The Passage of Time - CAS on Friday Challenge #221

 

Welcome to the last CAS on Friday challenge for 2021! To ring out the old year and welcome in the new, our theme for challenge #221 is HAPPY NEW YEAR.

I've gone with classic colours of black, white and gold for my new year card:

Materials used:

• stamps - Clocks (Paper Rose), Celebration (Darkroom Door)
• card - basic black, basic white
• other - stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, Stamparatus, gold embossing powder, heat tool, sequins in gold, black and clear, Dimensionals, craft foam

If you're looking for some time away from the madness of the holidays over the next week or so, why not head to your craft space and make a card to join us, we'd love you to take part. And you can find more inspiration on the CASOF blog.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #585 - Just Add Christmas Gift Packaging

Hello and welcome. With the final stretch before Christmas fast approaching, we have a wonderful challenge for you over at Just Add Ink:

My wrapped treat has a gingerbread component (YUM!) so I decided to make gingerbread and candy cane themed packaging. The house is my first-time make with the new Village Collection dies from Tim Holtz/Sizzix. 

I cut the bits for my house from heavyweight watercolour paper (300gsm) and coloured with inks. The window frames, door frame and shutters were left plain. Frosted acetate was placed behind the windows for glass and the icing/frosting-like stuff is actually texture paste piped on. The gorgeous little confections are made of resin and were easily cut to fit my rooftop or glued together for the awning posts. 

For the tag it's sitting on, I masked off the inner portion and inked a border, then added both stamped and die-cut greetings. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Peace & Joy (SU)
• card - heavyweight watercolour (Cansen), Toile Tidings Gift Wrap (SU)
• distress oxide inks - rusty hinge, candied apple
• dies - Village Collection (house 1), The Vault Christmas (both Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
• other - blending brushes, Big Shot, Sticky Grid, Christmas Confections (TH Idea-ology), die pick, embossing paste (SU), masking paper, mounting tape, red tinsel ribbon (SU)

We do hope you'll join our challenge and have tons of fun making your own Christmas gift packaging - there are an infinite number of choices you could make and we'd love to see them in our gallery. Meanwhile, pop over to the JAI blog to see what gorgeous creations my fellow team mates made to inspire you. 

Thanks for calling in. 

Cheers

Kerry

The Card Concept Challenge - Holiday 2021

Are you counting down the sleeps until Christmas? If not, I bet your children/grandchildren are! 😀😂

Here's the last Card Concept challenge before the big day - something not too onerous so you can fit it in amongst all the panicked shopping and holiday preparations 😉.

I thought I'd choose the 'share your favourite card' option and given how much I looooooove getting inky, it had to be a mixed media creation... 

This fav incorporated a stencilled background, ink smooshing, sponging and die cuts. For details you can visit my blog post here.

We'd love to see your favourite card/Christmas tree/decorations in our gallery and we have plenty more to inspire you over on The Card Concept blog.

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers

Kerry

Peace and Joy - CAS on Friday Challenge #220

Time once again for a clean and simple challenge with CAS on Friday. For challenge #220 our theme is CHRISTMAS.

Once again I've been watercolouring with metallic inks on black; just love the gorgeous pop of colour.  

Here's a close up of the gold embossing beneath the green metallic paint. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Christmastime 2, Forest Floor (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)
• card - black watercolour 300 gsm (Stonehenge)
• other - gold embossing powder, white embossing powder, heat tool, craft foam, paintbrush, Prima metallic semi-watercolour paints, MISTI, Delicata golden glitz ink, white gesso, water spritzer

We would love you to create your own CAS Christmas card and join our challenge. My fellow team mates have more creations to inspire you, just click on this link to go to the CASOF blog.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

The Card Concept Challenge - Peace on Earth

Hi all and welcome back to another challenge with The Card Concept. For challenge #165 we're firmly in Christmas mode with a beautiful inspiration photo for you:

So many gorgeous things here to jump-start your creativity! I took the candles and greenery as my muses but also managed to sneak in a little tartan and some pinecones on my ornament-shaped mixed media card.

The greenery and flames have mica shimmer.

Materials used:

• card - watercolour, very vanilla, vellum, tartan designer series paper
• distress spray stains - rustic wilderness, mowed lawn, speckled egg
• distress oxide sprays - rustic wilderness, shabby shutters, peeled paint, speckled egg
• distress mica stains - flickering candle, Jack O'Lantern, bubbling cauldron, crooked broomstick
• distress oxide inks - vintage photo
• distress paint - picket fence
• Tim Holtz/Sizzix dies - mini holiday greens, candlelight colorize
• Stampin' Up dies - Peace and Joy bundle
• other - ornament die, Big Shot, blending brush, splat box, splat brush, Dimensionals, Idea-ology adornments - festive, gold cord

We'd love you to join in our challenge - why not pop over to the Card Concept blog for more samples from my very talented team members. 

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry

Baby, It's Cold Outside - CAS on Friday Challenge #219

 

Thanks for joining me for another clean and simple challenge. WINTER is the theme for CAS on Friday challenge #219.

I couldn't resist using this adorable layering snowman die called Winston. He's so sweet! I love him in pastels too. Whole, he's too big for a CAS card so I gave him a little 'cameo' appearance, lol, and didn't use all the layers available.

I added some shimmer to the bottom layer of the scarf and the pieces that came out of the top layer made perfect snowflakes! 

Materials used:

• stamps - Tiny Text Christmas (Tim Holtz)
• card - very vanilla, watercolour
• distress oxide inks - salvaged patina, kitsch flamingo, vintage photo, carved pumpkin
• dies - Winston Colorize (Tim Holtz), layering circles (SU)
• other - blending brushes, heat tool, Big Shot, black rhinestones, salvaged patina embossing glaze, MISTI, clear Wink of Stella, tweezers, embossing buddy, Dimensionals, craft foam

We'd love for you to join us in our winter challenge and my fellow team members have more samples to inspire you.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #581 - Just Add Legs

Welcome! It's time for another weekly challenge with Just Add Ink and this time around we want you to

So many possibilites - we can't wait to see what you come up with!

I decided to feature a creepy crawly with lots of legs (could have been influenced by the huntsman spider that's been wandering around my place for the last few weeks, lol). Now, as luck would have it, around the same time I began to think about creating, my new distress colour arrived and was needing to be used - you know how it is ;-D My first play was to combine this luscious purple (villainous potion) with the gorgeousness of orange (crackling campfire) and when I saw them together - oh wow! Immediately a vision of a card came to mind - and the rest, as they say, is history, lol.

My grunge side has definitely come out to play with this mixed media card - take a look, then I'll tell you all about it.

My first step was to create the background on thick watercolour card. I sprayed with villainous potion and crackling campfire oxide sprays and once they were dry, did a little stamping in black before stencilling with distress crackle paste. I wanted fine crackles, so applied only a thin coat here and there through my stencil. Once it had done its magic, I rubbed distress crayon into the crackles to highlight them then sponged black ink around all the edges to create a border and draw the eye in to the centre. The last step was to add some paint splatters in both black and white. Just love all the speckly, crackly goodness!

I made a second background in predominantly orange ink with some purple speckles, cut out a piece for my tag, stamped my creepy crawly on it and again on plain card. It was coloured with a distress marker then I added glossy accents to give it that creepy, shiny hard shell look. I added a few pieces of ephemera and a remnant rub to the tag as well as some grunged-up mummy cloth. 

Like I said, I really got my grunge on! Not my usual style but it's fun to step outside your box every now and then, don't you think? 

Materials used:

• stamps - Fragments, Damask, Entomology, Specimen (all Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)
• card - watercolour, basic black, basic white
• distress oxide sprays - villainous potion, crackling campfire
• distress oxide inks - crackling campfire, black soot
• distress paint - black soot, picket fence
• distress marker - mowed lawn 
• distress crayons - black soot, crackling campfire
• other Tim Holtz products - distress crackle paste, Harlequin stencil, Remnant Rubs-Specimen, Ephemera Pack-Field Notes, Halloween Trimmings
• other - water spritzer, heat tool, tag die (Kaisercraft), Crop-o-dile, MISTI, craft foam, Dimensionals, embossing stylus

We'd love to see your creations in our gallery. Meanwhile, head on over to the JAI blog to see the jumble of legs my fellow team-mates have created to inspire you!

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry 

The Card Concept Challenge - Rustic Holiday

 Welcome to another Card Concept challenge.

Are you getting in the holiday mood yet? For card makers, it's never too soon - we seem to begin making Christmas cards and crafts around July, lol. And as you can see from the gorgeous inspiration picture above, our new challenge has the holidays as its theme - in fact, it's RUSTIC HOLIDAY.

The aspects that influenced my mixed media card were all the greenery, the poinsettias and the wood panel walls. 

Sooooo much inky fun with this card! Firstly with the background, using woodgrain card and a combination of distress spray stains and distress oxide sprays. Then to add an aged/distressed look I randomly spread a thin coat of crackle texture paste - here you can see the very fine cracks (which were later highlighted with distress crayons).

My greenery was more inky fun, again mixing dye and oxide sprays using four shades of green until I was happy with the result. The holly leaves were scored down the middle so they could be bent and all my greenery was given a light sponging of brown around the edges for depth. It's the first time I've used this tattered poinsettia die and embossing folder combo and I must admit to loving it, especially how the petals are not all exactly the same size and shape. Here I used two each of the smallest and middle sized flower pieces cut from cherry cobbler card (my fav Christmas red of all time 😉). 

Materials used:

• stamps - Four the Holidays (SU)
• card - watercolour, early espresso (SU), cherry cobbler (SU), woodgrain (TH)
• Tim Holtz/Sizzix dies - mini holiday greens; tattered poinsettia; funky wreath
• distress spray stains - frayed burlap, gathered twigs, mowed lawn, rustic wilderness
• distress oxide sprays - vintage photo, bundled sage, peeled paint, rustic wilderness
• distress oxide inks - rustic wilderness, vintage photo
• distress crayons - walnut stain, vintage photo
• other - distress texture paste crackle, ground espresso archival ink, heat tool, water spritzer, mini glue dots, distress embossing glaze - rustic wilderness, Dimensionals, pearls, hot glue gun, scoring tool, tattered poinsettia embossing folder, blending brush

My fellow team mates have created some gorgeous samples to share with you and hopefully inspire you to join us in the challenge for a rustic holiday card, so please click on this link to The Card Concept blog to check them out.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Leaf Canopy - CAS on Friday Challenge #218

 

Welcome to another clean and simple challenge with CAS on Friday. For challenge #218 our theme is LEAVES.

For my card I tried a new-to-me technique of colouring on black watercolour card with metallic watercolour paints. They were so easy to use and blended beautifully in the autumn tones I've used here.

Materials used:

• stamps - Leaf Canopy stamps and dies (Altenew)
• card - basic black, black watercolour
• other - Big Shot, MISTI, craft foam, stitched rectangle die, metallic watercolour paints, copper embossing powder, heat tool, aquapainter

We'd love you to create your own leaves themed card for the challenge. To inspire you further, pop over to the CASOF blog to see what my fellow team mates came up with.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #579 - Just Add Two

Welcome back to another Just Add Ink challenge. This week it's a 'just add two' where you pick two out of three elements to include in your design.

Yes, it's all about the shine! 

For my card I picked shimmer and glimmer - though I confess I had to look up the difference, lol. I discovered that glimmer is 'a faint light, a dim glow' while shimmer is 'a faint or veiled and tremulous gleam or shining'.  

Meet Winston the snowman - isn't he just the cutest? All my snow, including Winston, has been sprayed with white shimmer mist and has a kind of mother-of-pearl glow. 

And for my 'faint light' of glimmer, I popped three teeny tiny rhinestones on the berries in Winston's hat and used black gems for his eyes and buttons. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Tiny Text Christmas (Tim Holtz)
• ard - basic white, basic black, basic grey, pumpkin pie, real red, granny apple green, watercolour
• dies - Winston colorize (Tim Holtz), stitched rectangle (Paper Rose)
• distress oxide sprays - speckled egg, stormy sky
• other - white embossing powder, heat tool, white shimmer mist, rhinestones, black gems

We'd love to see your own shimmery/glimmery/foil creations in our gallery this week! And if you head over to the JAI blog, you'll find more shiny goodness to inspire you from my fellow DT members.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

The Card Concept Challenge - Beautiful Bounty

Welcome to another challenge week with The Card Concept. Here's the gorgeous photo we have to inspire you for our Beautiful Bounty challenge:

This picture put me in mind of family gatherings, particularly those focused around food, and made me think of the phrase 'the kitchen is the heart of the home'. This quote became the theme for my clean and layered card.

As the oven die has a retro vibe, I used paper for my background that I hope evokes memories of wallpapers from days gone by, and hung a co-ordinating 'tea towel' (dish towel) over the handle of the oven door. 

Materials used:

• card - basic black, very vanilla, silver foil, Tea Time designer papers (Kaisercraft)
• other - Retro Oven die (Tim Holtz/Sizzix), Big Shot, lowercase alphabet dies, computer and printer, Dimensionals, real red marker, sponge dauber

We'd love for you to join in our challenge and make your own 'beautiful bounty' card. My fellow team members have some gorgeous samples to inspire you, so pop over to the blog for a look.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Believe in the Magic - CAS on Friday Challenge #217

Welcome back to another clean and simple challenge with CAS on Friday. Hopefully this one will really get your creative juices flowing because our theme is COFFEE. 

I was in a whimsical mood when I made my card, as you'll see from the sentiment I chose:

Personally, I don't drink coffee, lol, but I do certainly believe in the magic of my favourite chai latte to get me going each morning so I'm thinking it's pretty much the same thing! Both my daughters are firmly in the camp of needing that shot of java to bring the brain on line, so they'll get a laugh out of this.

Materials used:

• stamps - Tiny Text Christmas (Tim Holtz)
• card - basic white, crisp cantaloupe, Sahara sand, crisp cantaloupe patterned paper
• other - stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, Coffee Cup thinlits (SU), blending brushes, craft foam, MISTI, Cafe Colorize (Tim Holtz), Nothing's Better Than thinlits (SU), Coffee Beans stencil (Paper Rose), pool party ink

We'd love you to play along with our challenge and have plenty more cards to inspire you over on the CASOF blog, so please do pop over for a visit.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #577 - Just Add Inspiration

Welcome to this week's challenge with Just Add Ink! We have a beautiful inspiration photo to spark your creativity:

I really love the pink, purple and yellow hue to so many of these leaves so took that as inspiration for my card, with just small hints of green. 

I stamped and embossed the leaves first using rose gold embossing powder, then coloured with distress inks before fussy cutting. They've each been shaped a little before mounting. The piece behind is woodgrain card coloured with distress spray stains and oxide spray. My base card was sponged around the edges and splattered liberally with rose gold ink, then lighter splatters added to the main panel. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Pressed Foliage (Tim Holtz)
• card - basic white, grey granite (SU), woodgrain (TH), rose gold foil (Bazzill)
• distress inks - scattered straw, seedless preserves, wilted violet, worn lipstick, picked raspberry, lucky clover
• distress spray stains - frayed burlap, gathered twigs
• distress oxide spray - vintage photo
• other - ground espresso distress archival ink, rose gold embossing powder (Lawn Fawn), rose gold ink (Delicata), splat box, splatter brush, Dimensionals, craft foam, grey granite ink, sponge dauber

I do hope you'll check out the lovely work my fellow team mates have created to inspire you, and hopefully feel encouraged to join our challenge.

Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers

Kerry

The Card Concept Challenge - Fall Fun

Welcome back. I hope you're in the mood for a challenge! Over at The Card Concept we have this gorgeous picture to get your creative juices flowing: 

So many wonderful images for inspiration! I decided to use the apples and colours as themes for my clean and simple card.

Doesn't that look delicious? I've never had an apple dipped in caramel but I certainly loved toffee apples as a child, especially the tartness of the apple after all that sweetness! And the crunch! Nom, nom, nom...

Materials used:

• stamps - Caramel Apple Bundle Girl (Stamping Bella), Autumn Leaves (Poppystamps)
• card - basic white
• Copic markers 
• E000,E00,E09,E11,EE31,E33,E35,E37,E40
• G24,G28,G43
• R29,R39,R89
• YR21,YR23,YR24
• other - stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, MISTI, white gel pen, craft foam

Why not pop over to the Card Concept blog to see the gorgeous cards my fellow team members have created to inspire you? And hopefully you'll even join in the challenge!

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Who's Your Mummy? - CAS on Friday Challenge #216

Time once more to dust off your craft goodies and keep things simple - clean and simple, that is. Over at CAS on Friday we've got another challenge for you and this time you can pick between AUTUMN or HALLOWEEN.

Anyone else's kids read the Goosebumps books? 'Who's Your Mummy' was the title of one from which I took my blog post title to go along with this adorable little baby mummy out to scare absolutely no-one, lol.

Isn't it just the cutest? We don't really get trick or treaters calling here in my little part of Aus (even before the pandemic), but I still buy lollies just in case...😉

Materials used:

• stamps - Baby Mummy (Mo Manning)
• card - basic white, basic black, tangelo twist, Monochrome Basics 1.1A designer paper (Paper Rose)
• Copic markers - E00, E01, E11, C0, C2, W0, W2
• dies - Nesting Tags (Kaisercraft), Alphanumeric Tiny Type Lower (Tim Holtz)
• other - Big Shot, mummy cloth ribbon (Halloween Trimmings - Tim Holtz), 4/10" circle punch, Crop-o-dile

We'd love for you to share your favourite Autumn or Halloween things with us and of course there are more cards to inspire you over on the CASOF blog.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Swim in Your Own Direction

For our weekly challenge this week, I gave my ladies the theme of On or Below the Sea. Today I sat down and made a diorama type card, having a ball with oxide inks and distress markers.

Materials used:

• stamps - Oddball Fish (Stamping Bella)
• card - tempting turquoise, watercolour
• distress oxide inks - mermaid lagoon, cracked pistachio, salty ocean, blueprint sketch
• distress markers - peacock feathers, spiced marmalade, squeezed lemonade, twisted citron, mustard seed, picked raspberry, dustry concord, festive berries
• other - Under the Sea dies (SU), Nesting Splat dies (Paper Rose), water spritzer, heat tool, Big Shot, blending brushes, Dimensionals

The sentiment inside will read 'Swim in your own direction'.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #575 - Just Add a Colour Combo

Hi and welcome! You're just in time for a colour challenge and this week Patrice picked gold and two of Stampin' Up's gorgeous 2021-2023 in colours to play with.

I chose to make a simple Christmas card and love how it turned out.

The polished pink card on its own was a little paler than I wanted, so I darkened it by sponging the matching ink over the squares once I'd done my gold embossing (the embossing resists the ink). I also wanted different shades of soft succulent for my wreath to add depth, so I punched some from 'raw' cardstock, some from card I had sponged over with the co-ordinating ink and some I had coloured with the matching Stampin' Blends alcohol markers. 

I don't often use pink for Christmas cards but I love this combo, it's a softer yet still elegant alternative to red and green. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Music & Advert (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous)
• card - basic white, polished pink, soft succulent, gold foil
• other - ultra fine gold embossing powder, heat tool, layering cirlces dies, Big Shot, Dimensionals, gold cord, jingle bells, blending brush, Stampin' Blends, mini glue dots, pine branch punch, craft foam, embossing buddy

We'd love to see what you can create with this beautiful combination of colours and my team mates have more cards to inspire you over on the Just Add Ink blog.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Color Throwdown Featured Stamper

My card was lucky enough to be picked in challenge #661 at The Color Throwdown (this card), which means I was offered the opportunity to be Guest Star Stamper for today's new challenge. Now, you all know how much I love a colour challenge, so ...

I spent a joyous afternoon smooshing, sponging and die cutting - ending up with very inky fingers, lol. And even though it's spring here, I fully embraced the fall/autumn vibes for some speckly orange, brown and grey goodness. 

I began with some smoky slate card, cutting it into strips and sponging the edges before gluing them to another piece of card and running them through the embossing folder. After die cutting all the leaves and acorns and sponging the edges, I arranged them with my sentiment, adding the stringy bow made with bits pulled from burlap ribbon as a final touch. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Autumn Leaves (Poppystamps)
• card - early espresso, smoky slate, watercolour, very vanilla
• distress inks/sprays/oxides - carved pumpkin, frayed burlap, gathered twigs, rusty hinge, crackling campfire, vintage photo, dried marigold, pumice stone
• distress archival inks - vintage photo, ground espresso
• dies - Funky Foliage, Fall Foliage (both Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
• other - Ornate Frames thinlits (SU), Big Shot, sponge daubers, Dimensionals, craft foam, water spritzer, heat tool, burlap ribbon, Pinewood Planks embossing folder (SU), Stamparatus, mini glue dots

And there's still plenty of speckly goodness left for another day and another card! 

A big thank you to the folks at Color Throwdown for the opportunity to be Guest Star Stamper. I do hope you'll pop over to their blog to see the design team's beautiful samples and be inspired to join in.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry