JAI 762: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week it's an Inspiration Challenge, suggested to us by Kim.

Hmm, this one stumped me for a while. Then I thought that the cup had coffee in it, which led me directly to my pop culture collection of stamps.

There's only one thing I think of when I think of coffee! And if you didn't read at least the first part of the sentiment in *that* voice then we can no longer be friends.... joke!! I took the brown and black from the Inspiration Photo, but otherwise, it's all about the coffee.

I did include a cup on the inside!

We'd love to see what you create using our photo as inspiration. Jump on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you can see what the rest of the Design Team have made. It's always interesting to see what catches everyone's eye in the photos. When you're done, you can add your card to our challenge using Linky.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 760: Just Add Colour

Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week we have a colour combo for you, suggested to us by Tristan. 

I don't know about you, but my first thought when looking at it was Christmas, but I'm just not ready to make any Christmas cards just yet! It did bring to mind this retired set of dies, called Tree Lot Dies.

I decided to use the dies, along with the Hello Sweetums Mountains Of Fun Dies, to create a fun scene. I realised that I needed blue for a day time sky, but as it wasn't part of the colour challenge, I had to think a bit more.

I decided to use black so that I could add some Gold Foil stars and call it a night time scene! There's also Gold Foil on the caravan, but it was very difficult to photograph in the sun. The sentiment is from Beautiful World, cropped with a Tasteful Labels Die.

I cheated a little on the inside, and used some Balmy Blue ink to add to my scene. Black ink would have just looked weird!

Please jump on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find the rest of this week's Design Team cards for your inspiration. You can also add your card to our Linky when you're ready to enter the challenge. We'd love to see what you create.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 758: Just Add A Sketch

 Hi!

Thanks ever so much for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Kim has designed a fun sketch to inspire our creativity.

I love using circles on cards, and that wee little bow? So sweet! I wanted to make a sewing themed card for a friend, so I went hunting through my extensive paper stash for some suitable paper. This gingham print from the Country Gingham DSP pack was the perfect choice.

The paper colour is Sweet Sorbet, thankfully I had some coordinating cardstock in my stash too. A layer of Whisper White under the DSP gave it a lovely pop.

The stamp set that I used is from Kindred Stamps, called National Sewing Machine Day. It's a great choice for a sewing themed thank you card! I used my Stylish Shapes Dies to crop the banners and the stitched circle. The solid circle is from the long retired Circles Collection Framelits.

The inside uses another sentiment from the Sewing Machine stamp set, a strip of left over DSP and some sweet die cuts from the Quilt Builder Framelits dies. I love it when different products from different companies work so well together!

That's all from me for this week, but we'd love to see what you make. You can see the rest of the Design Team cards over on the Just Add Ink blog, where you can also add your card to our Linky.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 754: Just Choose Two

 Hi!

Welcome to the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Kim has suggested the we Just Choose Two to add to our card.

That's a tough choice! I'm not much of a flower person, so I decided to go for the other two options - a Die Cut and some Ribbon.

I had a dig through my dies and came across this Legendary Word die, by Sweet Stamp Shop. Perfect! And speaking of perfect, this stamp set, Legendary by Kindred Stamps, was a great choice to pair with it. I enjoyed colouring the young man with my Stampin' Blends.

Cam you see the sparkly ribbon laying underneath the die cut? The card is so CAS that I used it there to give the word a little touch of oomph. I also used my Blending Brush to add a little Balmy Blue ink under my legendary lad to give him a bit of a boost, too.

I couldn't use one legendary character without the other, so she's made an appearance on the inside.

We'd love to see which two you'll choose. You can see the rest of the Design Team cards, and add your card to the Linky over on the Just Add Ink blog.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 752: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Welcome to the new Just Add Ink Challenge. This week we have an Inspiration Photo to spark your creativity, suggested to us by Jo.

It's a cute vintage car, and the flowers in the back scream 'wedding' to me. Do you agree? Having said that, I instantly thought of a cute stamp I had that I thought worked well. To me, the stamp and the inspo photo both have flowers in unexpected or unusual places.

The stamp is called Basics: Floral Coffee Mug, and is from Ink Road Stamps. I stamped it using Memento ink, and then coloured it with colours pulled from the Inspiration Photo - Mint Macaron, Petal Pink, Daffodil Delight, Cinnamon Cider and Just Jade Stampin' Blends.

The sentiment is from Attention Shoppers, and the DSP is Mint Macaron gingham. It's one of my favourite ever SU colours, and the car was close enough in colour to justify using it on my card.

On the inside I stamped the main image again in second generation Mint Macaron ink, with another sentiment from Attention Shoppers. I accidentally cut the Whisper White cardstock too small, but I think it looks ok - just a larger border on the inside!

We'd love to see what inspires you from the Inspiration Photo. Will it be the car, the colours, or maybe the flowers? You can see what the Design Team made over on the Just Add Ink blog. You can also link up your card when you're ready.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 750: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week we have a colour challenge for you, suggested to us by Lou.

Isn't it lovely and fresh? The three In Colours pair so beautifully with Basic Black. I remembered that I had a pack of DSP in my stash that had B&W designs on one side, and colour on the other - Pattern Party DSP.

I do love a good B&W stripe! I added it to the Pretty In Pink card base. The cute little stamp that I've used in the background is from the Light The Candles card kit. I added a small Rhinestone to the centres of each for a little added pizzazz.

The main sentiment is from Happy Little Things. It's a fun two step stamp set with a lot of words and phrases to mix and match. Yay for not having to colour in the sentiment! And doesn't the Summer Splash ribbon pop against the stripes?

Speaking of stripes, I had a little offcut, so it was put to good use in the inside of the card.

We'd love to see what you do with these colours. You can see what the rest of the Design Team have made over on the Just Add Ink blog. You can also link up your card to our challenge gallery when you're ready.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 746: Just Add Swirls

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Nikki has challenged us to Just Add Swirls to our cards.

There are so many different ways to interpret this challenge. In the end I decided that I would pull out an old favourite stamp set, and add a swirling dancer to my card.

To add an extra bit of movement, and another swirl, I die cut the swirling stars from my Stitched Stars dies in Bubble Bath cardstock to the background of the card.

The swirling dancer, from Born To Shine, was coloured with my Melon Mambo (and a few other) Stampin' Blends and popped up over the top.

The Bubble Bath stars came from the swirl of stars on the front. I don't like wasting perfectly good offcuts, so they were put to work on the front and inside of the card, along with sentiments from Born To Shine.

We'd love to see which swirls you will add to your card. You can see what the Design Team have made over at the Just Add Ink blog, where you will also find our Linky so that you can add your card to the challenge album.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 744: Just Choose Two

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink Challenge. This week it's a Choose Two challenge, suggested to us by Di.

Hmmm, what to do? I'd recently purchased the Gnomes For Summer Thin Cuts, and thought that I could put him at the end of a rainbow with a pot of gold, but that's a leprechaun, not a gnome! I was determined to use him, though, so I gave him a background of rainbow paper.

Isn't he cute? I had lots of fun choosing different colours of card stock and Glimmer paper to use on him. I cheated a little by colouring his feet, hand and nose with my Ivory Stampin' Blend. How fun is the sentiment? I thought that it suited the theme of the challenge perfectly. It's from and Altenew set, called Crafty Life.

The sun is cropped using a Uniquely Creative die, called Stitched Sun. I thought that it went perfectly with the sun in the rainbow paper. It's a retired pack, called Sunshine & Rainbows.

I used an offcut on the inside, along with another sentiment from the Crafty Life set - again, it worked very nicely with the challenge theme!

We'd love to see which two that you choose for our Choose Two challenge. You can see what the rest of the Design Team chose over on the Just Add Ink blog. You'll also find our Linky so that you can add your card to our challenge gallery.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 742L Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

It's once again time for the new Just Add Ink challenge. Yay! This week we have an Inspiration 

Photo challenge, suggested to us by Nikki.

Oh, how I wish that I had a lovely space like this at my home! I am a complete black thumb, and my garden is not faring well in the near-drought conditions we are currently experiencing in South Australia.

I was inspired by the lush green leaves, and the pops of colour in the cushions. The cushions actually have birds on them, but I decided to add colour with a digi stamp from Stamp Anniething, called Springtime Girl. She was coloured in pinks, purples, browns and blues to match some of the colours in the photo.

It's difficult to see, but the Leaf Collection background, stamped in Garden Green, was cropped with one of the new Textured Notes Dies. They are going to be fun dies to play with! The 'celebrate' sentiment is from Simply Said, I just masked off the 'let's' part of it. I popped a scrap of Vellum behind the girl to help her pop out from the leafy background.

More leaves and another Simply Said sentiment complete the inside of the card.

We'd love to see what grabs you attention from the Inspiration Photo. You can see what the rest of the Design Team have made over on the Just Add Ink blog, where you can also add your card to our Linky.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 740: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week we have an interesting colour combination for you, suggested to us by Rochelle.

It's a little bit nautical, don't you think? Having said that, I went in another direction altogether!

To me, the colours represented the sky, just as it was transitioning from day to night. The last blaze of the sun as it sinks below the horizon, and the dark sky with twinkling stars emerging. I used Blending Brushes to create the sky, blending from Pretty In Pink, to Cherry Cobbler and finally Night Of Navy. I then splattered some Frost White shimmer paint, concentrating on the top of the card, to represent the stars.

The trees, from Lovely As A Tree, were actually stamped before the splatters. I tried heat embossing the word 'courage' using white embossing powder over the trees, but it didn't pop as much as I'd like, so the Pretty In Pink strip with Rose Metallic Thread underneath was popped over the top.

The inside of the card was stamped with the same stamp set - Ribbon Of Courage.

That's all from me for this challenge. You can see what the rest of the Design Team has created using these fun colours over on the Just Add Ink blog. You'll also find our Linky there when you are ready to add your card to the challenge gallery.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 738: Just Add A Sketch

 Hi!

Welcome to a new Just Add Ink challenge. This week we have a sketch challenge, with the sketch being designed by Jo.

I love the offset square in the centre of the sketch. I was keen to play with different shapes though, so after perusing my stamp collection, I decided to use my Pretty Perennials stamp set and the coordinating Perennial Petals dies.

I love the sort of watercolour look that the stamps produce. I stamped the flowers in Polished Pink ink, with an Early Espresso centre. They were cropped with the matching die and then popped up over the card base. I had stamped the leaves on the base with Granny Apple Green ink.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set, cropped with a Happy Little Things die. I love the crisp look of white on white. A scattering of iridescent sequins finished off the front of the card.

I'm not sure how I will use this card yet, so I didn't add a sentiment to the inside. I just went with another flower and some leaves.

You can see how the rest of the Design Team played with the sketch over on the Just Add Ink blog. You can also add your card to our Linky to enter the challenge. We'd love to see what you do with the sketch.

Bye for now,

Tina