I wanted to enter the Hero Arts Stay Crafty Challenge – this month it is to Include A Heart. Given the time of year, a heart card would usually be associated with Valentine’s Day – but I don’t really make those cards unless specifically asked. But I am critically short of birthday cards!!
I taped five of the Hero Arts Infinity Heart dies together with purple tape, and ran them through my Big Shot machine with an embossing pad. Do this with your machine set up for embossing folders rather than a die cutting sandwich. This makes a cool impression rather than cutting and I ended up with the pretty ridged hearts in the background. I trimmed the panel down and splattered a little Perfect Gold Perfect Pearl pigment powder (OMG try saying that fast!).
I cut the Memory Box leafy heart die twice from Neenah cardstock and once from watercolour cardstock. PRO TIP: This is quite an intricate die and I found the Big Shot Chrome Precision plate to be very helpful in getting a quick, clean cut multiple times. I do have a separate review post about the chrome precision plate here.
Before removing the cut from the watercolour cardstock, I laid it down on my craft mat and sprinkled Lime Green Color Burst powder and sprayed with water.
I left that to sit for a bit – it’s quite cool seeing the colour move, and also hard to stop interfering with it! But you end up with a really cool coloured die cut, with many shades of colour, with almost zero effort. I glued the leafy hearts all together and placed it in the centre of the embossed hearts.
I placed the panel onto a piece of Hero Arts Arctic Blue cardstock and adhered it to the front of my Neenah card base. I added gems and a Happy Birthday from the MFT Big Birthday Sentiments set, white heat embossed on a black cardstock strip to finish.
This completes my card today. Thank you for stopping by! Below are links to the products I have used – some are affiliate links (not all) which simply means I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you when shopping. Thank you for your support – it means I can keep creating and sharing with you.
For more in-depth information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.
Navy and cream. A pretty different combo for me! They are colours I don’t seem to have in any inks or embossing powder either! So this turned out to be a real challenge.
I tried inking up panels with some distress ink Chipped Sapphire refill ink and Ultra Marine color burst powder (literally the only inky options I could rustle up), but while it looked pretty cool with gold heat embossing, the challenge was to include cream. I didn’t feel cream would ‘go’ with the panels I created. (Look out for these inky panels sometime in a future card or two!).
The background stamps here are both from MFT – Baccarat Background and City Background. I’ll provide a link to them below.
I went back to what I know best, which is die cutting. I cut out a BUNCH of floral foliage from MFT and Altenew with a cream coloured cardstock I was lucky to find a random sheet in my stash! I put the wreath together using the oval frame die in the Altenew Create a Wreath set – you could use a circle frame, or simply pencil in your preferred outline.
I stretched a vellum strip across behind the wreath with a gold heat embossed sentiment from Gina K Designs and glued two further oval frames to the back of that.
PRO TIP: Use tape runner or double sided tape on any vellum pieces – the merest hint of liquid glue sends it all wrinkly! Not a good look!
I used a piece of Hero Arts Nautical cardstock for the card front, but wanted it to have a little interest – I clear heat embossed the Pinkfresh Studio floral diamonds stamp.
To finish, I added some pretty Studio Katia pearls – a very pretty cream colour! – onto the wreath
This completes my card today. Thank you for stopping by! Below are links to the products I have used – some are affiliate links (not all) which simply means I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you when shopping. Thank you for your support – it means I can keep creating and sharing with you.
You can join in the Color Hues Color Challenge too! Click here to visit their blog to find out all the details.
For more in-depth information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.
Oh boy, did I have fun with this card! It’s my first slimline card too!
When I saw the colours listed for the new MFT Color Challenge 157 – Teals and particularly Browns, my first thought was ZEBRAS!
Why would the colour brown inspire a zebra? I used to have a cross stitch pattern of a beautiful, realistic zebra head. Of the eight different thread colours listed, all were shades of brown and ecru. No black and no white listed in the pattern!
Now, I don’t have any slimline sized stamps, dies or stencils, so the slimline challenge of the MFT Sketch Challenge provided an extra set of parameters to find my way around.
I started by creating my card base from Gina K Designs Kraft cardstock and cutting the front panel to fit. My card measures 3.5″ x 8.5″.
I also stamped my zebras with Catherine Pooler Icing on the Cake brown ink. I decided to add extra shading with my Copic Markers – I used E49, E59, E57 and I also used a little W3, W1 and W0 in the white areas for extra depth. R20 and R00 for the noses and ears.
I coloured the little scooter with BG49, BG45 and BG553, W9, W7 and W5. I used a little Nuvo Crystal Glaze on the scooter for extra shine at the end.
I cut three circles, using Hero Arts Infinity Circle dies from Hero Arts Arctic cardstock – I played with these to work out my final placement. I thought it would be fun to have a shaker element in the middle, so I traced the middle circle with a pencil, so I could tell where I wanted to cut through my card front piece.
I used an Echo Park Camping Leaves stencil and Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink for the background – this is a 6×6 stencil, and I simply moved it down after the first bit of inking and matched the leaves to continue the pattern, thereby filling the entire card front.
Unfortunately, I can’t find a link for this exact stencil, but you could use just about anything you have in your stash.
I wanted the top and bottom circles to be a little more interesting and I played with stitched hills, stamped flowers and all sorts before I settled on clear heat embossing an Echo Park Mini Flowers small background stamp, then inked the entire circle with Peacock Feathers distress ink – the clear heat embossing resists the ink being laid down, and you can still see the original colour of the Turquoise cardstock beneath. After you’ve inked, rub the piece with a dry cloth, this cleans all the ink off the heat embossing for a tidy and impactful look.
The bottom circle has simply been clear heat embossed, the top has been inked and dry buffed. Such a cool look!
The Shaker Part
For the shaker, I taped two Hero Arts circle dies together and cut three little frames out of Gina K Designs Turquoise Teal cardstock, plus I cut a circle out of some scrap acetate for the window. I glued one frame to the top of the acetate and two to the bottom. Set this aside until the end.
I covered the back of the card front panel with foam tape, ensuring the circle opening was fully encircled with tape to prevent confetti escaping. I placed the top and bottom ink resisted circles and trimmed off the excess. I placed a plain Arctic circle into the shaker compartment.
Now there’s a gap that needs to be filled with pretty Nuvo confetti (Turquoise Stars and Rose Gold Squares), plus I added some Distress Glitter dust. I glued the acetate lid on top, securing the confetti and glitter, and they can move freely about. You could add buttons, beads, sequins, die cut shapes, anything you want.
Finishing
Close up views
I had fun placing my little zebras using foam squares and glue, and adding extra flowers and butterflies. I used Honeybee Stamps alphabet set to make the word Hi. This is cut from the Hero Arts Arctic cardstock and stacked three times. I used Nuvo Glimmer pen to add sparkle to the letters, and I put a layer of crystal glaze on top for shine.
I also used the sparkle pen on the zebras (I forgot that the Catherine Pooler ink is not designed for watercolour so the brown ink smudged a little, but it turns out I liked the effect as it took away the stark white of the zebra). I used my Copic markers to smooth this out too.
I white heat embossed Friend from Concord and 9th’s Say Hello stamp set onto a scrap of chocolate brown cardstock and glued it to the top of the Hi.
I added black glaze pen to the eyes, and white glaze pen to make trails for the butterflies.
This card is being entered into three different challenges:
This completes my card today. Thank you for stopping by! Below are links to the products I have used – some are affiliate links (not all) which simply means I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you when shopping. Thank you for your support – it means I can keep creating and sharing with you.
For more in-depth information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.
I think I have managed to sneak this card into this week’s My Favorite Things Sketch Challenge at almost the very last minute! I have been working some other cards using this particular stamp set this past week, and I decided to use it again while it was on my table to create this card.
I stamped the Flowers in Bloom on watercolour cardstock and had fun painting them using Nuvo Shimmer Powders.
The colours I used are Cherry Bomb, Violet Brocade, Blue Blitz, Atlantis Burst. I squeezed a little powder into a watercolour palette pan, and picked up the colour with a wet paintbrush. A very easy way to watercolour!
I spritzed the panel with a little shimmer spray and some white gouache splatter.
The Sketch Challenge was set out with four panels to the bottom right of the card and a sentiment strip. Rather than colour four different images, I cut my panel into four – carefully removing a strip from the vertical centre and then horizontally on each of the resulting panels – all the while ensuring the image was not distorted. Many pencil marks and ruled lines on the back of this!
I die cut a further stitched rectangle to mount the pieces back together with foam tape for a little bit of gentle dimension.
The card base itself is Strathmore Bristol Smooth cardstock – it is a warm creamy colour and I find it matches very well in tone with the watercolour cardstock I use. You can also use Tim Holtz watercolour paper which is a much brighter white which matches with Neenah cardstock much better.
I felt the card base itself needed a little lift, so I white heat embossed a large background stamp, Flower Fields.
This gives the card a little interest without detracting from the focal image.
I heat embossed a sentiment, using Happiest of Birthdays from the More Essential Sentiments set and placed the strip towards the bottom right. A few wee Studio Katia pearls finishes off this pretty card.
You can enter this week’s Sketch Challenge too – click here to visit the My Favorite Things blog with all the details.
If you’ve never shopped directly with MFT before, you can click here to get $10 USD off your first purchase!
This completes my pretty card today. Thank you for stopping by! Below are links to the products I have used – some are affiliate links (not all) which simply means I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you when shopping. Thank you for your support – it means I can keep creating and sharing with you.
For more in-depth information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.
