Just Because Pet Sympathy for CI #215

Hello and welcome! It's the weekend and I'm grateful for finally starting to feel better after battling fevers for a few weeks now. Hopefully it will be onwards and upwards from here on.

Today, I'm playing along with the team at Colour Inkspiration Challenges  who have this very pretty Colour combo this week. I love Pool Party and Night of Navy but the other two colours I must admit I haven't looked at for a little while so this is a great opportunity to show them some love.

During the week, a friend shared how upset they and their kids are over having to say goodbye to their family dog at the vets. It was just a two week illness and came as such a shock. Saying goodbye to a dog where the kids can't remember life without them is such a tough time for kids and parents alike. So this card is for their family.

To create my card, I started with the four Challenge colours in card stock and cut these into 1cm and 1/2" strips. These were used to create a horizontal background pattern, on a piece of Basic White which was then added to a Basic White card base.

Next, there is a little spray of leaves using the beautiful Fern and Flora dies. I love the fabulous, deep textural details these dies produce and the little butterfly also has a pretty and detailed design and here is white embossed.

The white strip of paws sits just under another layer of navy card, white embossed with the sentiment. And the finishing touches are a swirl of white twine and a little sprinkling of silver sequins.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope that you enjoy your weekend and the last week of Winter ahead.

You too can enter and see more details about this challenge at Colour Inkspiration Challenges. You have until Monday at 5pm to get your project in.

Card stock: Pool Party, Night of Navy, Flirty Flamingo, Calypso Coral, Basic White

Inks: Versamark

Stamps: Fern & Flora, Flowering Meadow

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Fern & Flora dies, Cutest Crew Dies, White EP, White Twine, Metallic Sequins Assortment.

'Til next time,

Jan

Layers On My Mind for CI #201

Happy Saturday and welcome! I was very sad to miss Colour Inkspiration's 200th Challenge recently so when I saw my favourite colour (Melon Mambo) featured as part of CI #201,  I saw it as a second chance and so here is my entry for the challenge!

Colour Inkspiration Challenges is a Facebook based challenge and you can find more information and see the design team and entries there for this, the last challenge for 2025. I hope that you are as inspired as I was to join in!

Whilst this colour combo is a fantastic one for Christmas and I may return to make a Christmas card with it yet,  but I really felt to make a card for a friend. 
Sometimes Christmas can be a difficult time for people and I have a good friend who has recently lost a significant family member and so this card is for her. 

I started by stamping the main image of the Layers of Beauty Bundle and using the masks to colour it using the Challenge colours. Then the coloured image was carefully cut apart to enable layering it at the top and bottom of the card.  This left room for the heartfelt sentiment from the now retired, Memorable Blooms in the middle. To be heat embossed using the 4th Colour of the challenge: Gold.

Then last but not least, the Mambo ribbon was layered and tied with the gold twine. And a scattering of gold jewels were added to some of the smaller flower centres to complete this card.

Thanks again for stopping by to see my entry for this beautiful Colour Inspiration challenge -their last for the year. I hope that you might be able to enter too!

Card stock: Pretty Peacock, Basic White

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black, Melon Mambo, Pretty Peacock, Poppy Parade, Versamark

Stamps: Layers of Beauty, Memorable Blooms

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Layers of Beauty Masks, Layers of Beauty Dies, Melon Mambo Ribbon, Gold Twine, Gold flat adhesive jewels.

'Til next time,

Jan

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

Christmas Words for CI#198

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome!! 
It's been our hottest day in Melbourne since March and it's still quite a warm evening. We see the Christmas decorations are out in the shopping centres with signs announcing that "Santa will arrive in 6 days!" So that was all the inspiration I needed to come home and get to work on another Christmas card! 

  Colour Inkspiration is a fortnightly Facebook based Colour Challenge. I saw the current colour combination but I confess I didn't check it again until I had completed my card today. Which means that instead of Very Vanilla, I've used Basic White, my standard go-to so I hope that is ok? 

The embossed image is the lovely Christmas Words Hybrid EF. It's such a versatile product that I adore as it's so textural and I'll be using it with it's matching die a lot in an upcoming class.

I already had the ribbon on my desk. Usually I will tie a bow - but this time I wanted to give a "No Tie" method a go. So I layered the ribbon onto itself and used some silver trim around the middle to pull it tight and secured it with glue dots. I'll have to have a few more goes before I decide if its easier and speedier than tying or not.

Thanks for taking the time to come and visit and see my entry for Colour Inkspiration this week.

Do pop on over to Facebook and check out the design teams and other entrants projects and there is still time for you to join in too.

Card stock: Pool Party, Coastal Cabana, Real Red, Basic White, Silver Glimmer

Ink: Versamark

Stamps: Christmas Classics (retired)

Accessories: Die Cutting machine, Christmas Words Hybrid EF, Christmas Classics Dies, Stitched Nested Essential Dies, Brights Enamel Dots, Metallic Sequins assortment, Silver Trim, Silver EP, Pool Party Ribbon

'Til next time,

Jan

 

Inspired Just For You for CI #197

Happy Thursday everyone and a very warm welcome to you!! I am very honoured and was indeed a little nervous to be invited to be a Guest Designer for the fabulous Colour Inkspiration Challenges. It is very special indeed and I am very grateful!

This week's Colour Inkspiration Challenge is with these elegant colours - Misty Moonlight, Night of Navy and Crumb Cake. You can also use, Black, white, Vanilla and metallics if you would like. You can find the Challenge on Facebook  (follow the link above) and I encourage you to check out all the designers cards and see what other entrants have created there too.

I thought this was a beautiful and elegant colour combination and so chose the Inspired Imperfections bundle to use for this challenge. 

The vase image is stamped on Misty Moonlight card stock with the same colour ink. Whilst all the other blues used are Night of Navy.

The white layer is embossed using the Joined Together EF and the EF was also used on some Gold Foil which was then cut out and added to it. 

To create the flowers, I used some white card stock and the Country Flower Dies. Then alternating flowers were coloured with Night Of Navy Blends. It is a quick and easy way of creating the card stock colour you want which is especially good when just needing small pieces like these. 

Crumb Cake was used for the frame and sentiment strip and the flower branches and that is the last Challenge Colour to be included. 

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope that you check out this week's  Colour Inkspiration Challenge and consider joining in too! There is plenty of time for you to join us as the challenge lasts for two weeks!

Card stock: Night Of Navy, Misty Moonlight, Crumb Cake, Gold Foil, Basic White

Inks: Misty Moonlight, Versamark

Blends: Night of Navy

Stamps: Inspiring Imperfections, Charming Sentiments (Retired)

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Inspiring Imperfections Dies, Joined together EF, Country Flowers Dies, Crumb Cake Twine ( Essentials Pack), Night of Navy Ribbon, Gold Faceted Gems

'Til next time,

Jan

 

Sunflower 3D Birthday for Colour INKspiration #195

 

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome!
It's been quite a while since I've had the time to join in a challenge but this week's Colour INKspiration Combo is just my sort of style - a pop of colour amongst not too many others - and piqued my interest! 

Add to that the wonderful Sunflower 3D embossing folder just arrived into my craft space and I couldn't think of a better way to use it than to take a leap and enter this fun challenge that I've been watching from afar for what I think may be my first time!!

So without further ado, here is my first card...that's right! I got a bit carried away and managed to create two different looks!

I was inspired by the joyful, Sharon Armstrong whose You Tube posts always make me smile because she is so excited about what she does. She showed 10 or so ways of how to use this beautiful EF and this was one of them: 

The image is embossed onto Crushed Curry card stock and then wiped over with White Craft Ink. That is it. Simple and very effective!

I've added some leaf dies from both he Friends of Life and Memorable Blooms dies and a combination of shiny, silver ribbons, black twine and of course some bling - this time in the form of rhinestones.

The detail in the EF is absolutely incredible! And if you are a sunflower lover like me, then you will want to get your hands on this ASAP before it is sold out.

I did have another play....I was having so much fun!

For this version, I first swiped a Crushed Curry ink pad over the same colour card stock for a tone on tone look. Then....well it looked a bit flat still. So I added some Versamark ink over the top and some Clear EP and Boom! It looks a bit more Pumpkin Pie now than Curry but it is also super shiny....

I added the same details as with my first card as I already had these dies out on my craft desk. I originally was going to place what became a pile of ribbons and dies in a different place but I didn't want to obstruct the view of the three main sunflowers.

So which version do you prefer??
I think I prefer the subtle white version. The dramatic version does make me think of one of our hot, 40 degree summer days.  Maybe because we are still in early Spring here in Australia is why I am not quite so keen to look that far ahead yet!

But I am planning to get my first Sunflower seeds into the garden by October 1st this year. A mix of the big giant ones and some dwarves too. So I hope the Sunflower EF stays around too.

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope that you are enjoying the challenge too!

You can find the Colour Inkspiration Challenges and details on how to enter them on Facebook, here.

Card stock: Crushed Curry, Smoky Slate, Basic Black, Basic White

Stamps: Friends For Life (sentiment).

Inks: White Craft, Versamark

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Sunflower 3D EF, Friends for Life Dies, Memorable Blooms Dies, Silver Ribbons - x 2, Black Twine (Bakers Twine Essentials Pack), Basic Rhinestones, White EP. Clear EP.

'Til next time,

Jan

Sending Sunshine

Happy New Year to you! I hope that 2017 is a wonderful year for you and all your family!

This year I'd like to broaden my horizons a little bit craft wise with some new techniques and what better way to start than with a challenge?! Today, I've created for a new colour challenge called Colour Inkspirations that is for Stampin Up enthusiasts and can be found on Facebook here.

This week the challenge colours are Bermuda Bay, Mint Macaron and Daffodil Delight. 

And here's my card:

The yellow made me think of warm sunshine and as that is what we were lacking here in Melbourne today, I decided to make some :-) For the background I used a "smooshing" technique, adding colour to a piece of Window Sheet (or acetate) and then spritzing it with water before "smooshing" the colour onto the watercolor paper. I love how this technique gives a completely different result every time you do it. Then, I flicked some Clear Wink of Stella over it all when it was dry for some subtle sparkle.

Tip: I find both, taping down the watercolor paper to a wooden board whilst it is wet and then when dry, adding a layer of Thick White card stock underneath helps keep the warping of the paper to a minimum :-)

The Dragonflies are added to each other with dimensionals to allow both colours to show through and I cut 3 of the sunshines and layered them on each other for more 3D effects.

Card stock: Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White - thick and standard, Silver Glimmer, Vellum, Watercolor Paper
Ink: Bermuda Bay, Mint Macaron, Daffodil Delight, Versamark
Stamps: Sunshine Wishes
Accessories: Big Shot, Detailed Dragonfly thinlits, Sunshine Wishes thinlits, Stitched Circle Framelits, Metallic Sequins, Clear Wink of Stella, Window Sheet

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you are inspired to try some new challenges and techniques in 2017 too.

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan