Birthday Critters

Hi everyone thanks for popping in, I'm delighted to be the Guest Designer for AAA Birthday and their latest challenge to make a Birthday Card with a Critter. Now that's a cool and fun theme, the problem which critter to choose??

I bought a new stamp set this year called Party Animals and have slowly been working my way though all the images - today it was time for the bear to shine and eat cake. You can see my other cards HERE, HERE and HERE. I have to admit this has been one of my favourite purchases in 2024, I just love how cute they all are and I still have a few more party animals I haven't used as yet!

I started off with colouring with 3 distress inks to make a rainbow using a splashy stencil from MFT. I also used a few stamp sets from Lawn Fawn to make some bunting and add some balloons and a sentiment and all done.

I then coloured my wee stamped images with my Copics. I colour most of my animals up with this brown combo below but the other colours were chosen from what was in a big tin on my desk I normally take a picture of my jar of Copics but there's too many so will list the colours here (darkest > lightest):

• Bear: E37/33/53/51/50 R20 BV000/0000
• Aqua: BG13/32/11
• Yellow: Y38/15/11
• Red:R35/32/30
• Pink: RV13/21
• Green: YG05/01
• Violet: BV04/02/00

Supply List:

Stamps: Party Animals (P&M), Really High Five (LF), Elephant Parade Add-On (LF), Fangtastic Friends (LF)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne, Squeezed Lemonade (RNG), Kitsch Flamingo (RNG), Salvaged Patina (RNG) 
Paper: Really Rainbow 6"x6" DSP (LF), Xpress IT blending card stock, Neenah White

Other: Watercolor wash free form stencil (MFT), blending brushes (TE), Outside In stitched rectangle die (LF), 1mm and 2mm foam squares, Copic markers.

Challenge: AAAB#64

As always you have a whole month to create a birthday card with critters if you would like to join in with the fun. It's always great to have spare birthday cards in the stash but do definitely check out the fab creations from the DT at AAA Birthday.

✿Karen✿

Bold Bouquet Revisit

AAA Colourful have a really vibrant colour board this month which is stunning and I've revisited a class from Altenew which was part of SCT's March 23 event to play along with them. 

At the time of the class the die for cutting part of the embossed image hadn't been released but when I heard they had released it, I think myself and the 3000 other attendees went hallelujah as it sold out real fast! For this class we added ink to the embossing folder and we were using coloured card stock. In class I used red onto pink card stock. This time I took a strong red ink onto a strong orange card stock and let the magic happen.

I also think adding the die-cut flower back is a real pop and makes the card shine. My first go I just ink blended my die-cut with a small blending brush and it was pretty but I felt it wasn't quite right, so reread the class instructions and the light cream ink was swiped over the raised areas of the flower and then the die-cut flower placed back in and the ink looks like its flowed out and definitely is smoother. 

I ended up mounting the panel on some natural white as I had a card base made in my stash and I liked that it wasn't a stark white. I think the rest is pretty obvious, this technique works for all sorts of embossing folders. I'm really happy how the red and orange worked together for this technique. If you'd like to see the original card that I created in class you can click HERE to see them.

I'm also going to enter into Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge as this weeks challenge is beautiful flowers with Altenew, plus AAA Birthday is looking for Fabulous Flowers this month too.

Supply List:
Stamps: Easy Expressions: Birthday (The Ton Stamps) - sentiment and in my case of ready made sentiments

Ink: Berrylicious (PFS), Buttercream (ALT)

Paper: Pumpkin Pie (SU!), Neenah Natural White and Solar White
Other: Bold Bouquet EF and Flower die (ALT), Aura Opalescent sequins (SP)
Challenge: AAAC#6, SSSW challenge, AAAB#63

There's still 2 weeks to play along with the fab colourboard at AAA Colourful and it is rather cool with the reds, yellows and oranges. These colours pushed me a wee bit outside my comfort zone but I do love how vibrant my card is and the bonus is I have an "adult" birthday card to give away.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿

Just Add A Sketch

We have a fun sketch to play along with at the latest challenge at Just Add Ink. I dislike sketch challenges personally but push myself to do them as I've found in the past I've actually made some of my fav cards in sketch challenges. 

For this week's sketch I actually had so many ideas but thought I would do something a little bit out of the box and use a stencil to make my rectangles or in my case brushstrokes ;)

I'll also play along with Just Us Girls as they have a stencil challenge happening too.

I've used 4 pink Distress Oxide inks in the stencil starting off with the lightest.

I used warm grays on the mouse and toner greys on the paint brush.

Then all I needed was to add the wee "Picasso" of a mouse from the Love Art stamp set and a cute saying and viola done. I also added 3 other diecuts behind the mouse to give him/her some dimension.

Supply List:

Stamps: Love Art (CCC)

Inks: Spun Sugar, Saltwater Taffy, Kitsch Flamingo, Picked Raspberry, Versafine Clair Nocturne, Jet Black (LF)

Paper: Neenah Solar White, Dragonfruit (C9)

Other: Brush Stroke stencil (SSS), Master Layouts 2 (GKD), Copics, white Gelli Roll no. 8 pen, blending brush (TE)

Challenges: JAI #712, JUG#737

Well I can't wait to see what everyone creates with this fabulous sketch so hope you can join in with the fun. Thanks for popping in.
✿Karen✿