By My Side Birthday for JAI #667

 

Hello, happy Friday and welcome back! It's the last week of Winter and I don't know about you but we are definitely looking forward to Spring in our household. The days are slowly but surely getting longer and slightly warmer and the garden is starting to bloom too which is fabulous!

Also fabulous is this week's challenge at Just Add Ink! We have this fun Sketch challenge for you from Di to inspire your projects. A sketch is great as you still get to choose the images and colours but the major design elements are there for you. Our lovely design team have created cards to inspire you so I hope that you can pop on over to the blog and we'd love you to join us.

My card for this week combines a number of fun elements. The images are from By My Side and Welcome Home and coloured with Copics.

Simple colouring combinations and matching background circles hopefully allow the images to shine.

A little bling of sparkly bling in the way of glimmer paper and sequins also help!

The girl with the butterfly is one of the super cute images in the By My Side set. The arm holding out the  flowers are from the fun retiring set, Welcome Home.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you can pop by Just Add Ink and see all the other cards from the rest of the design team and I look forward to seeing what you will create with this fun sketch this week too!

Card stock: Fresh Freesia, Basic White, Coloured glimmer, Be Dazzling Specialty paper
Stamps: By My Side, Welcome Home, Charming Sentiments
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black 

Accessories: die cutting machine, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Sentiment Silhouette dies, Iridescent Sequins Assortment, Wink of Stella

"Til next time,

Jan

Westie Birthday for JAI #665

 

Happy Friday and welcome! It's been a busy week in our household, the horse riding is going well and we received the digital files of a photoshoot that I had with Sally the Lab in June which were quite amazing! The mornings and afternoons are getting longer and so the veggie garden is starting to produce again. It is so lovely to see the signs that Spring is slowly coming!

And one more thing...my reading glasses are currently in for replacement lenses...so hopefully there are not too many spelling mistakes in my post this week! 

This week at Just Add Ink Fiona suggested that we all add Clean & Simple for our projects this week. Clean & Simple can mean different things to some people. But often the clean refers to lots of white space and the Simple is few layers and embellishments. Basically less is more. I encourage you to pop on over to the JAI blog to see all the beautiful inspiration from the design team.

My puppy card was made for a good friend's birthday. Since Covid, we have been picking up and taking her cute little Westie for a walk in the park most weekdays. Sally and Gracie are great friends and it is so heart warming to see them play and sniff together.  Gracie is definitely the boss of her bigger friend too!😂

I was so excited to see the theme for this challenge as it is a favourite style for me. My natural is probably clean and layered....so this was a fun challenge to just pair that back a little.

Several stamp sets were used to create this card. The little "Westie" is from the Christmas Scottie set and is stamped and then embossed with White Shimmery EP and then punched using the coordinating punch. The butterflies and balloon from retired sets and the sentiment is from my stash.

I had my first try of the blending brushes to create the blue highlights and yes, I think they are lovely! The white paper is a water colour  as I find that helps gives the ink enough time to sit up and blend nicely. I am more used to using felt pads for blending which I love but these brushes are so soft. And if you wash them straight after, the ink washes out so the brush can be used for any colour when it's all dry again. Bonus!!

Thanks for popping by to see my card this week! I hope this helps inspire you to join in with our challenge at Just Add Ink this week. I look forward to see what you create for this challenge!

Card stock: Basic White, Fresh Freesia, Elegant Eggplant, Be Dazzling Specialty paper

Ink: Versamark, Tahitian Tide

Stamps: Christmas Scottie, Pampered Pets, Hey Girl 

Accessories: Die Cutting machine, Sleigh ride Edgelits, Scottie Punch, blending brushes, Shimmery White EP, Scissors

Non SU: Tim Holtz distress water color paper, Dog Sayings stamp set by Stampendous

'Til next time,

Jan

Happiness Abounds Birthday for JAI #663

 

Hello, happy Friday to you and welcome! It is almost the end of July and now the days are noticeably longer. Yes, it has been cold but hopefully the warmer days are coming soon. It is perfect weather to spend a little time in the craft room so hopefully you enjoy this challenge we have, it's JAI 665.

This week at Just Add Ink we have a fun Choose Two Challenge for you suggested by Tina. You can choose between Flowers, Gingham or splatter. As always our lovely design team have all created a beautiful array of cards over on the JAI blog for inspiration.    We'd love you to join us!

So you can see that I chose Flowers and Gingham for my Two items. 

The flowers were fussy cut from DSP and the gingham I stencilled using ink and the Artistic Mix masks. 

I had intended to colour the lovely images from the Happiness Abounds set myself but these flowers are coloured so beautifully that they cried out to be used. I love how the shading is added and so it really is a case of deciding how to arrange and display these.

Granny Apple Green is sponged through the mask to create the gingham effect. It is not a colour that I'm used to using but it is in the leaves in the DSP and it is good to use challenges to try new things whether that be colours or techniques - whatever that may be.

Thank you for stoping by.  I hope that you might be inspired to join us for this challenge and I look forward to seeing what you choose for your Two items and what you will create for this challenge!

Card stock: Granny Apple Green, Basic White, Basic Black, Gold Foil

Ink: Granny Apple Green, Versamark

Stamps: Well Said

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Well Written Dies, Artistic Masks, White EP,  Gold Faceted Gems, Metallic Sequins Assortment.

'Til next time,

Jan

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            you.

HeartfeltSympathy for JAI #661

 

Hello and happy first week back after School Holidays for those families here in Victoria! It is noticeable how much quieter the shopping centres are despite there still being the odd Sale on. I hope you and your family had a happy break whether you stayed home or managed to get away for a bit.

This week at Just Add Ink  we have an Inspiration Photo for you from Nikki. Inspiration Photo challenges are great as you can take whatever appeals to you from them and sparks your creativity. It may be the Christmas theme, the wreath, the colours or even a combination of all of these. I hope that you can pop on over to the Challenge blog and we'd love to have you join us.

I hope you can see what parts of the Inspiration that I used? The circle shape and yes, whilst there are no roses in the wreath, it does have an "arrangement" of natural elements.
The image I was very grateful to receive from one of my JAI DT friends, Tristan.

Sadly, beloved Gemma, a wonderful RDA horse that I have been privileged to ride during my Equine therapy classes this year passed away after a short and sudden illness during the holidays. Gem was loved by so many - including me. I was surprised by how closely we bonded in such a short time. She seemed to know I was unwell and took such good care of me. I was so grateful and brought her favourite treats - carrots and a little Licorice too. Her illness was so unexpected as she had been perfectly well. So it was heartbreaking to need to make this card for the staff and volunteers.

I coloured Gem first -I've never coloured a horse before so I was very grateful for an older Copic colouring video from Sandy Allnock. Many would know Sandy from Online Card Classes. One of her helpful tips for brown and bay horses - add a touch of an orange glow. So my base colour is YR23 - which is a light orange! And then I added the browns as shading and in layers - quite a few- to be as realistic as I could.

Then I coloured the rose and fussy cut both images before layering them back on top of each other in the same way the image created them. A layer of Wink of Stella helps make the colours shine.

Card stock: Pretty Peacock, Coastal Cabana, Pink Pirouette, Gold Foil

Inks: Versamark, Copics, Blends

Stamps:  Horse Thanks Tristan 😍, Well Worded,

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Layering Circle Dies (Retired),Leaves EF, Metallic Sequin Assortment, Wink of Stella

Of course, I have few photos to help me with her likeness. This one is after some carrots earlier in the year. It didn't take long for Gem to know my voice and she'd often turn fully around in her stall to suggest I might like to bring her some more. I will miss her so much and am so grateful for all she taught me. Now I am very thankful to be able to continue on a new horse and with the help of the fabulous staff and volunteers will begin again to build trust and a strong bond again.

"Til next time,

Jan

Retirement for JAI #659

 

Happy Friday everyone! It's the end of the first week of the School Holidays here in Melbourne and it is bitterly cold and damp. No wonder so many people have gone away for a break in warmer climates. For those of us still at home though, it is a perfect opportunity to stay warm and dry in the craft room - even if we have to go out for a dog walk first.

This week at Just Add Ink we have a fresh Colour Challenge for you suggested by the lovely Lou. The design team have created a wide variety of projects to inspire you so I hope that you can take a moment and pop on over to the JAI blog andI'd love to see you join us.

One of the lovely things about making cards is that you can personalise them for the recipient. And that is what I have done here. I've used this week's Colour Challenge to create a retirement card for a priest. 

As I've said previously, this card is personal to the recipient. So let's talk through the elements.
The Merry Melodies EF is to reference his career before his call to the priesthood - that of an opera producer. He orchestrated the Passion performance at the Australian WYD in 2008 which used those skills and he also supported me in putting together the parish choir. 

The book images are from the Birds Eye View set in the latest catelogue, coloured with Blends and Copics and the daffodils are from a long retired set called Blessed By God and symbolise new beginnings ( or Spring). The Cross is from the same set. And the final stamp set used here is the much loved Well Worded bundle for the sentiment.

So I hope that this card shows you how you can combine a number of different stamp sets, new and old to make a card that has personal significance for a recipient. Challenges can help make that happen as they can give you a guiding hand in how to choose the images and perhaps layout and in this case, it is the colours used. I hope you can pop on over to Just Add Ink and I look forward to seeing what you create for this challenge.

Card stock: Pretty Peacock, Coastal Cabana, Whisper White, Silver Foil

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black, Versamark, Blends: Pretty Peacock combo

Stamps: Birds Eye View, Blessed By God (retired), Well Worded (retired).

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Stitched Rectangle Framelits, Well Written Framelits, Silver EP, Merry Melodies EF, 

'Til next time,

Jan 

Pet Sympathy for JAI #657

 

Hello and happy Friday! It's the end of another week and we are nearing the Shortest Day here in Australia. That is when our mornings and evenings will slowly become lighter and we can begin to look towards Spring. I hope that you all have had a good week and are ready to do some crafting this weekend.

This week at Just Add Ink we have this clean and graphic Sketch Challenge for you from Nikki.

It is such a fabulously versatile sketch as you can see on the challenge blog from all the design team members cards. I hope that you'll be able to pop on over and see and I'd love it if you were able to join us!

This week I used the sketch to create a pet sympathy card using this very touching set called Fill My Heart by Whimsy Stamps. 

Sadly, a lovely friend's dog that I have known for most of his life, is terminally ill. When I initially saw the sketch, rows of paw prints came to mind. So that was the starting point of this card and then slowly the other details took shape. 

A ruler was used to slowly and surely stamp the individual paw print image from the Happy Tails set and emboss these in gold. 

Then the dog image was stamped and coloured with Copics and the touching sentiment was also embossed with gold being the accent colour for the card.

So that is my card for this week. What will you make with this clean and versatile sketch we have for you at Just Add Ink this week? I can't wait to see!

Card stock: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Shaded Spruce, Gold Foil

Inks: Momento Tuxedo Black, Versamark

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Stitched Rectangle Framelits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Metallic Sequins Assortment, Gold EP

'Til next time,

Jan

Rock On For JAI #655

 

Hello and welcome! It's the first Friday of June and Winter in Australia, 2023.  To be fair, it has felt very Winter-like the last month with the cold, wet days easily out numbering the few dry, sunny ones. It does mean that inside at the craft desk is a good place to be at when the weather outside is not so pleasant. I hope that you are enjoying time crafting during these colder months too.

At Just Add Ink this week, Tristan has suggested we "Just Add....Music" to our projects this week. Our design team have all added varying ideas on this theme to inspire you so I hope that you can pop on over to the challenge blog and join us!

My card....well yes, it's bright! 😂

I am part of a musical family and have a teenage nephew who takes after me in that he plays guitar. In fact even before he was a teen, one of the few school bands he's in played as opening act for his music teacher's band. It was an exciting night for him and a proud one for his parents - and rightfully so.

So now perhaps you can see where I was going with this card? Yes, it is supposed to be the look of a music gig - ie. stage lighting -  and obviously a guitarist. The silhouette is a retired SU single stamp called Extreme Guitar. 

The background is sponged onto watercolor paper to enable the colors to blend more easily, it was sprinkled with water to create the dotted effect and then, once dry the single image is embossed x3.

To create the sentiment, a further background image was created and this was die cut several times to provide height and then covered in Fine tipped glue to give a shiny and clear coat to the letters.

Some silver star sequins complete this masculine music themed card. 

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope this shows you that you can use whatever inspires you to create a musical themed card for this week's Just Add Ink Challenge. I look forward to seeing what you create!

Card stock: Basic White (Thick)

Ink: Versamark

Stamps: Extreme Guitar (Retired)

Accessories: Die Cutting Machine, Playful Alphabet Dies (retired), Metallic Sequins, Fine Tip Glue

Non SU: Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Inks for background.

'Til next time,

Jan