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Peach & Green Color Hues Challenge

I was very excited to be the Winner of the Navy & Cream Color Hues Challenge – you can check out that card here. My prize is to be Guest Designer for this challenge, yay!

I ended up creating two cards with peach and green colours, I was having fun with my new (to me) Altenew Watercolor 36 pan set – they are so nice to paint with!

Floral Garden Birthday

I die cut the Hero Arts Flower Garden from watercolour paper and leaving it all together, painted directly onto the entire panel. I found this easier to paint the delicate piece.

I cut two more from Bristol Smooth cardstock to stack behind for dimension.

I did a gentle watercolour wash on another piece of cardstock using Distress Ink Shabby Shutters, a really gentle green. I used a wide paintbrush and painted water over the panel first. I smooshed the ink onto my work surface and picked up colour with my brush, and swept it back and forth across the panel, aiming for a pretty ombre effect. Once dried, I then used the Simon Says Stamp Detail Bohemian Plate to add a little interest – the dot details kind of matched the floral shapes of the die cut.

I cut the larger heart from the Simon Says Stamp Heart Duet set (sadly discontinued, but any heart die would work), and stamped the birthday sentiment and a tiny heart towards the bottom, and a stacked Hero Arts ‘happy’ die cut on top. I finished the flower garden with some dark peach gems and gold Liquid Pearls.

Flower Fields Birthday

I have been using this Flower Fields background stamp in a number of projects lately, and decided to paint it with the peach and green colour way. I stamped the image with Antique Linen Distress Oxide for the ‘no line’ look.

I used the Altenew watercolours to paint this too, using the exact same colours as the above card. This time, I was going for a more subtle look – subtle takes practice!

I used the Honey Bee Stamps Birthday die – this little set comes with the birthday die itself, the shadow die and a further shadow die with extra piercing. There’s a matching sentiment set, and I’ll link to that below too.

I used the plain shadow die to cut the floral panel just below the centre and popped the pieces up with double sided foam onto Gina K Grass Green cardstock. I stacked the birthday die cut with gold in the space between.

I felt the white card base was too stark, so I added a lighter green mat in Jellybean Green. I finished the card with a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp Tiny Words Birthday and a few Peridot gems from Studio Katia.

I have recently discovered a new black ink pad – a friend was visiting and introduced me to the Versafine Clair Nocturne ink pad, an incredibly dark, crisp black. My new favourite for sentiments! Especially those hard to stamp solid lettering sentiments, wow, what a difference! It is a pigment ink, so not suitable for Copic colouring, but you can use it for watercolour.

This completes my pair of cards as Guest Designer for the Color Hues Color Challenge today. Thank you for stopping by! Below are links to the products I used. Some are affiliate links (not all), which simply means I may get a small commission when you shop, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support.

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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.

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Red & Pink Color Hues Color Challenge

Red and pink! Not a pair of colours I would immediately think to pair together, but that’s all part of the challenge I guess!

I know February is usually the month of Valentine themed cards – hearts and flowers easily lend themselves to red and pink tones, but I thought I would challenge myself even further by choosing not to follow those themes. Plus, I am still in need of a bunch of birthday cards as my boxes are critically low.

I also want to quickly congratulate my friend Julie – she won the Red & Grey Color Challenge and is a guest designer for this one! You can see her brilliant Red and Pink card here.

OK. So, I thought balloons would work! I used the Neat & Tangled balloon stencil which is unfortunately discontinued. (I have linked to another balloon stencil below which is similar). I used Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry and Festive Berries and inked up a BUNCH of balloons to pretty much cover my card piece. I ruled lines from some of the balloons down to the bottom as balloon strings with a white gel pen.

I cut the panel with a My Favorite Things stitched rectangle die, and also sprayed it with a bit, well, a lot, of gold shimmer spray.

I stamped and coloured a little girl from the My Favorite Things Birthday Besties set – giving her a pink and red outfit, coloured with Copic Markers. I also added a little shimmer pen and glaze to her shoes and her own balloon for shine.

I cut the image out using the matching die, and I also cut two more from scrap cardstock and stacked them together for a little dimension – this actually turned out to be faster to do than finding foam tape!

The sentiment is from the same stamp set, which I white heat embossed onto a strip of black cardstock to stretch across the card front. The card base itself is Gina K Designs Bubblegum Pink – keeping it in theme too!

This completes my Color Hues Color Challenge today! I have links below to some of the products I have used, some are affiliate links (not all), which simply means I may get a small commission when you shop at no extra cost to you. Thank you for visiting my blog today, I hope you join in with the challenge too!

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.

Follow me on my social media channels:

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Leafy Heart Birthday

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.

Follow me on my social media channels:

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Navy & Cream Color Hues Challenge

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.

Follow me on my social media channels: