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.

Christmas Kickstart "Brimming with Style" challenge

I had all the best intentions to keep up with making Christmas cards all through the year… but it hasn’t happened. Today though, I managed to get a card made for this month’s Christmas Kickstart Challenge.

The theme this month is “Brimming with Style” (projects with hats), so I just had to use this cute-as hat-wearing penguin from Gina K Designs’ Playful Penguins. I stamped and die cut the penguin, then coloured it up with Prismacolor pencils. To finish it off I added some Kindyglitz glitter glue to the hat and scarf for a bit of sparkle.

For the background, I grabbed some ombré patterned paper and embossed it with an older Cuttlebug embossing folder (Snowflakes). Then I rubbed white pigment ink over the raised areas to highlight all that texture. I popped on a sentiment banner to ground the penguin and called it done… simple, cute, and got me back in the Christmas card mood.  Now to keep up with making Christmas cards!

A Creative Day with Grace

 As the school holidays draw to a close, I had the pleasure of spending a full day with Grace—my turn to look after her and make some memories. Earlier in the week, she enjoyed a day with Pop, who took her swimming. 

Yesterday started in the craft room, where inspiration struck thanks to a new dragonfly die. We cut dragonflies from rice paper, each taking three to decorate with different mediums. I experimented with Nuvo Shimmer powders in blue and green for one, used mop-up paint for another, and finished the third with Temu Glitter pens—this last one sparkled beautifully and became the centerpiece for today’s card. 

Grace made some rainbow backgrounds and added her dragonflies (but I didn't get any photos of her two cards)

For the card, I chose ombre patterned paper in blues, die-cut a  panels using Gina L Master Layouts 2, and layered onto a larger sized panel for extra depth. The dragonfly die came with a grid die, which I cut from silver holographic card—perfect for a shimmering background. A stamped sentiment from Altenew Sentiment Stripes completed the look with some holographic dots for extra shimmer. 

Our afternoon adventure took us to Gloputt, an in-the-dark mini golf course. We laughed our way through the glowing obstacles and capped off the day with several rounds of Air Hockey. I was soundly beaten by a nearly seven-year-old, but the fun and laughter made it a perfect ending.

Baby Wipes: A Fun Creative Experiment

This month’s challenge in my local swap group was set by my friend Suna, and it was a fun one: “Use a Baby Wipe.” She even shared a few YouTube videos to get our creative juices flowing, which really helped spark some ideas.

On Wednesday afternoon, Grace and I experimented with a few different techniques. The idea we loved most involved ink blending onto cardstock, layering a stencil over the top, then adding several layers of baby wipes before running the whole stack through my Spellbinders Platinum 6. The result was such a surprise! The baby wipes absorbed the colour in the most interesting way. Because I used Distress Oxides for the ink blending, the finished panels have a soft, almost velvety look and feel. Grace made several panels during our session, and they all turned out beautifully.

On Saturday, I couldn’t resist making a few more panels of my own—two in green and one in a vibrant orange. One of the green panels has already been turned into a card, but since it hasn’t reached its recipient yet, I’ll save that for another post. Today’s focus is the card I created using the orange panel.

For this piece, I used a Gelli Art Circles stencil over Ripe Persimmon Distress Oxide ink, which added lovely texture and interest to the background. To ground the floral focal point, I die cut a vellum rectangle and layered it over the panel. The flower dies are from an unnamed brand and, I’ll admit, they gave me a bit of trouble—no instructions always makes assembly an adventure! In the end, I decided to keep things monochromatic, die cutting all the pieces from white cardstock and softly blending colour onto them using some Altenew Warm and Cozy inks.

The leaves were cut from orange pattern paper from Scrapbook.com, which tied everything together nicely. I trimmed the panel, matted it with white cardstock, and added a touch of sparkle to the flower centres using Gold Wink of Stella. To finish the card, I added a gold foiled sentiment from a Spellbinders set.

This challenge was such a fun way to try something I haven't done in a while, and I love how the baby wipes created such a unique texture. 

My Favourite Colour: Purple 💜

 Hi everyone!It’s time for me to share my card for the latest Sweet Stampin’ Challenge, and this time the theme is “Your Favourite Colour.” For me, that was an easy choice — purple all the way!

I took my inspiration from a wonderful YouTube tutorial by Jo Simons. Embossing has always been one of my favourite techniques, so combining my love of texture with purple tones felt like the perfect way to approach this challenge.

I CASE’d Jo’s card design, using kraft card for the main panel along with the Altenew 3D Embossing Folder – Dancing Cosmos. To bring in that gorgeous pop of colour, I used Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink, which works beautifully with the technique I chose.

This embossing and inking method is great fun and very satisfying. I embossed the kraft card first, keeping it inside the folder, then lightly rubbed white pigment ink over the raised areas to highlight the design. Next, I applied the Distress Oxide ink directly onto the other side of the embossing folder. Carefully closing the folder, I ran it back through my machine. I repeated the inking process a few times to build up good, even coverage.

Once everything was dry, I gave the raised areas another gentle rub with white pigment ink to really make the design pop. To finish the card, I added a few purple enamel dots and pre-printed sentiment strips — simple but effective.

I absolutely love how this card turned out, and I hope it inspires you to experiment with your favourite colours too. Do come and join us over at the Sweet Stampin’ Challenge and share what you’ve been creating — we’d love to see it!

Happy crafting! 💜✂️

Just for You: A Blue-Themed Farewell Card

 

Last week, one of the ladies at my hubby’s workplace was heading off to a new job, and I was asked to create a handmade card for her send‑off. I wanted something thoughtful and elegant, so I settled on a simple but heartfelt theme: Just a note… to say you will be missed.

I chose a blue colour palette for this card. To start, I used some beautiful watercolour‑style patterned paper from Scrapbook.com. I die‑cut an arch from the paper and created a coordinating frame, then embossed it with a woodgrain folder to add subtle texture and interest. This was mounted onto a crisp white card base, letting the blue tones really shine.

For the focal point, I chose the Altenew Petite Mountain Aven dies. I cut three sets of the florals and blended Persian Blue ink over them to build depth and variation in the colour. A small touch of yellow in the centres brought the flowers to life and added just the right amount of contrast.

I added delicate gold leaves cut from the Sizzix Geo Floral Frame die set. The metallic accents worked beautifully with the blue palette and added a hint of elegance without overwhelming the card.

The sentiment was created using the Altenew Scripty Sentiments die, cut from a dark blue cardstock to tie everything together. To finish, I scattered a few small gold dots around the design for a subtle sparkle.

This card was fun to make and a lovely way to say goodbye while wishing someone well on their next adventure.