A Creative Friday inspired by Christine S

 Fridays are my non-working day and as is becoming my norm,  I spent a relaxed afternoon in my craft room catching up on YouTube. A video by Christine Stokes inspired me to try a gesso resist technique with Distress inks.

I adapted the idea using what I had—clear gesso instead of white. I dabbed it onto watercolour paper, let it dry, then added Distress inks (Scattered Straw, Antique Linen, Rusty Hinge, and a touch of Aged Mahogany) by smooshing on my glass mat with a spritz of water and a foam blender to add to the panel. The texture turned out beautifully.

Using a very old Tim Holtz Bigz Tattered Leaves die, I cut two leaves and added detail with a splatter stamp in Altenew Toasted Mauve, clear embossed. For the background, I used a corner aperture die with orange patterned paper behind it and added more stamping in Pink Sand ink.

I finished the card with a dark brown mat, an embossed sentiment (Altenew Sentiment Strips 3), and a few simple embellishments made from packing tape and cardstock.

A satisfying session—and a lovely reminder that adapting ideas with what you have can lead to great results.

CAS birthday with new supplies.

 Today didn’t start off quite as planned. I woke up with a bad headache and spent the morning resting, unsure whether I’d feel up to doing very much at all. Thankfully, after taking it easy, I started to feel much better—and that gave me the perfect excuse to spend some quiet time crafting,

A package of new crafting supplies had arrived, so couldn’t resist pulling out a few bits to play with. I decided to create a clean and simple (CAS) card.

I began by die‑cutting squares and a circle from white cardstock, then cut floral shapes from green and purple scraps of patterned paper. For a little extra detail, I added subtle texture by embossing  lines across the middle of the card using my scoreboard. Once that was done, I glued the circle into the centre and balanced the design by placing the squares in opposite corners.

The sentiment was silver embossed and is from a magazine freebie that’s been in my stash for at least 12 years! It had never been opened or used before. To finish off the card, I layered the leaves and flowers over the centre circle, bringing the whole design together perfectly.

All in all, it turned into a calming and creative way to end the day—proof that even a slow start can lead to something lovely.

I'm entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge as this is the first time using all the elements. 

A Cut Above - Anything Goes using a die cut.

AAA Birthday - Anything Goes.

One Stamp, Three Projects: Altenew Evergreen Beauty

 A week or so ago I was lucky enough to receive a gorgeous stamp set from Altenew: Evergreen Beauty. It’s a beautiful floral image with a few lovely sentiments—and the sweetest bonus for me was a little “created by” stamp with my name on it.

Around the same time, over in the Altenew Fan Group on Facebook, Nicki Baxley was running a “One Stamp, Three Cards” challenge. I didn’t quite get all three projects finished in time—but I did make two cards and a tag.

 I stamped the main floral image three times—once on white cardstock (then cut it with my ScanNCut), once on patterned paper (also cut with the ScanNCut), and then directly onto a white panel (stamping it a couple of times to build the arrangement).

Project 1: The Tag

For the tag, I used the floral image stamped onto patterned paper and coloured it with sparkle pens. When I cut it, I didn’t include a white border—and the ScanNCut couldn’t quite handle the finest leaf details, so I trimmed those bits away by hand.

I made the base tag with a Hero Arts Infinity Arch die, then stamped the floral image again onto the tag. Next came the fun part: paper piecing the sparkly patterned-paper flowers over the top. To finish, I added a little green sparkle around the image, a light watercolour wash over the tag, and a sentiment from Altenew’s Leaf Canopy.

Project 2: Card One

For my first card, I used the die-cut floral image stamped on white cardstock and painted it with Altenew Woodless Watercolor Pencils. To give the design a “grounding” element, I inked up the Altenew Simple Frame 3D embossing folder with Tattered Rose Distress Oxide ink and ran it through my die-cutting machine. I added extra blending with a foam domed blender and rubbed a little metallic wax over the raised frame for subtle shine.

I popped the floral piece into the corner with dimensional tape and finished it off with a sentiment from Altenew’s Classic Greetings stamp and die set.

Project 3: Card Two 

For the second card, I stamped the images directly onto the card panel. I coloured the florals with Altenew Bamboo and Dusty Rose inks using mini and micro blending tools. Then I added splatter with Distress Oxide Spritz in Fossilized Amber, followed by a spritz of sparkle spray over the whole panel for extra shimmer. The sentiment is a die cut from Altenew’s Scripty Sentiment dies.

Three quite different projects, all from one stamp set—paper piecing, watercolour pencils, and ink blending. If you’re ever stuck for ideas, try limiting yourself to one main image and see how many different looks you can get from it!

Fairy Tale Florals + Fussy Cutting - a fun afternoon's crafting

 This afternoon, after a quick tidy up of my desk, I carved out a little “play time” in the craft room—and I knew straight away I wanted to use the colours from Altenew’s latest Inspiration Challenge. I also decided to pair it with Jen’s Live Challenge for this week: “Fussy” (use something you’ve fussy cut on your project).

I was inspired by Natasha Foote’s YouTube video from April 21st, where she stamped a large image onto a card front and then fussy cut around the outside edge. Perfect timing, because I’d just treated myself to a new pair of Tim Holtz fussy-cutting scissors this week—and I was very keen to give them a go.

I went shopping in my Altenew stash and pulled out Fairy Tale Florals. There’s a gorgeous large image in that set, and it was exactly what I needed for this design.

I stamped the floral image directly onto my card base and coloured it with the matching simple colouring stencil. For the flowers, I blended Rubellite and Razzleberry Crisp Dye Inks; for the leaves, I used Frayed Leaf and Forest Glades Crisp Dye Inks.  I used a Gold Posca pen to add gold on the stamen and flower centre. 

Next, I drew a pencil line about 1 inch in from the edge (top to bottom) and then fussy cut around the flowers so the design “breaks” the edge of the card front.  Boy, the new scissors awesome!

To add more detail, I masked off just over 1 inch on the inside of the card and blended Rubellite ink through Altenew’s Deco Leaves stencil. I used whatever ink was left on the blending brush to softly tint the stenciled area, keeping it light and airy.

To finish it off, I added a very narrow strip of gold cardstock along the inside edge of the stenciling, then stamped a small black sentiment from Altenew’s Best Sentiments mini stamp set.

Hope you are able to get some crafting time over the weekend too.  

Textured Florals with Altenew’s African Daisy Embossing Folder and Die

 It’s the last day of April, which means it’s also the final day of this month’s challenge over at Die Cut Divas! Our challenge this month is Birthdays/Anniversaries.. We have a wonderful sponsor - Altenew, and for my final bit of inspiration I’m sharing a card I made with the newest addition to my craft room- African Daisy Embossing Folder and coordinating Die set from Altenew’s April release. I was thrilled to get my hands on it (it’s already sold out in the Altenew store!)—and it arrived just in time yesterday, so I got straight to work.

Before I started, I did a quick search for African daisies—and wow, they come in a huge range of colours. I found a photo that immediately caught my eye and used it as the colour inspiration for this card.

To create the flowers, I die cut all the pieces three times from white cardstock. Then I added colour by blending Altenew Hydrangea and Andromeda Crisp Dye Inks onto the petal tips and around the centres. For the flower middles, I used Altenew Espresso ink, then finished them off with a little yellow sparkle pen for a subtle pop of shine. Once everything was coloured, I embossed the pieces for dimension and glued the layers together.

For the background, I embossed a white panel using the Altenew 3D Daisies embossing folder to add lots of lovely texture. I softly inked around the edges with Hydrangea ink, then matted the panel onto purple cardstock to help those tones really stand out. To finish, I added a sentiment from Altenew Sentiment Strips 3, inked in Andromeda to tie everything together.

You have till 9.00pm US Pacific Time to join us in our Birthday/Anniversary challenge.  

Time Out Challenges: Pick Two

 2nd post today.... check out my first one Here

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Had great day in the craft room on this public holiday Monday. I’ve had lots of fun getting creative, and I realised I hadn’t made a card for the latest Time Out Challenges. It’s a fun “Pick Two” challenge: choose two (or more) words from the six provided and use them in your project in some way.

This time the words are: Earth, Rain, Pastel, Hope, Tree, Bloom 

I’ve chosen Pastel and Bloom.

 

For my card, I used a beautiful large floral stamp from Woodware: Floral Wonder. To keep the look soft, I stamped it in Memento Toffee Crunch ink, then clear-embossed it. I coloured the image with Altenew watercolour paints on smooth 300gsm Franceville card, which handled the water well and didn’t warp too much. I used two shades of soft pastel pink for the flowers and two greens for the foliage. Once it was dry, I trimmed the panel down and matted it on pink patterned paper. The sentiment is from another Woodware set, Word Fragments. I stamped it on a scrap of white card in Altenew Cloudy Night ink, die-cut it, and popped it onto the card. To finish, I added gold dots to the flower centres and a few pink dots for extra embellishment.  Really happy with how it turned out. 

Baby wipe ink-lift technique (with a stencil)

I can finally share the card I made for my NZ swap group—Suna’s card arrived on Saturday, 10 days after posting (and it only had about 25 km to travel up the road!). This project is also where my recent “baby wipe” inspiration came from, because our challenge technique for the month was to use a baby wipe in some way.

Here it is!

For the background, I blended Distress Oxide in Mowed Lawn as my base colour, then layered on a Gelli Art Leaves stencil. Next came the fun part: I placed a (slightly damp) baby wipe over the stencil, added a piece of scrap paper on top to absorb any extra moisture, and ran the whole sandwich through my Sizzix Platinum 6 with the rubber mat underneath.

Because Distress Oxides react so well with moisture, the baby wipe lifts the ink through the stencil and creates a soft, textured pattern.

I cut the dragonfly, grid and sentiment from black cardstock. To add colour to the dragonfly, I rubbed on metallic wax in gold and blue, with a touch of silver on the body. For extra sparkle, I finished with a light spritz of Frost Shimmer Spray and a few black shiny dots.

I'm entering this into the Stencil Challenge at Just Us Girls...

It’s been a long weekend here in NZ for ANZAC Day—our time of remembrance for those who served (and continue to serve). Even longer for me, since I don’t work Fridays! I’ve been busy crafting and spending time with family, and it’s been just what I needed.

Celebrating Altenew’s 12th Anniversary with Die Cut Divas

 It’s time to celebrate with Altenew over at Die Cut Divas! Altenew is our wonderful sponsor this month, and they’re also marking a big milestone—their 12^th anniversary. To join the festivities, our challenge theme is simple: make an anniversary or birthday card.

I’ve been a fan of Altenew for a long time—since around 2015 at least. Their floral stamps are some of my all-time favourites, and it’s been fun to see their range grow over the years into stencils, dies, embossing folders, and more. I’ll just say… I own a lot of Altenew goodies!

For today’s card I reached for an older favourite: the Fabulous Florets layering stamps and coordinating dies.

To start, I stamped the smaller of the two flowers onto my card panel using Altenew yellow and orange inks. Next, I stamped the larger flower, die cut it, and layered it on for extra dimension. For the greeting, I used a sentiment from Altenew Sentiment Strips 2 and white heat-embossed it onto a black strip. I trimmed the panel with Gina K Master Layouts 2, then matted everything onto black cardstock. To finish, I added a few gold glitter dots for a little sparkle.

I hope you’ll join our challenge! Just be sure to include die-cuts and/or a dry-embossed item in your submission.