Around the house

It’s my turn to set our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week and we’re looking “around the house” this time. Either use something from around the house to help in making your creation (e.g. foil from the kitchen, scrape a design in paint with the prongs of a fork) or feature a household object (e.g. TV, food mixer). You could even do both if you’re feeling brave!

I went for using something from around the house and used dry wall tape to stencil a patterned stripe on my card base. I used a bit of low tack tape as well so I could create solid borders and then added a fineliner edge for even more definition. The hearts are simply stamped, fussy cut and the front one is stuck on with gel glue for a bit of dimension.

I’m also playing along at A Blog Named Hero where this month’s theme is “crazy little thing called love” since my trusty HA hearts came out to play.

Stamps:
Unnamed Hearts (Hero Arts, maybe retired?)
Say It All (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board
Textured black

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves)

Other:
Dry wall tape
Stitched rectangle dies A6 size (Paper Rose)
White Enamel Accents by Ranger
Fineliner

Magnificent magenta

Rizwana is setting our challenge at Daring Cardmakers this week — as the Pantone colour of the year is Viva Magenta, she’d like to see magenta featuring on our creations. 

I confess I was relieved to see Rizwana’s mood board features what I think of as magenta. The Pantone colour looks too red to me and when I first saw it several weeks back my first thought was “yuk!” (partly influenced by the choice of image on Pantone’s own mood board, I suspect). As it is, I struggled a bit to find an appropriate colour in my stash. I managed to find a Copic that was ok to lay down a base layer of colour and then a couple of pencils to shade over the top. The rose is stamped once, masked and stamped again. I gave it just a bit of green pencil “halo” for some contrast and a few nail art gems for some glitz.

Stamps:
Jumbo Rose (Stampendous)
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Copic marker
Coloured pencils
Nail art gems
Corner Chomper
Fineliner

New year, new crafty things

Miri is setting our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers today — it's a new year and so she'd like to see something you've not used before on your card. It might be newly acquired, or just something in your stash that you haven’t got round to using yet!

I've used this row of corks stamp before but not the die that coordinates with it. The real "new" element though is the embossing folder - I've seen lots of cards with this Tim Holtz folder and find it hard to resist woodgrain so it made it on to my Christmas wish list and I was lucky enough to find it under the tree! I thought it would make a good wine crate background for the corks. To personalise the card, I stamped the vintage before embossing in the folder. For some reason the camera has made it more prominent than it looks in real life where it’s more of a background element. 

Oh, I used a new square die as well! Perhaps not the most exciting shape but I got a new set for Christmas that gives me bigger squares as well as more options than the Nesties I’ve had for a long time. 

Stamps:
Row of corks (Spellbinder, set with dies)
My Type (Ma Vinci's Reliquary, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board
Ivory flecked

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Latte, Espresso)

Other:
Lumber embossing folder (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Plain square nesting dies (Presscut)
Copic markers
Tomato paste tube
Fineline marker

January elements

Hello, welcome to the first challenge of 2023 from the Daring Cardmakers — as ever the first challenge of the month is an “elemental” one, just choose at least three elements from the inspiration picture to kickstart your project. 

I chose some of the colours, a fabric look to the square (might be too subtle for the camera), pinked edges, foliage and white dots to create a clean and simple birthday card to add to my stash. The square is coloured with a Copic marker and cross hatched with a fine liner in a shade darker blue (because I didn’t plan anything before I started, I’d probably have used a stamp if I’d had any idea what I was going to do!). I don’t have any pinked edge dies but I do have pinking shears. The die cut leafy sprig is coloured with a Copic and then a bit of detail added with a coloured pencil.  

Stamps:
Sentiment from Big Day Today (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Chipped Sapphire)

Other:
Pinking shears
Copic markers
Coloured pencil
Back to Nature Thinlets dies (Sizzix)
White enamel accents by Ranger

Link in the chain — December

Happy New Year! It’s reveal day at Card Chain Challenge and having forgotten to sign up for November’s I made sure I was early in the sign up list for December. It’s the month that departs from the usual pattern of sketch/colour palette/theme etc and gives us a tic-tac-toe board to play with. 

 It’s a five by five board and even though I’m usually up for extra challenge I find 25 options a bit too much! So I played the “regular” way and chose the penultimate horizontal line — squares, deer, emboss, splats, Santa. I hope Rudolph counts in the “deer” category!

I used a square card base and embossed with a die for more squares before stamping the image, masking it and using low tack tape to mask off the edges, blending three shades of blue ink and splattering with metallic watercolour. The image is coloured with Copics and then came the scary bit! I thought it should work to do an eclipse style sentiment using an embossing folder rather than cutting out and sticking back the lettering. It was still a bit nerve-wracking putting the carefully coloured card into the folder and squishing it through the Big Shot. It worked pretty well I think, just like a “traditional” eclipse sentiment, it shows more at some angles than others.

All that embossing and masking means I managed to stick to my one layer preference for CCC. It’s gone to Arlene in California, hope she likes it!

Stamps:
Holly Jolly (Penny Johnson/Stampavie)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire)

Other:
Stitched square frame dies (Paper Rose)
Copic markers 
Sayings embossing folder (Darice)
Gansai Tambi Starry Colours watercolour paints