Colour Creations: Poppy Parade

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me once again on a very hot Wednesday for the new Colour Creations Creative Showcase. We are up to Poppy Parade this week, which is a bright red. In fact, it's the last of the Brights colour family to be featured this time around. I chose a classic colour combination of red, white, black and gold, which I think must have been inspired by the New Year celebrations in parts of Asia last week.

I started with the striped panel. I used my Poppy Parade Blends to create the stripes, and my grid paper to line them up. The panel was matted with Basic Black and Gold Foil layers. The next layer was the banner, which was pretty much made with just bits and pieces.

More bits and pieces were used for the main panel of the card. A mix of dies and punches was used to crop the circles and the butterfly from A Touch Of Ink was fussy cut - sadly, no dies! All of this was layered on a card base that I'd embossed with the Subtle 3DEF. Actually, I tell a fib - I embossed a card front sized piece of Basic Black and adhered it to the Basic Black card base. Embossing the base can make it a little floppy, so embossing a layer is much better.

I used some retired Delicata Golden Glitz ink to stamp the butterfly again on the inside. I was so upset that this ink retired, but I kept mine to use when I like anyway!

The rest of this week's cards can be found over on Cathy's blog. Please do go and have a look, as each week I am amazed by everyone's cards. I'm sure you will be too.

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #305: CASE The Sketch

 Hi!

Welcome back for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. It's the end of quite a busy week for me, so it's a nice relaxing way to finish off the week, cruising around all the blogs to see what everyone made.

This week we are giving you a sketch to CASE, based on this super cute Darling Donkeys card. LOL, the rose in his mouth is very apt, as it's Valentine's Day today.

I must confess that I've cheated a little with my card today. I was meant to be in a 'Love' Blog Hop on Thursday night, but I got part way through the card and ran out of time, so I had to withdraw. I realised that it worked perfectly for the sketch, so I was already half done for CTC. Yay!

So instead of the three stripes, I have my row of hearts. It's such a fun die from the Stitched be Mine Dies. I had to hand place each of the hearts back into the outline, as they all fell out of the die and ended up in a jumble. It was worth the effort though, as just using the outline would have got a bit lost in the DSP, which is from the Berry Blessings SAB bundle.

Instead of using a rectangle over the top, I went for a series of layered circles, from both the Layering Circles Dies and the Stitched Shapes Dies. The text is from the Love You More Than Dies, and the strawberry is from the cute Sweet Strawberry Bundle. 

The inside strawberries required quite a bit of masking. I'd only planned to mask off the leaves at the top, but I accidentally stamped the first two too close to each other, so I had to mask off the strawberry as well. Worth the extra effort though!

Our challenge is run though our Facebook group, so you don't need a blog to enter. Just snap a photo of your card based on the sketch and add it to the group before the deadline. Easy!

The hop continues on with the lovely Julia Quinn. Her card is gorgeous - you won't want to miss it!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #541: Just Add A Blended Background

 Hi!

Hooray for Friday - it's been a long week, and I'm glad that the weekend is nearly here! This week at Just Add Ink, Nikki has challenged us to add a Blended Background to our cards.

How do you do your blended backgrounds? Are you a brayer fan, or daubers, or brushes? I was a brayer girl all the way until I got my hands on a blending brush, and now that's what I use most of the time.

Instead of doing a plain background, I decided to do my blending through a stencil, just for fun. This stencil is Circle Burst by MFT. I started in the middle with Coastal Cabana ink, Bermuda Bay in the middle and Island Indigo around the outside of the burst. I then cropped it with the largest Stitched Rectangles Die, matted it with Island Indigo cardstock and popped it up over a Silver Foil card base.

The character is from a Kindred Stamps set, called Plumber Brothers. I coloured him with my Blends to coordinate with the background. The sentiment is from another Kindred set, called Legendary. It's such a fun sentiment for a gamer birthday card!

This card is going to my nephew, who celebrated his birthday over a week ago. Oops! Luckily, I have the perfect sentiment for that! It's from an Ink Road Stamps set, fittingly called Belated. Another character from Plumber Brothers finishes off the inside.

That's all from me for now, but please pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find lots of blended inspiration from the Design Team. We clearly had fun with this challenge, and I'm sure that you will too. Don't forget to link up your card when it's done!

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Pool Party

 Hi!

Thanks once again for joining me for this week's Colour Creations Creative Showcase. It's time for Pool Party to shine! This blue-green colour always makes me think of Tiffany Blue, so I went with that girly theme for my card.

I started by using my Stitched Rectangles Dies to cut an opening in the card front, and then adhered a piece of the Forever Gold Laser Cut DSP to the back. I popped the piece up over the top of my card base using Dimensionals. I probably should have added a piece of Window Sheet behind the laser cut, as it's a little more saggy than I'd like. Hopefully it's one of those tiny details that only the creator of a card would notice!

I used my All Dressed Up Dies to cut a strip of Pool Party card to go across the front of the card as a base for me to glue all of the other elements to the card. The perfume and flowers are from the coordinating Dressed To Impress stamp set. The perfume had a very light wash of Pool Party ink, and the flowers were coloured with Blends. A swish of Wink Of Stella finished it all off.

The shoes and flowers on the inside were also coloured with the Blends, and then given the Wink Of Stella treatment. I figured that a girly, Tiffany inspired card couldn't be too glittery!

Time now to pop on over to Cathy's blog, where you'll find the rest of this week's Pool Party cards.

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #304: Love You Always Suite

 Hi!

Welcome to the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. It's always fun looking at which catalogue, or part of the catalogue, we are challenged to CASE each week. This week was an extra challenge for me, as I am really not into any of the lovey-dovey stuff!

The Lovely You Always suite is allllll about love! You can choose any project from pages 10-13 to CASE this week. I had to look past the hearts and flowers to find a card to CASE. I liked the layout of this card on page 13.

The angled banner behind the main sentiment was the feature that caught my eye. I love a good banner, but sometimes it's good to shake things up by doing a single diagonal cut, rather than a flagged end. Don't you agree?

I had some Darling Donkeys sitting on my craft desk, ready to be coloured, so that's what I decided to use on my card. To go with the country look of the donkeys I used some of my In Good Taste DSP for the background. I really love the wooden papers!

The grass is from the retired Wiggly Bugs Dies, and the sky was created using a template made from the Rainbow Builder Dies and my Blending Brush with Balmy Blue ink. You may noticed that this frolicking donkey is popped out from the card - he's actually on a wobble spring! The spring happened to be on my desk near the donkeys, so it was the perfect combination for my card. 

You can check out the wobble in the video. However, my phone camera did not pick up all of the wobble - very strange! Still, it's enough to give you the idea. He's having a grand old time leaping through the grass!

And now he's all puffed out! LOL! I thought the sitting donkey was the perfect addition to the inside of my card, along with matching grass and sky. I'm not sure yet who I will give this card to, but hopefully they find it just as fun as I do!

That's all from me for tonight, but please do continue your way around the Blog Hop. We'd also love you to join in the fun by entering our challenge through our Facebook Group. All you need to do is join the group (if you're not already a member), and add a photo of your CASE to the group. Simple!

Next up in the hop is the lovely Rebecca. She must be into the lovey-dovey stuff, as she was doubly inspired by the suite!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #540: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Woo Hoo! It's Friday again, which means that it's not only the weekend, it's also time for the new Just Add Ink Challenge!

How good is this colour combo that Rochelle has put together for us to use? The blue/green tones with a pop of pink is stunning! I decided to use the colour combo to create a scene - the pink with the blues reminded me of an evening sky.

I started by stamping the mountains from Waterfront in stamped-off Misty Moonlight. There are some grey tones in the deep blue, and stamping off helps to bring them out. I then stamped the lake in Seaside Spray and the trees, which are from Snow Front, in Just Jade. I then used a Blending Brush to add some Blushing Bride ink to the sky, just above the mountains, with a little bit of Seaside Spray above that. I was very pleased with how it turned out.

I finished the front by running the panel though my Big Shot with the Subtle 3DEF. I love the way it makes the cardstock look like canvas, and a bit more like a watercolour painting.

I repeated elements of the scene again on the inside of the card. It's so easy to do when you already have the stamps out and inky!

That's all from me for this week, you can find the rest of the Design Team's cards over on the Just Add Ink Blog. You will also find the Linky, so that you can join in the fun. What will you create with this gorgeous colour combo?

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Petal Pink

 Hi!

Here we are again, ready for the new Colour Creations Creative Showcase. We are up to Petal Pink this week. It's definitely not a favourite colour of mine - to me it's not a true pink, so I struggle with using it a lot of the time. I felt like I couldn't go too far wrong with a classic pink, white and black colour scheme though, so that's what I used on my card.

I started by embossing my Basic Black cardstock with the Subtle 3DEF. Oops, no I didn't, I cropped it with my Stitched Rectangles Dies first, then embossed, and then flicked over some Frost White Shimmer Paint. While that was drying I stamped a heap of Pretty Perennials flowers in Petal Pink ink. I cropped them with the coordinating Perennial Petals Dies, along with a few of the larger leaf die. I snipped the leaves apart though, so that I could tuck them under the flowers.

The main panel was popped up over the card base using Dimensionals. The banner was held in place with a staple, which also anchored the twine. I punched the banner with my Banners Pick A Punch - have you got one yet? I think it's a must-have for a paper crafter!

I had cut some of the leaves in Basic Black for the front, before I realised that they wouldn't stand out. A bit of a brain fade! I think I'd planned to use Black Glimmer paper before I remembered that it's retired and the black part of to stuck in my head. Nevermind - they were perfect for the inside!

As always, you can find the rest of the links for this week's Petal Pink cards over on Cathy's Blog. I'm interested to see what everyone will do with this dusky pink.

Bye for now,

Tina