Stamped Square Frames / Black With a Splash of Colour

For this week's Make it Monday Dawn McVey is challenging us to use stamps to create square frames. You can check out her great tutorial here. I am also entering the challenge at Less is More this week which is to create a card with a dark background and a splash of colour.

I actually ended up with two cards for these challenges. I started out by testing my frame on inexpensive black cardstock because my supply of better cardstock was running low. After completing the card seen below I decided to complete my test piece slightly differently, you can see that post here.

 

 

This card was extremely challenging to photograph since there was very little natural light and artificial light affected the colours drastically.

I also used the inlaid diecut technique from last week's Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink to give the card more texture and interest. I used Spellbinders Classic Square dies for this.

Supplies:

Stamps - The Sweet Life, Boutique Borders: Birthday, Botanical Silhouettes (PTI)

Paper - Black CS (Bazzill), White CS

Ink - Versa Mark, Clear EP, Clover Meadow, Pear, Cotton Candy, Tulip, Pansy Purple inks (CTMH)

Other - The Sweet Life Dies (PTI), Classic Squares Lg & Sm (Spellbinders), black rhinestones (CTMH)

Timeless Tuesday #245 - Guest Designer

Good morning, I am thrilled to be joining all of the talented and lovely women at Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge as Guest Designer for the month of November. Thank you Allison for this fun opportunity, let's get started!

 This week's challenge, FTTC245, is to create a card or project using the negative space of a die cut shape.

There are a lot of different directions that you could go with this challenge.  I created this card for a very special person that is facing some difficult challenges in her life right now.

I started out by stamping images from the beautiful stamp set 'Bees & Blooms' onto a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" piece of white cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I coloured in the flowers and bees with Copic markers and then filled in the white space around them with copic B95.

You are probably wondering why I stamped and coloured such a large piece of cardstock considering how much of it I finally ended up using. My original idea was to use this piece as my top layer and use a white negative space for my sentiment. Well, as often happens when I am creating, my card started out as a germ of an idea and ended up in a different direction from where I started out. The bonus, I had plenty of the coloured image left to add a piece to the inside of my card and I still have a strip left that will be perfect to create another quick card in the future.

For my negative space, I laid a square die onto the left side of my card front and with a pencil lightly marked where I wanted my open spaces to be. I made the cuts using the pencil marks as my guide and then gently erased the marks when I was done. I then added the sentiment, sparkles and wrapped the cord and heart charm just above it.

I cut a strip from my coloured piece to fit behind the open space and added some black seed beads to the flower centers before adhering it to my card base and then popping the card front over top with 3D foam.

Be sure to check out what the Design Team has come up with for this week's challenge and leave them some blog love while you are there:

• Allison Cope
• Cheryl Lea
• Deborah Anton
• Jenny Gropp
• Judy Rozema
• Katie Sims
• Connie MacFarlane (Guest Designer) - you are here

Supplies: Bees & Blooms (Flourishes), White cardstock, Memento Tuxedo Black, blue ink, Copic Collections (see below) plus G17 & B95, black hemp, blue sparkles, heart charm, black seed beads, A2 Matting Basics A & Classic Squares Small (Spellbinders)

More Masked Birthday Wishes

Yesterday I posted a birthday card using post-its to mask off a fish tail banner that I then sponged with ink. Today's card is virtually the same card but I wanted to try it with different colours and I also wanted to inlay the die cut sentiment which I didn't think to do yesterday. Inlaid die cuts is the Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week so I am entering this card into that challenge. Again, I used the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.

 

 

I really like this colour combo. I had a couple of minor touches of stray black ink which I valiantly attempted to cover with tiny rhinestones. Looking at it now, it is probably where I would have placed them anyway. There is also a rhinestone in the center of the flower which is difficult to see.

Supplies:
Stamps - Meadow Greens, Stylish Sentiments: Birthday (PTI)
Dies - Birthday Trio (PTI)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Bamboo & Dutch Blue (CTMH)
Paper - Neena Solar White, Green CS (Bazzill)
Other - Bitty Rhinestones (CTMH), post-it notes

Masked Birthday Greetings

Happy Halloween! Hope you are enjoying your ghoulish day, although it has been raining here all day and it is supposed to continue through the evening I think. Not much fun for all the little ghosts and goblins (or their parents I'm sure). I have a masked birthday card today, but not in the Halloween sense of the word. I used post-it note masks and inks to create this almost single layer card for the Birthday Party challenge at Flourishes in honor of Christine Okken's birthday and for the sketch this week at CAS(E) this Sketch #52.

Happy Birthday Christine!

Supplies:
Stamps - Chrysanthemums, Tag Lines (Flourishes)
Paper - Neena Solar White CS
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Juniper & Buttercup (CTMH)
Other - Birthday Trio Die (PTI), sparkles (CTMH), post it notes

Timeless Tuesday #243 - Fussy Cutting Fun

Hello all, hope you are enjoying this brisk weekend. The challenge at Flourishes Timeless Tuesday this week is to cut an image with a detailed edge. I love to fussy cut and usually cut right up to the stamped edge but for this image I left a bit of white since there were some tiny detailed areas. I didn't pop up the image on this card, just the birthday sentiment since I am trying to make my cards a little flatter for mailing. I used a sketch from Pals Paper Arts #177 and the colour palette at Colour Throwdown #265 this week.

 

Supplies:
Stamps - Garden Gate, Tag Lines (Flourishes)
Paper - Gathering DP (Authentique), Navy CS (Bazzill), Neena Solar White
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Desert Sand, Sorbet (for inside) (CTMH), Copics - R000, 01, 02, 14, BG10, 72, 75, E41, 42, 43, 44
Other - Birthday Trio Die (PTI), pearls (CTMH), corner rounder, 3D foam

Papertrey Ink October Blog Hop - Tag It Challenge

This month's blog hop challenge at Papertrey Ink is to create 5 holiday tags. At first I didn't think I would be able to participate in this challenge since I have just started purchasing PTI products earlier this year and I don't have a single PTI Christmas image or sentiment. Yesterday I was looking through my dies and decided to try and make it work with what I have. Here is what I came up with:

I used my Spiral Notebook Die to cut bases from some pretty snowflake patterned paper. I created my wreath using my Heart Border Die. I used the word 'Joy' from one of my PTI birthday stamps and using a Versa Mark marker was able to apply ink only to that word without having to do any masking, then heat embossed with gold. I then snipped between the hearts stopping just short of cutting all the way through so that I could form the border into a wreath. I coloured some rhinestones with a copic, added them and a bow, some gold string and 'to' 'from' and that was it. Nothing extraordinary but I am pleased with the result.

Supplies:

Dies - Spiral Notebook, Heart Border (PTI)

Stamps - Stylish Sentiments: Birthday (PTI), Card Word Puzzle (CTMH)

Paper - Christmas Cottage (Teresa Collins)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Versa Mark Marker, Gold EP, Copic - R89

Other - 1/8" ribbon, rhinestones

PTI Make It Monday #137 - Dimensional Leaf Wreath

Good Morning! I put together a card this morning for Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday #137. The challenge this week is to incorporate a dimensional leaf wreath into your project.

This card did not turn out quite as I had first imagined it. I was going to put the button right in the bottom corner, but somehow that didn't look right. When I moved it up in line with the sentiment I liked the position of the button better but then had some difficulty arranging my leaves. Anyway, don't have time for a do-over, so here it is.

For my wreath I wrapped black hemp around the bottom of a mug four times and tied a knot. I slipped the wreath off of the mug, laid it flat and sprayed it with firm hold hairspray to stiffen it a bit. I laid the wreath onto my card front and glued it down in a few spots then trimmed off the excess after the glue was dry. I die cut the leaves from various DP, stamped them with Versa Mark and heat embossed them in clear EP instead of glitter as Melissa does in her video. For the sentiment I used post-its to mask off a 1/2" section and sponged on ink.
Here is a closeup showing the clear embossing which gives a little more definition to the leaves.

Supplies:
Stamps - Meadow Greens, Botanical Silhouettes (PTI)
Paper - various DP, Neena Solar White CS
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Bamboo (CTMH), Versa Mark, Clear EP
Other - Meadow Greens Die (PTI), Black Hemp (CTMH), button

Flowers on Canvas - Timeless Tuesday #242

Hey all, hope you are having a good weekend. Put together a card this morning for Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge this week, which is to use Burlap or Canvas on your card. I used both today.

I purchased a length of canvas a while back and have used it for a previous card here. I just stamped onto the canvas with Memento ink and coloured with Copics. You can't really blend on this canvas due to the texture, so you don't need a lot of copic colours. After cutting the piece down to the size I wanted I sewed it to a piece of cardstock to give it some stability. I cut down some burlap ribbon to the size I wanted and then gathered it up and sewed it down the middle to keep it in place.

Supplies:
Stamps - Chrysanthamums, Orchids (Flourishes)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics - E08, R59, YG93, YG95, YG97
Paper - cardstock (Bazzill)
Other - burlap ribbon (CTMH), button, canvas (fabric store), Argyle EF (Darice)

Non Traditional Christmas Colours

The October release week challenge at Flourishes is 'Christmas with a Twist' - create a Christmas project without using green or red. My first thought was to go blue but then I came across this retired Designer Paper from Stampin' Up and decided to go for a more masculine card. I paper pieced this beautiful image from Pointsettia & Pine and adhered it to a very simple card base design. I tried a few more complicated layouts and kept falling back to a more basic design so that the image and gold embossing remained the focal point.

 

I stamped the image twice onto the cream dot pattern, cutting out the entire image from one and some of the flower petals for layering from the second. I burnished the separate petals to give them a little more dimension. I stamped the image once more onto one of  the brown patterned papers from the Mocha Morning pack for the ivy leaves and once onto a black on black print from CTMH's For Always for the berries and the one large leaf. I embossed some bitty pearls in gold for the center - you can see how I do that here. 

Supplies:

Stamps - Pointsettia & Pine (Flourishes)

Paper - Mocha Morning DP, Black CS, Brown CS (SU), Classic Ivory CS (Flourishes), For Always DP (CTMH)

Ink - Versa Mark, Gold EP, Copic E49

Accessories - Bitty Pearls (CTMH)

Timeless Tuesday #240 - Paper Piecing Blue Orchids

The Timeless Tuesday challenge at Flourishes this week is to create a project using paper piecing. The twist to this week's challenge is that there will be up to four winners and each of those winners will win a stamp set from Flourishes and get the opportunity to be Guest Designer for one of the Timeless Tuesday challenges in December! So get those scissors snipping.

A few months back I was walking down the main street of my home town and was stopped in my tracks by the sight of gorgeous blue orchids sitting in the window of the local florist shop. I had never seen blue orchids before, they were absolutely stunning and the image has stayed with me. When I saw this week's challenge I knew it was the perfect opportunity to recreate those blue orchids in paper. My mother has a magic touch with orchids, so I made this card to send to her in the near future. We lost my dad earlier this year and she finds it very lonely after 65 years of marriage to be on her own, so I try to send little surprises in the mail to her whenever I can. Can't wait to send her this one.

 

First I stamped the orchid image onto my white cardstock front - 4 1/4" x 4 7/8". I stamped the image twice on blue designer paper and once on yellow DP. For one of the blue sets I cut out the full orchid flowers (except for the little tongue), shaded them a bit with a copic marker and adhered them to the card front. For the second stamped image on blue I cut out only the top two petals of each flower, shaded them and adhered them to the first blooms applying glue only to the center portion so that the petals could be pushed up slightly to give more dimension. Then I cut out the center portion of the yellow flowers, shaded them with copics and adhered. The stems and buds are coloured with copics.

To add a little textural interest to the top of the card I took my PTI heart border die and used it to emboss across the top of the card first. Then I added a section of the heart border that I die cut. A sentiment, sparkles, black border and yellow print rounded out the card.

Supplies:

Stamps - Orchids, April Showers (Flourishes)

Paper - Stardust, Chantilly DP (CTMH), Neena Solar White CS, Black CS

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics - G05, 12, 14, Y21, 35, B34

Other - Blue sparkles (CTMH), Heart Border Die (PTI)