Colour Creations: Old Olive

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the final Colour Creations Blog Hop for 2022. Don't worry, we'll be back in 2023 with the rest of the colours! This week we are focusing on Old Olive - a longtime staple of the colour range. As the name suggests, it's an olive green that's quite versatile.

I was intrigued by this colour combo from Brian King. I don't usually put two greens together, especially two that are as different as Old Olive and Shaded Spruce, but I was keen to give it a go!

Shaded Spruce is a great colour for succulents, so I pulled out my Plentiful Plants bundle and stamped some of the images. I think this plant is a mother-in-law's tongue? It sits perfectly in the two-handled pot, which I stamped in Rich Razzleberry.

I used my Simply Fabulous stamp set for the sentiment, cropped using a Simply Stylish Die. I had initially planned to heat emboss a sentiment on the Old Olive banner underneath, but I ran out of time. This was a great alternative.

Here's a tip for you - it you have an offcut of DSP to use, but it's not quite wide enough, snip off one end at an angle and make it look like a feature!

Thanks for hopping along with us in 2022, we hope that you continue to do so in 2023. For now though,  please do continue on your way with tonight's hop, starting with my lovely friend Di Furniss. Di's favourite colour is green, so I'm sure she's had a wonderful time creating with Old Olive.

The place to go for help if you run into any problems with links is the wonderful Cathy Proctor's blog. She does a fabulous job of keeping us all organised. She has a list of all of tonight's participants on her blog to help get you back on track.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Mint Macaron

 Hi!

Thanks for stopping by on your way around our Colour Creations Blog Hop this evening. It's Mint Macaron week. Hooray! As you may have guessed, it's a favourite of mine. It began as an In Colour, but eventually found it's way back as a member of the Subtles colour family in a colour refresh.

I love Mint Macaron paired with Neutrals, so I absolutely adored this colour combo from Brian King.

The DSP on the top part of my card is from the Design A Daydream Host DSP pack. I'm a real sucker for these tile-like patterns, so I really love this sheet of DSP. I used some Neutrals DSP on the bottom section, separated by some Very Vanilla Baker's Twine.

My Plentiful Plants bundle was dusted off for the feature panel. I cropped the Very Vanilla cardstock with a Tailor Made Tags die. One leaf image and the top line of the sentiment was stamped directly on the tag, with the other leaves and pot stamped on scraps and popped up over the top.

Another pot and plant was stamped on the inside, with the last two thirds of the sentiment. I love how easy it is to split sentiments when stamping with photopolymer stamps. It's so easy to ink up just the line (or two) that you need without having to fuss around with masking off bits and pieces.

Please continue your way around our blog hop tonight by jumping on over to Christine Blain's blog. I can't wait to see what she's made.

If you run into any problems with links on tonight's blog hop, please hop on over to Cathy Proctor's blog. She will have a list of all of tonight's participants and you can get yourself back on track.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Evening Evergreen

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Colour Creations Blog Hop. It's Evening Evergreen's turn to shine. I nearly wrote that it was one of the new In Colours, but I'm a year too late - it's actually an 'old' In Colour that will retire mid-next year. It's a lovely grey-green that I quite like.

Brian King has paired Evening Evergreen with Crumb Cake and Blushing Bride. I like the mix of a Neutral and soft pink with the deeper green.

I began my card with a Evening Evergreen base, and a layer of Brick & Mortar Embossed Crumb Cake over the top. A strip of Evening Evergreen DSP and White Baker's Twine proved a lovely anchor point for the Stylish Shapes die-cut circle.

My Plentiful Plants stamp set was a great choice for the focal stamping. I stamped one set of leaves onto the circle, and stamped and die cut two more sets to go in the Blushing Bride pot. I looked to Forever Fern for the sentiment, which fits perfectly into the Stylish Shapes banner.

My choice for the inside sentiment is a little controversial - I know some people don't like it, as one word is grammatically incorrect, not that I'm naming names! I created the pot plant in the same way as the one on the front of my card.

Well, that's all from me with Evening Evergreen, but please do keep jumping your way around our blog hop, as there's plenty more to see. Just keep on going until you get back to your starting point. The next stop along the way is the very lovely Kate Morgan.

We are kept organised each week by the very capable, and delightful, Catherine Proctor. If you get stuck, just jump on over to her blog, where you'll find a list of all of tonight's participants to help get you back on track.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 615: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Welcome back for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week we have an Inspiration Photo for you, suggested by Nikki.

Wow, I wish I had a little retreat like this in my yard!! I'd never want to leave it. What grabbed me were the pops of green plants among the wood textures and black features, so that's what I went with on my card.

I've combined papers from two retired packs for my card. The wood paper is from Wood Textures DSP, and the plants have been fussy cut from Bloom Where You're Planted DSP. Some are adhered flat to the card, others are popped up.

The pot at the very back of the cluster was stamped in Pale Papaya, as there was a pot of a similar colour in the Inspiration Photo. The sentiment came from the same stamp set as the pot: Plentiful Plants. I used the coordinating Perfect Plants dies to crop some of the images.

The inside of a card is a great spot to use up the partial images from the side of the DSP. They look like they are meant to be cropped that way!

We'd love for you to join in with our challenge this week - what do you see in the Inspiration Photo? I quite liked the look of the circle things on the back wall. They'd be fun to play with for a card. Jump on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you can see the rest of the Design Team's gorgeous cards. You can also link up your card for the challenge.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Shaded Spruce

Hi! 

Wow, it feels like forever since I've posted to my blog. Unfortunately I tested positive to COVID two weeks ago, with the rest of my family testing positive a week later. I'm two weeks post-diagnosis and I'm still feeling unwell, but I missed my card making too much, so I found the energy to create for this week's Colour Creations blog hop. We are looking at Shaded Spruce this week. I did not like this green to start with, but I have found myself using it more and more lately.

I wanted to create an inked green backdrop for my card this week. I initially thought I'd use the smooshing technique, but in the end I decided to use a piece of bubble wrap. I tapped my Shaded Spruce ink pad onto my largest clear block and then spritzed the ink with water. I laid a piece of bubble wrap over the top, pushing down to help pick up the ink. I then laid the inked bubble wrap over a piece of Shimmery White cardstock. It's probably a technique that works better with paint rather than ink, but I liked the end result.

I used my Plentiful Plants bundle to create the feature. At first I only had the two stamped and die cut leaves, but they didn't stand out enough from the background for my liking. Of all the things I tried to do to give them some lift, the plain black die cut leaves worked the best - even though you can barely see them!

My pots were created by cropping the outline layer from Basic Black cardstock with a piece of Adhesive Sheet on the back, adhering the outline to another piece of Basic Black card and then carefully cutting around the edge with my snips. I then used Wink Of Stella on the outline piece for a bit of extra shimmer.

It's good to be back hopping with the team for the Colour Creations hops. The two hops that I missed while I was sick were the only two I have ever missed, so I was a little sad to ruin my perfect record. Aren't I lucky that that's my biggest problem? LOL!

You won't want to miss out on the rest of the hop, so please do continue on your way. The next stop is Caroline Manwaring's blog. I can't wait to see what she's made!

As always, Catherine Proctor is doing a wonderful job of keeping us all organised. If you have a problem with any of the links, just jump on over to her blog and pick up the trail again.

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC 359: CASE A Die Project

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me at the end of another weekend that has gone by in a flash! I need another weekend to recover from my weekend, LOL! But the end of the weekend means the start of the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop, so it's not all bad 😁

This week we are asking you to CASE a Die Project from any current catalogue. I decided to choose a die bundle from the Annual Catalogue that hasn't seen any love for a few weeks - my Perfect Plants Dies.

I chose this card to CASE, as I liked that the background DSP was cut on an angle - I quite like little quirks like that! 

I'm really not much of a gardener, but I wish I was! I chose my background DSP because I'd love to have a lush garden like that, but I'm realistic enough to know that it's beyond my talents. I can have it in paper form instead!

I used the Perfect Plants Dies to cut all of the focal elements - the hanger (trimmed), the pot and the different leaves in the pot. All but the hanger were cropped from the Bloom Where You're Planted DSP. I really must buy another pack of this paper before it retires in a few months!

I used my off cut DSP from the front to decorate my inside. It's also a great opportunity to use up images from the sides of your DSP that may not be full images. In this case, the pot was cropped at the side, so I just lined it up with the edge of my card.

We'd love for you to join in with us for our challenge. Do you have a favourite set of dies? Just CASE a card from the Annual or Mini catalogue made with those dies and you're good to go! Add a photo to our Facebook group to inspire us all.

As always, thanks for stopping by, but please do continue your way around our Blog Hop - there's plenty more inspiration to be found. My lovely friend Rachel Palmieri is next, with an absolutely stunning card!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 590: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for this week's Just Add Ink challenge. We have an Inspiration Photo for you this week, selected by Nikki.

Such a cute little succulent! I have no idea of what type it is, but the flowers are so pretty! I don't have a lot of succulent-related stuff in my physical stash, so I went looking through my digi stamps for ideas, and stumbled across this little beauty.

She's called Springtime Girl and is from Stamp Anniething, and I think that she was a prefect choice for this challenge! 

I've coloured her with my Copic Markers, trying to pull colours from the Inspiration Photo. I deliberately made her blonde, as I have very dark brown hair. If I don't think about it, all the people that I colour end up with brown hair!

Being a digi stamp on a PDF, it's tricky to print her off again to use on the inside, so I tried to create a succulent on the inside. I used the pot die from my Perfect Plants Dies and just hand drew the outline. The plant is from an old set - I can't recall the name - that had a llama and a cactus tree in it. I've just chopped up the tree, added hand-drawn lines, and arranged the pieces in the pot.

I can't wait to see what inspires you in our challenge image this week. Pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll see the rest of this week's Design Team cards. You can also add your card to our challenge linky.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Pear Pizzazz

 Hi!

Hello, and welcome to Pear Pizzazz week of the Colour Creations blog hops. Pear Pizzazz is in the Subtle Family collection and is a bit of a so-so green. I don't love it, but I don't hate it, either. 

I decided to pull out my Plentiful Plants bundle to play with, and to use some of the plant stamps that hadn't seen ink yet. I paired it with Sweet Strawberry for the sentiments and the Stitched Greenery Die for the background.

I don't know what this plant is called in real life, but in my head it's become the Brian May plant. It reminds me so much of his hair, and that's all I can see now!

I actually created the inside of the card before I'd finished the front. In hindsight, I wish I'd stamped the Brian May plant again on the Whisper White base, as I did on the front, to extend the height of the plant. Next time!

Speaking of next, the next stop in our Blog Hop belongs to Michele Taylor. Jump on over to her blog to see what is sure to be a fabulous card.

And don't forget that Cathy Proctor is here to save the day if you run into any problems. She's got a list of all participants in case of an emergency 😉

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 575: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Are you ready for the end of the working week, and the start of the new Just Add Ink challenge? I certainly am, so let's get into it!

How pretty are these colours that Patrice has put together for us? I never would have thought to put the two new In Colours together, but I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

It's very interesting how the Soft Succulent has toned down the brighter Polished Pink in the striped section of my card. I created this by covering some Whisper White cardstock with Adhesive Sheet, and then applied the strips of coloured card over the top.

I pulled gold into the combo with strips on either side of the striped panel, and also with the plant pot and a few sequins. The sentiments are from a Uniquely Creative set, called Sweet Sentiment Builder. The second half was cropped with a Peach Die.

To match the front of the card, I used a striped strip, cropped from the front piece, to decorate the inside, along with some more stamped images from Plentiful Plants.

Please jump on over to the Just Add Ink blog for the rest of this week's Design team cards using this gorgeous colour combo. You can also link up your card there - I'll be very interested to see what you do with these colours.

Bye for now,

Tina