Thursday, 28 November 2024

Pastel Trees

Hi and welcome!  Today's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Linda Callahan and I used it to make a non-traditional Christmas card. 


This die set is an old one from MFT that actually cuts the tree as negative space, but I snipped the decorations away from the tree to give me the tree base and then added white die-cuts over the top of the three pastel-coloured trees.


In keeping with the sketch, I used my scoreboard to add lines above and below the stamped sentiment.  All in all, this was a pretty simply card to make.  What can't be seen in the photo is the clear shimmer pen on the white ornaments and stars.


Thanks for visiting me.  Please make sure you check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Merry Christmas Duo (Waffle Flower)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  Pink Lemonade, Coral Crush (MFT), Mist (Hero Arts), White
Dies:  Christmas Tree Window (MFT)
Accessories:  Clear Sparkle Pen

Friday, 22 November 2024

Rich Poinsettia

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses the latest grid from the Tic Tac Toe Challenge and for my card I went down the centre column with Poinsettia-Free-Stencil to come up with this card.



I used the absolutely gorgeous Festive Poinsettia stamp, stencil and die set from Alex Syberia to create the poinsettia and heat embossed sentiment.  Once that was complete, I created my card base by adhering some plaid patterned paper down the left hand side and edged with some gold foil cardstock and some black cardstock for a bit of drama. 


I then cut down the poinsettia image and butted it up against the black strip.  I finished with the heat-embossed sentiment and some gold pearls for the centre of the poinsettia.


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


Products used:

Stamps:  Festive Poinsettia (Alex Syberia Designs)
Ink:  Versamark, Amalgam (Gina K), Shadow Creek, Mountain Pine, Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, Sweet Cherry, Velvet (Altenew)
Cardstock:  White, Black, Gold foil, Home for Christmas patterned paper (CTMH)
Dies:  Festive Poinsettia (Alex Syberia Designs)
Accessories:  Antique Gold EP (SSS), gold pearls

Cheers
Karren

 

Thursday, 21 November 2024

Tis the Season

Hi and welcome!  As soon as I saw Jen Mitchell's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I saw a Santa belt and I couldn't unsee it, so just had to go with it!


I did have to re-arrange the sketch layers to fit my vision but I think you can still see the sketch.  This was really simple.  A square gold frame, black strip and red background - both of which were embossed with the Subtle embossing folder to add some fabric-like texture.


The sentiment was already hot-foiled so this was probably the quickest card I've made in months!

Thanks for visiting.  The DT have some fabulous cards so I hope you'll check them out.




Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Black, Cherry Crisp (MFT), Gold foil
Dies:  Square nesting dies (Waffle Flower), Holiday Sentiments Series 2 (Spellbinders)
Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil, Subtle Embossing Folder (SU)

Cheers
Karren

Thursday, 14 November 2024

Snowy Merry

Hi and welcome. Today’s Freshly Made Sketch was designed by Jennifer Timko and gives us a wide open space to play with. I went simple with patterned paper and a die-cut sentiment.

I’ve had this die for several years and thought it would work well in the space. I die-cut it from both silver glitter paper and white card stock and pieced it together. I adhered it to some patterned paper. Along the bottom I added some more glitter paper cut with a torn edge die.

I finished with a simple stamped sentiment.

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


Products used:

Stamps:  Winter Scene (SSS)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  White, Silver Glitter Paper, Blurry Flurries (Whimsy Stamps)
Dies:  Snowy Merry Christmas (Poppy Stamps), Torn Edges (MFT)

Cheers
Karren

Thursday, 7 November 2024

Big Ole Bow

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses Jacquie's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and I have to admit, this sketch had me thinking.  When I first saw it, I immediately wanted to do some form of Mondrian design with dies, but I didn't have the right sizes of dies and it just became too hard, so it was back to the drawing board.  Then I saw the sketch in a whole new light and decided it was perfect for a big bow and that's what I did.


This image is a digi from Power Poppy and I printed it out and coloured it with Copics before die-cutting it to suit the position of the sketch.  Once that was done I gold-embossed the sentiment onto a black tag and added it with white cotton, piercing a tiny hole in the coloured image to hold the cotton.


I didn't add any other embellishments and I think this is the least amount of Copics I have ever used in one sitting!


Thanks for visiting.  Coincidentally, Color Hues are looking for red and black for their current challenge so I'm going to link up there.





Products used:

Stamps:  Big Ole Bow digi stamp (Power Poppy), Tagged Elegance (The Greetery
Ink:  Versamark
Cardstock:  X-Press It, White, Black
Dies:  2022 Holiday Thank You (The Greetery)
Accessories:  Gilded EP (Brutus Monroe, Copics, white cotton

Cheers
Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Color Hues








 

Tuesday, 5 November 2024

Case Me a Pinecone

 Hi, I'm so pleased that Michelle Lupton is again doing her Case Me A Christmas Card series after having to take a break from organising it last year.  I'm delighted she has asked me to play along again.  I chose this card to CASE and was inspired by the following elements:

  • the slimline size
  • the foliage in a curve down the left hand side
  • the big bold sentiment in gold on vellum
  • the two tone geometric background
And here's my card (I'll post the card I cased down below).



I started with a white slimline card base (full slimline size) and added a cream die-cut striped cover plate.  I also cut the cover plate in kraft and filled in the stripes with kraft strips.  I then set that aside while I worked on the pinecones and foliage.

I die-cut the base of the pinecones in Milk Chocolate and the top in Hot Fudge.  I wanted to add some interest to the base layer so spritzed it with Crooked Broomstick and Fallen Acorn mica sprays.  Once they were dry, it looked a bit bright, so I inked over the top with Ground Espresso Distress Ink to tone it down.  I also spritzed the pine needles with Tree Lot mica spray after sponging the edges with Green Onyx ink.  On the sage foliage, I added some Wintergreen ink but it was too similar to the cardstock colour so near impossible to see.


Once everything was dry, I arranged it into a curve and adhered it to the card base.  The sentiment was heat-embossed on vellum and die-cut and adhered with a mix of liquid glue and tiny slivers of foam tape.  Finally, I finished with some gold pearls.

Here's Michelle's card that I chose to case.  I hope you can see how I was inspired.
 



Thanks to Michelle for inviting me again.  I am excited to see which of my cards she chose to case.  I haven't made many cards this year, so the pickings are slim...  Here is a link to the card Michelle created based on one of mine.

Products used:

Stamps:  Merry Christmas Duo (Waffle Flower)
Ink:  Versamark, Wintergreen (Catherine Pooler), Ground Espresso Distress Ink, Green Onyx (Altenew)
Cardstock;  White, Whip Cream, Kraft, Hot Fudge, Milk Chocolate (MFT), Pinefeather (PTI), Sage (Spellbinders), Vellum
Dies:  Slimline Short Strips (The Ton), Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery (Honey Bee Stamps), Merry Christmas Duo (Waffle Flower)
Accessories:  Tree Lot, Crooked Broomstick, Fallen Acorn Mica Sprays, Antique Gold EP, Champagne pearls (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers
Karren