JAI #317 Just add a colour combo

Hello there,
well things got serious this week as I had to go and buy a new pair of thermal socks (my old ones were decidedly holey :o) The socks were an absolute requirement as it's been wet and it's been cold and my poor toes were feeling the cold!  However, some of that wet weather meant it was a good time to stay in and stamp (actually who needs an excuse ;).
My first task was this week's Just Add Ink challenge - this week I (yes me) want you to Just Add a Colour Combo. It's a very friendly colour combination - I promise!

The colours said flowers to me, and I knew instantly I wanted to try something I had seen my lovely JAI team mate and friend Nikki do recently. See her card here. She used the Botantical Blooms stamps straight to paper. It's funny I've been so absorbed by the matching dies that using the stamps like that had never occurred to me!! Here's what I came up with.

This is remarkably CAS and flat for me :o One way I got depth but kept it flat was by masking parts of the design as I stamped. The flowers make a great background for a strong but simple sentiment. To make that a little special I die cut three layers and then added a gloss top by covering it with glue (fine tip glue pen) and leaving it to dry. (Thanks for the tip Di :) I also pulled stripes into the sentiment to echo the stripey border. Sequins were the last thing needed to finish it all off.

Hope you can join us this week! Before you do, do go check out the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the DT.

Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Botanical Blooms, Crazy About You
Cardstock: Flirty Flamingo, Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Flirty Flamingo, Rose Red, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories: Hello You thinlets, Neutrals DSP stack, Metallics mix sequins, Clear sequins (non SU!), Wink of Stella, White embossing powder, Basic Black marker, Epic Day This and That washi tape (R), Fine tip Glue pen, Tear and Tape

Thank You...Friend

Hello there,
the little gifties I make for friends and family rarely make it to my blog but I wanted to post this special little ensemble.  Here's the finished projects - a triangular chocolate box and mini album ready to be filled with memories.

A side view of the chocolate box to show you the way it folds in at the sides (so clever!)

The mini album open. You can see it has eight internal pages and three tag inserts, that can hold journaling or more photos.

Here the mini album is wrapped up and they are both ready to be delivered.

The mini album was made with the Hip Hip Hooray kit (long retired). I used a great tutorial by Delys Cram you can download the pdf here. Envelopes are used as the backbone of the mini album. This could probably be adapted to many of SU! current kits.

The chocolate box design I had seen pinned on Pinterest. I came across a tutorial by Ilka Specht (it's in German but has a clear diagram with measurements). Her box was super petite and I wanted mine to fit at last three Lindt balls. So I used copy paper and played around with expanding the measurements till it was the size I needed (in the end I fitted four Lindt balls snuggly inside). I started with a piece of 9 by 7" (22.9 by 18 cm) cardstock and scored at 1 3/4 and 7 1/4" (4.4 and 18.5 cm) on the long side and 3/4, 2 1/2, 4 1/4 and 6" (1.8, 6.5, 10.8 and 15.2 cm) on the short side.

I used the tags, DSP and embellishy bits to thematically tie the two gifts together. Bling was added by using silver foil, rhinestones and sequin trim. All together it made a pretty package and I love that I was able to combine the sentiments on the two gifts to say thanks to my friend.

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted

Stamps: Tin of Cards, Oh Happy Day

Cardstock: Watermelon Wonder, Whisper White

Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Accessories: 2 and 1 3/4 circle punches, Tree Builder punch, Itty Bitty Accents punch (R), Hip Hip Hooray kit (R), Birthday Bouquet DSP (R), Shine On DSP (R), Silver Foil, Blushing Bride sequin trim, Strawberry Slush thick baker's twine (R), White Baker's twine, Linen thread, Jewels- rhinestones, Dimensionals, Tombow multi

JAI #316 Just add stripes

Hello there,
well this week at Just Add Ink, Patrice has challenged us to Just Add Stripes. My project turned out nothing like the ideas I originally had in my head - although funnily enough both projects used SU! Botantical Builder framelits. I changed directions as I realised I needed to make a birthday card and since it was for a good friend of my Mr8 I decided to make something fun and interactive - my first magic slider card. (I might add my Mr8 was utterly captivated). Here it is.

It's looking a little plain here - but wait.

The slider is half way and you can see the magic happening!

And with the slider all the way up.

And of course the inside.

It's another mix of old and new here (no BBB on my doorstep yet). But I pulled out Emerald Envy, which was the perfect colour for my dinosaur scene and combined that with Kraft. There are plenty of stripes - stripey background, stripey leaves, stripey banner - so I think I have that covered ;) The slider mechanism is created by having two identical scenes, one on the base layer that is coloured and one stamped on the top acetate layer. The white cardstock slider in the middle of these two is the piece that you pull up and makes the magic happen. You can find a tutorial for one here, it's little different from the way I constructed mine but you will get the same effect.

Stripes are such a wonderfully versatile element to use - do go check out the rest of the projects from the JAI DT and you will be wowed and inspired! Hope you can join us this week.

Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: No Bones About It, Botanical Blooms, Timeless Textures, Alphabet Rotary (R), Little Hot Rod (Papertry Ink) (the little clouds), Diagonal Stripes (My Favorite Things) 
Cardstock: Emerald Envy, Kraft, Whisper White
Ink: Pool Party, Bermuda Bay, Island Indigo, Emerald Envy, Versamark, Soft Suede, Stazon Black, Crumb Cake, Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Botanical Builder framelits, File Tab edgelits (R), Classic Rectangles nestabilities (Spellbinder), In Color 2016-18 DSP Stack, Go Wild DSP (R), White and Clear embossing powder, Tear and tape, Tombow multi, Staples, Brayer, Dimensionals

Just Add Ink #315 Sketch

Hello there,
have you ever been faced with a challenge and inspiration, that light bulb solution wouldn't come? That is what I felt like in the week leading to my submission deadline for this week's Just Add Ink challenge. This week Tina has given us a sketch - and well it was doing my head in :o trying to work out how to make this sketch work for me until I turned it upside down! First up here's the sketch.

Now here it is upside down ;)

Can you see how the shapes all taper to the top now? This is when inspiration came, and here is the result.

And a little surprise for the inside, which is rather tricky to photograph.

So I was talking about how the sketch shapes tapered to the top - and of course so do cakes which made me think of the Party Pop Up thinlets - and I went from there! I did take one more liberty with the sketch which was to pull the circle layer to the back (see the sunburst peeking out from behind the diecut?) 

This is going to my hubby for his birthday this year so I kept the fussiness stripped back but I added in lots of texture by using water colour paper (Ok honestly I just love playing with water colour and any excuse will do right now ;), glossing up the diecut added lots of shine and having a pop-up inside is super important too (I have a tradition of giving hubby interactive cards). Once I had my inspiration this came together really fast!

The rest of the JAI team have wonderful projects to show you too - so do go check them out.

Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Party with Cake, Confetti Celebration
Cardstock: Hello Honey, Basic Black, Very Vanilla
Ink: Delightful Dijon, Hello Honey,  Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Party Pop Up thinlets, Water colour paper, Project Life marker, Go Wild DSP (R), Gold Fancy Foil Designer Vellum (R), Gold Basic metal button (R), Glossy accents (R), Basic Black baker's twine, Gold Wink of Stella, Dimensionals, Tear and Tape, Tombow multi

JAI #314 Just add inspiration

Hello there,
brr it's cold outside - we had our first frost this week and thick fog! There is an upside though - snugly doonas and hot chocolates while you watch a movie matinee with the kids on the weekend :) The challenge we have for you at Just Add Ink this week is filled with warm colours. This week Di has suggested we Just Add Inspiration. Here's the picture - you can take the colours, patterns, or elements whatever inspires you and use that as the basis for your project this week. Hope you play along with us!

Here's what I came up with.

The inside

All those lovely round fruits gave me the perfect excuse to pull out some new toys - the dies to match Swirly Bird. First I laid down a rich layer of water colouring. Once that was dry I splashed some water drops over, dried it again, and then added a fine splatter of gold Wink of Stella. I cut three swirls from Shimmer White cardstock and gold embossed a portion on each. I embellished those with a little clusters of tiny swirl flowers. A sentiment banner with hand stitched edging finished it all off.

I don't normally lean towards using oranges and purples so this was a nice change and I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Don't forget to stop past the rest of the DT for some fabulous inspiration!
Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipes: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Swirly Bird, Butterfly Basics
Cardstock: Rich Razzleberry, Pumpkin Pie, very Vanilla, Vellum
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss, Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine tango, Mossy Meadow, Garden Green
Accessories: Swirly Scribbles thinlets, Banners framelits, Water colour paper, Gold glimmer, Gold embossing powder, Gold thread, Gold Wink of Stella, Tear and Tape, Dimensionals