Blog Archives

Challenge: two color palettes with a similar theme

2/7/2017

This month, Altenew and Seven Hills have issued color palette challenges.

The Altenew Challenge, posted on February 1, 2017, which must use an Altenew product as a focal point, uses a photograph and a four color palette brighten the dark and grey outside typical of February:

The Seven Hills challenge, posted on February 2, 2017, which must use a product sold in their shop, provided three photos and five or six shades in a two-color palette for each:

I started with the Altenew challenge and used three of the colors in the palette (fuschia, green and white) and an Altenew stamp/die set as the focal point. I stamped images from the Lotus stamp set on colored paper using Altenew Crisp Inks and die cut the with coordinating die set. I also cut a border strip from an Authentique 6x6 pad of paper which matched the color palette. I layered the images and the border strip on a top-folding note card and added a sentiment in Crisp Ink and water ripples with a Distress Marker:

Products used in making this card were:

Stamps (and dies): Altenew Lotus stamp and die (1055) bundle; sentiment stamp from an unknown company
Inks: Altenew Crisp Inks “Ruby Red” and “Evergreen”; Distress Marker “Scattered Straw”
Papers: Paper Studio value Pack Notecards “white”, Authentique “Collection: Infused” 6x6 pad (INF009); scrap pink and green card
Adhesives: Ranger Collage Glue Stick; Viva Las Vegas “Miracle Tape”

I like the looks of this card a lot and decided to CASE my own card using the Seven Hills yellow/grey palette in the challenge. Like the Altenew card, I stamped the images using Altenew Crisp Inks on colored card and die cut them. I cut another coordinating border from an Authentique 6x6 paper pad, layered the images and border on the top-folding note card and added a sentiment stamped in Crisp Ink and water ripples with a Distress Marker:

Products used in making this card were:

Stamps (and dies): Altenew "Lotus" stamp and die (1055) bundle*; sentiment stamp Hero Arts* (F3262)
Inks: Altenew Crisp Inks* “Evening Grey” and “Paper Bag” ; Distress Marker “Pumice Stone”
Papers: Paper Studio value Pack Notecards “white”, Authentique “Classique: Beauty” 6x6 pad (BEA016); scrap yellow and gray card
Adhesives: Ranger Collage Glue Stick

* Altenew and Hero Arts are both sold in the Seven Hills shop, although it may be that th Hero Arts stamp is "out of print"...

The difference: the color palette and the arrangement of the flowers… I like this pair of cards enough that I think I will make a few more, using different color palettes (perhaps the other two proposed by Seven Hills) and different sentiments.

1 Comment

Challenge: Love Is In The Air

2/7/2017

4 Comments

Clearly, valentine's Day is coming up fast and almost every challenge I look at involves "love" in some form or other. Creative Carte Blanche's challenge for February is no exception: "Love Is In The Air". To paraphrase Hels Sheridan: "February is the month of romance so I chose the theme "LOVE" ..., add hearts, use words, use something you love, do a technique you love... "

Now as you all know, I am not a frilly, clingy or "cute" crafter and Valentine's Day has never been my favorite holiday. But I can't deny that I love to make cards, that I love color, and that I love to play with new stash. So this month, I decided to try out some new purchases from Graphic 45 and some scraps from my scrap file to create a Valentine for my husband (Shhh! Don't Tell him! It's a surprise!).

I started with one of Graphic 45's "staples", a regular black tag, and covered it with one of Graphic 45's background papers for "Nature's Sketchbook" (Husband is a trained ecologist, an avid gardener, and a nature photographer and this seemed a perfect fit. It truly is hard to come up with cards for males, isn't it?).

I used only one tag got he album, reserving the remaining tags for another day

I then selected some scrap card from my scrap stash (yellow, poppy red, cream and forest green) and stamped and die-cut a butterfly and some flowers using Tim Holtz stamps and dies and Archival Ink:

I got out my Inktense pencils and added some depth to the butterfly and flowers (forgot to take a photo, oops! But you can make out some of the shading on my closeup below) and I also clipped out a sentiment from the6x6 pad of Graphic 45's "Nature Sketchbook". I layered all the images on the tag, folding up the wings of the butterfly to add more dimension...

I trimmed out the abdomen on the butterfly and cut between the wings and the antennae so I could fold his wings

Sorry for the lack of focus.

and attached the tag to the front of a white notecard...

Products used in the making of this card were:

Stamps: Tim Holtz Alterations "Limitations" (660189) and Stampers Anonymous ""Flower Garden" (CMS215)
Dies: Sizzix Framelits "Flowers Garden & Mini Bouquest" (661613) and the coordinating Alterations "Limitations" die (660189)
Inks: Archival "Jet Black"; Inktense pencils: "Antique White" (2300), "Sun Yellow" (0200), "Cherry" (0510), "Poppy Red" (0400) and "Sea Blue" (1200)
Papers: Graphic 45 "Natures Sketchbook Patterns & Solids" 8x8 pad(4501485), "Nature Sketchbook" 6x6 pad (4501484) and "Regular Black Tag Album" (4500981); Paper Studio Value Pack Notecards "white"; scraps of yellow, cream, poppy red and forest green card
Adhesives: Rager Collage Glue Stick; Viva Las Vegas "Miracle Tape"

4 Comments

Challenge: "Be My Valentine" (aka "The Color of Love")

2/3/2017

3 Comments

The Frilly & Funkie Challenge for February 2, 2017 was "Be My Valentine?" where the challenge is "to make a card for your sweet Valentine in a vintage or shabby chic style.". A similar challenge was also offered over at Simon Says Stamp wednesday on the same date: "The Color of Love" where the challenge was to make "anything with a love theme". I decided to combine these and, since I was using a new stamp set AND a new die, I also decided to enter it in the Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday challenge posted on January 25, 2017: "Something New".

I created a clean-and-simple St. Valentine's Day card using the "colors of love": red, pink and white. I die cut swags of flowers from red card and stamped a sentiment on a clean white circle of card using Archival Ink and a new sentiment stamp set. I trimmed layers of burgundy and pink card to place on a white notecard. Assembly of the pieces resulted in:

The new items used in this card are a die which was a freebie from Quick Cards magazine and a stamp set which was a freebie from Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine. This complies with the requirement for the Work It Wednesday challenge.

Products used in the making of this card were:

Stamps: "Sincere Sentiments" by Simon Clayton for Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine
Dies: "Floral Garland" 2-in-1 die-cutting stencil by Sally Mountain for Quick Cards Magazine
Inks: Archival "Vermillion"
Papers: Paper Studio Value Pack Notecards "white"; scraps of burgundy, pink and red card
Adhesives: Viva Las Vegas "Miracle Tape"; Ranger Collage Glue Stick

3 Comments

Challenge: Pets' Corner

2/3/2017

1 Comment

Simon Says Stamp Monday's challenge for January 30, 2017 is "Pets Corner". This challenge celebrates the love for our animal friends. As the design team says: "With so many animal themed products available [they] are looking forward to seeing what [we] use on [our] project[s]! There are many of us that love our cats and dogs, some of us have a love for our feathered friends and some of us even like snakes and other reptiles, ..."

My pets are (and always have been) cats. They have been black (Tux, BeauJangles, Shadow, Faith and Kathy), black-and-white (Trubble), tortoiseshell (Runt and Freshie), blue-and-cream (Flicka), seal-point (Misty Twit), agouti (Mau'ss and Samantha), and sable (Dominic). They have been rescue moggies and pure-bred breedss. The current ones are two black and one sable purebred Bombays but they are hard to portray in stamping because it's difficult to show detail on such dark colors. So for this card I opted for the classic grey tabby to represent all the cats I have known and loved.

While many of our cats have been indoor-outdoor cats, the three current ones are indoor only and one of their favorite past-times (other than sleeping in the sun) is sitting in a window, watching what we call "cat TV": birds and squirrels on the bird feeders in our back garden. I decided, given that I had just received a free stamp set that featured a cat and a window frame with my Quick Cards magazine subscription, to CASE an example shown in the magazine.

I stamped most of the stamps (window frame, shutters, window box, cat and flowers) on a scrap of white card in Archival "Jet Black", color them with Distress Markers and a water brush, and fussy cut them with a craft knife. I selected a piece of Authentique paper to represent wallpaper and used a mini-layering stencil and Distress Ink to create a black wall. Final assembly resulted in this card:

I am also entering this card in the Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday challenge for January 2017: Something New. The new items used on this card was the Quick Cards stamp set.

Products used in the making of this card were:

Stamps: "Spring in Bloom" by Sally Mountain for Quick Cards Magazine; Stampers Anonymous "#HASHTAGS" (CMS183)
Inks: Distress Markers "Pumice Stone", "Hickory Smoke", "Squeezed Lemonade", "Spiced Marmalade", "Candied Apple", "Festive Berries", "Forest Moss", "Peeled Paint", and "Shabby Shutters"; Distress Ink "Fired Birck"; Archival "Jet Black"; Sigmo Uniball "white" pen
Stencils: Stampers Anonoymous Mini Layering Stencil "Set 3" ("Bricked")
Papers: Paper Studio Value Pack Notecards "white"; scrap of Stamping Up! "Shimmer White"; Authentique 6x6 "Classique: Beauty" (BEA 016)
Adhesives" Viva Las Vegas "Miracle Tape"; Ranger Collage Glue Stick

1 Comment

Forward>>

Author

Born in New Jersey, I grew up in Southeastern Ohio. Attended university at Bowling Green State University (B.Sci in biological science, 1964), University of Southern California (M. Sci in biological science, 1967) and University of Florida (Ph. D in zoology, 1971).
Worked in environmental consulting for a little more than a decade and then seven years as an instructor in biological science at various community colleges in California and Texas. Moved to London in 1992, then Beijing (1996) and Saudi Arabia (1998), before returning to NW Ohio in 2002. I am currently living in NW Ohio with my husband and three Bombay cats. I love to read (mystery, science fiction, history) and stitch (have done crewel, currently experimenting with free embroidery and needlepoint but blackwork and cross stitch are my main genres); have been known to knit; and now I'm heavily into papercrafting!
Retired upon the return to the US so lots of time for our hobbies...