Ombre Birthday Balloons

Hi there

Another recent make from me today and this time it's a birthday card I made for a male colleague.

When I first started selecting the patterned papers for this I thought the colours would be a little too feminine but combined with the dark grey I think it makes it very gender neutral.

I began by die cutting the grey panel with a stitched rectangle die.  I adhered the panel to the card base, making sure there was plenty of adhesive within the negative space of the letters.  I then die cut the sentiment again from some ombre patterned paper and paper pieced the letters back in, including the grey centres.  To finish I die cut two balloons from some polka dot ombre papers, layered and adhered these off the edge of the card and trimmed away the edges.

Materials used:

• Dies: MFT Die-namics - Happy Birthday To You, Blueprints 26; Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Stitched Rectangles
• Patterned Papers: Craft Sensations - Ombre Designs

Challenge entries:

Happy Little Stampers - June Anything Goes with Dies Challenge

Uniko - Challenge #65 - Anything Goes (Optional twist: use die cuts)

It's not often I make a card which involves no stamping whatsoever, and it's a simple design I could replicate using more of my patterned papers which I don't reach for nearly enough.

Thanks for taking the time to visit.

Happy Little Stampers May 2019 CAS Challenge

Hi there

I'm here tonight to introduce the new CAS challenge for May over at Happy Little Stampers.

We'd like to see just a sentiment on your clean and simple creations, minimal embellishments and inking are allowed, but no images.


Here's my DT card...

I began by masking my card base leaving a horizontal strip which I ink blended with Distress Oxides to create an ombre effect.  I also ink blended a spare piece of cardstock and die cut the hello from it so it was in the opposite direction.  I adhered this onto the card base and stamped the 'birthday' alongside.  It looked like something was missing so I used a ruler and drew some dash lines with a black fineliner pen.

Materials used:

• Ink: Distress Oxide - Twisted Citron, Mermaid Lagoon; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Die: Wplus9 - Happy Trio
• Stamp: Happy Little Stampers - Bold Birthday Sentiments

Challenge entries:

Addicted to Stamps and More - Challenge #339 - CAS

Addicted to CAS - Challenge #158 - Contrast

Alphabet Challenge - C is for Clean and Simple

Don't forget that this challenge, along with the other challenges over at Happy Little Stampers (some still to start) are open to enter until the end of the month.

Thanks for visiting.

Less is More Week #317

Hi guys

Starting at Less is More this week it's the fourth challenge of our birthday celebrations.  And this week we have a Sketch challenge for you.

We have another fab sponsor this week...

and the wonderful Bev is joining us as a Guest Designer, so please do drop by her blog if you can, I'm sure she'll appreciate a visit from you.

I have just one card to share with you this week and I went for some lovely zingy, citrus, sunny colours.  I find sketch challenges the most difficult for some reason so went for a fairly literal interpretation with my design...

I started by die cutting the peek-a-boo dots from a panel of cardstock and then marked roughly where these would sit on my card base before ombre blending from yellow to orange and then to coral on my card base where it would show through.  I then stamped and heat embossed the flower in white before blending over it with the same colours, and then die cutting with the stitched circle.  I manipulated the sentiment stamp to follow the curve, stamped this in black and popped the flower up on 3D foam.

Materials used:

• Dies: MFT Die-namics - Peek-a-boo Dots, Double Stitched Circles
• Ink: Distress Ink - Squeezed Lemonade, Dried Marigold, Abandoned Coral; VersaMark; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Stamps: Altenew - Hennah Elements; Wplus9 - Happy Wishes
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Opaque Bright White  

Challenge entry:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes
Just Add Ink - Challenge #348 - Just Add Ombre



And don't forget, by playing along this week you could be in with a change of winning a prize from Uniko so why not join us.

Thanks so much for visiting today, I can't wait to see what you do with our sketch this week.

Ombre Hugs

Hi there

I've got a really quick post for you this evening.  I made this card this afternoon to combine a few challenges.

This is only the second time I've used my Distress Inks and I think I'm getting the hang of this blending business as I'm really happy with how this one turned out.  I'm desperately waiting for pay day as I NEED to add some more colours to my collection of ink pads!

On a panel of white cardstock I masked off a horizontal panel and used my mini blending tool to blend two pink inks to create an ombre effect.  I then used a word die to cut out the word hugs from the panel.  Originally I was going to just inlay a second word die but I decided to stack them so I didn't really have to cut it out after all!  The top word die is cut from another panel of blended cardstock but with the colour fading in the opposite direction, from bottom to top instead of top to bottom.  The panel was adhered to my card base using 3D foam and I added an epoxy heart sticker to finish.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Anna Marie Designs
• Ink: Distress Ink - Spun Sugar and Seedless Preserves
• Die: Lawn Fawn - Scripty Hugs
• Accent: Stampin' Up - Itty Bitty Accents Epoxy Stickers

Challenge entries:

CASology - Week 143 - Ombre
CAS on Sunday - Challenge #57 - White and one other colour
Happy Little Stampers - April Sketch Challenge

That's all for now, thanks so much for visiting.