The Sisterhood of Snarky Crafters - guest designer card

Hello Saturday friends; I'm here again today to share my card as guest designer for The Sisterhood of Snarky Crafters challenge. I was lucky enough to win one of their recent challenges and was honoured to be asked and jumped at the chance to be a guest designer. The challenge this month is 'R is for rainbow' and they want to see your actual rainbows or rainbow coloured projects.  Also snark is not mandatory but is highly encouraged and appreciated.

I love a good snarky sentiment so could not miss the opportunity to use one.  I recently got this fun Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stamp & stencil combo and the fun cat along with the sentiments are just hilarious.  I kept it fairly simple but I think it turned out fab.  I hope you like it too. 

Here is my card:

A closer look at the details:

Plus I decorated the inside:

I began by die cutting a white panel 4" x 5 1/4" and using the stencil on an angle created my fun rainbow background (I only used the ink left on my brushes as it was such a small area).  I stamped the cat, the hat, balloon and tie onto alcohol marker friendly card and coloured them with Promarkers.  There aren't any dies so I fussy cut them out.  I decided to trim the panel down slightly so the finished size is 3 3/4' x 5" and adhered all the elements with foam squares.  I stamped the sentiment at the bottom with black ink (I laugh every time I read it lol!).  I didn't add any other dimension (for a change) and adhered the panel directly to my card with double sided tape.  For the inside I used the stencil along the bottom of the panel, again going in rainbow order.  I stamped the balloon string with black ink and adhered the balloon over top with liquid glue.  The sentiment was stamped in the centre with black ink and the panel was added to the card base with double sided tape.  

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

Alphabet challenge - C is for circles

Colorful Options challenge - option 3 - rainbow

Craft Rocket challenge - birthday

Crafter's Cafe challenge - ATG optional funny and/or comical

Crafty Animals challenge - ATG must include an animal

Crafty Calendar challenge - all about the men/boys

Creative Knockouts challenge - die cuts/stencils/punches (I stencilled my background)

Critter Crazy challenge - ATG with a featured critter

Dream Valley challenge - 4 legged friends

Heart's Quest Celebrations of Love challenge - BEWAS optional theme masculine

Let's Craft & Create challenge - a penny for your thoughts (use a sentiment)

Paper Rocks Scissors challenge - scissors; I fussy cut my images

Pearly Sparkles challenge - this makes me smile

Show Us Your Pussy Cat challenge - ATG must include a cat

Stencil Fun challenge - ATG optional theme butterflies

Sweet Stampin' challenge - something for the boys

Please pop over to The Sisterhood of Snarky Crafters challenge blog for all the details/rules and to see the amazing creations from the design team. I would like to thank Chris and the team for having me as a guest this month. I hope you will find the time to enter the challenge and cannot wait to see all your projects in the linky.

Thanks for stopping by and see you all soon.

Love and hugs,

card supplies:

Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous - snarky cat birthday stamp/stencil bundle

Limetree Craft - 280gsm silky smooth white card (not available but other options are here and here)

Versafine Clair - nocturne ink pad

Memento - tuxedo black ink pad

Promarkers

Sakura - white no. 10 gelly roll pen

Heffy Doodle - alcohol marker friendly card (store now closed)

*I now have an Affiliate Link for the Gina K Designs store. If you are considering making a purchase I would appreciate you using my link as it will earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Thank you x

ATC Scrap Makes IG Hop - May 26

Hello friends, I hope you're doing great and you've had a great start to your week. I'm sharing my creations for this month's ATC Scrap Makes IG Hop. We challenge you to use leftover die cuts, sentiments and card stock to create Artist Trading Cards (ATC's). You can send them in happy mail, save them on a ring to highlight your favorite creations, swap them with friends or add sweet notes to a lunchbox. Join us if you like; the only rules are to use scraps and create cards that are 2.5” x 3.5” in size. We share our little snippets of happiness on the third Tuesday of the month.

This month I am continuing my alphabet series of ATC's with G, H & I.  I think it will be fun each month finding images/dies for each letter.  I'm trying to stick to animals and food but we'll see how it goes.  I'm excited to see them all at the end and I hope you are going to stick around to see them all too.  I used mostly older, retired products but I still love them so why not use them. I hope you like them; do you have a favourite from this month's trio?

Here are my three ATC's:

Here's a closer look at 'G':

A closer look at 'H':

and a closer look at 'I':

The backs are simply decorated with the ATC info stamp and some blending:

Once again I used my leftover ink blending scrap paper for two of my backgrounds as they turn out really interesting and not something I would create myself. I did add some stamping and ink blending over them to tie them into the image a little more and I think they turned out great.  For the 'H' ATC I used part of an embossing folder that I embossed but never used.  Luckily for me the gingerbread man was already assembled and ready to go so that ATC was simple to complete; I added him with foam squares and added the letter G with liquid glue.  As my focal images were too large to use the frames from the previous month's ATC's I decided to die cut one from the kraft card and cut it apart to add parts of it to the edges of the ATC.  I added some faux stitching around the edge with a black fineliner pen and that ATC was done.  I stamped and coloured the horse image and used the coordinating die to cut him out.  I added the embossed piece onto a plain white ATC with double sided tape and die cut some grass from three shades of green card, these were then adhered with double sided tape.  I added the horse, standing in the grass, with foam squares.  I die cut a few clouds from white card and added them, as well as the letter H, with liquid glue.  Onto the final ATC; the cone was stamped in kraft card and die cut out, the pink ice cream was die cut from pink card and the chocolate layer was stamped in brown ink and fussy cut out.  I stamped and die cut the cherry and then adhered all the pieces together with liquid glue.  I added some extra details to the blended background with this fun stencil and also stamped some of the sentiments from the stamp set with the kraft ink.  I again die cut the frame from pink card and cut it apart added some pieces to the edges of the ATC with liquid glue.  I adhered the ice cream with foam squares and added the letter I with liquid glue. For the backs of the ATC's I simply ink blended the matching colours around the edges and stamped one the ATC info stamps (that I won a few months ago) in black ink.  

I would like to enter my ATC's in the following challenges:

Aud Sentiments challenge - embossing and/or flowers + sentiment

Can You Handle The Pressure challenge - use an EF optional balloons

Cardz 4 Guys challenge - use an embossing folder

Crafty Animals challenge - ATG must include an animal

Creative Friday challenge - animals

Critter Crazy challenge - ATG with a featured critter

Dragonfly Dreams challenge - use die cuts

Dream Valley challenge - embossing wet or dry

Farm Quest Grocery Game challenge - food and/or drink

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - use craft dies

Stamping Sensations challenge - cute creatures

Tag-along (&ATC's) challenge - use some pink

We Love Stamping challenge - all creatures great and small 

I hope you will pop over to Instagram and check out the hop; please use the hashtag #ATCscrapmakes2026 or #ATCscrapmakesmay26 to see all the gorgeous creations and also if you want to participate we will be able to find you. 

I really appreciate you stopping by today. 

Love and hugs,

ATC supplies:
MFT - on the farm stamp & die

MFT - you're the sweetest stamp & die

MFT - cutest clouds ever die set

MFT - grassy fields die set

MFT - little letters die set

Spellbinders - stocking full of joy die set (for gingerbread)

Hunkydory - Moonstone dies - scalloped edged picture frames

Limetree Craft - 280gsm silky smooth white card (not available but other options are here and here)

Versafine Clair - nocturne ink pad
Promarkers

ATC silicone stamp won in a challenge

Sakura - white no. 10 gelly roll pen

*Gina K Designs - ink pads - innocent pink, charcoal brown, kraft, cherry red, grass green

*I now have an Affiliate Link for the Gina K Designs store. If you are considering making a purchase I would appreciate you using my link as it will earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Thank you x

Summer Crush Wednesday IG Hop week 6

Hello friends; I hope you are having a great day.  Today is the final week of our Summer Crush Wednesday IG hop 😢 organised by my good friend Kelly.  We have had lots of fun over the last 6 weeks using themes and techniques to hopefully inspire you to get involved.  Please hop along for one more time and this week our theme is 'sail-abrate'!  For this week we want to see all your boat themed projects such as boats, canoes, rafts, cruise ships, pirate ships etc.  Don't forget to use the hashtag  #scwcardhop23 to find all our projects and for us to find yours.  

Here is my boat themed card:

a close up of my super cute 'crew':

For my card this week I decided to try making a rocker card.  I've seen a few of them in blogland and wanted to try and make mine into a boat.  Most of it was trial and error and lots of trimming and re-cutting but I'm super happy with the finished result.  Most of the card was made with scraps from my scrap bin except from the rocker part which was cut with a large circle die.  I wanted some cute critters to 'crew' my boat so stamped and coloured these 2 cuties with my Promarkers and I used the matching dies to cut them out.  I wanted the back of my boat to look tidy so I backed my critters with plain white die cuts on the back.  I used 2 embossing folders - a wood-grain one for the bottom of the boat and a striped one for the sails.  I hand cut my anchor and coloured it with a black marker and used a scallop border die to resemble the waves.  Not sure about the sentiment, I thought it was funny because it was a rocker card, but now I'm not so sure; I may change it before I send it to someone 😃.  I do have a video of the card rocking but can't seem to add it to my post at the moment.  I may just add it to my stories on IG if I can't add it here.  A few clear raindrops and my card is finished.

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

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - 4 legged friends 

Happy Little Stampers Birthday challenge - ATG

Crafty Calendar challenge - ATG

My Time To Craft challenge - summertime waterplay 

Scrapping4Fun challenge - birthday

Addicted to Stamps & More challenge - die cuts and/or stencils

Colorful Options challenge - red, white and blue (I've used white and blue plus neutrals)

Please pop over to IG to see what the other participants of the hop have created; and we cannot wait to see your sail-abrate creations.  Thanks for joining in for the last 6 weeks, it been a fun time stretching our supplies and using our imagination to come up with some fun cards. 

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

Love and hugs, 

Card ingredients:

MFT - missing you every single day stamp/die set (retired but still available here)

Promarkers

Clearly Besotted Stamps - scalloped edges die collection (retired)

Go Kreate - XL circle dies (no longer available)

Sheena - wood panel embossing folder (no longer available)

Sizzix/Tim Holtz - stripes embossing folder (no longer available)

Sentiment from magazine freebie stamp set

Little Things from Lucy's Cards - clear raindrops

Summer Crush Wednesday Week 4

Hello and happy Saturday friends.  Apologies that this post is late this week; we went away at the beginning of the week for a couple of days to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary and I've been playing catch up ever since!  Welcome to Week 4 of the Summer Crush Wednesday IG hop organised by my good friend Kelly.  The hop will run for 6 weeks (this is week 4) and we will have some fun themes and even some techniques I've never tried before!  If you would like to join us just use the hashtag #scwcardhop23 and we will find you (you can also see all the other participants of the hop using this hashtag).  This week is 'salt life' and this is a technique I've never tried before; water-colouring and using salt to create interesting and original backgrounds.  I hope you will give it a go as it's really fun.  

Here is my 'salt life' card:

here are some close ups of the salt effects:

and I had a small piece left so decorated the inside too:

I began by water-colouring my panel with my paints using pinks and purples.  I watched a tutorial on YouTube so that I knew what the process was when using salt and apparently the secret is that the paint has to be almost dry for the effect of the salt to be more dramatic.  I was pressed for time so blasted my background with a heat tool until almost dry and then sprinkled some regular table salt and some salt crystals onto my background.  Ideally I think you would leave it for quite a few hours or even overnight to react with the paint but again I was strapped for time so left it for 2 hours and then again blasted it with heat to make sure it was completely dry.  I then rubbed off the salt to reveal the reaction.  I was pleasantly surprised with the result and it looked really good.  I didn't want to cover up my background too much so decided to make a slimline card (which I don't do very often).  I die cut some flowers and a butterfly from black card and adhered them with liquid glue onto the water-coloured background.  The sentiment was a pre-made strip and I added that with foam squares.  A very simple card but I think it looks dramatic and perfect for a sympathy card.  I'm looking forward to creating more salt backgrounds in different colours.  

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

Creative Knockouts challenge - finish the inside

Unicorn challenge - no design paper

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge - ATG/option Christmas

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge - any occasion

Please pop over to Instagram to see what the other participants of the hop have created; we cannot wait to see what you create.  Don't forget to stop by again next week for more summer fun creating.  

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.  

Love and hugs, 

Card ingredients:

Sizzix/Tim Holtz - wildflowers #1 thinlits

Clearly Besotted - butterfly duo die collection (retired)

Gina K Designs - Mixed messages sentiment sheets

Gina K Designs - sentiment strips dies

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

Strathmore - Bristol smooth water-colour pad

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi water-colour palette