Krafty Chicks challenge #751 - CAS

Good morning lovely friends. I hope you're all doing ok and having a great week so far. It's time for a new challenge over at Krafty Chicks challenge and this week we are on Week 3; as always the theme is 'CAS' (clean and simple) and Diane is our hostess.  Everyone interprets CAS very differently but as long as there is some 'white' space and not too many embellishments you're all good.  We hope you will come over and join in the fun with us.

I wanted to make a thank you card for our kitchen fitter and feel that most men prefer clean and simple cards (in my family they do anyway) so this was perfect timing for me.  I went with a large sentiment over some card strips for a bold card.  I hope you like it. 

Here is my card:

A close up look at the sentiment:

Plus I decorated the inside:

I began by die cutting the large thank you sentiment from black shimmer card 4 x times and adhered them together with liquid glue.  I cut 7 strips of coloured card in rainbow order and adhered them to some thin copy paper using double sided tape so that they could be attached to my card panel in one piece.  I cut my white panel 4" x 5 1/4" and added the rainbow strips with double sided tape into the centre.  I added the large sentiment die cut with a mix of liquid glue (to the middle section) and some thin foam squares (to the top and bottom) so that it would all be on the same level.  I used a die to cut the tiny circles from the same black card and added them with liquid glue.  I didn't add anything else as I liked it the way it was.  For the inside I cut another white panel 4" x 5 1/4" and another rainbow of strips and adhered them to the bottom with double sided tape.  I stamped the simple sentiment in the upper centre with black ink and finished off with a few more die cut circles.  The panel was added to the card base with double sided tape.  A bright and cheerful card but perfectly CAS I think.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

* to be updated *

I hope you will be able to join us for our 'CAS' challenge and I cannot wait to see your creations in our linky. Please leave some love for my fellow chicks - Leanne, Diane and Lori. 

Thank you so much for stopping by; I appreciate your lovely comments. 

Love and hugs,

card ingredients:

Lawn Fawn - giant thanks so much die

Gina K Designs - lots of dots die set

Clearly Besotted - sugar and spice clear stamp (for inside sentiment) - retired

All card from my scraps bin 

Versafine - onyx black ink pad

Seize the Birthday challenge - guest designer

Hello friends, I hope you're having a great day. I was lucky enough to win a recent challenge so I am guest designing (or the surprise guest as they call it) for the Seize the Birthday challenge.

The theme for this challenge is 'use something new'

What a great theme for the start of the year; I'm sure we all have new craft supplies sitting on our desk from Christmas or even before waiting to be used.  I had last month's Gina K Designs kit sitting on my desk which has been neglected due to me being ill so I thought it was high time to get it out and show it some love.  I hope you like my card. 

Here is my card:

A close up of the image (also shows the shimmer pen I used):

Plus I decorated the inside:

I began by stamping the images with memento ink onto white card and used the coordinating stencils to colour them in.  I used the matching dies to cut them out.  I cut a white panel 4" x 5 1/4" and using the thick brush stencil lightly stencilled in the lower left corner using a light grey ink.  I stamped and die cut the sentiments and also cut an extra plain die cut so that I could double them up for some dimension.  I added foam squares behind the flowers and arranged them in the lower left corner.  I also added some extra leaves with liquid glue.  The sentiments were also added with liquid glue as they were already 2 layers thick.  I finished with a few black pearls and some shimmer pen on the flowers.  I noticed I had slightly damaged the right corner of my panel so decided to cut it down ever so slightly and the finished panel size is 3 7/8" x 5 1/8".  I added the panel onto my card base with foam tape.  For the inside I cut another white panel 4" x 5 1/4' and stencilled along the very bottom with the thick brush stencil.  I had some flowers and leaves left over so added them to the left corner with liquid glue.  I stamped a sentiment in the upper centre with black ink and added the panel to my card base with double sided tape.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps & More challenge - birthdays

Cardz 4 Galz challenge - use stencils

Christmas (or not) BINGO challenge - line I - layers, free, stamped images

Colourful Options challenge - yellow, purple or green

Craft Rocket challenge - something new (I used a new card kit)

Daisy Chain challenge - no design paper

Group of Seven Cardmakers challenge - ombre (my flowers are ombre)

Halloween & Other Occasions challenge - always birthday

Scrapping4Fun challenge - ATG optional hello/winter

Sweet Stampin' challenge - new (new stash)

The Paper Funday challenge - ATG option monochrome

Triple B challenge - birds, blooms or butterflies

Unicorn challenge - birthday

I would like to thank Nancy and all the Team at Seize the Birthday for inviting me to be a guest for this fun challenge and I hope you will pop over and leave them some love.  I'm sure most of you had some new goodies for Christmas so join in the fun. 

Enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for stopping by.

Love and hugs, 

card ingredients:

Gina K Designs - delicate dahlias stamp & die bundle

Gina K Designs - delicate dahlias coordinating stencil

Gina K Designs - thick brush stencil

Gina K Designs - ink pads - medium lilac, dark lilac, jelly bean green, fresh asparagus, soft stone

Gina K Designs - so many sentiments (for inside sentiment)

Gina K Designs - black, gold and silver pearl mix

Limetree Crafts - 250gsm silky smooth white card (currently not available but this 250gsm smooth white card is an alternative in stock here)

Versafine - onyx black ink pad

Memento - tuxedo black ink pad

Tonic Studios - aqua shimmer pen glitter gloss

Krafty Chicks challenge #750 - Christmas

Good morning lovely friends. I hope you're all doing ok and having a great week so far. It's time for a new challenge over at Krafty Chicks challenge and this week we are on Week 2; as always the theme is 'Christmas' and I am your hostess. We want you to see all your festive creations this week and even if you are sick of making Christmas cards just remember your future self will be thanking you in December when you have lots of cards already made. We hope you will come over and join in the fun with us.

I actually made this card for my Sister-in-law and her family and I have to say I really love it.  I don't brag on my cards very often but I am definitely going to make more of these cards this year (I'm a sucker for a good wreath) and apart from a bit of die cutting it was really easy to make.  I hope you like it too.

Here is my card:

A closer look at the wreath:

Plus I decorated the inside:

As my card was for family I made my usual 5" x 7" card size.  I cut a white panel 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" and matted it onto gold glitter card with double sided tape.  I found the embossed panel on my desk, which was left over from another project, and thought it was perfect as a background for my wreath.  I matted this onto gold glitter card too with double sided tape.  I die cut the wreath from 3 different shades of green card that I grabbed from my scraps bin and adhered them together with dots of liquid glue.  I also added it onto the embossed panel with liquid glue.  I cut the bow from red card and added that to the top of my bow with a tiny foam square; I also added a red pearl to the centre.  For some extra decoration on my bow I die cut some tiny circles from red and gold glitter card and added them with liquid glue.  I stamped the sentiment in red ink and used the matching die to cut it out and also cut some plain die cuts so that I could stack the sentiment for some extra dimension.  I added that to panel with liquid glue.  I also stamped a sub-sentiment in black ink and used the sentiment strip die to cut it out.  I adhered that with foam squares.  The embossed panel was added to my larger white panel with foam tape and then this was added onto the card base with double sided tape.  For the inside I cut a white panel 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" and again matted it onto gold glitter card with double sided tape.  I die cut some extra wreaths from the same 3 green card and adhered it to the lower left corner with liquid glue, trimming off the excess.  I die cut another bow and some extra circle decorations and added them with liquid glue.  I stamped the sentiment in the centre of the panel with black ink.  The panel was then adhered to my card base with double sided tape.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

ABC Christmas challenge - A for anything Christmas

Allsorts challenge - matching pairs (I decorated the inside to match the front)

Christmas (or not) BINGO challenge - line G - red, free, die cuts

Crafty Calendar challenge - add a die cut (3rd entry)

Creative Inspirations challenge - something old or something new (my wreath dies are really old)

Daisy Chain challenge - no design paper

Everybody Art challenge - alphabet W (wreath)

If You Give A Crafter A Cookie challenge - anything goes

Little Red Wagon challenge - piece (and long life) - I pieced my wreath together 

Merry Little Christmas challenge - anything Christmas goes

Peace on Earth challenge - anything Christmas themed

I hope you will be able to join us for our 'Christmas' challenge and I cannot wait to see your creations in our linky. Please leave some love for my fellow chicks - Leanne, Diane and Lori.

Thank you so much for stopping by; I appreciate your lovely comments.  I'll be back later this afternoon with another card for you so hopefully you will stop by and check it out.  

Love and hugs,

card ingredients:

MFT - winter wreath (retired)

Gina K Designs - holiday floral stamp & die (for outside greeting)

Gina K Designs - blizzard stamp set (for sub-sentiment)

SSS/Gina K Designs - sparkling season stamptember 22 stamp set (retired)

Gina K Designs - lots of dots die set (for circles on the wreath)

Gina K Designs - sentiment strips dies

Gina K Designs - red hot ink pad

Gina K Designs - rainbow pearl mix (for red pearl)

Spellbinders - circle illusion 3D embossing folder

Tonic Studios - gold dust 250gsm glitter card

Limetree Crafts - 250gsm silky smooth white card (currently not available but this 250gsm smooth white card is an alternative in stock here)

red and green card from my scraps bin

Versafine - onyx black ink pad

AAA Birthday challenge #69 - winter birthday

Hello again friends; I'm sharing my card (although I'm almost a week late) for this month's AAA Birthday challenge.  I have been very sick since Christmas, as has most of the family, and I'm only now starting to feel better.  My main priority for the last week has been keeping the animals alive, everything else has gone on the back burner lol!  I'm still not running at 100% but hopefully things will start to get back to a normal routine now.   As always you must create a birthday themed project and this month it's all about 'winter birthdays'.  Our guest designer this month is the lovely Colien so please pop over to her blog and leave her some love.

I decided to create a clean and simple winter birthday card featuring an adorable penguin image from Gina K Designs.  I hope you like it.

Here is my card:

A closer look at the image:

Plus I decorated the inside:

I began by cutting my white panel to 4" x 5 1/4" and lightly ink blended some sea glass ink into the bottom left corner and using the same ink I stamped some tiny snowflakes randomly.  I stamped the cute image onto alcohol marker friendly card and coloured him with Promarkers and used the matching die to cut him out.  I also stamped and coloured two mugs from the same set, and also die cut them out.  I stamped the sentiment in black ink onto a piece of white card and die cut it out with a sentiment strip die.  I added the sentiment with liquid glue at the bottom of the panel and after adding foam squares to the penguin, added him above as if he was standing on the sentiment.  I also added foam squares to the mug and placed it so that it looked like the penguin was holding it.  The panel was added to my card base with foam tape.  For the inside I cut another white panel and ink blended along the bottom and again stamped some snowflakes.  I stamped the sentiment in the centre using black ink and added the second mug to the bottom left with liquid glue.  The panel was added to the case base with double sided tape.  A really cute card and perfect for the icy, cold weather we're currently experiencing.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Addicted to CAS challenge - brrr

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge - birthdays

Crafty Animals challenge - ATG must include an animal

Crafty Calendar challenge - add a die cut (entry 2)

Critter Crazy challenge - ATG with a featured critter

Daisy Chain challenge - no design paper

Double D challenge - 9th birthday/anniversary challenge

Halloween & Other Occasions challenge - always birthday

I Love Promarkers challenge - ATG or use the sketch

Make My Monday challenge - your fave challenge of 2024 - #240 a CAS winter card

Simply Clean and Simple challenge - anything CAS goes option something new

Stamping Sensations challenge - ATG optional hand coloured image (entry 2)

The Male Room challenge - clean and simple (entry 2)

Triple B challenge - birds, blooms or butterflies

We Love Stamping challenge - anything but square (entry 2) 

The Design Team have created amazing cards as always so please pop over to the blog and check them out and perhaps leave them some love on their personal blogs.   

I hope you will be able to join in with the challenge this month but don't forget it has to be birthday themed.  I can't wait to see your creations in the linky.

Have a great day. 

Love and hugs, 

card ingredients:

Gina K Designs - playful penguins stamp & die

Gina K Designs - hygge time (for both sentiments)

Gina K Designs - Christmas cheer stamp set (for snowflake)

Gina K Designs - sentiment strips dies 

Gina K Designs - sea glass ink pad

Promarkers

Limetree Crafts - 250gsm silky smooth white card (currently not available but this 250gsm smooth white card is an alternative in stock here)

Sakura - white no. 10 gelly roll pen

AAA Cards challenge - guest designer

Good morning lovely friends.  Well can you believe we are in 2025; the time is just whizzing by isn't it?  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year celebrations.  We had a quiet one as always, but that's just the way we like it.  

I'm here today to share a card I made for the new AAA Cards challenge.  I won a challenge back in October last year and was invited to be a guest designer, which I immediately accepted.  Their challenges are always 'anything CAS goes' but there is an optional theme, which this time is 'flies in the air'.  

I had a dig through my stash and found this kite themed stamp & die set which I thought would be perfect for this challenge, although you could have birds, planes, balloons, spaceships etc.  This stamp/die combo is retired now but I don't think I've ever used it.  I am determined this year to try and not spend so much on new stuff when there are so many things in my stash that I haven't touched. Not sure how achievable this will be though.  Do you have any crafty resolutions this year?

Here is my card:

A close look at the kite:

Plus I decorated the inside:

I began by stamping 2 kites onto alcohol marker friendly card and coloured them with Promarkers; I also added some white highlights (I thought the dotty one was a bit busy so kept that one for the inside of my card).  I took a white panel and cut it to 4" x 5 1/4" and using my cloud stencil created a background for my kite.  I thought it was too much (as don't forget it's supposed to be a CAS challenge so cut down to 3 7/8" x 3" and adhered it onto another white panel cut to 3 7/8" x 5 1/8" with double side tape.  I did edge the cloud panel with 2 black card strips which were cut to 3 7/8' x 1/8" and these were added with liquid glue.  I stamped the string of the kite with black ink and added the kite over the end with foam squares.  I also cut 3 of the bows from white card and added them along the string with liquid glue.  I stamped the sentiment in the left lower section of the cloud panel using black ink.  The panel was then added to the card base with foam tape.  For the inside I used the same size white panel and added a strip of the cloud background to the bottom with double sided tape and another strip of black card above it with liquid glue.  I stamped the sentiment in the centre with black ink and added the dotty kite overlapping the cloud panel with liquid glue.  The panel was added to the card base with double sided tape.  I think this card would be perfect for a new job or someone off on a new adventure. 

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Crafty Calendar challenge - add a die cut

Creative Inspirations challenge - something old or something new (my stamp/die are very old)

If You Give A Crafter A Cookie challenge - ATG

I Love Promarkers challenge - ATG or use the sketch

Just Us Girls challenge - die week - ATG

Scrapping4Fun challenge - ATG

Stamping Sensations challenge - ATG option hand coloured image 

The Male Room challenge - clean and simple

We Love Stamping challenge - anything but square

I can't wait to see what you create for this challenge; there are lots of fun options for this one.  I would like to thank Maaike and the Team at AAA Cards challenge for the opportunity to be a guest designer; please go and check out their amazing creations and leave them some love. 

Thank you so much for stopping by; I appreciate you taking the time to visit me and leave me comments.  I look forward to sharing my creations with you again this year. 

Love and hugs, 

card ingredients:

Clearly Besotted - sky's the limit stamp & die set, sky's the limit addition stamp set (retired)

MFT - mini cloud edges stencil (retired)

Promarkers

Gina K Designs - sea glass ink pad

Versafine - onyx black ink pad

Limetree Crafts - 250gsm silky smooth white card (currently not available but they have 240gsm in stock here)

Hobbycraft - A4 black card

Sakura - white no. 10 gelly roll pen

Krafty Chicks challenge #748 - All Occasions

Good morning lovely friends. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day and were spoiled by Santa; maybe you were even lucky enough to have some crafty goodies.  We had a lovely time with all the family; had a gorgeous dinner cooked by my wonderful mother, and had a fun time with my sister and her family.  We raised a glass to my dad (it was the fifth Christmas without him) and reminisced about the good times.  I know not everyone is lucky enough to spend this time of year with family (or anyone for that matter) so I am sending my love and thoughts to you.  

It's time for a new challenge over at Krafty Chicks challenge and this week we are on Week 4.  The theme as always is 'all occasions' and Lori is our hostess. We don't mind what you make this week, it can be birthday, new home, baby, sympathy whatever creations you like. We hope you will come over and join in the fun with us.

It was my niece's birthday just before Christmas so I used this opportunity to make a card for her.  It was such a gloomy day when I made it that I wanted to make a bright and colourful card.  The photo's are a bit rubbish again but you get the gist.  I hope you like it.

Here is my card:

A closer look at the butterflies:

Plus I decorated the inside:

I had some spare butterflies so decorated the envelope too:

As it was a card for a family member I went for a 5" x 7" card base.  I cut my largest white panel to 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" and adhered it to a slightly larger black mat with double sided tape.  I cut the next white panel to 4" x 6" and ink blended pink, orange and yellow inks before using a swiss dots embossing folder for some texture.  I again adhered this to a slightly larger black mat with double sided tape.  I added the larger panel to my card base with double sided tape and the smaller colourful panel was added with foam tape.  I stamped 3 butterflies onto matching coloured card using black ink and also stamped 3 butterflies onto white card with black ink and used the matching die to cut them out.  Initially I wasn't sure if I was going to use the white butterflies on the front on my card but they looked a little lost against the white background so I used the coloured ones.  They were added to the card base with foam squares.  I stamped the happy birthday sentiment onto white card and die cut it out with a circle die and stamped the niece word onto white card and die cut it out with a rounded banner die.  I added both the sentiments with double sided tape.  As a finishing touch I added a sequin to each of the butterfly bodies and a few onto the background.  For the inside I stamped a sentiment with black ink onto the centre of my panel (again cut to 4 1/2" x 6 1/2") and used a tiny strip of offcut from the front panel as a landing area for one of my white butterflies.  These were added with liquid glue.  The panel was matted onto a slightly larger black panel and added to card base with double sided tape.  As I had two butterflies left over I decided to add them to my envelope for some extra interest and to tie them all together.  A bright and colourful card on a dreary day.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge - birthdays

Allsorts challenge - use your dies

CRAFT challenge - new/ATG (the butterfly stamps are new to me)

Fab 'n' Funky challenge - anything but square

PINspirational challenge - ATG

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - use dies for Diecember 

Triple B challenge - use birds, blooms and/or butterflies

I hope you will be able to join us for our 'all occasions' challenge and I cannot wait to see your creations in our linky. Please leave some love for my fellow chicks - Leanne, Diane and Lori.

Thank you so much for stopping by; I appreciate your lovely comments.

Love and hugs,

card ingredients:

Prickly Pear - butterfly 1 & die (and matching die) - no longer available

MFT - blueprints 13 (for circle and rounded banner die) - retired

Stampin' Up! - family party clear stamp - retired

Gina K Designs - ink pads - bubblegum pink, tangerine twist, wild dandelion

Gina K Designs - swiss dot embossing folder

Spellbinders - gold smooth discs color essentials sequins

Limetree Crafts - 250gsm silky smooth white card - currently oos but this is available as an alternative

Hobbycraft - A4 black card

Versafine - onyx black ink pad