random reflections

Color Hues #27

We have the perfect color combo for the first of October's Color Hues Challenge:  Orange and Green. There's still a lot of green on the trees here, but each day we see a bit more color. I know there are lots of folks who are not a fan of orange, but it ranks up there in my top five color choices.

 I recently acquired The Greetery's "Botanic-cut: Ginkgo" dies, and couldn't wait to put them to use. I also used the new Greetery sentiment set: "Everyday Labels." I love the font and the art-deco appeal of these sentiments. 

After die cutting the Gingko leaves, I used Spiced Marmalade, Carved Pumpkin, and Bundled Sage Distress Oxide inks to blend color onto the stems and leaves. I followed up with some Polychromos colored pencils for some detail.

I die cut the largest of the "Crimped Frames" (also The Greetery) from black cardstock, embossed the sentiment in gold, and added the Ginkgo leaves.

I added three small gold pearls as a final accent after adding the framed piece with dimensional adhesive to a black card base.

I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues Challenge and join in the fun, checking out the cards made by my awesome Design Team members and the two Guest Designers, Jacinda and Marcia - the winners of the birthday challenge.

Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

 Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

Tracey

 

Color Hues #26: Purple and Pink

Time is flying by and it's already the middle of September! I need it to slow down a bit, or find a way to add a few more hours to my day! Before we get to the new challenge, be sure to stop by the Color Hues Challenge site to see the winners of the first birthday party challenge! We had a wonderful gallery of cards, and it was not an easy task to choose the winners and runners-up.

The new Color Hues Challenge is Purple and Pink!

Purple and pink go together so well, I thought I'd have no trouble getting a card created. I first did a watercolored floral, but in the end, I decided the colors blended together so much it was hard to separate them. Then I acquired a couple of the Spellbinders "Large Die of the Month" dies, and found that they took care of the problem nicely. I ended up making two cards, one a CAS card (and the one I posted on the Color Hues site) and a more elaborate one which you'll see here. 

This card is a mini-slimline and uses dies from both Spellbinder sets: "Slimline Card Creator" and "Hex Kaleidoscope. To create the beautiful hexagon designs, I die cut each of three dies from three colors of card stock - two shades of purple and one pink. Once you line up the hexagons, you get this gorgeous design.

The "Slimline Card Creator" comes with a set of dies in different sizes and in two designs--one simple stitched rectangle, and the scalloped border I used here. I added a simple gold gem to the centers. 

Once again, I found the perfect sentiment in The Ton's "Easy Expressions: Birthday" set. There's a bit of dimensional tape in the center to balance the dimension of the three die cuts.

My second card is a true slimline card and I used the more ornate background die from the "Hex Kaleidoscope" set.

Again, I chose the same design for the hexagon embellishments, but instead of using three of them, I used the center hexagon for my sentiment.

The sentiment from The Greetery's "Opposites Attract" was gold embossed on white card and adhered with dimensional tape. I tucked three large gold gems around the sentiment, and small ones in the center of the hexagons.

One thing I like about the "Just a Note" sentiment is that it can serve as a lead-in to many inside sentiments from "Thinking of You" to "Wishing You a Happy Birthday" as does the sentiment "Just for You" on the first card. It's good to have some flexibility for the cards in my stash.

As always, I hope you'll join in the fun, and take a look at the wonderful creations from the Design Team and Guest Designer, Janet. 

Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

 Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

Tracey

I'm throwing one of these cards in the ring at Happy Little Stampers-Dies: Anything Goes, and in the gallery at Darnell's NBUS gallery.

Happy 1st Anniversary to the Color Hues Challenge

Despite the many challenges of 2021, the year is flying by, and here we are at the first anniversary of the Color Hues Challenge! To celebrate there are prizes this month---see below! The other great news is an addition to our Design Team: Tracey McNeely. Some of you may already be familiar with her beautiful work on her blog and for a variety of companies. We're so lucky to add her to DT. Welcome, Tracey!

I was the lucky DT member who got to choose this month's colors and my choices were Yellow and Orange--a good combination of a summer vibe (yellow) and the coming autumn (orange) for those of us where the seasons change. 

My card design is one I created quite some time ago. I never posted the card, and when I found it recently, I was amazed at how much my ink blending had improved since I'd created the first one. There's no way I'd post the original card now, but I'm much happier with the ink blending this time around. I'm quite sure that in addition to practice, some new tools contributed to the improvement as well. I really like the Taylored Expressions ink blending brushes as well as the Altenew brushes---particularly the larger one. It took me awhile to invest in both brushes as they are more expensive than the ones I purchased originally.

I used a combination of Distress Oxide Inks for the background: Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, and Spiced Marmalade. I added a touch of Concord & 9th's Marmalade ink which is a bit deeper to the very bottom of the panel. 

I die cut the ink blended panel with the smaller of Gina K's Master Layout dies, and stamped the floral silhouette is Obsidian Black (Altenew) from Gina K's "Natural Silhouettes" set. Next was to use the larger of the dies in the layout set to cut a narrow frame of black. The sentiment is from Pink & Main's "Special Day" set. Finally, it was all assembled and added to a card base of Orange Zest (Papertrey Ink.)

Since I had ink blended a couple of panels, I made a second card--it's always good to have a stash of birthday cards!

To celebrate the Color Hues anniversary, there will be TWO winners chosen for this challenge both of whom will receive a $25 gift certificate to Simon Says! Hope you'll join in the fun, and be sure to check out the DT and Guest Designer, Angie's, card right here. And at each individual blog here:

 Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

 Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

Tracey

 

Color Hues #23

July passed in a blur. We were away most of the first two weeks, and I've been recuperating from my fall for the last two weeks, but here we are at the beginning of August. August is likely to pass by in a blur as well since my daughter and her family will be here for a week, we'll share a cottage on a lake in Michigan for a week, and then spend the last week traveling back and forth to a cottage in the Finger Lakes to spend time with Tracy's family. Fortunately, I'm back in the craft room and playing with some new (as well as some old) products.

The new Color Hues combo is such a pretty one:

I knew right away I wanted to use my new Altenew "Classy Stripes" stencil which I saw Laurie Willison use during the recent Cardmakers Summit event. I already had some of the Ink to Paper's "Into the Blooms II" dies cut from pink paper so it was just a matter of adding a yellow layer and doing some ink blending with my (also new) Detail Blending Brushes from Altenew. 

I settled on a mini-slimline format which I like a lot. Once I had the stenciled background prepared, I die cut a piece of it with one of the Pinkfresh "Mini Slimline Essentials" dies. I cut a narrow yellow border and then added it to a white cardbase.

I shaped the floral pieces with the Tim Holtz "Shaping Kit," (another new product,) added a pink enamel dot to the center, and adhered the flower to the card front with some dimensional tape. The sentiment is from The Ton's "Easy Expressions Birthday" set stamped in black and embossed in gold. To pick up the gold accents, I added three gold dots from The Paper Studio. 

I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues Challenge and join in the fun, checking out the cards made by my awesome Design Team members and our Guest Designer, Conil.

   

Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

 Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

Color Hues #22

The Color Hues Challenge has a new duo for you:  Lime Green and Aqua.

 

I love this bright and cheerful color combination, but it took me awhile to come up with a design I liked. As I often do, I turned to dies and ended up with The Greetery's "Inside and Out Berry Branches."

I die cut the branches in two shades of lime green and two shades of aqua, arranged them in a bouquet and "tied" them with a gold ribbon from the "Fit to Be Tied" collection, also from The Greetery. The next step was to find the right background and again The Greetery had the answer--a "Nordic Frame," one of my favorites. 

The sentiment from an old, and loved, set by Papertrey Ink "Autumn Abundance" was embossed in gold. Either lime green or aqua would have worked as a cardbase, but I liked the lime green better.

I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues Challenge and join in the fun, checking out the cards made by my awesome Design Team members, and our Guest Designer, Rosemary.

 

Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

 Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

 

 

 

Color Hues #21-Red and Blue

Independence Day is just three days away, and I'm guessing that Carol's color choices for this round of Color Hues was influenced by the holiday. It's always a great combination, and I have two cards to share.

The first was the card design I had in mind, but the die cut letters (on #2) were too tall, so I had to substitute another alpha which I ended up liking even better. Luckily, I have two perfect occasions for these cards. The first one is going to my mother-in-law for her July 5th---92nd birthday. I had previously made a birthday card for her, but my husband thought this one was perfect the minute he saw it.

With the exception of the Slimline Diagonal Stitched Rectangle from Pinkfresh Studio, everything on the card came from The Greetery. I die cut the pinwheels in Blueberry Sky (Papertrey Ink) and Cherry Kisses (Gina K) and then stenciled the darker colors onto them. 

The letters are cut from the recent release of Bold Alphabets, die cut from Cherry Kisses and Enchanted Evening cardstock. I added some gold and silver gems to the center of the pinwheels. 

The second card is a congratulatory card for one of the sweetest, hardest working young ladies I know. I've been working with her for the last five years. I started helping her with her homework at a community center in the inner city. After two years there, she won a scholarship to the local Catholic all-girls school here. We've continued to work together at the school, Paneras, and at our house for the last three years.  During the pandemic we met much less frequently and virtually. She just graduated from 8th grade and is headed for high school at Mercy next year. Her grade point average is amazing, and she's played soccer, run track, and been involved with other activities. I couldn't be happier for her.

The letters from the Waffle Flower "Tower Outline Alpha" dies were cut from Pure Poppy and Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink) papers. I've been in the habit recently of using score lines for interest, and once again, I pulled out my scoreboard to add some dimension behind the letters.  I borrowed the "Twisted Crepe" dies (The Greetery) from a friend (thanks, Michelle!) and die cut those with red, blue, and silver glitter paper.

I think 8th grade girls are pretty interested in sparkly, so I added a few glittery stars to finish it off.

I hope you'll check out all the Red and Blue creations by my talented Design Team members, and our special Guest Designer, Carol.

   

 Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

 Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

And if you're in the U.S. have a safe and fun Fourth of July! We'll be arrived just in time to celebrate with Sarah and her family after an early birthday celebration here for Tracy's mom.

 

Color Hues #20

It's hard to believe, but we're already at the 20th challenge for Color Hues. Sheri chose Aqua and Black for this round.

It's not the first time that I've ended up making two cards for the challenge. Although I liked the first card, it really "wasn't me." Meaning, of course, not Clean and Simple enough. So here's card #2, much more to my liking.

I knew right off that I wanted to use an older set by Papertrey Ink called "Life is Beautiful." I thought the black butterfly against an aqua background would be striking. (And you'll see that the first card I made has the same main elements, but different products.) I die cut the open butterfly die twice, once with black shimmer cardstock and once with gold. I off set the two of them and adhered them to a piece of aqua shimmer paper cut with The Greetery's "Crimped Frames." You can see the shimmer better here:

Then I layered the aqua layer onto a larger Nordic frame in black shimmer before adding it all to a white cardbase. 

The sentiment is from Pink and Main's "Special Day," embossed in gold and die cut with The Greetery's "Pretext Banners"--possibly the best banner set I've found.

Here's the first card I made. This time I started with the "Cover Plate: Butterfly" die from Papertrey, die cutting it from the same black shimmer paper I used above. 

After adding it to a piece of the aqua shimmer paper, I colored the insides of the butterfly wings with a Copic marker to give them some contrast. 

The sentiment from Taylored Expressions was embossed in white and added with a thin strip of dimensional tape.

Finally, I added some aqua and silver sequins. It's a bit busier than the card above, but I'm quite sure I'll find a recipient who will enjoy it.

Hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what our Guest Designer, Trina, and the rest of the Design Team has come up with . . . and join in the fun!

 Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

 

 

Color Hues #19

The weeks fly by and here we are with another great color combination for the Color Hues Challenge. This round it's Blue and Brown.

I cased myself for this challenge and returned to a design I used last September. I love the closed and open leaves of Altenew's "Leaf Canopy" set.

To color the closed leaves, I added two shades of Pinkfresh Studio blue inks directly to the stamps, spritzed them with water and stamped them onto a piece of Altenew's watercolor paper. Once that had dried, I overstamped with the open leaves in Dark Chocolate ink from Papertrey Ink.

I stamped the sentiment from the same set in Dark Chocolate, and use my favorite Gina K "Master Layout" dies to cut a thin border of Dark Chocolate cardstock before adding it all to a Blueberry Sky (also Papertrey Ink) card base.

As always, I hope you'll pop over to the Color Hues Challenge and check out the great cards by the Design Team and our Guest Designer, Michel.

   Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

And please come join the fun!

Color Hues #18

The new Color Hues Challenge is for Purple and Teal which ends up being a really lovely color combination.

Pretty or not, it did take me awhile to come up with a design I was happy with. I started out with some stencils, but you can see that is not where I ended up!

After the stencils didn't work out quite the way I envisioned them, I headed to my die cuts. Almost immediately I came upon Mama Elephant's "Botanic Envelope" and knew just what I wanted to do. I love the gold detail on the envelope, and filled it with a variety of die cuts in shades of purple and teal.

Some of the foliage came from the Mama Elephant die, but I also add some die cuts from Pinkfresh Studio's "Delicate Blossoms" and Althenew's " Star Flower Pop-Up" die. All the colored cardstock is from Memory Box.

Then I added a small piece of the reflective gold paper (from Tonic) behind the star flower, and attached the envelope to a "Nordic Frame" from The Greetery.

The sentiment was gold embossed from The Greetery's "Sentiment Suite: Thank You."

Hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what our Guest Designer, Janet, and the rest of the Design Team has come up with . . . and join in the fun!

 Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey

 

 

 

Color Hues #17

It's May 1st and time for a new Color Hues Challenge!

 

This time it's a duo of Red and Orange, and it took me awhile to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. Once I did, it came together pretty quickly, and I've decided it's color combination that I like quite a bit---bright and cheerful!  As I've been trying to do for the last several months, I used a beautiful stamp from Altenew that I've never used before.

The starting point was ink blending red and orange on the bottom portion of the card. Then I stamped one of the images from Altenew's "Fragile Foliage" partially off the edge.

I added just a touch of color to the delicate flowers with an orange Staedtler Fineliner and die cut the panel with Gina K's "Master Layout" die. Then I die cut the larger layer from red cardstock and added it to a bright orange card base. 

I decided on a stamped and die cut sentiment. The stamped portion is from Papertrey's "Wonderful Words: Thank You," and the die cut from The Greetery's "Sentiment Starters" collection. 

Hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what our guest designer, Tracey, and the rest of the Design Team has come up with . . . and join in the fun!

      

  Nancy

Hannelie

Cindy

Julie

Sheri

Kristie

Lindsey