random reflections

Color Hues #50

Carol chose the new colors for this round at Color Hues, and in my opinion, it is just perfect for Halloween.

Although the card didn't end up the way I envisioned it, I had so much fun creating it, and the end result is so much better than what I first envisioned.

I pulled out Royal Purple (Simon Says) and Orange Zest (Papertrey Ink) for the card. After die cutting an oval into the front of the top folded purple card, I added a piece of orange to the inside of the card. Then I added the spider webs in glittery black cardstock which were die cut last fall with a friend's die. The "Scary Ghosts" are from Poppy Stamps, and I backed their eyes with a scrap of black cardstock. The ghost on the inside of the card is adhered with dimensional tape and the others were adhered to the front of the card, partially floating as ghosts are apt to do.

The sentiment is from Hero Arts, "Witch Feet" set, and the bat is die cut with one of the images from Spellbinders "Spooky Boo" which I cut three times and layered for some more dimension. Here's a look at the inside of the card.

So, one Halloween card down, and four to go! 

Not everyone on the Design Team thought "Halloween" when the colors were announced, so be sure to hop over to the Color Hues blog and take a look at all the inspiration. We'd love to have you play along!

 

 

Color Hues #49

Tracey has given us the lovely Yellow and Brown color combination for the next Color Hues Challenge.

I started out with a general idea of where I wanted to go, but as is often the case, the final card is somewhat different. I started with a Classic Kraft card base, and played around with some different design ideas as well as some different die cut leaves and sprigs. I ended up with the Essential Arches dies by Ellen Hutson. I love that they cut both an arch and a frame. By die cutting them in two colors, you get a perfect set of arches with a darker frame.

I used Papertrey Ink papers for all of the die cuts:  Cocoa Bean and Dark Chocolate for the arches and sentiment banner.

The "Leafy Sprig" by Poppy Stamps is one that's been in my die collection for years. I originally thought I'd have a cluster of them, perhaps tied with twine, but ended up preferring just two, one from Lemon Tart and one from Summer Sunrise. 

The sentiment is from my favorite Pink & Main set: Special Day, stamped in Dark Chocolate ink on a Cocoa Bean banner die cut with My Favorite Things, Itty Bitty Strips die. I thought about adding some embellishment, but decided on a set of five scored lines behind the focal image and the sentiment. 

I'm sending this one over to the current Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge: Birthdays. 

This was actually the second card I made the challenge. I like the first one as well, but it was an almost complete CASE of one Debby Hughes made several years ago when the stamp set, "One With Nature" was released by Simon Says, so I decided to make a second card for the Color Hues blog. Here's the original:

This one was a lot of fun to make. I layered the solid and open leaves in two colors of yellow and brown on white cardstock, and then cut it down for the card. The side panel is cut from Dark Chocolate cardstock.

Then I added the tag with two die cut leaves and a sentiment from Gossamer Blue that was included in a scrapbook kit years ago. 

Be sure to hop over to the Color Hues blog to see all the creative takes on this color combo by the Design Team and our two guests this time around.

 

Color Hues #48

How is it that it's already September first, and the second birthday for the Color Hues Challenge!?! It's been so much fun to be part of the creative team at Color Hues, and we have a fun challenge for you. We've asked the DT at our sister challenge, Seize the Birthday, to make birthday cards using the great colors Sheri's chosen: Navy and Lime Green. 

So the change to this challenge is to not only use the Colors below but also to make a birthday card to help us CELEBRATE! 

After you link up a card for this challenge make sure you head on over to Seize the Birthday and link up with them as well!  This challenge and their challenge will be like any other, as each challenge blog will pick its own Winners! Here’s the link for Seize the Birthday.

I love this color combination, and thought the Pinkfresh Studio hot foil plate, "Stained Glass" would be just perfect. Thanks to a lovely birthday gift certificate to Pinkfresh, I have the whole suite of products for this set, but used just the hot foil plate and selected parts of the stencils.

Creating hot foil cards is not as big a challenge as photographing them. No matter how hard you try, the card is much more beautiful in your hand than it is in any photograph. I chose to color just selected sections of this beautiful design, using a bright navy ink from Pinkfresh, and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide for the lime. I die cut the panel with Gina K's "Master Layout 1" and then the coordinating thin frame from Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink) cardstock. Green Parakeet (Papertrey Ink) was a perfect lime.

I did cut the sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's " Scripted Greetings" and added a gold shadow die behind it. 

I hope you'll come celebrate our birthday with a card of your own. You can check out all the wonderful cards by the Color Hues Design Team right here. And don’t forget to link up with the Seize the Birthday Challenge, too.

Color Hues #47

Color Hues has a fun combination for you this time:  Chocolate and Mint.

It was the candy mints that inspired me this time around, and like last round, I had a never before used product waiting in the wings to be put on stage.

I just love the Anita Jeram stamps from Colorado Craft and don't use them as much as I should. They're all filed together in my boxes, and I tend to forget they are there. It was so much fund to color these cute little mice with Copic markers.

The coordinating die cuts work perfectly and that made it easy to arrange these critters on a white panel die cut with the Gina K "Master Layout 7" dies which create a mini-slimline card.

The sentiment is from the "So Sweet Slimline" set from Colorado Craft and was stamped in Dark Chocolate ink. The card base is Papertrey's Mint Julep.

We'd love to have you come join us in the Color Hues Gallery. Be sure to check out the wonderful variety of cards by the Design Team and Guest Designer.

Color Hues #46

Sadly, today's Color Hues Challenge brings with it the news that one of our teammates has died after a long, hard-fought battle with cancer. Lindsey was a design team member for several challenges and a warm, supportive, and creative human being. She will be missed by many, many friends as well as the crafting community. 

This round of colors - Blue and Purple - were chosen by Lindsey, and we're honoring her with cards focused on some of the things she loved:  humor, cats, gardening/flowers, love of reading, friendship, wine and tea.

After several attempts at a card in honor of Lindsey, I finally ended up with a floral card created with a new hot foil plate from Pinkfresh Studio, Folk Floral Stem. I used the coordinating stencils to color it with some Pinkfresh inks (Candy Violet & Lavender), Sea Glass by Gina K, and for the leaves Delicata Silvery Shimmer with highlights from a set of metallic rub-ons I found in my stash. Let me just say, photographing this card was as big a challenge as coming up with a card design!

After die cutting the floral stem, I added it to a panel of purple paper from Paper Source that I dry embossed with a very old embossing folder by Quickutz. I'm not even sure the company exists any more. I added that to a card base of light gray to mimic the leaves on the floral. 

It was hard to find a sentiment that fit in with the floral stem which fills the card front. I had an already hot foiled sentiment by Spellbinders that I was able to tuck in among the flowers and leaves. I added some gold pearls as the final touch.

I hope you'll join us for this Color Hues Challenge, and be sure to check out the wonderful cards created in Lindsey's memory by the Design Team and our guests.

 

 

 

Color Hues #45

Welcome to the next round of the Color Hues Challenge. Kristie is our hostess this time around, and she chose Peach and Gray.

When I first saw the color combination for this Color Hues Challenge, I immediately thought of watercolored florals. I chose a favorite of mine, Honey Bee's "Winter Anemone." I didn't let the "winter" in the title discourage me because I think these are beautiful any time of the year.

I used Karin Watercolor Brush markers for the florals, and added some more detail with Polychromos pencils for the florals and a black Glaze pen to add some dimension to the stamens.

Once the florals were die cut, I chose two shades of gray cardstock. I embossed the darker panel with a new Spellbinders embossing folder, "Plaid Company." The sentiment was embossed in silver from the Pinkfresh Studio "Perfect Sentiments" set.

The last touch was the addition of a few silver metallic pearls.

As always, you'll find a wonderfully diverse set of cards using Peach and Gray at the Color Hues Challenge, created by the Design Team as well as our two Guest Designers this round Caroline and Joyce.

I'm adding this one to the July NBUS Challenge--another new product used!

Color Hues #44

It’s the first of July, and time for a new Color Hues Challenge. I’m the hostess this time around, but the colors were chosen ahead of time. Our Design Team has accepted a gracious invitation from Michele of I Card Everyone to be her guests on her series “Playing Cards with Friends.”

The colors are perfect for the upcoming holiday, but are also very versatile for any time of the year. 

For this challenge not only are we using the Colors RED and Blue, Michele asked the Design Team to incorporate STARS and or STRIPES in our designs.  I've got both--a very patriotic birthday card for my mother-in-law who turns 93 on July 5th.

Now, since Color Hues is strictly a Color Challenge, the stars and stripes are NOT going to be required from our participants, but if you want to add them in you certainly may!  

Like many crafters, I keep an assortment of already stamped, embossed, colored, or need-to-be-colored items. I file them in clear envelopes by type. Recently, I found a white panel with a die cut circle and a white piece that had been run through an older embossing folder from Cuttlebug with stars. That was the beginning of the idea for today’s card. 

You can see that it evolved from there. I had one last piece of red and white striped paper from a My Favorite Things paper pack I used as the background for the card. I used the white panel with the stitched die cut circle I had found earlier, but embossed the stars on navy card stock, and then ran a brayer with white ink over the panel to make the stars more visible.

The sentiment embossed in white on red card stock is from Altenew’s “Sentiment Strips 2” set, and die cut with one of The Greenery’s “Pretext Banner” dies. After photographing the card for the blog, I decided it needed a bit of sparkle, so added some tiny rhinestone stars to the centers of the stars in the circle. 

We’ll be celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday at a cottage on Canandaigua Lake, and all five of her children will be present so it's sure to be a festive day!

Now go take a look at the fabulous Red and Blue cards by the Design Team, and when you are done with those, go check out Michele's amazing card!!!

 

 

 

Color Hues #43

Julie is our hostess for the new Color Hues Challenge, and she's chosen Blue and Green.

This is the second card I made for this challenge. I had another card posted on the Design Team post, and then created this card in Blue and Green I liked much better.This one was created after taking the Online Card Class: Spring Card Camp 2022, where Jennifer McGuire taught the technique of ink lifting. 

The first step is to ink blend a cardstock panel. I ink blended mine with blue and green inks, and then embossed it in white with Simon Says "Outline Leaves" background stamp. Next I used a paint brush and some clear water and lifted the ink from one half of all the leaves. I have to say I like the result, but I'm not sure how often I'll return to the technique since it's a bit time consuming.

The die cut sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio was cut three times and stacked before adding to the vellum shadow. A few sequins finished it off after adding the panel to a white card base. 

I hope you'll check out the many interpretations of the Blue and Green combo on the Color Hues blog created by the Design Team, and our Guest Designer, Amy. And, then, come join us in the Gallery!

 

Color Hues #42

I love the color combination Hannelie chose for this Color Hues challenge, and I had lots of different ideas for it.

In the end, I reached for Honey Bee's "Lovely Layers: Coneflower" die, and made two cards, both with black and white stripes, but one with a white flower and one with a yellow flower.

The white coneflower was easy! I did cut it from 11o# cardstock, and used Fossilized Amber Distress Ink to color the flower center. The bold black and white striped paper was a loose sheet in with my 6X6 paper pads, and the yellow cardstock is from the scrap folder--looks like an older textured Bazzil paper to me. 

I die cut each of the squares with a Simon Says Stitched Rectangle and layered them on a square cardbase.

I added tiny tag from The Greetery's Sentiment Suite tags and stamped with a tiny birthday sentiment, adding a bow from black thread before adhering it with dimensional tape.

Here's card #2:

After die cutting the layers of the yellow coneflower from two different shades of yellow, I added some Distress Ink blending for a little more contrast. I die cut two sets of vellum leaves, one from plain vellum and the top leaf with a striped vellum. You can see it a bit better here:

The black and white paper here is from My Favorite Things "Black and White Stripes" paper pack, and the die cut sentiment is from The Stamp Market's Handwritten Hello set. 

I'm sure you'll find lots of other interpretations for this color combination at the Color Hues Challenge blog. I hope you'll pop over to see, and will join our Guest Designer, Bonnie, and the fabulous DT in creating a card!

I'm entering these in the Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge for Dies Cuts:

 

Color Hues #41

Cindy has chosen a unique color combination for this round of the Color Hues Challenge.

Like last month, it took me awhile to come up with an idea.

But when I was looking through my stencils, I came across The Greetery's "Always in Bloom" stencil set and knew it would work perfectly. I ended up stenciling just a portion of the whole design, but I'm quite happy with this very cheery card! 

There is an accompanying stamp set with this that I didn't purchase so I added the details some ink blending and then with colored pencils. I think it came out just fine, and I wouldn't have used the layering stamps in the set. 

Turns out that all the products are from The Greetery. I die cut the panel with the Postal Frame, which I've owned for quite some time and never used before. I love the stitching inside the postal border. The sentiment is from a favorite set, "Birthday Blooms." The die cut for the sentiment is so perfect. I added a some foam behind the main panel and some narrow dimensional tape on the sentiment for a bit of interest. The final touch were a few red AMuse pearls which I've owned for years. I liked them so much I bought several packs of them, and it's proved to be a good purchase.

Hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what the rest of the Design Team and our two Guest Designers, Kim and Marcia have come up with . . . and join in the fun!