Deck The Halls JAI #387

Happy Friday and welcome :-) It's rather incredible to think that Christmas is only a few weeks away. Trees and decorations are up in all their glory in the stores and its time to get out our own decs and check over lights to see what might be needed for this year whilst the sales are on :-)

So with Christmas so close, the new colour challenge at Just Add Ink is perfect for your Christmas crafting! These traditional colours have so many uses this time of year and our lovely design team have created fabulous creations to inspire you so I hope you can take a moment to pop on over and take a look and hopefully join us.

One of my favourite stamps this Christmas is Carols of Christmas. Here, I've teamed it with the matching sheet music DSP , some gold touches and the full of texture, Boxwood Wreaths. That's the first line of the carol done, I wonder what is next :-)

The card builder framelits were used to create a border around the sentiment - I found doing the top half and then lining up the sides when doing the bottom gave a clean frame. The beautiful metallic snowflakes are added to the background for a little Christmas bling, they are so pretty in real life! And this is a design that once the sentiment frame is made, can be easily mass produced.

Card stock: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Gold Foil

Designer Series Paper: Merry Music Specialty

Inks: Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Versamark

Stamps: Carols of Christmas

Accessories: Big Shot, Card Front Builder Thinlits, Regals Enamel Shapes, Boxwood Wreaths, Gold EP, Foil Snowflakes, Metallic Edged Ribbon, 

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink and see all the fabulous inspiration our design team have created for you and I look forward to seeing what you will create with this familiar colour combination too :-)

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan

Red Reindeer photo cards for JAI #386

Happy Friday everyone and welcome! It is incredible to think that it's nearly a week since Stampin Up's On Stage and a wonderful catch up with friends. It certainly is one I won't forget in a hurry :-)

This week at Just Add Ink we have a fun challenge for you suggested by Tina. It is to Just Add...R". Yes, it is one of her popular letter challenges and our lovely design team had so much fun with this so don't forget to pop on over and take a look and we'd love you to join us.

 My project this week is a collection of cards made for lovely friends celebrating their first family Christmas. These cards could hold a picture with Santa beautifully - or any other family photo to send to friends :-) For my R elements, I've used Red, Reindeer and Ribbon.

In fact, they even can hold a favourite doggie family photo - Sally the Lab and her Golden Retriever best friend, Monty seen here :-)

The frames are made from Thick Whisper White card using Stitched Rectangle framelits and covered with the reindeer DSP.  I purposefully kept the decorating simple so the photo remains the star. As these are for a gift, the frames are not yet attached but have dimensionals in place, all ready to go when the photo is added. The pretty snowflake vellum won't be seen but does make for a pretty gift.

A simple sentiment on the inside and packaged in acetate boxes, these are all wrapped up to go!

Card stock: Whisper White thick, Red Foil (sadly retired)
Designer Series Paper: Be Merry, Foil Christmas Vellum Specialty (Retired)
Inks: Real Red
Stamps: Christmas Pines
Accessories: Big Shot, Santas Sleigh Framelits, Christmas Greetings (retired), Silver Ribbon, Silver coil twine, Acetate Boxes
Non SU: Stitched Rectangle Framelits - Simon Says Stamps

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you can take a moment and pop on over to Just Add Ink and see all the fabulous inspiration our lovely design team have created for you and I am so looking forward to seeing what you create for this fun challenge too!

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan

Santa Paws for JAI #385

Happy Friday everyone and welcome :-) Another week has flown by and this weekend is a special one with Stampin Up's  On Stage happening. There is a local event here in Melbourne and I'm so looking forwarding to catching up with friends old and new and especially many of our Just Add Ink team.

And right on cue, here is this week's new challenge at Just Add Ink. It's a lovely clean sketch designed for us all by Kim. As always our fabulous design team have created amazing projects to inspire you so I hope you can take a moment to pop on over and we'd love you to join us.

Every Christmas we do a special delivery to the vet hospital that treats us like family out in Hallam. So to go with the treats and hamper, we of course need a card :-) This year, this very cute stamp set from MFT seems perfect for the job.

Of course, a little cuteness was needed for the inside too :-)

Card stock: Bernuda Bay, Whisper White, Real Red

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black

Accessories: Big Shot, Layering Circle Framelits, Real red Striped and plain twine (retired), Metallic Sequins

Non SU: Happy Pawlidays - MFT, Copics

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink and see all the wonderful inspiration our design team have made to inspire you and I look forward to seeing what you will make with this fun sketch too. 

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan

Fun Fold Special Birthdays

Hello and welcome back :-) Every so often a friend will have one of those special "Round" birthdays and for these I think a special card is in order. I've recently had 2 friends turn 50 and the first really likes a Fancy Fold card so that was my starting point.

Pinterest is not working so well this morning....so I can't find the exact picture that inspired me but here is a similar style card by Julie Davison.

I decorated mine slightly differently but I liked the idea of the 50 being in the circle frame but then it gets hidden when opened - just in case they are not wanting to be reminded of their new age too often yet lol!

This does look rather plain when closed - and that is part of the appeal for me, as it is the inside that pops and is where the fun begins. The outside is only for mailing, it is designed to stand up open like this :-)

For the inside I turned the DSP over and coloured the lovely Birthday Blooms image using an Aqua Painter and ink pads.

One of the best things about this fold is it still fits into a regular C6 Envelope - well, I changed the measurements to make it fit. I started by cutting an A4 piece of card in half at 10.5cm on the short side as if making a top folding card. Then scored the landscape side at 3" and 7.5" and you have your base card.

Next, the largest Stitched Shapes circle was used to cut out the circle from the middle of the 3" score line and a fresh circle without the score line forms the base of the tab for the 50 and I used more layering circles for the DSP and vellum layers and it is attached to the back of the base.

This layout worked so well, I used it for the second card but changed the DSP to one of the soft florals from the Daisy pack....unfortunately, I was so keen to get it into the post that I forgot to take a photo!! A shame really as I coloured the bloom quite differently,  picking up from the colours used in the pretty paper as the recipient is quite the colouring queen.....but maybe later I can add a better tutorial with some more pictures if anyone is interested?

Card stock: Berry Burst, Whisper White, Vellum, Gold Foil

Designer Series Paper: Fresh Florals Stack

Inks: Versamark, Berry Burst, Garden Green, Pear Pizaz

Stamps: Birthday Blooms, Rose Garden

Accessories: Big Shot, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Layering Circles Framelits, Large Number Framelits, Aqua Painter, Gold EP, Blackberry Bliss twine (retired)

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you are inspired to add a little extra pizzaz for those special birthdays too :-)

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan

Eclipse Birthday for JAI #384

It's Friday and this week has simply flown! From delightfully warm Spring weather we have returned to almost Wintery conditions. I'm sure Spring must be just around the corner.

To the rescue is the new challenge at Just Add Ink with this beautiful and Summery photo suggested by me :-) Our wonderful design team have all created fantastic cards to inspire you so I hope you can take a moment to pop on over and take a look and we'd love you to join us too.

For my card I decided to go Clean and literal and try the Eclipse Technique that seems to be very popular lately. After stamping the daisies, I used the Happy Birthday thinlits to cut the greeting from the same page. For this technique, one of the keys is to keep all the pieces when die cutting so that you can put the base layers back in. I found it easiest to remove and replace the pieces with the words in place so that they lined up correctly before removing the Happy Birthday sentiment.
To create a little contrast, I die cut more of the sentiment from some Bermuda Bay card stock and layered three of these under the original layer before putting it back in place.

Card stock: Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Bermuda Bay
Ink: Daffodil Delight, Bermuda Bay
Stamps: Daffodil Delight
Accessories: Big Shot, Happy Birthday Thinlits, Iridescent Sequin Assortment

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink and see see the fabulous inspiration from our lovely design team and I loo forward to seeing what you will create inspired by this summery photo too!

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan