Citrus Christmas

Hi and welcome to another challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches, where our hostess this week is Jen Mitchell.  Turns out I mis-interpreted Jen's sketch from the final design so do as I say, not as I do this week... 

I wasn't planning on making a Christmas card when I pulled out these Dried Citrus Slices dies but that's what happened.

I started by creating the citrus slices, which I was intending to use for the scallop element on the sketch.  From there it just morhped into a Christmas card, with ephemera tags, die-cut holly sprig and vintage-looking patterned paper.  I added some ink-blending round the edges of the embossed panel and the patterned paper, but didn't do any distressing in keeping with the clean theme at FMS.

Thanks so much for visiting and to everyone who left heartfelt comments on my post from last week, thank you.  It meant a lot.

Please check out the fabulous cards from the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Curio Labels (The Greetery)

Ink: Walnut Stain DOX, Walnut Stain, Forest Moss, Aged Mahogany, Festive Berries, Pine Needles, Rustic Wilderness, Antique Linen, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, Desert Storm, Christmas Backdrops patterned paper (Tim Holtz)

Dies: Bigger Botanicals Holly 1, Dried Citrus Slices (The Greetery)

Accessories: Burlap EF (Honey Bee Stamps), Sepia Serenity Ephemera (Aall & Create)

Cheers

Karren

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Birthday Wishes

Hi and welcome.  I'm back with a new challenge for Tic Tac Toe after a short break due to a very close bereavement in my family.  I chose to go with the centre row in the board with Any Colour/Free/Sentiment to come up with this birthday card.

I ink-blended a panel of cardstock with three colours of Distress ink and then I spritzed with Crackling Campfire Distress Spritz and set it aside to dry.  I die-cut the sentiment three times and stacked them together.  A few die-cut elements from a Carnation Crafts set finished off the card.

Thanks for visting.  Please check out the challenge blog and have a go yourself.

Products used:

Ink: Antique Linen, Dried Marigold, Crackling Campfire Distress Ink

Cardstock: White

Dies: Big Birthday Wishes (MFT), Full Flourish (Carnation Crafts)

Accessories: Crackling Campfire Distress Spritz

Cheers

Karren

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93rd Birthday

Hi and welcome.  I'm the hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week but this is a quick post because I've got some things to deal with in real life.

This card was made a few months ago for my dad's 93rd birthday.  I thought it would work for my sketch so I based my sketch off it.

For a very quick explanation, I used stencils and soft ink-blending for the muted background and ink-blended die-cuts for the focal point.

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team and have a go yourselves.

Products used:

Stamps: To the Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps), Mini Messages & More (MFT)

Ink: Gathered Twigs Distress Oxide, Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs, Tea Dye, Frayed Burlap, Scorched Timber, Speckled Egg, Iced Spruce Distress Ink

Cardstock: White

Dies: Rustic Garden (Spellbinders)

Accessories: Winter Wonder Background stencils (Honey Bee Stamps), Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain

Cheers

Karren

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Time is Ticking

Hi and welcome! It's time for another challenge from Tic Tac Toe and this time I went down the left column with Numbers/Initials - Gold - Vellum.  My numbers are roman numerals but they still count, right?

I'm still playing around with mixed media and this card utilises a lot of new stuff that I had just received.  I fell in love with the Gardens of Time release by Stamperia so bought several of the elements - some of which I used on this card.  The thing with a lot of mixed media is that it's a one and done - ephemera, patterned paper, rub-ons etc - use them once and they're gone.  That's hard for my crafty hoarding brain to deal with!

Anyway, the background of this card is a panel from 3Quarter Designs which I stenciled over with crackle paste then when that was dry, I sprayed on some distress spray stains, then flicked on some gold and Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide spray.  The central elements are all pieces from either the Garden of Time collection or 3Quarter Designs Eclectic Clockwork patterned paper pack.  On all the elements I distressed the edges, inked with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then splattered on some gold and Salvaged Patina.

For the vellum part of the challenge, I die-cut some small leaves and arranged them with the other elements.  I also found some really, really old (like 20+ years) roman numeral stickers so used one of those as well.

I finished with some linen thread on the tag and popped up a butterfly from the ephemera pack with foam squares.  I thought about a sentiment but didn't have anything appropriate so left it off.  I guess Time's Ticking can be a sentiment...

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Ink: Walnut Stain Distress Ink, Vintage Photo, Scorched Timber, Tarnished Brass Distress Spray Stains, Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Spray

Cardstock: White (card base), Eclectic Clockwork patterned paper (3Quarter Designs), Gardens of Time patterned paper, ephemera, junk journal, rub-ons (Stamperia)

Dies: Curvy Leaves (Elizabeth Designs)

Accessories: Mixed Clocks Stencil (Stamperia), Distress Crackle Paste, gold Roman numerals (unknown), gold eyelet, linen thread

Cheers

Karren

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Beachy Birthday

Hi! Today's card is for Seize the Birthday (animals), Just Add Ink (stencils and/or dies), and the sketch at Card Challenges.

I started by stamping the girl and the turtle onto X-Press It paper.  Once dry, I coloured them in quickly with Copics.  I then took the Beach Scene Builder dies and die-cut them all from white cardstock.  I then ink-blended all the layers.  On the sand layer I stamped some "specks" with Antique Linen ink and a stamp; on the sea layer, I used a waves stencil and on the sky layer, I used a cloud stencil.  Then on both the sand and sea layers I added dots with a white gel pen.

I wasn't 100% happy with the palm tree leaves so went over them with a dark green Copic marker to try and improve the look.  Not much better, but it'll do.

I then adhered all the elements together and added a birthday sentiment.  I went over the sun with a clear sparkle pen. 

Thanks for visiting.

I just realised that the animal should be the focal point at Seize the Birthday.  If my turtle isn't focal point enough, then I'll link this to the Anything Goes challenge.

Products used:

Stamps: Polynesian Paradise, Birdie Brown Greetings Galore, Distressed Patterns (MFT)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K), Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold, Tattered Rose, Saltwater Taffy, Walnut Stain, Pine Needles, Rustic Wilderness, Speckled Egg, Salvaged Patina, Tumbled Glass, Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, X-Press It

Dies: Polynesian Paradise, Beach Scene Builder (MFT)

Accessories: Copics, white gel pen, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, Micro Cloud Stencil, Waves Stencil (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

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Reality vs Imagination

Hi and welcome. Today's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Verena Shapiro.  I didn't exactly stay clean with my card but I didn't distress it too much so I hope it passes muster.

This card started with the Whirl Butterflies dies.  I thought I would die-cut them in white and then ink-blend, but somewhere along the line I pulled out multiple distress sprays and the grunge began...   While the butterflies were drying, I grabbed the April 2026 card kit from SSS and trimmed a strip of patterned paper over which I added some rub-ons from the same kit.  

I took a full panel of Teal Cave cardstock and embossed it with the Distress Mix EF.  Once that was done, I lightly swiped over the raised pattern with white ink.  Once the butterflies were dry, I went around the edges with Walnut Stain distress ink, then I had the idea to add some foundry wax around the edges so all the elements got that treatment.  I started adhering the various panels to the card.  The thin strip was a leftover from the Distress Spray panel.  

Originally I was going to use three butterflies but then started wondering about the sentiment and thought the centre would make a great spot for that.  I hunted out a sentiment to go with the card's look and stamped and clear-embossed it onto another piece of patterned paper from the same card kit.  I die-cut with a circle die and adhered it to a black cardstock circle for stability.  I then added some Walnut Stain ink and foundry wax.  I finished with some enamel dots and an enamel heart.  Below is a photo of the spray stains I had out - which ones I used for this card, I have no idea!

Thanks for visiting.  The design team have some gorgeous (and cleaner) cards so please check them out.

Products used:

Stamps: Warehouse District (Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Unicorn White (Hero Arts), Walnut Stain Distress Ink, various Distress Spray Stains, Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Spray, Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain

Cardstock: White, Teal Cave (Altenew), Beautifully Imperfect patterned paper (Spellbinders)

Dies: Circle Infinity Dies (Hero Arts), Whirl Butterflies (SSS)

Accessories:  Fresh Start Rub-Ons (49 & Market), Statue Foundry Wax (Tim Holtz), Clear EP, Distress Mix Embossing Folder (Spellbinders), black enamel dots and heart

Cheers

Karren

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Postage Birthday

Hi, it's time for another challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches and this week our sketch hostess is Michelle Langley.  I took the general layout of her sketch to make this card using postage collage products.

After stenciling the images and die-cutting, I arranged them to as closely match the sketch as I could.  I then worked on the vertical panels.  Firstly I sprayed two panels with Distress Spray Stain then I went over both panels with Distress Spritz.  This card is so sparkly in real life.

I finished with a bold birthday sentiment.

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

Products used:

Stamps: Mixed Sentiments (Waffle Flower)

Ink: Versafine Clair Nocturne, Salvaged Patina, Chipped Sapphire, Saltwater Taffy, Fossilized Amber, Ground Espresso, Cracked Pistachio Distress Inks

Cardstock: White

Dies: Postage Collage Cupcake Die, Postage Collage Die

Accessories:  Postage Collage Blocks Stencil, Cupcake Stencil, Cupcake Die and Stencil, Spun Sugar, Chipped Sapphire Distress Spray Stain, Saltwater Taffy, Uncharted Mariner Distress Spritz

Cheers

Karren

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Birthday Circles

Hi, I'm here with my card for this week's colour challenge over at Card Challenges. I'm also playing along with the current Inskpirational challenge, where I was inspired by the repeating circles in the top right image and pastel colours in the bottom right image.  

The challenge colours threw me for a bit until I re-read the blog post and decided to pastel-ise the colours a bit more.  So I found softer tones of the challenge colours and then used a MFT circle stencil to stencil them onto the left hand side of a white panel.  I deliberately softened the ink-blending as I got near the top of each circle to add to the feel.  Once I'd finished with the circles I stamped some mini splatters onto each circle, using the stencil for the smaller circles to keep the splatter inside the ink-blending.  

I then stamped the sentiment from the same stamp set and mounted it onto a mat in a cardstock colour that most closely matched the pink ink.  Because I like the look of the black against the soft colours, I added some black enamel dots and a black enamel heart.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps: Mini Messages & More (MFT)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Saltwater Taffy, Broken China, Shaded Lilac, Evergreen Bough Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, Dahlia (Spellbinders)

Dies: A2 Stitched Rectangle Stax 1 & 2 (MFT)

Accessories: Basic Shapes: Circles stencil (MFT), Enamel Dots

Cheers

Karren

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Toadstool Notes

Hi, I'm here with my not-very-clean card for the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess is Cecile Ribon.  This card started out when I found a roll of collage tissue paper in my stash.  I decided to have a play and make a panel with scrunched up tissue paper, adhered to cardstock and then spritzed and ink-blended to vintage it up a little.  I then got caught up in the moment and it turned into my FMS card.  Apologies to the team for the vintage-y, distressed appearance. 

I found the toadstools already ink-blended and assembled so then I created the clipboard, which is just so cute and fun!  I made the clip of the clipboard by spritzing a piece of Desert Storm cardstock with Antiqued Bronze distress spray stain and letting it dry.  It gave it a nice, aged metallic look without using foil cardstock.

The vellum was torn on three sides to match the sketch and I added a sentiment which was stamped with black onto white then I clear heat-embossed over the whole thing to give it a true Dymo tape look.

Thanks for visiting.  The DT have created some wonderful (cleaner) cards so I hope you'll check them out.

Products used:

Stamps:  Faded Type, Mini Muse (Tim Holtz), Winter Herbarium (The Greetery), Best Sentiments (Altenew)

Ink: Obsidian (Altenew), Hickory Smoke, Gathered Twigs, Old Paper Distress Oxide, Walnut Stain Distress Ink, Versamark

Cardstock: Neenah Desert Storm, White, Paper Bag (Lawn Fawn), Vellum, Tissue Wrap (Tim Holtz), Off the Grid patterned paper (MFT)

Dies: Vault Noteworthy (Tim Holtz), Botanicals toadstood Garden (The Greetery)

Accessories: Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Spray, Scorched Timber, Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain, Clear Embossing Powder.

Cheers

Karren

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Grateful Heart

Hi! My Simon Says Stamp February card kit arrived on Friday and I couldn't wait to have a play with it.  This was my first month subscribing to the kit, but I fell in love with the Artful Palette stencils and dies and had to have it.

I also happened to get around to watching Tim Holtz' latest live and he showcased the kit and the patterned papers.  I took one of his ideas and covered some strips of the patterned paper with packing tape to give a tile look.

I'm normally a CAS card-maker but my roots are in the collage-type of cardmaking from the late 90s, early 00's so it was fun to revisit.  I also dug out some really old embellishments for this card.

I started with a panel of TH kraft cardstock which I embossed with an Altenew clocks/gears embossing folder.  Once that was finished, I ink-blended round the edges with Walnut Stain distress ink and then went over various parts with a Stamperia stencil and the same ink.  I then added a bit of Black Soot to the edges before splattering on some Black Soot Distress Spray Stain and some Heidi Swapp Gold Color Shine.  I then set it aside to dry.

After adding packing tape to some strips of cardstock, I chose my stencil and die-cut various pieces.  For the sentiment, I stamped on some Pencil Eraser cardstock with Walnut Stain DOX ink before die-cutting and then adding some Walnut Stain distress ink around the edges.  All the die-cuts apart from the sentiment are adhered straight to the embossed panel.  The sentiment is popped up on foam squares from the kit.

The big round embellishment started out silver so I added some alcohol ink to it to colour it up, more in line with the rest of the card.  The butterflies were die-cut from a scrap of leftover Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain sprayed cardstock and I added some tiny vintage pearls to the centre before popping up their wings.

Thanks for visiting!  This took me all afternoon but it was so much fun just getting messy and playing.

Products used:

Stamps:  Be Your Beautiful Self (SSS)

Ink: Walnut Stain Distress Oxide, Walnut Stain, Black Soot Distress Ink

Cardstock: Kraft (Tim Holtz), Pencil Eraser (Lawn Fawn), Curated Palette Collection (Tim Holtz)

Dies: Artful Palette (SSS)

Accessories: Traces of Yesterday Embossing Folder (Altenew), Daily News stencil (Stamperia), Teakwood alcohol ink, Rose Gold Mixative, Black Soot Distress Stain Spray, Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain, Gold Color Shine (Heidi Swapp), expoxy rose, large grommett, Warm Pearl Stickers (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

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Blue Leaves

Here I am back again - two days in a row - that must be a record!  I made this card for the Color Hues blue and white challenge and the Inskpirational shades of blue challenge.

I was drawn to the blue squares in the Inskpirational visual prompt so after embossing and ink-blending my leaves, I decided to go with a postage theme and die-cut pieces with both a rectangle and a square postage edge die set.  I backed both pieces with a Midnight postage edge border and overlapped them for added interest.  I found the Herringbone Parquet panel already die-cut with my Midnight cardstock, so decided to go with a blue-on-blue theme.

Finally, I went looking for a pre-foiled sentiment and found this one which worked perfectly.  The postage images and the sentiment are popped up with foam tape to provide some separation from the background.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Ink:  Uncharted Mariner, Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink

Cardstock: White, Midnight (C&9)

Dies: Postage Edge Rectangles, Postage Edge Squares (Spellbinders), Herringbone Parquet (The Greetery), Wonderful Sentiments hot foil and dies (Pink Fresh Studio)

Accessories: Leafy Splendor Embossing Folder and Stencils (Altenew), black hot foil

Cheers

Karren

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Bluebird

Hi and welcome!  I'm trying to spend more time in my craft room this year to try and bring back some of the joy in the hobby that disappeared when my son passed in 2019.  Today, I made a card for a few challenges, which I used to do every week, but now do so very rarely.  This card is for Addicted to Stamps & More (Any Occasion), Time Out Challenges Favourite Technique (stenciling and ink-blending), Krafty Chicks Masculine Challenge and Just Us Girls Stencil Challenge.

Any New Zealanders reading this post will hopefully recognise my inspiration for this Valentine card for my husband.  For those that don't recognise it, this is a play on one of the most popular potato chip brands (see photo of packet below).  He loves potato chips so buying this die and stencil set from Hero Arts was a no-brainer.  I die-cut the elements from white cardstock and used Distress Inks to colour them.  I went looking through my stash for a penguin and did some masking to remove the cocktail glass this one was holding up.  I then filled in the gap with a black Copic pen (although in hindsight I didn't need to because the chip covered it up anyway).

I took the "originals" from the chip pack and added the sentiment (although I wish I had white-embossed it now, but never mind).  

On the card base, I stenciled over the Geo Leaves stencil with Distress Grit Paste and once dry I assembled all the elements.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps: Penguins In Paradise, Be Original (MFT), Peony Memories (The Ton)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K), Scattered Straw, Fossilized Amber, Tea Dye, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire, Fired Brick, Festive Berries Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, X-Press It

Dies: Snack Attack (Hero Arts), Penguins In Paradise (MFT)

Accessories: Geo Leaves stencil (SSS), Distress Grit Paste, Copics

Cheers

Karren

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Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Just Us Girls and Krafty Chicks

Poinsettia

Hi and welcome to our second-to-last challenge of the year over at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Michele Ferguson.

I went with a Christmas card because I couldn't think of anything other than a big flower for the circle image (my creativity is on hiatus at the moment).

The flower was stamped, stenciled and die-cut before being layered onto a dark green background.  For the banner, I went with vellum and really wanted to actually stitch it onto the card but was just too lazy to pull out the sewing machine! Hence the stitched dies - so much easier!

I finished with some gold gems in the centre of the flower and on the banner to hide some little dots of glue.

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

Products used:

Stamps: Festive Poinsettia (Alex Syberia Design)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K.), Versamark, Peeled Paint, Forest Moss, Lumberjack Plaid, Aged Mahogany, Saltwater Taffy, Worn Lipstick Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, Vellum, Forest (Spellbinders)

Dies: Festive Poinsettia (Alex Syberia Design), Stitched Fishtail Flag Stax, Blueprints 25 (MFT)

Accessories: Gilded Embossing Powder (Brutus Monroe), Back to Basics Gem Stickers (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

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