A Masculine Birthday

I made this as a birthday card for a male friend who is an avid reader and who loves coffee.

The image is coloured with coloured pencils and blended with Gamsol.

When finished, I had a smudge of oily Gamsol on the lower right edge so stamped and die cut "happy birthday" to cover it up!

It's going over to two challenges:

The Male Room:

Seize the Birthday:

Supplies:

Stamps - Stamplorations

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - white and red cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, Nesties circle dies, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die, fun foam

Three Friends + One Sentiment

AAA Cards has a great challenge this time - "One Plus Three + Friends":

So a sentiment plus three things from the wheel and the optional twist of "friends".  Here's my card:

My three choices are a stamped image, coloured pencils, and one matted layer.

I think it qualifies as friends, don't you, as the two dogs and the cat are sitting together as if they were great friends?

Supplies:

Stamps - SSS Furry Christmas

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper - white, bristol, and green shimmer cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, glitter, Spellbinders oval dies, fun foam

A New Delphinium Stamp

This month's Flower Challenge is:

One of my favourite flowers is the delphinium so when I saw this stamp by Magenta, I had to have it.  Here's the first card I made with it:

I chose to stamp it on kraft so that I could also enter it in the SCS Technique Lover's Challenge to colour an image on kraft cs.

I love the look of white heat embossing on kraft so used that for my stamp, and then coloured with Faber Castell coloured pencils. I trimmed the panel and edged it with a narrow strip of dark blue, then popped it up on fun foam for dimension.

I have a couple of other new flower stamps so hope to get another card made for this month's Flower Challenge - always good to be inspired to ink up new stamps!

Supplies:

Stamps - Magenta delphiniums, Chocolate Baroque sentiment

Ink - ColorBox white

Paper - white, kraft, and dark blue cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, white embossing powder, fun foam

Holly with a Bird

The CASology Challenge wants a card with holly on it.

And I love Christmas cards with holly as the theme - almost as much as I love birds as the theme, so I especially this image that combines both.  I've had this stamp almost since I first started making cards so I'm happy to be giving it some use!

 

I coloured the image with coloured pencils and Gamsol, trimmed the image to its black outline, bordered it with red, stamped the sentiment in red, and added Glossy Accents to the berries.

 

I also made it for a SCS challenge to make a card in a size other than A2.  The stamp really suits a tall narrow card base.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Supplies:

Stamps - Magenta bird and holly, Impression Obsession sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Memento Rhubarb Stalk

Paper - white and red cs

Size - 6.5x3.5"

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, Glossy Accents

ATCAS Bird

Birds are one of my favourite motifs for cards (and I have a lot of bird stamps).  So I definitely had to make a card for the latest Addicted to CAS challenge.

I made this card:

I stamped the bird in brown and coloured it with coloured pencils and Gamsol. 

I trimmed the panel and sprinkled with Frantage chunky white embossing enamel and heated it from underneath so it wouldn't blow off.  I took my Versamarker pen and went over a few bits of the branch where snow might build up and then added more of the Frantage to that.

I mounted the panel to a dark brown mat and put it on fun foam on the card base.

Thanks for dropping by today.

Supplies:

Stamps - Serendipity bird, Rubber Stamp Tapestry sentiment

Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa

Paper - white and dark brown cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, Frantage Chunky White embossing enamel, fun foam

A Couple of Challenge Cards

Two more Christmas cards from me, done for various challenges!

First up for these two challenges:

Less is More "Monochrome"

The Paper Players "Any Shade of PInk"

I made this very CAS pink poinsettia card:

I die cut and shaped the poinsettia out of pink shimmer cs and mounted it on a white cardbase with a bit of dark pink mesh trim behind it.  I added pink microbeads to the centre.


And for the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown's Colour Challenge:

Normally when I use kraft as a colour, I use kraft cardstock but this time I decided to try using kraft as my ink colour - at least as close to kraft as I could get.

I coloured the image using coloured pencils and Gamsol, popped it up on fun foam on a red cardbase, and added a couple of brown gemstones.

So happy to be increasing my Christmas card stash!

Supplies for the first card:

Stamps - A Muse sentiment

Paper - white cs, pink shimmer cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories -  Tim Holtz Tattered Poinsettia die, scrap of dark pink mesh, dark pink micro beads

Supplies for the second card:

Stamps - Deep Red Santa

Ink -

Paper - red and white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, fun foam, dark brown gemstones

Grand Canyon Bird

Carrying on with Christmas cards, I've got a beautiful bird inspired by the colours of the Grand Canyon.

SCS's CAS Challenge this week is called "The Grand Canyon".  I've only visited the Grand Canyon once and I was astounded by the colours - so different to all the greens of the Pacific Northwest where I live.

I wanted to refresh my memory of the exact colours so found this image on line and used the colours in it to colour my bird:

I coloured the bird with pencils and gamsol, then framed it and added it to an embossed background so that I could enter it in the Less is More challenge "Dry Embossing".

 

They stressed that the dry embossing should ideally only cover a small portion of the card around the focal point.

I'm so happy to be getting Christmas cards made!  And right now it's easy as we've had snow so I feel quite inspired!

Supplies:

Stamps - Serendipity bird, Penny Black sentiment

Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa

Paper - white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, Crafts Too embossing folder, MFT pierced frame die

Blue and Green Christmas

Merry Monday has a fun Christmas card challenge this week:

I used the green and blue, with a white card and a bit of silver:

The image is coloured with coloured pencils, blended with Gamsol and blending stumps, with some Wink of Stella on the ribbon and the silver tags.  It's bordered with a thin bit of silver shimmer paper and then green cs, and the sentiment is stamped in silver.

Supplies:

Stamps - Jofy gifts, Rubber Soul sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Delicata Silvery Shimmer

Paper - white and green cs, silver shimmer paper

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, Wink of Stella, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die

My Favourite Christmas Stamps

This week's Ways to Use It challenge at SCS is "It's My Favorite" - use your favourite stamp on your card.  Since Christmas cards are my favourite kind of cards to make, it seemed logical that my favourite stamp would be a Christmas one.   The problem is I have two favourite Christmas stamps - in fact they are so beloved that I actually bought a second one of each of them just in case something happened to them!

First up is Stampendous's "Snowy Postcard":

I stamped it twice - once in Archival ink for the outer frame because I was sponging it with Distress inks, and once in Memento ink for the inner image because I wasn't sure if blending with Gamsol was okay with Archival ink or if the Gamsol would make the Archival ink run (if anyone knows, please leave me a comment letting me know).

I sponged the frame in Distress inks, coloured the circle with a gold pencil, and coloured the holly with Distress markers, adding Glossy Accents to the berries. Then I fussy cut the inner image away and discarded it.

For the image, I coloured the Memento stamped piece with coloured pencils and blended with Gamsol. I then set it behind the frame and mounted on a white card base.

Using a Quickie glue pen, I went over all the snowy areas in the image and added a clear white glitter a local craft shop called "white snow glitter" (no brand name). I applied the glue thicker in some areas so that it wouldn't look totally flat.  Here's a close-up of the glitter:

My other favourite Christmas stamp is Impression Obsession's "Santa Horses".  It makes for a very quick CAS card.  I always make several to put in my fundraiser card sale in November to raise money for the therapeutic riding stable where I volunteer.  Here are two variations:

 

This one is simply stamped, with the hats coloured red and some tinsel glitter added to them, and some regular glitter added to the top of the fence. I die cut the panel with a stitched rectangle and bordered with black.

 

Again simply stamped with the hats coloured in red and regular glitter applied to the hats and fence.  I used a Nesties label die and popped it up on fun foam for dimension.

Three more for my stash - hooray!

Supplies for card 1:

Stamps - Stampendous "Snowy Postcard"

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black, Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Antique Linen and Brushed Corduroy

Paper - white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, green and red Distress markers, white snow glitter, Quickie glue pen, Glossy Accents 

Supplies for cards 2 & 3:
Stamps - Impression Obsession "Santa Horses"
Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black
Paper - white and black cs
Size - A2
Accessories - red marker, Quickie glue pen, tinsel glitter, regular glitter, Lil Inkers stitched rectangle, Nesties label die, fun foam

Inspired by a Hat

Audrie (girlgeek101) over at SCS chooses some great sites for the Inspiration Challenge.  This week she chose a children's clothing and accesories site called Spearmint Love. 

I wasn't sure I'd be inspired by this site until I spotted the most adorable child's hat and immediately knew how I'd interpret it!!  Here's the hat that inspired me:

 Because it's a knitted hat and it's a bunny, it immediately made me think of a stamp I have that has a bunny knitting.

 

I stamped it and coloured with coloured pencils and Gamsol, using the basic colours of the hat for the bunny and the colours of the hat's little flower embellishments for the wool and the chicks' sweaters.

I added a "spring wishes" sentiment as baby chicks always make me think of spring and Easter. And a few flower sequins in the same colours as the flowers on the hat.

Looking at the bunny knitting is making me want to get out my knitting - it's been neglected lately in favour of card-making!

Supplies:

Stamps - House Mouse "Will Knit for Friends", PTI sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - white and black cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Gamsol, flower sequins

NBUS Flowers

Darnell over at djkardkreations hosts an occasional NBUS (never before used stuff) challenge.  I love it as it gets me to dig out some of the things I've bought and finally put them to use.  This time, Darnell is offering optional themes.  The theme for the first week is "use coloured pencils on kraft".  I haven't done that technique in ages so a good chance to pull out the pencils.

I went on a bit of a Penny Black spending spree about a year ago and ended up with some of their lovely floral stamps so pulled those out for their first ever inking.

I couldn't decide whether I prefered the look of white ink or black ink for stamping the image so did one in each.  First up, a white heat embossed image:

I couldn't decide where to put a sentiment so decided to just put one on the inside.  I bordered with dark red cs and used a white cardbase.

The second one is stamped in black ink with no heat embossing:

I used the same colour palette for each as I wanted a fair comparison of which ink I preferred for the stamping.

For this one, I bordered with black cs, and used a cream linen cs for the sentiment and card base.  I really like the look of the hemp twine for attached the sentiment tag - it seems to go well with kraft cs.

Now over to you - which do you prefer in terms of whether to stamp the image in white or in black?

Thanks!

Supplies for card one:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - ColorBox white

Paper - kraft, dark red, and white cs

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - white embossing powder, coloured pencils, fun foam

Supplies for card two:

Stamps - Penny Black flowers, SU sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - kraft and black cs, cream linen cs

Size - A2

Accessories - coloured pencils, Spellbinders sentiment tag, hemp twine, fun foam

A Rainbow of Medieval Houses

When I first saw the Merry Monday challenge "Colours of the Rainbow", I was stumped.  Then I had three ideas all at the same time.  I posted one yesterday and am posting another today.  The third idea won't be made in time for the challenge.

For this one, I thought of a stamp I have of Santa flying over a row of medieval houses.  Then I remembered my trip to Copenhagen where I loved seeing all the tall narrow houses in different colours.  So here's what I came up with:

I used coloured pencils to make my rainbow of houses, went over the stars with my Stardust gel pen, and coloured in the moon with Wink of Stella.  A simple black border and a star embossed background finished it off.

Here's a photo of my inspiration, taken on my trip to Copenhagen a few years ago:

It's a beautiful city if you ever the chance to visit it!

Supplies:

Stamps: Crafty Individuals

Paper: white and black cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Accessories: coloured pencils, Stardust gel pen, Wink of Stella, Crafts Too embossing folder, foam tape