Pretty Pastels with MFT

Hello again,

Just sneaking in with a card for MFT's Sketch Challenge which is due to end in a few hours. I've combined it with the soft, pastel colours from MFT Colour Challenge #208:

I coloured PI Butterfly Kisses (retired), added a touch of sparkle to her wings with some holographic glitter and stamped a background using the little butterfly net from the same set. 

Happy stamping!

Claire

Three Challenges - One Card!

Hello inkers!

There's some lovely fresh, Spring inspired challenges out in blogland at the moment - The Paper Players has a clean and simple flower challenge,  The Card Concept has an inspiration photo and Just Us Girls has a mood board with very similar colours and themes:

 

I have to admit this should be cleaner and simpler than it actually is but I managed to smear green ink all over my nice clean card - I seem to really struggle to keep my cards clean! I saved it by adding a white panel and gave it some dimension using dimensional tape. For the vertical stripes I used embossing paste with Altenew's Beach Towel Stripes Stencil.  The Just Add Ink blooms have been stamped with pigment ink and embossed using holographic glitter EB.

I was inspired by the colours over at The Card Concept and the middle left pic in the JUG's mood board. When I saw the clean, horizontal strips of the wood panels I immediately thought of the Altenew stencil. 

Thanks for popping by!

Claire

Christmas Inspiration with Time Out and MFT

Hello folks!

I do love a challenge that inspires me to whip up a Christmas card - MFT's monthly Ready, Set, Christmas challenge is really helping me get organised. Even better is that each card will be different rather than having to make a big batch that's all the same. I find it a bit boring making the same card over and over again.

I've also been inspired by Time Out's Inspired by Words challenge, focussing on 'Winter' and used the pretty colour palette over at MFT Colour Challenge #207:

 

I've got so many of these Pure Innocence stamps now - I never get tired of them, especially the Christmas ones. This one is Winter Kisses - it's not strictly a Christmas stamp so I added a sentiment from Bitty Holiday Wishes. I've framed the image using Stitched Rectangle Frames Die-namics and the base die is from one of the now retired Blueprints series. 

It's been 35C here in Sydney today - amazing considering we're in Autumn -the perfect excuse to stay in the air con and make a card!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Altenew Celebrating Parents Card Drive 2023 Blog Hop + Giveaway ($200 in Total Prizes)

 

Altenew is spreading the love one card at a time with their annual Celebrating Parents Card Drive. Their goal is to send cards to the elderly that live in nursing homes or shelters and let them know they're not forgotten. Help support this great cause by sending in your handmade cards so that Altenew can help these people feel loved and celebrated!

They've even handpicked a few Altenew products that are perfect for your Mother's Day and Father's Day cards (and other year-round crafting projects!)  Check out the collection HERE. They'll donate $1 with every order of the products included in this collection from 2/28/2023 until 5/14/2023 to the Food Bank of Central New York to support seniors in need. 

For my card I used the Meadow Burst Layering Stencil with a sentiment from the XOXO & More Die Set. I smothered the die cut in gold embossing powder and I wanted to add some more texture so I dry embossed the panel with the Majestic Bloom 3D Embossing Folder.  A scattering of gold and cream sequins added a little shine.

Now on to the important part - as with any Altenew Blog Hop there's always a giveaway!

Giveaway Prizes

$200 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog  and/or each designer's blog post on the blog hop list below by 3/20/2023 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 7 random winner from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 3/21/2023.

Blog Hop List

You should have popped over here from Ishani's blog and next stop is Natasha - here's the full list of designers taking part:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Altenew March Inspiration Challenge

Hello inkers,

Such a pretty, neutral colour palette over at Altenew this month. I love the warm browns with the fresh green - funnily enough, The Card Concept's inspiration pic is on a similar theme: 

I used a real mish mash of Altenew products for this one - some leaves from Nostalgic Florals, the blossom from Beautiful Day, a sprig from Peony Bouquet and a simple sentiment from Tiny Sentiments:Hello . I white embossed the bloom on vellum and the background is gold embossed Leaf Clusters on brown card stock. 

I'd put this one in the classy and elegant card basket over at The Card Concept. I drew inspiration from the green, leafy pot plant and the cream bird. I'm also popping it over to Time Out where the challenge is to be elegant.

Hope you have some time left over the weekend to get inky!

Claire

Sweet Christmas Wishes

Hello inkers,

Sometimes all a girl/boy wants to do is colour isn't it? So, in keeping with the CAS colouring challenge over at Just Us Girls I got out the Copics and made a very simple Christmas card using MFT's Sweet Christmas Wishes:

I used the colours again from MFT Colour Challenge #206 and I'm popping it over to their Ready, Set, Christmas challenge which has really made me get organised and get some Christmas cards done rather than leave it to November!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Aloha! Sunday Stamps with MFT Sketch #634

Hello again,

I've used the pretty colours over at Sunday Stamps for this one with the latest sketch at MFT:

I haven't inked up this sweet BB character from Polynesian Paradise (retired) for a long time but she's still there dancing away! The background has been stamped using Circle Celebration background stamp (retired.)

Happy stamping!

Claire

Seize the Birthday - Surprise Party Guest!

Hello again!

 I'm delighted to be the surprise party guest at Seize the Birthday this week - they've have a great challenge for you to get your inky teeth into!

Use red,  white and one other colour on your birthday card for the chance to be guest designer in an upcoming challenge. Who doesn't like to be a surprise party guest eh? 

I chose yellow and used lots of dies for my card including MFT's Daisy die-namics (long retired but still a favourite), a Fancy That flourish die and Altenew's new Mini Instant Camera Die.  The sentiment's from MFT,  as is the Lined by Hand background - one of my new favourites as it's a subtle background stamp that doesn't overpower the main event!

Hope you can join in with the challenge and even if you can't, pop over to the very talented DT's blogs to send them some inky love!

Happy stamping!

Claire x

Happy Birthday Time Out - February Altenew Inspiration Challenge - Take 2!

Hello again!

Living in a house full of boys I do love a bit of pink so this is my second play with the colours over at Altenew for their February Inspiration challenge. Time Out is also celebrating it's 9th birthday - it's one of my favourite challenges so happy birthday TO! The theme there is 'anything birthday goes:'

Lots of Altenew products on this one - I've layered the blooms with the Zero-Waste 3D Floral Cover Die and placed them on the Mini Instant Camera Frame Die. Did you know that the Fancy Hello Die is almost the perfect fit for the frame? I smothered it in gold EB and placed it all on an embossed background with the Majestic Bloom 3D Embossing Folder. The black background behind the sentiment has been embossed as well as the white card stock behind the frame but no matter how many photos I took, I couldn't get it to show.  I really do need to do a basic photography course! The sentiment is from Sentiment Strips.

Thanks for popping by!

Claire 

MFT Sketch and Colour Challenge

Hello inkers,

Just a quick post for MFT's latest sketch and colour challenges:

 

I used one of my older sets - BB Up in the Air with some Stitched Cloud Die-namics and Cloud Stencil.

Short but sweet today!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Merry Everything - MFT Sketch and Christmas Challenges

Hello folks,

Love the sketch over at MFT this week - it's definitely one I'll use again. It's perfect for using up all those little scraps of dp that you can't bear to part with!

 

I used the super sweet PI Reindeer Games with a sentiment from Bitty Holiday Wishes and patterned paper from from the Feelin' Festive Paper Pad. The scalloped edge is from one of the now retired Blueprints dynamics. 

This one's also going over to their new Ready, Set Christmas challenge - which means I'm now ahead of schedule for my Christmas cards - in February! How good is that?!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Altenew Inspiration Challenge - February 2023

Hello bloggers,

Here's my take on this month's Altenew challenge using Nostalgic Florals again - can't get enough of this set!

 

I had a play with some alcohol inks on yupo, then stamped and embossed the blooms in black. I've tried this before on yupo - it's hard to avoid the yupo buckling in the heat so I think next time I'll have to stick the yupo on card stock first so it maintains its shape. 

Because it buckled so much I had to cut the blooms out and then stick them on the card stock to make them more rigid. I used glue to stick them down but it seemed to react with the embossing which then started to rub off! So it was definitely a bit of a learning curve trying to make this one but I'm happy with how it turned out!

I'm also popping this one over to a new challenge (at least for me) called Colorful Options which has a pink theme for February. Thanks for the suggestion Makira!

Happy stamping!

Claire x

Rainbows at Time Out and MFT Sketch and Colour Challenge

 Hello, hope you're enjoying your weekend!

A couple of cards for a few different challenges - Time Out's photo inspiration which features all the colours of the rainbow, Seize the Birthday's candle-themed challenge (thanks for the prompt Elizabeth!) and MFT's Sketch and Colour Challenge:

I do love a rainbow and made a very simple card using Whimsy Stamps Happy Everything which has seen a lot of ink over the years. I think I managed to get all the colours on - red, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple pretty much covers the spectrum!

For the MFT card I used Let Your Hair Down with Garden Flourish background stamp (retired.) I didn't use a heart - I find big hearts very hard to incorporate on a card so switched it to a circle instead. I mentioned in an earlier post that this little stamp makes me think of my beautiful niece in the UK - since this one's for her birthday I've tried to colour her hair blonde to look just like hers!

Hope you've had the time to get your inks our this weekend!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Ready, Set Christmas with MFT

 Hello inkers,

MFT have started a brand new monthly Christmas challenge so it's a great opportunity to get those Christmas cards under way.  I was going through my (many) MFT stamps the other day and hadn't realised quite how many of them are Christmas related!

I used Holiday Cheer (retired) with a selection of Blueprints Dynamics and some MFT patterned paper. The colours are from Sunday Stamp's pretty Winter palette - totally different to colours I'd normally use on a Christmas card but I really like the combo!

Happy stamping!

Claire

Clean and Simple Paper Players Challenge

Hello again,

It's been a while since I made a card for a CAS challenge. At The Paper Players the theme is to make a CAS card featuring a bird - this one features a miniature human as well so I hope that's within the rules!

I'm determined to use some different stamps over the coming months...it's so easy to stick to old favourites isn't it? This one's from Your Next Stamp but since there's no-one having babies at the moment baby cards aren't high on the priority list and it hasn't seen ink in a long time. I added a sentiment from the same set and a layer of stitched die cut clouds from MFT.

Happy stamping!

Claire