Hello Friend

Today's card is for the current challenge at Color Throwdown.

Such gorgeous colours! I used them on a simple floral friendship card.

All the pieces were die cut from white and coloured with inks. The adorable little seal had two applications of clear embossing powder added to the outer ring and an epoxy heart centred to match the heart on the envelope. Because the sentiment is in gold, I added a smidge of gold wax around the edges of the embossed background. 

Materials used:

• dies - Wildflower Stems #2 and #3 (Tim Holtz), Dry Flowers (Waffle Flower), Postage Collage Mini Seals (Waffle Flower)
• inks - antique linen, fossilized amber (Ranger distress), soft lilac, lavender fields, volcano lake (Altenew), wintergreen (Catherine Pooler), lemon lolly (Stampin' Up)
• other - blending brushes, clear embossing powder, heat tool, Big Shot, Dimensionals, Distressed Tile embossing folder (Stampin' Up), metallic word sticker (Tim Holtz), vintage gold wax (Art Alchemy), craft foam, white bakers twine, epoxy heart (Altenew)

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #660 - Just Add a Die Cut Inlay

That's right, this week at Just Add Ink the challenge is to add an inlay die cut on your project.

It's been an age since I last played with this technique so I was already tempted, then an idea came to mind ... and well, you know how that ends, don't you?

I not only inlaid the diamond pieces in the background but also the word 'friend' in the greeting. 

The steps involved were:

• I die cut three white diamond frames from thick basic white cardstock, discarding the inner pieces and gluing the frames together then attaching them to another piece of white card the same size.
• On another piece of white card, I did my ink blending. I used distress oxide inks - the colours are squeezed lemonade, wild honey, ripe persimmon and picked raspberry. I did some water splatters all over, then cut this with the diamond frame die, this time retaining the inner pieces.
• The ink-blended diamond centres (those inner pieces) were then glued in their corresponding places inside my white layered frame and once all were in place I also glued the ink-blended frame piece on top of my three white layers. This gives great depth and also a slight white shadow effect which helps highlight the dimension.
• I cut three 'hello' dies in black and one in white cardstock, gluing the black ones together. The white one I again ink blended and did some water splatters, then attached it slightly offset so the black shadow would show.
• For the 'friend' die I cut two of the shadow die from white card which had been coloured with picked raspberry ink to match. Then I took one of the shadow dies, lay the detail word die over the top and cut again - this gave me a thin frame in pink which I glued to the other pink shadow piece. Lastly I cut the detail word die in black card and inlaid it inside the frame of my shadow. 
• I also cut two wildflowers from black card, gluing them together.
• Then it was just a matter of assembly, the word dies and flower being attached with black mini  dimensionals, and lastly I decided to add some white paint splatters.

I checked out this video by Jennifer McGuire and followed her 'shadow inlay' technique at 21:57 for my 'friend' sentiment. Thanks for the inspiration Jennifer!

Materials used:

• card - basic black, basic white
• distress oxide inks - squeezed lemonade, wild honey, ripe persimmon, picked raspberry
• dies - Wildflower Stems #2 (Tim Holtz), Simply Diamonds (PinkFresh Studio), Hello and Friend dies (origins unknown)
• other - blending brushes, Big Shot, Dimensionals, water spritzer, picket fence distress paint, paintbrush

I do hope you'll head over to the JAI blog to see the projects my fellow designers made to inspire you. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Spring Flowers - CAS on Friday Challenge #225

Hi all! It's time for another clean and simple challenge and this time around at CAS on Friday we're celebrating Spring Flowers.

I've yet to experience a spring here in my new home but back in the Blue Mountains it was always wonderful to see those first buds (usually freesias) pop up to tell you the cold days were numbered and the warmth and freshness of Spring would soon be on its way. One of the flowers I loved having in my garden was lavender, not just because it was a low maintenance plant and drought tolerant (very important here in Australia), but because it bloomed in mid Spring and gave us glorious colour and scent all through Spring and Summer. 

I’ve featured lavender on my mini slimline card.

Materials used:

• stamps - Flowers in Bloom (MFT)
• card - very vanilla, watercolour
• dies - Wildflower Stems 2 (Tim Holtz)
• distress oxide inks - villainous potion, milled lavender, dusty concord, bundled sage
• other - mounting tape, white bakers twine, V15 Copic marker, aquapainter, paint brush 

We would love to see your creation in our gallery if you choose to make one, and do pop over to the CASOF blog to see what lovely cards my team mates made to inspire you.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Kerry

Beauty

This week I gave my ladies a colour challenge so today I sat down to make my own card for it. Originally I had something completely different planned, but an urge to try out the smooshing technique with SU's inks made me change my mind. Here are the colours:

And here's my card:

I smooshed my background using daffodil delight and calypso coral then added a few splatters of soft suede and some partial stamping in the same colour. My flowers were cut from watercolour card and I scribbled them with SU's markers then gave them a good spritz with water, which achieved that gorgeous watercolour effect I am loving! The thing that took the longest was deciding which colour card to use for my base - I tried a few different ones before being happy with Sahara sand, lol.

Materials used:

• stamps - Entomology (Tim Holtz)
• card - blackberry bliss, watercolour, Sahara sand
• SU inks and markers in the colours shown above
• dies - Wildflower Stems 2 (Tim Holtz), stitched rectangle (Paper Rose)
• other - water spritzer, heat tool, craft foam, mini Dimensionals, paint brush, Small Talk sticker (TH)

Pretty sure I'll be doing some more of these techniques again soon!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry