A Birthday Blog Hop For Kelly

Hi!

Welcome to my first post of the night - there'll be another one a bit later! For now though, I am hopping with my demonstrator friend, Kelly Kent. It's her birthday (hip hip hooray!) and she's celebrating by doing a blog hop. what a fun way to celebrate! The blog before mine was Shannon's, but we are all linked in a circle, so start wherever and end where you start! Confused? LOL!

Tonight's cards are the first I made using the technique that's going totally viral, especially after all us demo's went to New Zealand and cleared them out of Press & Seal! Yes, it's the Floating Frames technique. I hope you're not too sick of it yet!

I made this card as a class sample and decided that it's far too hard for everyone to stamp, colour and cut a heap of flowers in a class, so we'd use punches with DSP instead. It really cuts down on the time involved but still makes a pretty awesome card! I used a sheet of 6x6 DSP from the Garden Impressions DSP pack combined with the Butterfly Duo punch for my card. One sheet of 6x6 gives plenty of butterflies for the front, with some left over to decorate the insides.

I'm not going to explain the technique, there are plenty of videos and tutorials out there. I will give you a few tips though. I didn't take a photo, but before I laid out my punched shapes on the copy paper, I traced the shape of the circle die onto the paper. This allowed me to see where I would cut and hopefully I could avoid teeny tiny pieces of butterfly to try to stick a dimensional to!

As it turned out, choosing a slightly mottled DSP worked well, as sometimes the Press & Seal sticks too well to the paper. If a little bit peels away, it's less obvious on a paper that already looks distressed!

Can you tell where the paper peeled away a little? Didn't think so! LOL

I kept the stamping simple by using the same sentiments on both cards, just switching the inside for outside to suit each one.

Slightly dodgy photo, but here's both cards together. I've made a few more Floating Frames cards since these, including a pair using the Balloon Duo punch. It's a bit addictive!

That's it for me, now you're hopping off to visit Monique's blog to see what gorgeous card she's made for Kelly's Birthday Hop.

Bye for now,

Tina

A Clean Slate

Hi!

Time for a new Colour Creations Blog Share. This week it's Smokey Slate, which I surprisingly found to be a hard colour toward with! I asked Rob for inspiration and he straight away said to make a Game Of Thrones card. Umm, no! In the end, I decided to go with a classic pink and grey combo.

My new Rococo Rose ink pad was on my desk, so I did a bit of smooshing with it. I then added some Smokey Slate smooshing around the edges. Once it dried I used my retiring Eclectic Layers dies to cut a few diamonds into the cardstock.

The stamp set is a new one from the upcoming Annual Catalogue, called Genuine Gems. The pieces on my card are actually chopped from a larger sentiment that says 'I told the universe to send some awesome your way'. I half coloured the open letters and then matted them in halves on Smokey Slate and Rococo Rose cardstock. I was going for a card for an older teen girl, so I was trying a few funky things out.

I did a little more smooshing on the inside. It's hard to see, but there is some Smokey Slate in there amongst the Rococo Rose!

Tina to pop on over to Catherine's blog, where you can find the rest of this week's Smokey Slate cards.

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #222: Sale-A-Bration

Hi!

Time for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. You may have come to my blog from my friend  Judy May, or you may be starting here. Doesn't matter - just keep hopping until you get back to where you started.

This week we are CASEing the Sale-A-Bration Catalogue for the last time. Sniff! SAB ends today, so I hope you got lots of lovely freebies from the promotion. I sure did!

This week my inspiration came from the front cover of the catalogue - to be more specific, the background photo on the first release catalogue. I love the unfocussed shot of balloons, and after looking at the card bases in the Incredible Like You kit, I realised that one of the bases had a similar look. It's the card that you'd usually put the citrus laser cut paper over.

Instead of popping the laser cut paper over the top, I cropped a piece of vellum with my Rectangle Stitched Framelits and adhered that over the top. It softened the colourful circles and made them look more like the cover.

The layering on the front was made using the bits from the kit that would normally go with this card. As I have done on other cards recently, I also used a wooden butterfly, but I went over the top of it with my Silver Sharpie. It was then glued over the top of the silver edged circle label that came with the kit. The bottom piece was cropped from some Grapefruit Grove Cardstock with my Everyday Label punch, to which I added a strip of Silver foil top and bottom.

While I had the Silver Foil handy, I cropped some small butterflies using my Butterfly Duet Punch. I love the way they look fluttering around the inside sentiment.

That's it fr me for this week. Don't forget to join our Facebook group so that you can participate in the challenges each week. We'd love to have you!

For now though, don't forget to finish the Blog Hop. Next is the lovely Sandra Collett.

Bye for now,

Tina

A Roaring Good Time With Pumpkin Pie

Hi!

Wowee, the Art With Heart team are ripping though the colours in the Stampin' Up! range. We are up to Pumpkin Pie this week. When deciding what to make I reached for my Brights cardstock tub, but I didn't find Pumpkin Pie. Oops! I forgot that in the last Colour Refresh, Pumpkin Pie was moved to the Regals.

I have a great nephew turning two in a couple of weeks, and so this was a great opportunity to make a fun card for him. I was originally thinking a lion, but they are yellow, not orange! Tiger it was, then! I did a google search for tigers made using the fox builder punch and found a few. The one I followed was just marked as 'Alana'. How cute is he?

He was a little fiddly to make, but soooo worth the effort. I made his stripes by stamping just the ear part of one of the heads in the Foxy Friends stamp set. I repeated this for the 2, which I think looks super cute!

I had the foresight to make a second tiger at the same time as the first. Usually I only make one and then wish for a second one for the inside but can't be bothered as they are so fiddly. I got smart this time! You may notice that his tail is on the other side - that was a bit of an oops moment that worked out nicely.

Why not pop on over to Catherine's blog, where you can find the links for the rest of this week's Pumpkin Pie cards? They're gonna be great!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #449: Just Add Colour

Hi!

Yay, it's Friday! Time for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Jo has given us a bright colour combo to inspire our creativity.

As much as I love these colours, I was quite stumped for inspiration for a long time. It got to the point where I asked Rob for advice, and his words were 'it must be bad if you're asking me what to do'! In the end I went back to my basic rule for colour combos: If in doubt, use lots of white. Hooray - it worked!

I pulled out my Birthday Cheer bundle to make a cupcake card, although when I showed Rob the finished card he thought they were ice creams. It doesn't really matter I guess - either one works! I started by cutting the cupcake edgelit and then trimming each cake around the bottom to liberate it. I then used the single cupcake die to cut a section for the wrapper and then a whole cake to layer for the icing. I also cut extra pieces from the edgelit die so that I could pop in the heart and the cherry.

Each cake was popped up on Dimensionals and then I ran my Wink Of Stella brush over the wrappers, cherry and heart to give them some subtle glimmer. It's hard to see in the photo! You can see around the edges of the rectangle that I cropped the main panel from the piece behind it, and then matted it with some Lovely Lipstick cardstock before popping it up. I don't mind that the second stitched line is partly visible - it's just another feature.

I ran out of energy to die cut and piece another cupcake for the inside, so I pulled out my Blends instead. I did have to use Highland Heather instead of Gorgeous Grape, but I don't think it matters too much, the cake still looks yummy!

That's it for me, as always you can find the rest of the Design Team's cards over at the Just Add Ink blog. You can also link up your card for this week's colour challenge. It's a fun one!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #443: Just Choose Two

Hi!

Welcome back to our new Just Add Ink challenge.This week Jan has asked us to Just Choose Two.

We have the choice of two of: embossing paste, colouring or sequins. I didn't feel like getting messy this week, so I went for colouring and sequins.

This is a bit different from my usual style, but I do like how it turned out. My first attempt at a background for the gift went into the bin, but the second time was the charm. I pulled out my heat embossing equipment to emboss the sentiment. I like the soft look of the white text on pink cardstock, don't you? It's layered over some of the new Flax ribbon from the Occasions Catalogue, which is soooo much nicer than it looks!

To create the background, I simply sponged some Petal Pink ink to a size just a little bigger than the gift. I then stamped the confetti/sprinkles stamp from Birthday Cheer over the top, stamping off once first to soften the colour. Everything else was just layered over the top and finished with some iridescent sequins.

I followed a similar process on the inside underneath the cupcake. The cake and gift were both coloured with my blends. I used the Granny Apple Green, Highland Heather, Petal Pink and Real Red combos. I really love the bold colours sitting on top of the softer pink. What do you think?

Why not head on over to the Just Add Ink, where you can see the cards the rest of the design team have made for this week's challenge? You won't be disappointed!

Bye for now,

Tina

Pacific Point To The Rescue

Hi!

You should know what Tuesday night means by now - Colour Creations time! This week the team are looking at Pacific Point, a lovely mid blue that's been part of the colour line up for a long time now. And why not, as it's a great blue.

You can see I had a lot of fun this week with my Tailored Tag punch. It's such a great shape, and I wanted to make a tessellated card with the punched shapes. I started by layering them on a piece of Whisper White, but it didn't look right. I switched to Night Of Navy, and bingo!

As I laid the shapes out, I got to thinking that it looked a little like armour plating, possibly a bit scaly, like a certain watery superhero that's in the cinema's right now. It's the wrong colour, but hopefully you see what I saw.

I added the Navy strip to the top to give it a bit of a utility belt feel to go along with the scaly armour. What do you think? A bit superhero-ish? I hope so! I started with the Whisper White punched shape and adhered it to the navy base before adding the Pacific Point punches around it. The hardest part was getting the gaps even, but I think I did a pretty good job!

I couldn't resist adding another row of the punches on the inside. It really finishes off the card, don't you think?

That's it from me, so why don't you pop on over to Catherine's blog, where you can see the rest of this week's Pacific Point cards? It's definitely worth a look!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #441: Just Add Inspiration

Hi!

Yay for a new Just Add Ink challenge! This week Jo has found this gorgeous Inspiration Photo for our challenge. I'm hungry just looking at it!

Those cupcakes look very yummy, but I think I'd have to scrape half of the icing off! My kids would be more than happy to eat it for me, I think.

I've looked past the colours this week, and decided to give my new Birthday Cheer bundle a run.

As soon as I saw the Edgelits in the Occasions Catalogue, I knew I wanted to try an Easel card using them. I love how they pop off of the top of the page as an outline, but when you close the card they are filled in.

The Broadway Bound SDSP is a great pair for the bundle. I really love this metallic confetti paper.

The little heart on the inside has come from the cupcake on the right. It is just the right size to keep the easel card open, and is a cute addition to the inside of the card, don't you think?

The rest of this week's yummy cards can be found over at the Just Add Ink blog, where you can also link up your card for the challenge. Can't wait to see what you whip up (LOL!) using the picture as inspiration.

Bye for now,

Tina