The Card Concept - Change of Seasons

Hello and welcome to a new season of challenges with The Card Concept. In case you haven't visited before, our challenges are held every two weeks (Sept thru June) and offer an inspiration picture for you to draw ideas from for your cards. You might choose the theme, the colours, or even one small aspect from the picture as the stepping stone for your creativity.

Here's our inspiration picture for challenge #179, Change of Seasons.

Here in Australia we're emerging from the cold winter months so I've used fresh spring colours on my shabby/mixed media card inspired by that gorgeous swallowtail butterfly. 

Materials used:

• stamps - Create Happiness Elements (Stamperia), Butterfly Brilliance (Stampin' Up)
• card - basic white, ARToptions - Viken (49 and Market), old olive
• Copic markers - BG72, C4, V09, BV00, BV01, BV11
• inks - mint macaron, old olive (SU), villainous potion distress ink (Tim Holtz), Memento tuxedo black
• other - Viken repositionable fabric tapes (49aM), distressing tool, Dimensionals, craft foam, picket fence distress paint (TH), brayer, paintbrush, clear embossing powder, heat tool, MISTI, sponge daubers, stencil, texture paste, spatula, Holiday Greens thinlits (TH), Big Shot, quote chip (TH)

If you create something we would love to see it in our gallery - you can find that here (as well as the rules for playing along) and also see more samples from my fellow design team members to inspire you. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

JAI #602 - Just Choose Two

This week at Just Add Ink we have our 'choose two' option and I was very excited as all the choices are some of my favourite crafty things to do!

In the end I incorporated all three on my mixed media card.

I stamped the image first with oxide ink and clear embossed it so I could do my ink smooshing afterwards. On my background I stencilled using crackle texture paste and the Metropolis stencil, which is a city map - look closely and you'll see the streets, blocks and roundabouts. Although the stamp set has some great sentiments in it, I couldn't resist using this word band and rubbed distress crayon into the etched writing to highlight it more. Lots of distressing and sponging of edges, along with the faux stitched border, give it a great shabby/grunge look.

Materials used:

• stamps - Theories (Tim Holtz)
• card - early espresso, watercolour
• distress oxide inks/sprays - speckled egg, weathered wood, vintage photo
• other Tim Holtz products - word bands, Metropolis stencil, crackle texture paste, picket fence distress crayon
• other - clear embossing powder, heat tool, MISTI, linen thread, craft foam, sponge dauber, stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, early espresso marker, ruler

Be sure to check out what my fellow team-mates have made to inspire you and, as always, we'd love you to join the challenge with us.

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry 

JAI #592 - Just Choose Two

Hi there! I hope you're excited to see what the new challenge is all about over at Just Add Ink this week.

If you're a regular visitor here you'll know that texture and layers are right up my alley! But I didn't stop there for my offering - no, I went and included the third option as well. What can I say? Sometimes I'm an overachiever, lol. 

I've used texture paste through a stencil and some woodgrain patterned paper for my 'texture' and 'patterned paper' elements, with 'layers' of ink on the background and of card for the frame (chipboard and patterned paper). Using patterned paper such as the woodgrain I've used here is a great way of adding 'faux' texture to your work if you don't have texture pastes or embossing folders. 

Snarky cats are so irreverent and cheeky - I love how they make us laugh at ourselves, which is often just what we need to lighten our day.

Materials used:

• stamps - Snarky Cats (Tim Holtz)
• card - watercolour, chipboard, woodgrain patterned paper (Paper Rose), crumb cake (SU)
• distress oxide inks/sprays - vintage photo, fossilized amber, spiced marmalade, salvaged patina, cracked pistachio
• TH products - Decor frames Bigz die, splat box, distress texture paste (matte), bricked mini stencil, vintage photo archival ink
• other - sponge daubers, Big Shot Switch, mounting tape, blending brush, Dimensionals, craft foam, spatula

We'd love you to choose two elements from our challenge and share your creation in our gallery. There's more samples to inspire you over at the JAI blog, so hightail it over there to see for yourself!

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Kerry

Discover Yourself

I've been playing with my Tim Holtz "toys" again, lol. I originally thought of doing white on white, but once I decided to use heat embossing and texture paste, that plan went out the window. Eventually I settled for some soft and pretty shades of purple and again, intended putting this on a white base card until I saw how drab it looked. It really needed the black base to make the main panel 'pop'. The sentiment too, needed to be in black to stand out, even though I had the same stickers in white.

My process was to firstly stamp the script stamp with Versamark and clear emboss it. Then I inked over and wiped the excess off the embossing. The stencilled texture paste came next and once that was dry I stencilled again, this time with ink. That gorgeous butterfly is white embossed on vellum and fussy cut.

Materials used:

• stamps - Perspective (TH), Attic Treasures (TH)
• card - basic black, whisper white, vellum
• distress oxide inks - Victorian velvet, dusky concord, seedless preserves
• stencils (TH) - Harlequin, Roses
• other - stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, texture paste, spatula, white and clear embossing powders, heat tool, craft foam, Dimensionals, blending brushes, Chit Chat stickers (TH)

I'm very happy with this one - what do you think? I'd love you to leave a comment or tick one of the boxes below.

Thanks for dropping by. Stay safe.

Cheers

Kez

I Heart You

I woke up yesterday morning with an idea for a Valentine's Day card in my head, so naturally I had to try it out to see if my vision would work. And while it's by no means a Work of Art, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Take a lookie:

I did the texture paste hearts first then assembled the rest while I waited for it to dry, and because I had it all mapped out in my head, this card took probably no more than 15 minutes to make. Some retired product used - ie the papers and the triple heart punch - along with the gorgeous new Celebrate You thinlit and Amazing You stamps. This is the best option in the SAB offering, in my opinion. So versatile.

Materials used:

• stamps - Amazing You
• card - melon mambo, whisper white, basic black, retired DSP
• other - stitched circle die, Celebrate You die, Big Shot, triple heart punch, Dimensionals, texture paste, distressing tool

There's a little more decoration on the inside too:

That's it! Happy Valentine's Day to you all and thanks for calling in today.

Cheers

Kez