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 731: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Kerry has found an Inspiration photo to guide our creativity.

There's so much in this photo to choose from! I was taken with the jug of flowers at the bottom left, but I couldn't find the stamp that I wanted to use in my stash - I must have sold it! I then decided to combine the jug and the mug ideas on my card.

I started by using an ink blending brush to apply some Crumb Cake ink to my Whisper White card base. I love the colours in the Inspiration photo, and this was a good way to add in the light browns. I then splattered the card with some Vegas Gold Shimmer Paint. I thought that it looked a bit like the twinkling lights in the background.

The mug dies are from Ink Road Stamps, and are called Basics: Floral Coffee Mug. I cut the outline and detailed dies in Thick Whisper White card and then adhered the layers together. Adhesive sheets made this a snap! I then used my Granny Apple Green, Poppy Parade and Daffodil Delight Blends to colour the flowers and leaves. I then added another layer of the detailed die over the top to hide any messy colouring!

The Ink Road Stamps dies also come with a matching stamp, so I used this on the inside. I really love it! The sentiments that I used are from Stampin' Up!'s Attention Shoppers stamp set.

That's all from me for tonight, but your job is just beginning! You can pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll see what else our Design Team took from the Inspiration Photo. You can add your card to the challenge through our Linky.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 700: Just Add Shimmer Or Shine

 Hi!

Wow! Can you believe that Just Add Ink is celebrating its 700th challenge! How exciting! Fittingly, Rochelle has challenged us to add Shimmer or Shine to our cards. What fun!

I sent a day thinking about what stamps I had to fit this challenge, and finally settled on this awesome stamp from Ink Road Stamps, Expecto Stampo Vol 2.

I started by using my Stamparatus to stamp the image onto Whisper White card using Memento ink. Luckily that I did use the Stamparatus, as I needed to ink the stamp a few times to get a solid impression. I hadn't yet used the stamp, and I mustn't have cleaned it properly first. I then masked it off and inked around it using blending brushes and Daffodil Delight, Blueberry Bushel and Night Of Navy Inks. I left a little white halo around the lantern.

I cropped the panel with a Stitched rectangles die and then spritzed it with an Isocol and Champagne Shimmer Paint mix. You can see a few flecks of the shimmer in the photo, but IRL it's so much more! The mask was removed and the lamp was coloured with a metallic gold pen. The flame was coloured with a dark Daffodil Delight Blend, and the banner was coloured with my Pool Party Blends.

So there you have my shining lantern on a shimmery card! What will you make for the challenge? Will you shimmer, shine, or both? We'd love to see! Pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll see what the Design team have made for the challenge. You'll also find our Linky to add your card to.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Misty Moonlight

Hi! 

Welcome to the final Colour Creations Blog Hop for 2023. Never fear, we will be back in 2024 with the rest of the colours in the Stampin' Up! range. For tonight, though, our focus is on Misty Moonlight. It's a gorgeous denim blue that I adore!

I kept my card nice and simple this week. I started by heat embossing the large sentiment from Joy To You using White Embossing Powder. I then used a Blending Brush to ink the edges of the card with Misty Moonlight ink. Finally, I splattered some (retired) Frost White Shimmer Paint over the top of the card, trying to stick mostly to the edges. It has a mind of it's own, though - the splatter goes where it wants to go, LOL!!

A final simple sentiment to finish off the inside of the card.

Thanks for joining us in 2023 for the Colour Creations blog hops, I hope you join us again in 2024. In the meantime though, please do finish this hop! The next stop along the way is my lovely friend, Kate Morgan.

The wonderful Cathy Proctor does an amazing job of organising the blog hops each week - thanks, Cathy! If you run into any problems with links, pop on over to her blog were you will find a list of all of tonight's participants to help get you back on track.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 666: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Hooray for Friday - it's been a long week, as Hudson has been home sick with a cold again. It feels like only a few weeks since the last cold! Oh well, winter has to be over soon, doesn't it?

Speaking of winter, Just Add Ink are using this fun, snowy Inspiration Photo to challenge your card making this week. Jan found the image for us, and it's inspired a whole lot of creativity amongst the Design Team. Hopefully it will spark something in you, too.

I went with the sky and the snow as the key focus for my card. I pulled out my old sponge rollers to ink up some Whisper White cardstock with Balmy Blue and Blueberry Bushel inks. From that point on, I think what could go wrong, went wrong on my card! The first was that I accidentally debossed the inked panel rather than emboss. Whoops!

I then decided to make the card sparkly by misting some shimmer paint/isocol over the card. Unfortunately the first mister I used came out in a stream, not a mist! I ended up with splatters through the inked panel. I kinda like the look though, even if it wasn't what I was initially going for.

The final oops was my sentiments. It's from a big Concord & 9th stamp set, called Mix & Match Holiday Sentiments. No matter what I try, I just can't get it inked up evenly. It will just have to do!

We'd love for you to play along with us this week. Maybe you're in the heat of summer and dreaming of a cooler winter. Maybe you're dreaming of summer while shivering through a cold winter! Or perhaps, like me, you're keen to get started on our Christmas card making. 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 link up your card to enter the challenge.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 635: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the final Just Add Ink challenge for 2022. Hasn't it been a fabulous year of challenges? To wrap uo the year we have one final Inspiration Challenge, suggested to us by Nikki.

Don't the rich purple and gold decorations look amazing against that lush tree? My eye was caught by the two faceted purple baubles, so I attempted to recreate the look on a Christmas gift tag.

I started by inking some cardstock with Fresh Freesia, Rich Razzleberry and Blackberry Bliss ink, blengins from light to dark across the card. I then cropped the card using my Stitched Triangles Dies. Using the Inspiration Photo as a guide, I laid out the triangles and adhered them to the tag base I'd created.

I used my Vegas Gold Shimmer Paint to splatter the front, and then added some leaves and a sentiment stamped using the Lave, Santa Tag kit stamp set. I couldn't resist adding a few loops of some Gold Thread.

To create my tag base, I took a piece of Whisper White card, folded it in half and cropped it with a Circle Die, ensuring that the die hung over the fold so that the two circles remained joined. A bit more stamping, and I was done!

This challenge will run for a fortnight and is a just for fun challenge over the Christmas/New Year Break. As always, you can link up your project over on the Just Add Ink blog - we'd love to see what you create using the photo for inspiration.

We'll be back in early January with a fun blog hop to kick off another year of Just Add Ink fun.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 627: Just Choose Two

 Hi!

Yay! Friday means that it's time for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week it's a Choose Two challenge, and I was the one who suggested the three options.

You can choose two of day, night or silhouette to add to your card. Which two will you choose? I went for night and silhouette.

My card is a tri-fold opening card. I cropped the front window using my Stitched Rectangle Dies, added two thin strips of cardstock to create the window panes, and then added another cropped black panel to the back to hide the ends of the strips. The black cat silhouette was adhered, and then a window sill, cut using the Hearth & Home Framelits, was adhered over the top. I'd heat embossed the sentiment, from Bedtime Story by Clearly besotted, on the piece first.

On the next section, you can see the scene I created for the cat to gaze at. I started by stamping the Lovely As A Tree large tree at the bottom, making sure that it came up high enough to overlap the moon. The moon is from the Tim Holtz Moon Mask pack. I laid the solid mask over the stamped card, used a Blending Brush to apply some Balmy Blue ink, and then went around the edges with some Night Of Navy ink. I then splattered some Frost White Shimmer Paint over the top. Once it was dry I laid the detail mask over the moon and blended some Sahara Sand ink over the top. The moon really looks like it's glowing!

Another cat silhouette and sentiment from Bedtime Story finished off the inside of the card.

Which two will you choose to go on your card this week? I think that day and night would be tricky, but I'd love to see it done. Maybe it will be your card! You can see the rest of this week's Design Team cards over on the Just Add Ink blog. You can also link up your card for the challenge there. I can't wait to see what you make.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 583: Just Add A Sketch

Hi! 

Hooray for Friday! It's been a long week in my household, as Hudson has been home sick with a cold. During the week Alex also got sick, so I'm pretty much expecting that all of us will come down with the bug. Not fun when the warmer, summery weather is just starting! The upside of staying home and cancelling appointments is more crafting time. Yay!

This week Kim has designed this fun Sketch for our Just Add Ink challenge. I do love a good sketch, and I knew the exact stamp set from my stash that would be perfect for the layout. It's called A Fox's Life, from the Colorado Craft Company.

Isn't it gorgeous???? If the artwork seems a little familiar, the artist, Anita Jeram, is also the illustrator of the Guess How Much I Love You books.

I stamped the image twice on watercolour paper, and then used the coordinating A Fox's Life Dies to crop one version. The other I watercoloured roughly as the background, starting with the moon. The rest of the sky uses Night Of Navy ink, I just faded out the colour as I got closer to the moon. A bit of Shimmer Paint flicked over to top to give the illusion of stars finished off the front.

You can see that I popped up the cropped section of the scene over the top of the background. I carefully coloured around the edge of the die cut, as I did not want a white halo surrounding the popped up section. This way it still gives dimension, but looks more natural.

I stamped the same image in Balmy Blue ink on the inside of my card. The inside sentiment is from Timeless Tulips, as the font is a pretty close match to the one used in the Fox's Life stamp set. A very happy coincidence!

That's all from me for tonight, but your job is just beginning! After you've checked out all the Design Team cards, you can get creating on your card. Once you've finished, just link it up over on the Just Add Ink blog. You must link it there to be in the running.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 580: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Oh, yay! It's the new Just Add Ink challenge dropping, just in time for the weekend. I hope you have some crafty plans that include making a card for our challenge!

It's a Colour Challenge this week, with the combo selected by Rochelle. To me, it's a very Aussie bush combo, so I used a stamp set from Paper Rose called Flowering Gum on my card.

I had received this stamped image as a part of a kit for a colouring class I attended recently. I hadn't got around to colouring it yet, so I pulled it out of the kit to use for this challenge. The colours work beautifully, don't you think? I mounted it on a retired Gold Foil card base to pull in the Gold from the combo. I also splattered some Vegas Gold Shimmer paint over the top.

The gold splatter was an attempt to abstractly replicate the warty growths that are sometimes on gum leaves. I'm to sure that it translated well, but I like the effect! The sentiment I used is from a My Favourite Things set, called Sun-Lovin' Santa. 

That's all from me for this challenge, but I do hope that you're able to play along with us. You can see the rest of the Design Team's cards over on the Just Add Ink blog. You can also link up your card when you're ready. I'm interested to see what you make with this combo.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 568: Just Add A Sketch

 Hi!

Hooray for Friday - right? It's been a long week, and I am more than ready for the weekend. I hope to spend a lot of time crafting, and I hope you do too, especially if it means that you enter our new challenge at Just Add Ink. This week it's a sketch, designed by Lou.

Isn't it great? I decided to use the sketch to make a birthday card for my husband, who celebrated his special day early in August. 

I started the card with the Alcohol Ink background. I used my Night Of Navy and Rich Razzleberry Blends on Vellum. To move the ink around, I blew through a short straw. It was fun seeing how short, hard breaths versus long, gentle breaths gave different results with the ink. I flicked some Vegas Gold Shimmer Paint over the top when it was dry.

My hubby really loves the fandom this character comes from, and according to my daughter, this is one of his favourite characters. Do you know the show? The blue phone box might have given it away! I coloured them both with my Copic markers. The stamps are all from a Kindred Stamps set, called I Need Some Space.

I couldn't resist adding the little canine robot on the inside. I don't know if he's a part of the new fandom, or if he's strictly retro. Either way, he's fun and deserved a spot on my card. The sentiment is from a coordinating Kindred Stamps set, called It's About Time.

That's all from me for tonight, but your part in the challenge is just beginning! Pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find lots more Design Team inspiration. Then make your card and add it to our gallery. It's that easy!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 564: Just Choose Two

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for this week's Just Add Ink challenge. This week it's a Choose Two challenge, set by Di.

Hmm, what to choose? I bounced some ideas past my daughter, and she told me that I should do Sea and Trees (but not palm trees), as she thought it was the most challenging combo. Okay then!

In the end, I have all three elements on my card - it's a bit hard to leave the sky out of a scene like this! I started by using my Water Painters and Smokey Slate ink to create the land. I then used Just Jade and Evening Evergreen inks to create the tree tops. These were just a quick wiggle of the brush, getting a little larger at the bottom of the tree. Once is was all dry, I added some Soft Suede trunks.

The sky was a quick wash of Balmy Blue, and the sea is Blueberry Bushell. I then added some extra details to the rocks and trees. The final part was adding some foam to the sea using my scoring tool and some Frost White Shimmer Paint.

My sentiments are from a Uniquely Creative stamp set, called Sweet Sentiment Builder. I couldn't resist adding another little tree - you can see the effect of the wiggling Water Brush a bit more clearly.

That's all from me for tonight, but we hope that you will join us by creating a card for our challenge. Which two will you choose? You can see the cards that the rest of the Design team have created over on the Just Add Ink website. You can also link up your card on our blog.

Bye for now,

Tina