Merry and Bright for JAI #728

Happy Friday and welcome! It's been a busy couple of weeks for our household. Our cute and courageous little foster dog, Pocky, lost his fight with kidney disease and the time came to say goodbye. Then we also said goodbye to our home of the last four years and moved to a different area, closer to where we know and love and a newish property that meets our needs and we have lovely neighbours. So we are very happy.

This week at Just Add Ink, we have this cute Choose Two Challenge out of Pens, Pencils or Patterned Paper. Our design team have created some incredibly beautiful cards to inspire you where to start with this fun challenge. I hope that you can take a moment and hop on over to JAI and take a peek!

For my card this week, I chose Pens and Patterned Paper. 
I stamped the outline of the Decorative Trees stamp and then coloured it with Copics and Blends before stamping the inside, detailed image using Shaded Spruce. This not only meets the challenge brief but adds detail and a bit of movement to the image.

The red lights and gold star are attached and then the tree is layered over a white circle from the Spotlight of Nature dies. This just helps the tree stand out against the patterned paper chosen for the background. 

The sentiment is a mixture of one of the sayings from the set - the word "merry" was covered so that it wasn't inked with Versamark and then embossed. And then the word Bright was die cut using the fun Peace and Joy dies that are now retired. I love being able to make slightly older sets relevant by using newer stamps with them.

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope that you are inspired to join us for this week's challenge over at Just Add Ink. I can't wait to see which Two out of the Choose Two options of Pens, Pencils and Patterned Paper that you choose to craft with and what you choose to create!

Card stock: Basic White, Basic Black, Red Glimmer, Gold Glimmer

Designer Series Paper: Joy of Christmas (retired)

Inks: Versamark, Momento Tuxedo Black, Shaded Spruce

Stamps: Decorative Trees, Peace and Joy (retired)

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Spotlight on Nature Dies, Decorative Trees Dies, Metallic Sequin Assortment (retired), White EP

'Til next time,

Jan

Decorative Trees for JAI #726

Happy Friday!  It's a long weekend here in Melbourne, yes Tuesday is the running of the Melbourne Cup - the race that stops a nation as is often said here. Or perhaps it's an extra day to craft for you? For me, we are moving house! After four years in an area we haven't loved, we are able to move to a property that is better suited both in how it will meet our needs for the future and definitely closer to the area that we would like to be in - so we are excited!

This week at Just Add Ink , Kerry Parkinson has given us this fabulous collage of Inspiration photos. 
Our design team have all enjoyed the many different textures and colours in the different photos.

I hope that you are able to pop on over to the JAI blog and we'd love you to join us.

For my card, I was inspired by the different trees and branches, the plaid and the colours of rusty orange, copper and green. 
The fabulous Decorative Trees Bundle has so many options - so many dies to create fun textures and pretty overlays.

The white plaid layer is placed over an ombre ink layer of Peach Pie.

Gold and Green glimmer was placed over card stock layers.

And the sentiment is from Christmas Classics, one of last years favourite sets. 

Thank you for stopping by today and I look forward to seeing what you create with this fun and beautiful Photo Inspiration challenge over at Just Add Ink this week.

'Til next time,

Jan

Birthday Layers of Beauty for JAI #724

Happy Friday and welcome!! It is incredible how in just one week, how the weather can warm up enough to mean that it's time to change over to a Spring/Summer wardrobe from Winter. So glad that this time is now here! Spring is my favourite time of year, so much hope in the air! I hope that your week has gone well too!

We have a Colour Challenge with a difference for you at Just Add Ink this week! This fun challenge has been suggested by Nikki - that we use Misty Moonlight and Peach Pie (or the equivalent colours) and then choose one another colour to add for the third colour of the challenge. Ooh! This is going to be fun to see what colours everyone chooses! The design team have created a variety of cards to inspire you - but we wait to see you inspire US with this challenge! I really hope that you can pop on over to Just Add Ink and join with us!

For my card I CASEd  (Copy and selectively edited) a card on page 57 of the Annual Catalogue. The catalogue is such a wonderful resource to take an idea and build on it to create something more.

The two challenge colours would be used for the flowers and then for a choice of green, I used the Colour Theory graphics on pages 132-133 to help me choose Granny Apple Green.

The Layers of Beauty masks are wonderful tools to help add -indeed, layers - of colour. So this is what I did. Starting with a really light layer of coverage with the Peach especially and the Moonlight and increasingly adding a little heavier colour for each layer. 

I love to water colour and to use markers to do this...and I was amazed at the amount of texture and detail in these masks.

I didn't change too much about the card because I loved it as it was! 
Obviously its now a portrait card, with an embossed white layer and the sentiment is different...and just a little - or big - gold bow. Metallics being allowed with colour challenges.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope that you are excited to join with us at Just Add Ink this week as we will be keen to learn what colours you would add to complete this Colour Challenge Combo!

Card stock: Whisper White (Thick and Standard), Midnight Muse

DSP: 2024-2026 In colour 

Inks: Peach Pie, Midnight Muse, Granny Apple Green

Stamps: Layers of Beauty, Well Said (retired)

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Layers of Beauty Masks, Layers of Beauty Dies, Forever Plaid EF, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Enamel Dots (retired). White EP.

'Til next time,

Jan

 

Friends For Life For JAI #722

Happy Friday and welcome! It is the last week of the School Holidays here in Victoria so maybe you have some extra time this weekend before kids go back to school to enter our challenge?? We'd so love to see your work! 

This week I was visited by a Guide Dogs Australia Orthoptist who brought me two different magnifiers with lights to try to potentially use in the craft room. Wow! What a difference being able to see better can make!! The below card was whipped in one day - cards have typically taken me two days at least to make recently so this was a significant moment. If you are having trouble with your eyes, don't wait as long as I did to ask for help. 

This week at Just Add Ink, we have a fun sketch from the lovely Lou Kitzelman. 

Our Design team have created a gallery of cards to help inspire you as to how you might use this sketch in your crafting and we'd love to see how you do. So please pop on over to the Just Add Ink for more info and a link to enter your project.

The Full of Life suite of products is one of my favourites and definitely my most used from this year's SU Annual Catalogue. The variety of images and sentiments have a timeless appeal and I love how the "friend" word has a shadow effect that makes it pop off any page!
My card was inspired by one from  @stampinthroughthecatalog on Instagram where they used the paintbrush stroke die to cut card stock and added a sentiment over the top. A CASE is to Copy and Selectively Edit and this is what I did.

For my card, I used the Full of Life DSP  - I made repeated cuts in one  piece of DSP to catch the colour changes from one to the other. These were then mounted on card stock and added in a Landscape  direction for our JAI sketch.

From there I added a Vellum heart surrounded by an Ice Glimmer card heart outline. The Friend is cut from silver foil card and layered over Basic White.

The Hi is stamped on the same DSP and embossed in white and cut out using a Stitched Circle die from my stash. Then there are various hearts cut from the DSP and a sprinkling of sequins.

I can't help but marvel at how well lined up everything on this card is - something I have struggled with so much the last year or so but was made much easier by the magnifier that is currently kindly on loan. Even my laptop now has a larger text option...😍

Card stock: Basic White (thick and standard), Silver Foil, Ice Glimmer

DSP: Full of Life 6x6

Ink: Versamark

Stamps: Friends for Life

Accessories: Die Cutting machine, Friends For Life Dies, White EP, Subtles Sequins (retired).

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope that you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink and see the other cards from the team and also other challenge entrants. And I can't wait to see what you might like to create for this week's fun sketch challenge!

'Til next time,

Jan

 

JAI #720 Friends Rainbow

Happy Friday and welcome! It is Spring here in Melbourne and that means the weather is warm one minute and then wet and cold the next. There was at least one song written about that. But the days are getting longer and that is something I think we all are happy about!

This week at Just Add Ink we have the fun theme of Just Add Rainbows suggested by Tristan to kick start your weekend crafting. The design team had fun with this challenge and we hope that you do too!

Yes, this card was made for a fan of a certain TV series. I used the Full of Life DSP to Add my Rainbow and the other details are from both the Friends For Life and the Tune In Bundles.

Such a fun card to make!

Are you singing the theme song yet? 😀
Maybe we should have a Just Add a card that makes you sing"  challenge!    

Truth be told...I actually got the theme song wrong....I was meaning the show about an amazing group  group of friends. But never mind! Next time! The card recipient knew both songs thankfully! 💖

Card stock: Basic White standard and Thick, Basi Black,Silver Foil 

Designer Series Paper: Full of Life

Inks: Versamark, Blends: Lovely Lipstick

Stamps: Friends For Life, Tune In

Accessories: Die cuttng machine, Friends For Life Dies, White EP, Metallic Sequin Assortment, Wink of Stella                                                                                                                                                                     

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope that you have a lovely weekend and are able to enjoy some crafting time. It would be wonderful if you could pop on over to Just Add Ink and check out the challenge along with all the cards from the design team and other entrants too. 

'Til next time,

Jan                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 

Friends For Life for JAI #718

 

It's definitely Spring here in Melbourne - we are well known for having four seasons in one day. But sometimes it's felt like 4 seasons in a few hours. The flowers have continued to bloom and grow and we all look forward to seeing more colour and birdlife as the days continue.

 This week's Just Add Ink Challenge to Choose Two out of Texture, Foliage or String is suggested by Kerry. Our design team have made a fabulous array of cards featuring all sorts of combinations of these three items. We'd love you to pop on over to the JAI blog, see all the cards from everyone and then show us which Two of the Three that you want to choose to create with .

And my card - yes, I chose Foilage and String. Pretty obvious this one 😀

Of course I can see you now wondering how I created the Autumnal colours in the leaves?

Easy....I didn't colour them at all but stamped the leaf image from the Friends For Life stamp set on one of the pages of the Full of Life Designer Series Paper and then die cut it. So easy!!

If you're wondering which piece of DSP? Whilst I used another page, it is the same design as the one featured behind the focal images here - just from the opposite side.

Then the larger leaf die was used to cut the Pretty Peacock and gold glimmer layers with some ink blending on the white panel before adding all the different leaves.

The ''string" is layers of gold and black string tied in a bow behind the sentiment panel.

Thanks for stopping by this week. I hope that you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink as we'd love for you to join us and I can't wait to see which Two you will choose to create with. I love the variety and fun that these challenges have brought and look forward to seeing your creations.

Card stock: Basic Black, Basic White, Gold Glimmer, Pretty Peacock

DSP: Full of Life

Inks: Versamark

Stamps: Friends For Life, Artistically Inked (retired)

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Friends For Life Dies, Gold Trim, Black String, Metallic Sequin assortment

'Til next time,

Jan

Country Flowers Birthday for JAI #716

 

Happy Friday and welcome! It's officially almost the last week of Winter here in Australia and down in Melbourne it has been particularly chilly. The coldest winter in 24 or 28 years! But we seem to be enjoying the early signs of Spring this week with warmer and longer days but still crisp overnight. It has been lovely to see the flowers start to bloom and some bird calls we haven't heard in a while. Hopefully you can spend some time in the garden in between your craft room as I'm sure you might like to join in this challenge!

This week at Just Add Ink we have this pretty Inspiration Photo for you from Kim.  You can take as much or as little as you choose from photo challenges and there is lots to love about this one. There are the beautiful colours, the textures and of course the beautiful image itself - the gorgeous steps and those cute little flower pots. 

So I hope that you can pop on over to the JAI blog and see all the cards from the design team and other entrants and we'd love you to join us!

For my card I just couldn't go past those gorgeous little flower pots of roses on all the steps. So I finally broke open the pretty Country Flowers bundle. Truth be told, when I saw this Challenge I knew that I wanted to use this set and for me, the start of every card is which stamp set so that was the hardest part decided. 

The flowers were coloured using a mixture of Blends and Copics and the flower pot too. Then the pretty and die cut leaves were added. 

The Country Lace DSP has beautiful patterns and these sheets are in similar tones to the Challenge photo and they fit in well here. I was a little tired by the time of stamping the sentiment and it is a touch lower than I wanted. But it was too late to move the DSP by then...one day I will learn to stop sooner and come back the next day. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope that you can pop on over to Just Add Ink and I look forward to seeing what you create for this pretty challenge.

Card stock: Basic White Thick and standard, Pool Party.

DSP: Country Lace

Inks: Tuxedo Momento Black, Blends and Copics

Stamps: Country Flowers, Friends for Life

Accessories: Die cutting Machine, Country Flowers dies, Basic Rhinestones

'Til next time,

Jan