Card Maker Success Summit - Inspired by Nicki Baxley

 Well the best made plans of mice and men..... My idea to watch more sessions last night were scuttled by the internet doing down last night-  No wifi in the house and no service from the local cell tower... so I had to wait till today to re-watch Nicki Baxley's Easel card session and have a go.   It was a labour of love... made a few mistakes and had to redo my embossed panels a couple of times...but in the end made it!

Nicki's Easel card is a bit different from how I've done them before, but turned out awesome.  Looks like a normal card till it's opened.    I liked her use of green and red card I went with the same colour scheme.  I took an Altenew embossing folder - Beautiful Begonia for my background.   I added some Altenew Vineyard Berry and Berrylicious inks to the edges.  My floral focus is a Hero Arts Vintage Poinsettia stamp and it's matching die. I stamped it with Versafine Onyx Black ink and clear embossed.  I used an idea I saw on a video by Jo Simmons, made my own stencils for adding some ink blending.  Stamped it twice and cut out the whole image and then just the cut out the flower part.  Used that as a mask to ink up the leaves and then used the second negative piece to ink blend the flower before die cutting out the coloured image.  Added some gold pen around the edge and added some Zig Glue and added some gold foil in the centre of the poinsettia.  The stopper is made with a Joy die from Chloes Creative Cards - a freebie from a magazine. I added a little sub-sentiment  from a Kaisercraft stamp set. 

As I used a Woodblock stamp for this card, I'm entering it into the Woodblock Wednesday Challenge...

Will be working on more of the sessions over the next few weeks.  Slowly building up the Christmas cards.  

Card Maker Success Summit July-Aug 2025

 The CMSS free classes have started but I got a slight head start by purchasing the VIP pass... and I had great plans to get started early... but live sort of took over!   I did however a couple of weeks ago - watch Ardyth's tutorial - using a Gel Plate to make some backgrounds.... and managed to make a few panels I liked.  (Here's my first card that was made over two weeks ago).

I got home from work early on Wednesday and had a play using one of the backgrounds I had saved.  I made two cards inspired by Ardyth.  

For this first one I made a 5" square card.  The background was a blue gel background that I embossed with an unknown brand folder (suspect it was from a magazine from years ago)  I then rubbed Catherine Pooler Juniper ink over the embossed area.  The gold and red panel was the panel I made using a stencil and red and gold paint.  I die cut with an ornament die I picked up at my local stationary store - came from a magazine.  I then stamped the matching stamp set in black and clear embossed. Added a silver die cut topper before double mounting on white and red panels.    Turned out a bit busier than I would have preferred. 

Next up is a smaller 4.25" square card.  This time I use a red card panel embossed with Gina K Tapestry folder and rubbed Delicata Gold ink over it.   Die cut the ornament and added a gold embossed sentiment from a Waffle Flower set called Star Snowflake.  Added some gold dots to embellishment.  

Hoping that I get some time over the weekend to watch some more videos and get a few more cards made.   We are heading out early in the morning to watch Grace play netball and then coffee before doing our grocery shopping... so then the afternoon for crafting.