28 March 2024

Let's Get "Striped" with Time Out Challenges

I am absolutely thrilled and delighted to be the Guest Designer for Time Out Challenges latest challenge. It's a real fun one too; to use stripes on your project. You have 2 weeks to have a go and you too could be a future Guest Designer for a challenge (if you want too) AND Lawn fawn are generously sponsoring this challenge so you could also win a $25 Gift Card to the Lawn Fawn store, how cool is that!
I'm using a card idea that Jenn Shurkus, taught me/us at a 2023 Virtual Art Retreat. I've modified her idea and am using a stencil and distress inks to make my stripes. Jenn loves making fab backgrounds. In her original class we made very loose streaks of colour using Distress Watercolor Pencils as our background then placed our dark grey Copic coloured image on top. 

I've used a stencil to re-create her look and working with my smaller blending brushes to blend in the stripes. As I am actually using a slimline stencil I die cut out a perfect stitched rectangle with Lawn Fawn's largest Inside Out Stitched rectangle die. But oops I'd been a bit messy and there was gold embossing powder on my plates and I had gold speckles on the RHS after running through my Big Shot. As this was my second go at doing the panel, I went into how to fix-it mode. So spritzed with shimmer spray and water and blotted but felt it needed some black splatters. I used my Licorice spray bottle to add a few drops by unscrewing and just tapping lightly the tubing for the nozzle to make controlled wee drops/splatters. When I sprayed it was much too dark on my practice run. 

My first panel I added a glitter paste through the stencil after ink blending and it looked fab but had a few funny reactions around some of the stripe edges which is why I tried again to make my striped panel.



Supply List:
Stamps and dies: Humbled and Grateful (PFS)
Distress Inks (RNG): Worn Lipstick, Kitsch Flamingo, Dried Marigold, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Salvaged Patina, Shaded Lilac, Wilted Violet
Paper: Hammermill white, Neenah #110, Black
Other: Versafine Clair Nocturne ink, clear embossing powder, Frost shimmer spray (imagine), Licorice Izink dye spray, distress mista bottle, small blending brushes (TE) and foam strips, Inside Out Stitched rectangle die (LF), Horizontal stripes slimline stencil (PFS), Warm Gray Copics (W2,4,6,8)
Well this is a fun, fun challenge and there's no doubting that adding stripes is really effective so hope you can join in as well but definitely check out the Time Out Challenge blog to see the the inspiration on show.

I'll also enter my card at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge which is an anything goes challenge. I also see Just Us Girls would like us to use  a stencil so I'll also enter their current challenge.

Thanks for popping in.
✿Karen✿

25 March 2024

Birthday dinosaurs

Just Add Ink has a "weird colour combo" up at the moment, the last time I thought a colour combo was weird and went just do it, just make a card, I really ended up loving it. This time I am not totally convinced about the combo. I personally find when I don't like a colour combo try to use it with scraps of card stock and dies. I thought the colours would work with my new-to-me Birthday Dinosaurs dies from Spellbinders. Making a girl dino with all the bits is always going to be super cute and I think she does look "RAWRsome" in Pretty Peacock, Fresh Freesia and  Cajun Craze.

I had a spare dino so decided to play along with the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches as well. I can't decide which card is cutest so will enter the double dino photo into the Just Add Ink Challenge and the Cajun Craze dino into the Freshly Made Sketches sketch challenge.




Supply List:
Stamps: Burlap background (TE), Fairy Friends (LF - sentiment "have a magical day"), Monster Fun (GSD - sentiment RAWRsome")
Ink: Fresh Freesia (SU!), Peacock (C9)
Paper: Fresh Freesia (SU!), Cajun Crush (SU!), Pretty Peacock (SU!), Neenah Solar White, black scraps
Dies: Birthday Dinosaur (SP), Featured Sentiments (ALT)
Other: 1mm foam squares (SP)
Challenges: JAI #694, FMS #628




There is something about a card made of dies that looks really special, but the wee girl dino certainly brings a smile to my face no matter what colour she is wearing. Thanks for popping in.

EDITED 28/3/24: Absolutely rapt to get an honourable mention at Just Add Ink, the winning card was amazing so you should check it out for real she totally knocked these 3 colours out of the park. 

The kind comments the some of the design team had to say...  "Such cute and fun cards, great use of the challenge colours".  "Absolutely adorable and perfect use of these colours!"  "Love these Dino! They are so pretty and super cute!!"
✿Karen✿

24 March 2024

Surprise Easter Card

I wanted to play along with CAS on Friday's Easter challenge plus combine with the elements from Tic Tac Toe too. So my card front is my clean and simple card for CAS on Friday:


I wanted to make a peek-a-boo window for my wee Easter chicken but I only own a square one from MFT so made my own using Just Stitching Double Circle dies (LF) and a circle die to make a window inside the double stitching.

Now I could have stayed with the CAS theme for Tic Tac Toe but I wanted to make a wee scene inside the card so I'm entering the inside of the card for TTT243 (Easter Eggs, pastel colours, grass). I'll also enter the inside of the card into the collaboration for "birds of a feather" with Time Out and Just Us Girls as well, plus Simon Says : Easter/Spring for their Wednesday Challenge too!


Aren't they just adorable, I've used an older stamp set from Lawn fawn called Chirpy Chirp Chirp and it has stamps to fill in the Easter egg and also the wee flower petals and wee butterflies, which made Copic colouring the chickens and bunny helmets easy.

I just grabbed 2 colour combos from my earliest blends I have, so nothing too fancy but I do like the peachy one a lot.




Supply List:
Stamps: Chirpy Chirp Chirp (LF), Eggstraordinary Easter Add-on (LF - sentiment)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Fresh Freesia (SU!), Pale Papaya (SU!), Sparkling Rose (PFS), Sunshine (PFS)
Paper: Neenah Solar White #110, Xpress IT blending, Flower Market DSP (LF - retired)
Dies: Grassy border (LF), Just Stitching Double Circles (LF), Sweet Stacks : Circles (HB)
Other: Copics






Well that was a lot of fun combing a CAS card front with an Easter scene inside, hope you can find time to join in with one or all of the challenges.

✿Karen✿