Star Struck

Hi all,
I hope everyone had a lovely Easter and got the chance to spend some time with family, friends and lets not forget - eat some chocolate. All of that happened in our house and I managed to get a few of those stray lurking "I should do one day" jobs done too.

OK I confess I also managed to fit a bit of stamping too. I split that between two tasks, firstly I'm slowly making progress with constructing swaps for convention and secondly a challenge card for this week. Makeesha Byl posted a colour challenge this week and the colours definately leaned towards the masculine, although having said that I have seen some very nice "girly" cards done for the challenge - go check out the DT offerings! Here are the colours.

You know I don't think I can even remember exactly what triggered the concept for this card, I do remember somewhere in blog land seeing someone recently use the Classic Stars wheel for a birthday card. I certainly have in the past - in fact it often makes an appearance on cards for my DH since he is by profession a "star gazer". Anyway this was the result.
A close up of the sueded Caramel star

The inside

I started with a Brocade Blue base, then a Chocolate Chip layer, the top panel is Very Vanilla wheeled with the Classic Stars wheel in Brocade Blue. I distressed the edges on both the Choc Chip and Vanilla layers and also sponge daubered in both Choc Chip and Brocade Blue around the edges of the Vanilla panel. I decided to have a play with Circle Scissors plus, I'm still learning to perfect the cuts but what fun and so easy too! So using that I made a focal point for the card. First I punched out a large star in Creamy Carmel, then sueded it, so it has a nice subtle furry texture. Then layered a little Brocade Blue star to go over the top. The final touch a little star brad. I adhered the stars onto a circle, cut from some extra Vanilla cardstock I'd already wheeled and then cut a Choc Chip hoop to go over the top of the star circle to act as a frame. Then I stamped the sentiment, punched it out and mounted it on dimensionals at the bottom of the star element. The star focal was mounted over some wide stitched Choc Chip grosgrain ribbon layered with a strip of crimped Creamy Caramel to add a little more texture.

So pretty easy but I had fun with this one and was pretty happy with how it turned out - given the stars it might just end up going my DH way again :)

Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise specified
Stamps: Classic Stars, Teeny Tiny Sentiments
Cardstock: Brocade Blue, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Creamy Caramel
Ink: Brocade Blue, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Circle Scissors Plus, Large and small star punches, Word window punch, Crimper, Sponge Daubers, 1" Double Stitched Chocolate Chip Grosgrain ribbon, Cutter Kit, Star brad (Paper Mill), Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, Double sided tape.

Mothers day Waratah

Hi there,

well this has ended up being my first set inked up from my new catty order - and I have been enjoying it. I knew I wanted to use one of the flowers (the set is in the new Australian catalogue) for my Mum's mother's day card. But was feeling a bit lost as to how to go about the layout - I was thinking circles but I didn't have my circle nesties yet (that was just remedied today - yippee - how pleased was I to received that package - thanks to Bizzy Bec for that).

Anyway back to the card - luckily enough the new Mojo Monday sketch was perfect. So here's the sketch.

I wanted to go with colours that came from our Aussie environment (earthy) but at the same time were brightish. So settled on Ruby Red and Old Olive as the main two. I first coloured my Waratah flower in with markers, - Cameo Coral, Ruby Red and added dark lights with Bravo Burgundy. Then the leaves, first with Old Olive then added accents of Always Artichoke. It was then blended and water coloured using my aquapainter. I actually did this twice - once on the base image, outlining it with Going Gray and then again for the paper toiled Waratah that is sitting up on dimensionals. In lieu of a ribbon at the bottom I crimped a strip of Ruby Red and added a large filigree brad (which I love!!) and finally stamped Mum in Basic Black straight onto the Old Olive layer. A couple of extra details - silver brads and a scalloped bottom edge and its all done. So here it is finally...

The inside was simply finished off with a strip of DSP layered over a scalloped Old Olive strip.

Recipe: (All SU unless specified)
Stamps:Bloom Away, Whimsical Alphabet Lower, Sanded
Card Stock: Ruby Red, Old Olive and water colour paper
Ink: Old Olive, Basic Black, (Cameo Coral, Ruby Red, Bravo Burgundy, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Close to Cocoa, Going Gray markers)
Accessories: Crimper, Aquapainter, large Filigree brad, silver brads, Ginger Blossom DSP, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, sticky strip

Kristina Werner Colour Challenge # 42

Hi there,

had an extra day at home this week as my little munchkin was sick so in between cuddles with him I worked on this card. I figured it had to either go the baby way or flower way, and in the end I went with flowers. I started by playing with scraps of the colours, which are lovely, see the box below.



Through a punched hole on one scrap I could see the DSP flowers below, through it - so I decided to try that as part of the design.



In the end the card came together with minimal stamping and lots of punching, and of course there was some embossing and I used crystal effects to make the centres of the little flowers and shine up the little layered ones under the buttons (and attach the buttons at the same time).

You can see the other great entries in Kristina's colour challenge here.

Recipe:
Stamps: Paisley, Lots of Thoughts
Card Stock: More Mustard, Really Rust, Whisper White, Old Olive
Ink: Old Olive, (Old Olive, More Mustard, Really Rust markers), Versamark
Accessories: Crimper, Silver Hodgepodge, Old Olive brads, Wide Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, narrow White grosgrain ribbon, Old Olive DSP, Crystal effects, Clear embossing powder, Heat gun, Earth Elements buttons, 5-petal flower punch, Spring bouquet punch, Old Olive textured flower, mat pack and piercer

Kristina Werner Colour Challenge # 38

Hi there,

well this was my first go ever at a Kristina Werner colour challenge, I have been watching everyone all over blogdom doing them and finally I took the plunge and did one. As I hadn't started my blog yet I posted this to the Eastern Blooms gallery on Splitcoaster as well as to my album there. Here are the colours Kristina chose:



Circles and flowers and Eastern Blooms were all still in my head and so I incorporated a bit of all of that into the card and I wanted to get some texture in there as well. So there are lots of little details - rock and rolling of the central flower as well as clear embossing it, cuttlebug embossing of the mount behind it and piercing of the punched circles that make up the scallops on the central element, the brads etc. I wanted it to reflect her inspiration photo as well - so that is why I went with the Petals wheel - it had quite a bit of white space in it and the flowers are actually quite similar to those seem on the notepad. Anyway here is my card and the recipe will follow.

Recipe:
Stamps: Eastern Blooms, Petals wheel, So Many Sayings
Card stock: Whisper white, Ruby Red, Pretty in Pink
Ink: Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: Mat pack and piercing tool, Large oval punch, Word window punch, 3/4" inch circle punch, Fiskars circle template and cutter, Dimensionals, Ruby Red brads, Crimper, 1/4"inch Pretty in pink grosgrain ribbon, Swiss dots cuttlebug folder