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

Festive Fun with JAI #671

 

Welcome and happy December 1st! I hope that your preparations for Christmas celebrations are going to plan so far. Cards are the one thing that as a card maker that are difficult to buy and handmade are also expected. I hope that your Christmas card making pile is growing and quickly! 

If you are still looking for ideas for cards for Christmas we hope that this week's Just Add Ink's Inspiration Photo Challenge will help you! Suggested by Nikki, the image is so fun, colourful and celebratory that we hope will be perfect for any occasion. As always, our design team have created a variety of cards to inspire you and we would love you to join us.

Yes, I did originally see the middle of the tree as PINK and this influenced my partial re-creation attempt of the Challenge image. Oops!! But it does definitely make for a fun card and not surprisingly, we have some young, pink loving members in our the family so I'm sure this will come in handy!

The image from Festive and Fun is coloured with a mix of Blends and Copics and the sentiments come from the Peace & Joy bundle. The sentiments are well suited to being cropped, chopped and sprinkled over a card. 

Thanks for popping by today and I hope that you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink. I will look forward to seeing what you might create for this fun challenge.

'Til next time,

Jan

JAI #628 Non Traditional Christmas Camper

 

Happy Friday everyone and welcome. It's the first week of November and Melbourne Cup week is almost over. It has been such a cold start to the November many of us have still been wearing woollen jumpers rather than summer dresses!

This week at Just Add Ink, Annie has suggested this pretty Colour Challenge to spark all our crafting. Our Design Team have all created gorgeous cards of various themes. So I hope that you can pop on over to see and we'd love you to join us. 

The card I created is of course a Christmas card using the wonderful Tree Lot Dies that were available during Saleabration in August. And the Sentiment is from the Peace and Joy Bundle.

Card Stock: Petal Pink, Basic White, Bermuda Bay, Blackberry Bliss, Gold Foil.

Ink: Blackberry Bliss

Stamps: Peace and Joy

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Tree Lot Dies, Joy Dies, Gold Vellum, Gold 

Thanks for stopping by today.

'Til next time,

Jan

JAI #579 Peace with Bling

Happy Friday folks and welcome! It's incredible to think that 2020 is nearly over and Christmas is nearlu upon us. This year has been yet another different one but hopefully now we can start planning towards a new type of normal again soon.

At Just Add Ink this week we have a Choose Two Challenge where you can choose two items out of Foil, Glimmer and Shimmer for the main focus of your projects this week. Our design team have created such a beautiful array of cards to inspire you I hope that you can join pop on over and join us. 

For my card this week, I started with some beautiful retired Christmas DSP that has copper Foil leaves all through it. I added a copper foil sentiment, some glimmery green die cut leaves and....seeing as this was a challenge I suggested and I just couldn't stop with the beautiful bling, some shimmer with red sequins as well!😀

Here you can see the gorgeous details when the light hits all the foil, glimmer and shimmer.

Card stock: Merry Merlot, Whisper White, Copper Foil, Green Glimmer ( 6x6 Assortment)

Inks: Merry Merlot

Stamps: Peace & Joy

Accessories: Die cutting machine, Joy Dies, Regals Sequins (retired)

This is the first Christmas card for me so far so I'd better make a few more! Christmas cards are often when we pull out the bling and shine but projects for this challenge doesn't have to be limited to a theme or Season. So I look forward to seeing what you will create for this fun Choose Two challenge at Just Add Ink this week.

'Til next time,

Jan

 

Just Add Ink #534 Joy to the World

 

Happy Friday everyone and welcome! It's officially less than three weeks til Christmas!! How amazing that after all that 2020 has meant - and so many sacrifices - that we are nearly there. There also was wonderful news this week that Covid vaccines are about to be rolled out. First in England in the next few days and then over the rest of the world. Hopefully this means that families will be able to gather together for Christmas after all the time we've needed to endure apart.

And just in time is this week's Colour Challenge at Just Add Ink! Perfect for all things Christmas is Nikki's classic colour combo and the design team have all created a wonderful variety of cards to inspire you so we'd love you to pop on over and join us.

I cannot really put down the lovely Peace & Joy Bundle and this week have paired it with my other favourite Christmas set in the Holiday Catty, the Coming Home bundle. 

Going with a Summery, South Pacific theme Pear Pizazz is used for the hill and the other two colours for everything else. 

Card stock: Whisper White, Pear Pizazz, Red Foil, Real Red

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black, Copics & Blends

Stamps: Coming Home, Peace & Joy

Accessories: Die Cutting machine, Joy dies, Home Together Dies, Wink of Stella. 

Thanks for stopping by today. I look forward to seeing what you will create with this classic Christmas colour combo this week at Just Add Ink.

Til next time,

Jan

Social Stamping - Merry & Bright

Hello and welcome everyone to another fun Social Stamping Blog Hop hosted by the lovely Kelly Kent. This was a beautiful idea that started earlier in the year as Covid 19 affected our ability to connect and stamp together and as that has inproved for us here in Australia, it has turned into a monthly event. This month the theme is Merry & Bright which is perfect with Christmas only a few weeks away. So I hope that you can grab a cuppa and hop along through all the blogs and be inspired for your own Christmas creations.

You may have arrived from the fabulous Sandra Collett and her beautiful projects or you may be starting here. To continue on the journey you can either click the Social Stamping graphic at the top to see the full list of participants or simply use the Next button at the bottom of each blog post.

I have created two cards using a combination of stamps - the gorgeous Peace & Joy bundle and Coming Home dies plus a favourite pet themed stamp set from my stash. I used a similar theme for my Just Add Ink design team card this week too.  For the landscaped card the background is sponged and then drops of water added to create the snow effect and the cute pups were coloured with Copics.

The same idea was used for this card except for the background. Before inking, some splatters of Distress Resist Spray were used to add clear, shiny, textural drops. This also seals the colour of whatever is underneath - in this case, white! And gives the snow a more 3D effect. Then the layers of ink and card stock were applied as before. 

Here you can hopefully see the texture in the background and shine too- it's a little more realistic of a blizzard. Whilst I love SU and they are always where I turn first for stamping ideas, I do like to occasionally add other ideas and stamps into my collection to help learn new things and keep experimenting with new techniques.

 Thanks for stopping by today. Next you are off to see the lovely Sheila Pybus and her gorgeous projects. 

Card stock: Whisper White, Thick and Standard, Silver Foil

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black, Magenta Madness

Stamps: Peace & Joy

Accessories: Die Cutting machine, Joy Dies, Home Together Dies, Metallic Sequins (Retired), Wink of Stella

Non SU: Stamps: Deck The Howls (MFT), Distress Resist Spray (TH Ranger), Copic Markers, Distress Inks

Til next time,

Jan

Just Add Ink #532 Peace At Christmas

 

Happy Friday and Welcome!!  Its hard to believe that we have less than 6 weeks til Christmas and it's almost the end of 2020. It's been a tough year world wide. Here it is rather amazing that after all our long weeks of lockdown, Victoria is now up to 18 days straight of 0 new Covid Cases. We are starting to see the benefits of all our hard work as restrictions slowly ease and the Summer heat arrives. 

It's time for a new challenge week at Just Add Ink. This week we have a Clean and Simple Sketch designed by Patrice to inspire your crafting projects. You can use the sketch as it is or flip it around to the side as long as the  sketch is visible in your project. As always our talented design team have created a great array of cards to inspire you so I hope you can pop on over to the blog and join us.

A sketch is a great base for a card design as all you need to do is to decide on a theme and then fit images into the design. Being so close to Christmas, this was a great opportunity for me to combine the only two new sets I have bought for this Season - the Coming Home and Peace and Joy bundles. They really do work together so well.

The images were coloured with a mix of Copics and Blends and die cut before being added mainly to the White circle. The die cut sentiment is my take on the rectangle element in the sketch and I created the "AT" by stamping and cutting apart other words from the Peace and Joy stamp set.

As a VW driver, I couldn't NOT use the cute little bug and have it look like someone driving home. Something, with Covid I suspect will be more common than flying home this year. 

Card stock: Misty Moonlight. Silver Foil, Whisper White

Stamps: Coming Home,Peace & Joy

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black,  Blends: Melon Mambo, Peacock, Shaded Spruce, Rococo Rose.

Accessories: Die cutting machine, Home Together Dies, Joy Dies, Wink of Stella

Non SU: Copic Markers Stitched Circle Dies (SSS)

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope that you are inspired to pop on over to Just Add Ink and see all the lovely creations the design team have made and I look forward to seeing what you create with this clean and fun sketch too!

Til next time,

Jan