Kristina Werner Colour Inspiration #45

Here is my submission for Kristina Werner's Colour Insiration challenge today. I've had a paper stack from DCWV for a few years and don't use it much, so I was thrilled when I could rifle through it. I started off with stripes and circles, but didn't like it, so went for the flower look instead. I also used an older SCS sketch challenge # 180 for layout assistance. I used the retired set Live Your Dreams - I've always liked this flower because you can use a lot of different techniques with it. I embossed it in black and used Basic Gray ink around the edge. I finishd the card off with a dragonfly charm I've had laying around for a long time too to pick up on the little dragonflies in the patterne paper. Oh ya, there are black brads in the corner of the patterned paper as well. Thanks for taking a peek!

Embossed Echoes

I have a workshop booked for the niece of a very good friend of mine in a couple of weeks. I was playing around with ideas for the workshop and I ended up making this card, which I think I'll end up giving to her at some point (she is getting married later this year). She wants to make her own wedding invitations so I'm going to try to come up with a few ideas for her in addition to the workshop cards (which I still need to prep). When I asked her what she might want me to demonstrate, she indicated she likes embossing (among other things), which is why I think I ended up making this card. I embossed one of the flowers from the Echoes of Kindness hostess set (level 2) in gold and used my blender pens with various inks to colour the flower and leaves. I mounted the image on Pink Pirouette and added gold brads. I used the Damask Texturz plate from the backgrounds 1 offering. I love these Texturz plates and they are definitely the right price (3 double-sided plates for only $14.25)! I embossed the sentiment in gold and mounted it to the card base (also pink pirouette). I love the simplicity of the card, but I think it is also very elegant.

Donna

Kristina Werner Colour Challenge # 42

Another great colour combo for us to play with is up over at Kristina Werner's wonderful blog! I fully intended this card to use more of the mustard and rust colours, but ended up with an eyeful of kiwi! (it is my current favourite colour so I guess it's not surprising!

I used one of my home made embossing plates to create the floral image and used the swatch colours to ink and add contrast to the embossed image. The patterned paper is from Sassafrass Lass and the little tab is cut by hand. Some sheer ribbon and a little bling and it was done!

Cuttlebug baby buggy

Over the past couple of months, I have been trying to catch up on some SCS Sketch Challenges. This one was SC32. A bunch of ladies at work (5 of them - Yikes!) are ready to have babies, so I thought I'd get ahead of the game in the event one of them has a boy. I recently received Parisian Breeze Specialty paper which is absolutely amazing! It was a beautiful texture and is so thick, it's gorgeous. Can you tell I love it? It's definitely worth a couple of extra dollars. I used blender pens with baja breeze and chocolate chip ink on the raised image. I finished the card with S-U buttons and 5/8" striped grosgrain ribbon. The sentiment inside comes from the Best Yet (retired) S-U set and says "a little something for a little someone". I really hope that one of these gals has a boy!



Donna

For a sick cousin...

Unfortunately, I needed to make a card for one of my husband's cousins. He just found out he has cancer of the abdominal wall (I forget the technical name for it). He was told he has, at most, a year to live. He only retired last year and he and his wife moved to a beautiful neighbourhood on Georgian Bay. It's so sad he won't have long to enjoy it.

I used one of the new S-U embossing folders from Backgrounds 1 (harlequin shape). It's a bit hard to see it here. I added little dots in between each "connector". The colours are chocolate chip, very vanilla and kraft. I used one of the trees from the Trendy Trees set from S-U. I used Old Olive and Garden Green and did the "Rock and Roll" technique on the leaves. I received the "Three Little Words" set from a recent Mega Meeting I attending with the Amazink Canadians group of demonstrators. The inside finishes the card with "thinking of you". I really hope I don't have to send a sympathy card too soon...

Donna

Zen and the Art of Cutting Stuff Out of Cereal Boxes

A few days ago, I promised (threatened)? that I was going to try Mel's technique for making custom embossing plates using old cereal boxes! Well OMG, I am hooked! I finally have a reason to be grateful for the inhuman quantities of breakfast cereal that my teen aged son eats! (Keep eating, honey).

Mel's folders were made by cutting stamped images out of cereal box cardboard and adhering them to a flat panel, also cut from the cereal box. The whole thing gets sealed with a layer of Mod Podge and then you can run it through your cuttlebug to create your own custom embossed paper! There aren't enough exclamation points in the world to get me through this post!!!!

When I looked through my stamps, I just didn't have the images that I wanted for this technique, so I turned to my trusty QuicKutz Silhouette. I selected the images I wanted and cut them from cardstock first since the Silhouette won't cut through cardboard. Then I traced my die cuts onto the cardboard and cut them by hand. Here are the four plates I have made so far:

(I know, I know. But I like cutting things out! It makes me feel very Zen) I used the paisley folder to make the Valentine's card for Kristina Werner's Color Challenge - see previous post. Then I decided to experiment a bit and I made this card.

Basically, I embossed the chandelier on black cardstock, then swiped Gesso all over it. I sanded it to make the embossed image pop, but it still wasn't standing out the way I wanted. So I used Prisma Pencils and Gamsol to colour the background area pink with yellow highlights. Then it was a bit too garish for my liking. So I gessoed and sanded again. Finally, I coloured the raised areas of the chandelier with a clear Stardust pen, which doesn't really show in this picture. In real life, it really adds some glamour! This card is a little funky (even for me) so I'm back to the drawing board to see if I can come up with more ideas for using my new toys.

So now I think I'm going to spend about a week cutting stuff out of cereal boxes until I have the biggest collection of custom embossing plates on the planet! Plus, all that cutting will practically qualify me to be a Buddhist monk!

Kristina Werner Color Challenge # 41

Ever since we introduced the blog, Donna and I have been anxiously waiting for Kristina Werner's next wonderful color challenge so that we could participate. Our first week, Kristina was away for CHA and there wasn't one! Then, strangely enough, we both completely missed the announcement of # 40! I've been watching her blog with an eagle eye and one hand on my ATG every since and here it is - # 41!

The minute I saw this swatch, I thought "Valentines Day." (My serendipitous purchase of the Hero Arts stamp set, "Together" may also have contributed to my thinking). So without further ado, here is my take on the challenge.

I was feeling kind of swirly and sophisiticated for this card. I started by stamping the central image in black on smooth white cardstock and twice again on red cardstock. I cut the centre frame from the white and layered it onto one of the red images with foam adhesive. I trimned just the heart from the final red image and popped it again with foam adhesive on top of the white layer.

This picture doesn't show all the detail I would like in the background. The white panel is actually embossed with a homemade embossing plate I made for my Cuttlebug using some paisley images from the QuicKutz Silhouette as a guide. (More on this technique later, I promise)! I enhanced the embossed panel using white and silver perlescent chalks, then layered it with a grey panel and a red lable cut using the Spellbinders Large Lable Nestabilities.

The patterned paper is from the Basic Grey Bittersweet collection, the photo corners are cut by hand and I added a fun velvet scalloped ribbon from American Crafts for more texture. The final touch was a sweet little bow using thin silver cord around the focal heart image.

Now it's Donna's turn!