Today is the last day of my time off work so I've been trying to spend as much time in my craft room as possible the last couple of days.  As well as making a couple of cards for upcoming design team challenges, I also found the time to make a card for some current challenges.  This card uses the sketch at Paper Players as well as the mood board at Just Us Girls.

This card involved a lot of messy play and it was great!  I found a panel of cardstock I'd spritzed with mica sprays last year (using the Halloween 2022 collection).  I wanted to brighten the panel a bit so I added a few yellows and oranges and set it aside to dry.  For the background panel, I ink-blended some Distress Oxide inks and die-cut with the Shiplap Builder die before adding Vintage Photo DOX to the edges of each die-cut.  I adhered all the individual elements to a panel of photocopy paper and then die-cut with a stitched rectangle die.

The kraft panel was embossed with a brick embossing folder after being die-cut with a smaller stitched rectangle die.

Once the mica panel was dry, I die-cut it with the shadow layer of the Oak Leaf die then cut the inner with black cardstock.  The sentiment was die-cut from white and black and adhered together, then it was just a matter of assembly.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Ink:  Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo Distress Oxide Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, Neenah Desert Storm

Dies:  Oak Leaf (Neat & Tangled), Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT), Shiplap Builder (The Greetery), Just a Note Posh Script (Memory Box)

Accessories:  Brick Embossing Folder (Tim Holtz), various Mica Stain Sprays

Cheers

Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Paper Players.

Floral Corner

Hi all!  This is only the second card I've had time to make this week for fun!  My week off work has ended up primarily being spent running around after a puppy - a cute puppy nonetheless but not what I planned!

Anyway, I snuck into my craft room to come up with this card for a few challenges.  Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes With Dies, Seize the Birthday Anything Goes, Addicted to CAS Dies Only, Krafty Chicks CAS and Color Throwdown.

I've been playing with the NBUS Build-a-Wreath die set from Spellbinders.  I die-cut the various images from white cardstock and used distress inks and blender brushes to add colour to all the components.  I then arranged them into a pleasing design and adhered the elements together.  You can't see in the photos but I spritzed all the flowers and foliage with clear shimmer spray.

Onto a white cardbase I added a die-cut frame then the floral arrangement.  Finally, I tucked a hot foiled sentiment into the bouquet and called it done.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Ink:  Forest Moss, Bundled Sage, Crushed Olive, Mustard Seed, Fossilized Amber, Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon, Ground Espresso Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White

Dies:  Build-a-Wreath, Hexi Gem Sentiments Hot Foil (Spellbinders), Nesting Rectangle Frames (Waffle Flower)

Accessories:  Shimmer Spray, Gold Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Krafty Chicks 

Gingerbread

 Hi and welcome.  This week for the Tic-Tac-Toe challenge I went down through the centre with Fun Fold-Gingerbread-Any Holiday to come up with this bridge card:

I'm not much of a fun-fold card-maker but these bridge cards are pretty easy, so that's what I started with. I added some plaid patterned paper and set it aside to work on my gingerbread men and sentiment.

I stamped, Copic-coloured and cut the gingerbread men and then white-embossed a sentiment onto a panel of Sno Cone cardstock before die-cutting it with a fancy rectangle die.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps:  Gingerbread Cookies (Mama Elephant), Star Snowflake Sentiments (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.), Versamark

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, So Cone (MFT), Perfectly Plaid Winter (Lawn Fawn)

Dies:  Hemstitch Rectangle (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copics, White EP

Cheers

Karren

Village Scene

 Hi!  Today's card uses the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches where our designer this week is Jacquie Southas.  I had great intentions of using the pinwheel set from The Greetery for my card, but it wasn't working out, so I decided to flip the sketch upside down and came up with this card.

I bought this die set last year when it was released and this is the first time I've used it.  I've come to the conclusion that I prefer die-cutting all the elements from white cardstock and adding colour - this time with Copics.  I created the various elements and arranged them on a panel of white cardstock die-cut with a snow drift die.  Once that was completed, I stamped a sentiment and then set it aside to work on the card base.

I placed a moon mask onto the card base and ink-blended various distress inks on the card.  Once that was finished I flicked on some white paint and put it aside to dry.

Once it was all dry, I added the buildings with foam tape and called it done.

Thanks so much for visiting.  Please check out how the rest of the design team used the sketch.

Products used:

Stamps:  Abstract Holiday (SSS)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Black Soot, Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Stormy Sky Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White

Dies:  Winter Village (Honey Bee), Infinity Circles (Hero Arts)

Accessories:  Copics, White Gloss Spray

Cheers

Karren

Perfect Time

Hi and welcome!  I'm at the start of a week off work and have great plans of spending time in my craft room.  Maybe not as much time as I had planned when I first booked the leave, because our daughter has gone and got herself a Spoodle puppy, so I'm a fur-grandma and the fur-baby spends a bit of time at our place.  As she's only just 3 months old, she can't be left unattended outside of her crate, so babysitting it is 😄  She's pretty cute though, but with our Dexter being 12, I had forgtten how boisterous and nippy little puppies are.  Here's a photo of mother and puppy on the day she brought her home.

Anyway, onto my card.  I made this card for the challenges at Paper Players (CAS Signs of Autumn), Just Us Girls (Pumpkin), Sweet Stampers (plaid-gingham-tartan) and Sunday Stamps (sketch).

I hope this is CAS enough for The Paper Players.  I tried to keep it clean lined, even though there's not a huge amount of white space.  I started by stamping the background and creating a mask which I used to ink-blend the sky and grass.  I then splattered ink and white gloss paing onto the background, while keeping the various masks in place during each step.  I coloured the tree and bushes and die-cut with a rectangle die.

for the central image, I stamped, Copic-coloured and fussy cut each image.  I also stamped onto some patterned paper and fussy cuty for some paper piecing detail.

I positioned the pumpkins and adhered with liquid glue and added a bit of gray shading.  The little girl was popped up with foam tape and I also added some gray shading to ground her.  The sentiment was white-embossed onto black.

Thanks so much for visiting.  It was so nice to stamp just for fun and not for DT commitments.  Here's hoping I can keep it up for the rest of the week.

Products used:

Stamps:  Fall Friends, Scene Builder (MFT)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.), Peeled Paint, Tumbled Glass, Broken China Distress Inks

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

Dies:  Rectangle Stax (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, White Gloss Spray

Cheers

Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout-out at The Paper Players, Sweet Stampin' and Sunday Stamps

Mica Bouquet

 Hi all and welcome!  It's time for the latest sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Amy O'Neill.  I played some more with mica sprays and die-cuts to come up with this card.

All of the floral and foliage elements started out as white cardstock, which I spritzed with various colours of mica spray.  After they dried, I arranged them into two bouquets and then onto a white panel of cardstock.  The sentiment was hot-foiled with gold and matted onto gold foil.  

Finally I adhered the white panel onto a Cranberry Crisp card base and added some pearls coloured with Copics.

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

Products used:

Cardstock:  Cranberry Crisp (MFT), white, gold matte foil

Dies:  Christmas Mailbox Greetings Hot Foil plate, Holiday Blooms (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil, Mica Sprays:  Peppermint Stick, Yuletide, Holly Branch, Tree Lot, Specimen, Harvest Moon, Flickering Candle, Fallen Acorn, Frozen Fog

Cheers

Karren

Sparkly Snowflake

 

Hi!  It's time for a new challenge from Team O at Tic-Tac-Toe and this week I chose the right vertical column of Holiday/Sparkle/Stencil for my Christmas card.

I stenciled over a snowflake stencil  with white embossing paste onto Mist cardstock and set it aside to dry.  I then die-cut the snowflake from silver sparkle paper and the background from pearlescent vellum and adhered the two pieces together.  The sentiment is silver embossed and die-cut with a matching die.

I then put all the pieces together onto a white card base.  I tried to get a good photo of the sparkle, but it just washed out the photo, so you will just need to imaginge all the sparkly goodness in this card!

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

Products Used:

Stamps:  Star Snowflake Sentiments (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Versamark

Cardstock:  White, Mist (Hero Arts), Silver Sparkle (MFT), Pearlescent Vellum (Lawn Fawn)

Dies:  Star Snowflake (Waffle Flower)

Accessories:  Falling Snow Stencil (SSS), White Embossing Paste, Silver Embossing Powder

Cheers

Karren

On The Farm

Hi and welcome to our new sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Narelle Farrugia.

I had just received this die set by Honey Bee Stamps and thought it would work well for the sketch, so I set about putting all the elements together, using a combination of coloured cardstock for the larger pieces and Copics on white cardstock for the smaller pieces.  

Once I had everything assembled, I die-cut some circles from white cardstock and also patterned paper.  On the green patterned paper, I die-cut with a snow drift die to mimic grass.  I then layered everything onto the circles.

The sentiment was a hot-foiled sentiment I had already made.  I didn't add any embellishments as I envisage this as being suitable for a masculine birthday card.

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

Products used:

Cardstock:  Whip Cream, Cranberry Cocktail, Jelly Bean Green, Steel Gray, Cement Gray (MFT), Lemon Tart (PTI), white, Spiffier Speckles (Lawn Fawn)

Dies:  On the Farm (Honey Bee Stamps), Circle Infinity Dies (Hero Arts), Snow Drifts (MFT), Hexi-Gem Sentiments Hot Foil (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copics

Cheers

Karren

Case Me A Christmas Card - Toys

Hi and welcome!  Today's card is part of an Instagram hop where a lot of the crafters who have joined Michelle Lupton in previous years for her Challenge and Case Me a Christmas Card series have come together for the 2023 Case Me a Christmas Card.  Michelle couldn't host the event this year so we all decided to do it for her (and special thanks to Ardyth Percy-Robb and Therese Calvird for all their work in co-ordinating).

For my card, I decided to case this card by Michelle which was from her 2019 Challenge Me a Christmas Card series,  Michelle's card is further down this post.  My card is also over on Instagram (karrenjnz).

I kept the grid pattern and background colours, but changed my images to gifts and the grid to a more regimented grid.  I stamped, coloured and die-cut the images from an old Honey Bee Stamps set and the lightly ink-blended various colours onto the square cut-outs from the grid cover plate.  I then arranged the squares and the gifts back into the grid and finished with a gold hot-foiled sentiment on black.

 

Thanks so much for visiting!  If you haven't already, head on over to Instagram and enter #casemeachristmascard2023 to see all the other fabulous cards.

Products used:

Stamps:  Toy Store Add-On (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K.), Salvaged Patina, Peacock Feathers, Scattered Straw, Lumberjack Plaid, Spun Sugar Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, X-Press It

Dies:  Toy Store Add-On (Honey Bee Stamps), Square Grid Cover Up (MFT), Holiday Sentiment Series 2 (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copics, Gold Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren