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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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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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Dapper Reindeer Gift Tag

You can find more of my Gift Tags from over the years by checking out #inkyandstampytags

I love the Simon Says Stamp Picture Book Reindeer – he really is a cutie. I featured this guy on a Christmas gift tag last year, and you can see that tag below too.

I cut out the tags from red cardstock, and the trees from green. PLEASE NOTE: The Hero Arts Paper Layering Pine Tree used here is discontinued, but I have linked a similar shaped tree below.

I coloured the trees using Copic Markers, flicking the colour from dark to light to give the tree some depth and texture. I then cut them all in half, straight down the middle.

Copics used for the Trees: G29, G09, G05.

I lined up the straight edge of the trees onto the edge of the tag, and heat embossed the sentiments in place. You can see I am using both halves of the tree, so no waste of any of my colouring efforts!

I gold heat embossed the little sentiments on either side of the tag, just to the side of the lower part of the tree.

I also liberally sprayed the tag with Gold Shimmer spray.

I cut and coloured the reindeer one at a time. One of the features of the Picture Book dies is that they cut all the pieces at once, although the antlers are a separate piece in this case.

Copics used for the Reindeer: R59, R57, R55, R30, R20.

The banner is from an older My Favorite Things Tag set, and I cut and glued the folds together and stamped the To & From on them. I used the banner as a guide for placement of the first part of the reindeer body and built him up from there in the centre of the tag. Once the reindeer was glued down, the banner was fixed in place right at the bottom.

I added black glaze pen to the eyes and nose details, along with Nuvo Ivory drops to the tree for beautiful baubles. I thought he looked a little underdressed, and the scarf in the reindeer die set wasn’t working for me (we have summertime Christmases here in New Zealand), so I found some tartan patterned paper and created a little bow tie.


The Picture Book Reindeer was featured on one of my gift tags last year too.

The tag is a Concord & 9th gift tag from the Sprinkles Turnabout set, cut from same red cardstock. The reindeer is also coloured with Copics and built the same way from the bottom of the tag. The little snowflakes (CZ Design) are white heat embossed to make a hand stamped background.

The Ho Ho Ho sentiment is from an old Stampin’ Up! set.

This completes my gift tag 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.

https://linkdeli.com/widget.js?id=f5e8378456858c916708

You can find more of my Gift Tags from over the years by checking out #inkyandstampytags

Follow me on my social media channels: