Playing with ink daubers

For day 2 of the Stenciled class, I was inspired by Kristina Werner who used the Tim Holtz Splatters stencil to create a very colourful card. While using this same stencil for my day 1 card, I thought that the splatters might work well as artsy flowers.

I applied the colours using my new Hero Arts daubers and used an old embossing plate as a stencil for creating the stems and tiny leaves. To create the flower hearts I used the new HA Dark Quartz ink, a sponge dauber and some of the smaller openings in the stencil. To finish the card off, I used some sequins, Glossy Accents and a sentiment from a Hero Arts stamp set. After rounding the top corners, I adhered the white panel to a dark blue card, cut from Core'dinations cardstock.

I'm not completely happy with how this card turned out, but my husband tells me I'm being too hard on myself (he really likes this card). And at least I had fun creating it!

I'm linking my card up for the following challenges:

CAS-ual Fridays - #126 Colour blocks

A Blog Named Hero - #36 New Year, New Stash [awarded with a Heroine badge]

Addicted to CAS - #30 New

Stencilling fun

For me, following (yet another) online class is an excellent incentive to get creating, and the recent Stenciled class was no exception.

Day 1 was all about inking and misting. My card was inspired by Debby Hughes' absolutely stunning creation involving blue sponging and white heat embossing on vellum. I used Debby's design as a guide, but changed up the colours to greens, gold and browns and used a different stencil (Tim Holtz Splatters, one of the few I own at this point).

Anyhow, here's my card:

I started out with several green distress inks, but decided I needed to add something else, so I simply grabbed a foam pad that still had some Wild honey on it. I heat embossed the new stamp I received with a crafting magazine (I bought several in the after-Christmas sale and the package arrived last week). I used a brown Spectrum Noir marker to change the colour of the orange/red cord to brown and also coloured some white and gold sequins. Love how the white sequins now have this burnt look, not unlike the colour of the inspiration picture of the new Card Concept challenge. I love the concept of this new challenge and I'm hoping it will help me develop into a better Clean and Simple card maker.

I'm linking my card up for the following challenges:

The Card Concept - #2 Use texture
(I'm linking my card up for the Clean & Simple category)

LCI - Clean and Simple

Addicted to CAS - #30 New

Totally Papercrafts - #203 One for the boys

Happy 2014

One of my resolutions for the new year is to create more cards and to create more quick and CAS cards. And what better way to start than participating in the 10 Minute Craft Dash (which unfortunately will not be continued after the current challenge), who have teamed up with CAS-ual Fridays for the current challenge. And it won't come as a surprise that there are a few other challenge blogs that want us to create cards for Happy New Year or some sort of party/celebration.

I might have managed to create this card within the 10 minute time frame if I hadn't decided the card needed something extra and started adding the tiny stars.

Anyway, here's my card:

Supplies:

Cardstock - red card blank from my stash; kraft (I think it's from a Bazzil 12x12 sheet)

Stamp sets - Fill in the Blank by Avery Elle; Tis the Season by Hanna stamps
Inks - Versamark embossing ink; Ranger jet black archival ink

Embossing powder - White twinkling by Crafter's Companion

Other - number stickers from my stash; red stars from a box of confetti from the local supermarket

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

CAS-ual Fridays - 124 Happy New Year

10 Minute Craft Dash - 32 Anything goes
CAS on Sunday - 24 Happy New Year
CASology - 76 Party

Feeding the birds

Happy New Year everyone! On the last day of 2013, I managed to create another card. Yay!

This cute snowman image by From the heart stamps was the December Stamp of the Month, a freebie for crafters who joined last month's challenge. I did not, but I just needed to have this image so I bought it LOL.

It's hard to see the glitter, but maybe it's a bit more clear in the close-up:

Materials used:

Digital Image - From the heart stamps

Sentiment - Feed the birds stamp set by Crafter's companion

Cardstock - Core'dinations

PP - Eskimo kisses collection by BasicGrey

Colouring medium - CC Spectrum noirs

Dies - Scalloped tags and Picket fence, both by Die'sire/CC

Twine - Martha Stewart

Glitter - Clear Wink of Stella brush marker, red Stickles for the holly berries

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

From the Heart Stamps - SOTM December challenge

Spectrum Noir - Food

Crafter's Companion - Ribbon, twine or thread

Papertake Weekly - Pick of the year: Die-ing for a punch

Simon Says Wednesday challenge - Bling it on
CHNC - 157 Starting all over again/anything Christmas goes
CHNC Extra - January Anything Christmas goes
Create with TLC - Show it off! #9 (anything crafty goes)
TMS - #230 Annual anything goes
Bearly Mine - 117 Anything goes
Top Tip Tuesday - Christmas
The Cutie Pie - 60 Cute! But only snowmen allowed