Reminder: TIME OUT Challenge # 97

Hello there!! I hope your well and had a good week. Its the 1st of December tomorrow and I can't wait for it to arrive so I can put up all my Christmas decorations and lights!!  I'm just popping in with a quick reminder about our current TIME OUT  challenge.

We have this phrase to inspire you for this challenge. You could use just one word, one part of the sentence or maybe be inspired by the whole meaning...its totally up to you!! I really love the part that talks about celebrating all that is good, as I feel that if you think good thoughts and good things about other people, they will (hopefully) treat you the same:

I think the colour 'mint' is so pretty, in whatever shade and decided to celebrate it by using just mint and white on my card.

I started off by die-cutting two different sized hearts from white CS (unfortunately the dies were purchased second hand and I don't know what company they are from...). On the smaller heart I stamped the 'good vibes' words from Neat and Tangled 'Good Vibes' stamp set. I also used the 'sending' from Neat and Tangled 'Better Together'. I stamped these using Waffle Flower Ink 'New Fish in Pond'.

I then went thru my paint chips and found different shades of mint. I used  these with the Neat and Tangled 'Medallion Flower Builder' dies and arranged and glued them behind the smaller heart. The large heart was adhered to the card front and the smaller one popped up on foam tape. And of course I had to add some clear sequins from Neat and Tangled as well.

I'm going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Anything Goes'.

 

You have until Wednesday 6th December to link your projects to the TIME OUT  challenge and if your needing any ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our amazing Guest Designer Izzy of Izzy Scrap have designed for you. Can't wait to see you in the Gallery!!

Take care
Shona
 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - Snowflake Inspiration

Hi there everyone, I hope you've had or are having a fantastic weekend. And for all of you in the U.S. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends. And I'm looking forward to seeing all your shopping hauls from your Black Friday spending!!

I'm up on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog today with some 'Snowflake' inspired cards:

I started out making one card but it turned into two, so that's a bonus for my Christmas card stash!!

For this first card I cut a panel of white CS slightly smaller than my card front and die-cut the snowflake from Funky Flakes Fri-Dies across the panel. I then decided that it needed some colour so I used my mini-blending tool and Distress Ink 'Picked Raspberry' to colour it. I added lots of foam tape to the back and put on the card front. 

The sentiment from Noel Fri-Dies was die-cut from silver CS and glued to some white CS which I then fussy cut and popped on foam tape. To finish off I glued on some sequins from the Sistahood Sparkle Sequin Mix.

When I was blending the die-cut panel for the first card, I had some white paper underneath and when I lifted it up it had left behind the coolest pink stencil snowflakes, so that inspired this card!!

I cut a panel of white CS slightly smaller than the card front and before I put the first card together, I put the die-cut snowflake panel over top and blended the same Distress Ink over top. I popped the panel up on foam tape over the card front, die-cut another word from the Noel Fri-Dies with silver CS, glued it on to some white CS and fussy cut it out. This was put on foam tape along with some more of the same sequins. Nothing better than a 'two for one' deal!!

All of the products I used for these cards are actually on sale at the moment. And using my special Girl Friday Code you can save yourself another 15% on top of that!!!

I hope this has given you some ideas to try with your Christmas cards. Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you again next month on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog!!

Take care
Shona
 

Honey I Shrunk the Kit - November 2017

I can't believe its time again for another Honey I Shrunk the Kit!! Feels like I just made the last ones, has this year flown by for you too??

Basically we are five crafty girls from the UK, New Zealand and Australia and every two months one of us makes up a kit of card making goodies that will fit in an envelope and sends it out to us. We then have time to create as many cards as we like and all post on our blogs at the same time to see what we all made with the same products. Its so much fun and hard to believe we started doing this back in April 2015!!!!!

This 'Sugar Fix' kit was created by the fabulous Sarah P of Sazzle Dazzle Crafts. The envelope was bursting with goodies as you can see by the photo:

It included:

 

Stamps:
Reverse Confetti: Donut You Know (plus donut die)
Neat & Tangled: Say Yes to Donuts
Avery Elle: Pick N Mix (plus dies)
Mama Elephant: Carnival Cupcakes (plus dies)
Other Dies:
L’il Inker: Smile
Mama Elephant: Columbus Circle
Neat & Tangled: Hooray word dies
Other Items:
Hobbycraft Basics: patterned paper
Action Wobbler
Doodlebug: bakers twine
Anita’s: half cut pearls

I was most excited about the action wobbler as have never tried one of those before and the blue/pink colour combo was delicious!!

For my first card I used a MFT die (from Blueprints 27) to die-cut the background paper and adhere to the card front. I also glued on the circle die-cut. I coloured the bear and cupcake with pencils and popped them up on foam tape, using the pink pearls for sprinkles.  I cut out the sentiment, put it on foam tape and tied the pink/white twine around it into a bow at the top. Its so cute!!

For my second card I was lucky enough to have the Neat and Tangled 'Say Yes to Donuts' set and coloured the girl from the kit and two others with pencils. I painted the 'hooray' word die using Kuretake Gansai Tambi 'Pearl Colors' in Pink. The background of the word die was covered all over with Versamark ink and heat embossed with my new Altenew 'Golden Peach' Metallic embossing powder. I glued the word in place, adhered the kids to the back and put it all on foam tape. I cut out the sentiment, put that on foam tape too and added some sequins from Neat and Tangled.

For my third card I used an oval die from Studio Katia to cut out the background paper and adhered to the card front. I coloured all the lollies with pencils, glued them on top of the bag and put it on foam tape, adding a twine bow around the top. The 'smile' die-cut was coloured again with the same pink pearl color and glued in place. I cut out the sentiment, tucked it under the bag with foam tape to support it and glued on some of the pearls.

For my final card I just had to use the action wobbler!! I adhered the paper to the whole of the card front and glued the white die-cut piece (from inside the circle die) in place. The donut boy was coloured with pencils, fussy cut out and put on the wobbler. I cut out the sentiment, put it on foam tape and tied the blue/white twine around it. And I finished off with some blue and grey pearls from the kit. I don't often make cards for boys so this is a bonus!!

Thank you so much Sarah for a most incredible kit, I could have carried on creating, it had so much included!!

Now you've seen what I made, you (and I) can pop over to see what the other girls made:

Sarah G - Funky Fossil Designs 

Sandie - London Days 

Anita - Neet and Crafty 

Hazel - Hazels Paper Designs 

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope your having a fantastic weekend too!!

Take care
Shona
 

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge

Its been another whirlwind of a weekend. Luckily the kids have a 'Teachers Only Day' tomorrow so I've got an extra day to catch up with myself. I desperately need to work out how many Christmas cards I have and how many more I need to make before I run out of time. There is so much to do in the next five weeks, its mind boggling!!

Earlier this week I had a chance to play with a new stamp set from Neat and Tangled 'Get Yeti' and I thought the sweet Yeti would be perfect to create a card for the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Furry Friends':

There is so much glittery shimmer on this card but I couldn't capture it with my camera. I need to work out how to do that as it really makes the card shine!!

I don't create card 'scenes' very often as I don't think I'm very good at it but practice makes perfect right??  I started off by stamping the images on some white CS, colouring with pencils and then fussy cutting out. I used two stitched-curve/hill dies (I purchased them second-hand and don't know what company they are from I'm afraid...) to cut two panels of white CS, one shorter than the other. Once I knew where they would sit on the card I used my mini-distress tool and Distress Ink 'Salty Ocean' to colour the card front for the sky. I then adhered the snowy hills over top.

The mountains were tucked behind the hill, the log cabin glued in place and the snowman and yeti put on foam tape. I heat embossed the sentiment in silver and put that on foam tape as well. And of course I added some Neat and Tangled sequins for more shine.

When I photographed the card I realised that it was looking very 'blah', so I covered the body of the snowman in Wink of Stella and also along the stitched lines of the hills. I used Nuvo Crystal Drops in White to add dimension to the snow on the mountains and the snowman's hat. Once that had dried I added Wink of Stella on top of it as well. For the sky I very carefully put droplets of water from a tiny brush on to it and dabbed with a tissue to make it look like it was snowing....much better!!

Since I don't have to go to bed too early tonight I must attack my Christmas card list and also work out how many cookies I need to make to deliver to friends etc. I also need to work out when I have time to make a few hundred cookies.....it was all so much easier when I wasn't working!!

Take care
Shona
 

 

AAA Card Challenge # 103

Its finally Friday afternoon....yippee!! I'm so ready for the weekend as its been a very busy week gardening. Spring weather is fabulous but boy do the weeds and hedges enjoy it a bit too much, spent today trimming huge hedges for 5.5 hrs!! Was a lovely hot day though so I can't complain.

The current theme at the AAA Card Challenge is 'Celebrate'. I managed to squeeze in some card time this week and play around again with the my new Neat and Tangled 'Falling Circles Cover Plate', using it slightly differently again:

Its not very often I make more than one card at a time but I had all my paint chips out so I couldn't help myself!!

These cards were definitely time consuming but I'm really happy with the final result!

Firstly I grabbed some big square paint chips in two tones of blue and pink and die-cut them with the cover plate. I also cut two panels of white and black CS and die-cut them with the cover plate as well. I put the two paint chips together with one slightly higher. I then did the same with the white panel and then the black panel, using double-sided tape to keep them together. I then finished them off with a panel of black CS behind. This was then adhered to the card front.

Next I die-cut the Neat and Tangled 'Celebrate' die from a similar blue and pink paint chip and the back part of the die in white CS. These were glued together and then put on foam tape. I stamped sentiments from Neat and Tangled 'Say yes to Donuts' on strips of white CS, popped on foam tape and also glued on some Neat and Tangled sequins to co-ordinate.

Love the hint of colours with the circles and the black on top really pops against the white!

Dave will be home from work soon so I better prepare myself to take Bella for a walk. Since its Friday we will probably have pizza for tea. I so don't have the energy to whip up a meal, so I'm very grateful to Pizza Hut!!

Take care
Shona
 

 

Reminder: Time Out Challenge # 96

Hello there!! Warm weather has finally returned here today and its been glorious gardening in the hot sun. It definitely gives me a bit of a skip in my step as I love when its warm and Summery!!

I wanted to remind you all about our current TIME OUT  challenge where we have this fantastic CAS designed card for you to CASE. It was created by one of my favourite people in blogland, Michele of I Card Everyone!! She is as sweet as can be and is a fellow horror movie fan, so of course I love her to bits!!

CASE stands for 'Copy and Share Everyone' and basically means your inspired by that card. You could copy it 100% or go with the colours, maybe use flowers on your card.....its totally up to you!!

This challenge is Sponsored by Happy Little Stampers and they are giving a $15 gift voucher to the winner!!

I love everything about Michele's card, especially the die-cutting so definitely had to incorporate that into my card:

I don't think I've ever created a card without the sentiment being straight across, so this was a nice change of pace!

I started by cutting a panel of white CS and put a strip of washi tape from corner to corner. Using Distress Ink 'Picked Raspberry' and a mini-blending tool I made half of the panel as pink as I could. With the washi tape still on I grabbed a background stamp by My Favourite Things 'Floral Fantasy', inked it up with Hero Arts 'Bubblegum' ink and stamped it over the pink area.

After drying the panel with my heat gun I die-cut the My Favourite Things 'Hello' right across the middle of the card, along with two more from white CS. I adhered a piece of white CS behind the die-cut area and inlaid two white 'hello' die-cuts on top of each other and then the pink one on top. The rest of the sentiment (from MFT 'Beary Special Birthday') was simply stamped in black on a strip of white CS and adhered under the die-cut. All I had to do then was stick the panel on the card front and add some pink and clear sequins from Neat and Tangled.

You have until Wednesday 22nd November to link your project to the TIME OUT challenge. And if you don't have any ideas or need help with CASEing, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our absolutely spectacular Guest Designer Bobby of Bits and Pieces have created for you. Can't wait to see you in the Gallery!!

Take care
Shona
 

Reminder: The Flower Challenge # 14

Hi there, so glad you stopped by and it gives me a chance to remind you about our current challenge theme at The Flower Challenge.

Its all about 'Clean and Simple' this month which is always my favourite type of card to make. There are lots of different ideas about what makes a project CAS. To me its about lots of space, one central image and not too many embellishments etc. There are already lots of entries with amazing CAS designs and if you haven't joined us yet, I hope you get the chance to do so!

For my reminder card I really wanted to use a new die-set I had purchased and to try a non-white card front for a change:

I've wanted this Altenew 'Fantasy Floral Die' for so long, so it was wonderful finally having a chance to play with it. I didn't want to have too much colour on my card and came up with the idea to use some heat embossing and vellum to add a hint of colour and texture.

I started by cutting a panel of black CS and adhering it to the white card base. The flower die comes in three parts, I die cut the top and bottom layer from white CS and the middle layer from plain vellum. I actually tried putting just the edges of the bottom flower layer into my Versamark ink pad and heat embossing around the edge in gold but it didn't look right. So I decided to press the whole piece into the Versamark ink and embossed the whole piece in gold.

The leaves were die-cut from white CS and adhered in place on the card front. I put the flower together with some glue and double-sided tape and put over the leaves on foam tape. The sentiment (from Altenew 'Build-a-flower: Anemone' was stamped and heat embossed in white on the card front and a few clear sequins glued on from Neat and Tangled.

You have until Saturday 25th November to link your projects to The Flower Challenge and if your struggling with the CAS idea, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created to give you some inspiration. Can't wait to see what you come up with in the Gallery!!

Take care
Shona
 

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge

Its been a busy day today in my gardening world. I spent 5 hours today trimming hedges and I'm sure they are sprouting back as I cut them!! It wasn't a warm day and tonight is so cold I've just put hot water bottles in the kids beds and put my electric blanket on. Spring is always a fickle time for weather!!

Over the weekend I managed to sneak in a bit of colouring and play-time with some new Neat and Tangled goodies:

When I received the N&T 'Falling Circles Cover Plate' I immediately had the idea to try die-cutting it twice, once from the top of a panel and then from the bottom. Some of the circles over-lap slightly but I absolutely love how it covers the whole piece!!

I started by stamping the llama and present from N&T 'Fa La Llama' on some white CS and colouring with my pencils. I fussy cut them out and added foam tape to the back of each.

After die-cutting the white CS panel with the circle cover-plate, I really wanted to have something glittery behind it. I found some iridescent mirror paper I had completely forgotten about and glued it behind the circles. 

The circle panel was adhered to the card front and the llama and present popped in place. I kept the sentiment simple by stamping in black ink on strips of white CS and putting them on foam tape too. And for a bit more sparkle I added some N&T sequins. The cool part was when I went to photograph this card. It doesn't look this 'rainbowy' in person but the camera catches all the colour changes with the mirror paper. It looks more amazing than I thought it would!!

I'm linking this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Snow White'.

I'm sneaking off to bed now (its 9pm) as my body is so sore and I have lots of magazines to catch up on. I actually had another card to pop on my blog tonight but when I looked at the photos I decided that something is missing, so will have to give it some 'bling' tomorrow some how. Wink of Stella to the rescue I feel!!

Take care
Shona
 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - Autumn Card

Hi there everyone! Hope you've finally made it to the weekend and have lots of relaxation and crafting time planned. Max is celebrating his birthday with two of his friends here for a sleepover and Phoebe has her friend Ella too. Its pretty noisy here but they are all such great kids, its fun to have them around.

I'm up on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog today with a Autumn-inspired card. Its actually Spring-time for us here in New Zealand so its hard to imagine all the Autumn colours but had lots of fun using a new to me stamp and matching die set:

I grabbed some of my warm-coloured Distress Inks first because I knew I wanted to create some blending for a warm background. I cut a panel of watercolour CS and used my mini-blending tool to blend 'Spiced Marmalade', 'Mustard Seed', 'Barn Door' and 'Gathered Twigs'. Once I was happy with the colours I sprayed it with Imagine Crafts Sheer Shimmer Sparkle Spritz, doing it close up so there were lots of blobs of liquid. I gently dabbed them with tissue to remove the colour and dried with my heat gun. This was then adhered to the card front.

I cut a panel of white CS the same size as my card front and die-cut the second-largest die from the Bubble Box Fri-Dies set. After adding lots of foam tape to the back of it I popped it over the blended panel to create a frame.

For the sentiment I cut a circle of white CS using a die from the Ornament Tag Fri-Dies set and heat embossed the sentiment in gold from Autumn Blessings. To add a bit of interest I die-cut some leaves using the Acorn Fri-Dies from different brown shades of paint chips. I adhered them to the back of the circle and then to the card front. And for a bit more bling I added some orange and gold sequins from Neat and Tangled.

I hope I've given you some inspiration for your Autumn cards and if your interested in purchasing these products from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps don't forget to use my Girl Friday code to save yourself 15%!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you have lots of sunshine for the rest of your weekend!!

Take care
Shona
 

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps - November Release

Hello there and welcome to a very special November Release at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!! We have two new sets to show you today, one that everyone has been asking for and another that Michele couldn't wait to show you!!

Introducing Sugar Plum Fairy:

The extremely popular floral ballerina's have been given a Christmas theme, with a snowflake tutu and tiara. I've always loved the snowflake tree and the 'Night Before Christmas' worded Christmas tree is genius!!

And also introducing Ballerina Fri-Dies: 

So many people have asked for these dies that Michele just had to create them!! No more fiddly fussy-cutting for the ballerina cuties!!

For my card I wanted to try using the snowflake tree image in a different way, it was a bit of a risk but I'm really happy with the final design:

 
Silver, blue and white....my favourite Christmas card colour combo!! This took a bit of time to blend and heat emboss but was so worth it!

I started by cutting a panel of watercolour CS the same size as the card front. Then using my MISTI, I stamped and heat embossed the snowflake tree along both top and bottom of the panel, using silver embossing powder. Using a mini-blending tool I started at the bottom of the trees with Distress Inks 'Salty Ocean', then 'Mermaid Lagoon' and finishing with 'Peacock Feathers', blending only around the tree itself. Once the trees were finished I used 'Salty Ocean' again and very gently blended over the areas between the trees.

After drying the panel with a heat gun, I die-cut the ballerina from the middle. I put the tree panel over the top of the card front so I could stamp the Sugar Plum Fairy in the middle of the die-cut area and then heat emboss it with silver powder. The panel was then popped up using foam tape. I also silver heat embossed the sentiment on a strip of white CS and put that on foam tape as well, along with some blue and clear sequins from Neat and Tangled.

These two new sets are available today and would be so perfect for your Christmas cards. If your planning on purchasing them or any other CAS-ual Fridays Stamps products, don't forget to use my special Girl Friday code to save yourself 15%!!

I'm going to link this card to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge as their theme is 'Snow White' and my card is covered in snowflakes!!

 

I hope you love these new sets as much as I do and don't forget to pop over to the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Blog to see what the rest of the Girl Fridays have created with these new goodies!!

Take care
Shona
 

The Flower Challenge # 14

Hi there everyone!! Unfortunately we didn't have a very good start to the weekend. Max started coming down with another cold on Friday night which then turned into severe vomiting from 1am Saturday morning till around 3.30pm when he finally fell asleep. He's so exhausted but thank goodness he's no longer feeling nauseous. The horrible part is that we had the school Gala on Saturday and he was to perform with the Maori Kapa Haka school group. He missed everything and was very upset. Dave took Phoebe though and she managed to win him some chocolate, so that made him feel a bit better and gave him something to look forward too Its his 11th birthday on Monday so fingers crossed he is better by then!!

So, without further ado here is the theme for this month at The Flower Challenge is:

That's right, its 'Clean and Simple', which makes me extremely happy as I love a good, clean card. There are many ideas about what makes a 'CAS' design. For me its about a central focus point surrounded by lots of clean space, and not layer up on layer of cardstock and embellishments. I can't wait to see your interpretation of CAS!!

I was desperate to use a floral stamp set I purchased a while ago and hadn't used, so couldn't wait to get it all inky:

I'll be honest, I was so happy with this design when I photographed it and linked it up to the challenge post. However, the more and more I thought about it, the more I decided I had really pushed the 'CAS' design of this card. Unfortunately I was too late to create another card but totally understand if you don't agree that its 100% CAS.

I started by stamping the flower and leaves from Altenew 'Build-a-Flower: Anemone' using Altenew cube inks. I then fussy cut them out and put them to the side. I was going to create a Distress Ink background but felt like some 'out of control' ink smooshing for a change. So I grabbed Distress Ink 'Mowed Lawn' and a stamp block. I spread the ink on the block, sprayed it with water and then pressed it down on the card front. To get the coverage and different gradients of ink colour I did it a few times.

Once the card had dried I adhered the leaves in place and then the flower on some foam tape for dimension. The sentiment (from the same stamp set) was stamped on the card front and some co-ordinating sequins added for shine from Neat and Tangled. I also added some Wink of Stella to the middle of the flower and along the veins of the leaves for extra sparkle.

You have until Saturday 25th November to link your projects to The Flower Challenge and if your trying to get your head around 'Clean and Simple', pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team have created for you. Your sure to get inspired!! I can't wait to see what you come up with and I'll be back on the 15th with a very CAS card for you!

Take care
Shona
 

25 Day of Christmas Tags 2017 - Day 3 - CAS-ual Fridays Stamps

I can't believe its already November, the time is zooming by this year. But it also means its time again for Tracey McNeely's 25 Days of Christmas Tags 2017!!

Tracey has once again organised 25 Days of Christmas tags created by different companies, who are also giving away prizes. You have the chance to win by linking your own tag here.

Myself and my other 'Girl Friday' team-mates are sharing tags today using products from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps, who are also offering a prize along with the many other companies.

I quite often use 'non-traditional' colours for my Christmas cards but decided to embrace red and green for my tag design:

My Tag Buddies Fri-Die was die-cut from watercolour CS as I was going to use Distress Inks. However I decided to create a subtle background instead by stamping and heat embossing the Starlequin border stamp twice across the tag in white. I then stamped the mistletoe from Mistletoe & Holly on watercolour CS and heat embossed in gold. I coloured it with Zig Real Color Markers, fussy cut it out and then popped on foam tape.

The sentiment (also from the Mistletoe and Holly stamp set) was simply stamped in black ink on white CS, fussy cut out and put on foam tape as well. I finished the tag off with some gold thread tied into a bow.

For all the details regarding the 25 Day of Christmas Tags click here and don't forget to check out Tracey's blog each day to see amazing inspiration from each company. 

Take care
Shona

 

Little Tangles Challenge # 86

Hi there and welcome to another month at the Little Tangles Challenge!!! You guys totally rocked the Sketch challenge last month and this months theme is going to cause the Gallery to explode with talent, I can see it now!!

That's right, its everyone's favourite 'Colouring'!!!!! There are so many ways to colour a card these days. Copics, pencils, watercolour, distress inks etc....the possibilities are endless and I know some of our regular challenge entrants are masters of colouring, so I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!!

I haven't had this happen for a while but my mojo has taken a bit of a hit lately. Everything I tried to make was a disaster and I was hoping to have some new Neat and Tangled products to use from the October release but they have been stuck in Auckland, New Zealand for over two weeks with Customs. So all a bit of a bummer. However, I took my son Max to the skatepark the other day and stamped out a whole lot of images to colour. After doing that for two hours I was ready to make a card:

 
I'm a bit embarassed because my colouring is no where near as good as my Little Tangles team-mates. However I recently looked back at some of my coloured cards from a few years ago and the difference is incredible (in a good way) so there is hope for me yet!!

I started by stamping out the Floral Heart and little reindeer (from Santa's Wonderland) in black on white CS. Once I had finished colouring them with pencils I fussy cut the reindeer and used the matching Floral Heart Die. The Floral Heart image is so versatile and using the red and green colours really gives it a 'christmassy' feel. I also (for the first time....) had a go at adding some white highlights on the leaves etc with a white gel pen. It really does make a difference!!

To ground the images on the card front, I used my mini-blending tool and Distress Ink 'Mowed Lawn' to colour the background. I added foam tape to the back of the heart and then doubled the foam tape for the reindeer so he sat up even higher. I wanted the colouring to be the star of the card so I simply stamped the sentiment (also from Santa's Wonderland) with black ink on the card front and added some red, green and gold sequins for shine. I also added some Nuvo Crystal Drops in White to the snowballs for a bit of shine and dimension.

You have until Thursday 30th November to link your projects to the Little Tangles challenge and definitely check out my team-mates cards on the blog,  lots of inspiration to be seen there!! I'm so excited to see all your entries, the Gallery is going to look incredible!

Take care
Shona
 

Reminder: TIME OUT Challenge # 95

Hi there everyone!! Its been a very warm week here and I even got my first sunburn of the season yesterday, which seems a bit early for the beginning of November but I will take sun whenever I can get it!!

I'm just wanting to remind you about our current challenge at TIME OUT.  We have a challenge with a twist for you:


                    SYMPATHY with optional twist of Distressing

The 'Distressing' could be the use of Distress Inks, distressing the papers i.e. ripping, sanding etc or maybe distressing over your design!! Its totally up to you!

The Sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers and they are giving the winner of this challenge a $15 gift voucher to their store!!

For my card I really wanted to concentrate on Distress Inks and create some rich, blended colours. I also wanted to keep it super simple as I hardly ever make Sympathy cards and find them incredibly difficult to do:

I started by cutting a panel of watercolour CS and heat embossing this floral image from Altenew 'Blooming Bouquet' in white. I then grabbed my Distress Inks 'Peacock Feathers', 'Mermaid Lagoon' and 'Salty Ocean' and used my mini-blending tool to add them to the panel, going over and over the colours to make them super saturated.

Once I was happy with the colours, I used a waffle-edged frame die from My Favourite Things 'Blueprints 27' and then adhered to the card front. I wanted to keep the sentiment very simple, so stamped 'with sympathy' from Simon Says Stamp 'Flower Friend' with black ink on a strip of white CS and popped on foam tape. And added some clear sequins for some subtle shine from Neat and Tangled.


You have until Wednesday 8th November to link your projects to the TIME OUT  challenge and if your needing any help with design ideas, pop over to the blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our fabulous Guest Designer Sue from Sue's Card Craft have created for you. Look forward to seeing your cards in the Gallery!!

Take care
Shona