random reflections

Color Hues #80

It’s an unusual occurrence, but this is my second post of the day. My post as the Guest Designer for the AAABirthday Challenge went live at 3:00 this morning due to a time difference in England. 

It's February 1st and time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Sheri is our hostess this time and has chosen Red and Pink. Perfect for Valentine's Day if you're so inclined. And check out our new graphic--an awesome design!

My card could easily be a valentine, but I was somewhat surprised to find I had several valentines left over from last year. I'm thinking this is more likely going to be an anniversary card for close friends of ours. I do have to make new valentines for the five grandchildren, but this one doesn't seem quite right for any of them. 

I've kept my New Year's Intention in a big way here. Every product I used was in my To Be Used Box of products purchased, but not used. I'm quite happy with all of them. I started by stenciling Papertrey Ink's Happy Hearts with Kitsch Flamingo and Lumberjack Red Distress Oxide inks, masking off the bottom of the panel for a space for the sentiment. I die cut the panel as well as a slightly larger red panel with dies from Gina K's Master Layout #3. I use her Master Layout #1 all the time, and purchased several more versions during sales over the past year. It's way past time to put them to use.

The sentiment was die cut with a very recent purchase during the after Christmas sale at Waffle Flower. The Print and Script with Love die includes two versions of the words as well as shadows for all of them. I chose the block print ones and die cut them from a scrap piece of paper that I ink blended with the two Distress Oxide inks. 

I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues blog and check out all the amazing designs by our Guest Designer, Bobby, and the Design Team. We look forward to seeing what you create in the gallery.

If all goes as planned I'll be on Day Four of a Tanzania Safari Tour when this goes live, and most likely will be checking out your creations on my return. Aside from lack of time, my understanding is internet service is hard to come by. Nancy, our fearless leader on Color Hues, has graciously offered to cover for me while I'm gone. It's an incredible offer as she's one of the busiest card makers I know as well as running two challenge blogs. Many thanks, Nancy!

Color Hues 102

Stef has chose the new colors for the mid-January Color Hues Challenge:

Typically when I see a color combo like this one I reach for one of my geometric stamp or die sets. I really wanted to branch out this time and have an Altenew collection I've been wanting to use for months. I rarely purchase one of Altenew's kits, but I had some points to use and fell in love with the Craft Your Life Project Kit: Chocolate Flowers. It includes a Zero-Waste die cut, layering stencils, a background stamp set with sentiments, and a 3-D embossing folder. I die cut the Zero-Waste flowers and leaves from white cardstock with no firm idea of what I wanted to do with it. 

I started by choosing two navy inks (Pinkfresh Studio Sapphire and Stargazer) and two lime inks (Papertrey Ink Limeade Ice and Green Parakeet) and set about ink blending some of the flowers and leaves. After coloring the ones you see above, I already had an ideas for the card. I added a center die cut ink blended with Honey Bee's Metallic Silver ink and put the flower together. While we were away, I purchased some Artpop Watercolor paper at Dick Blicks specifically for using as card bases. When I was creating some card bases, I miscalculated on one and ended up with a narrow edge that extended beyond the card.

The Pinkfresh Studio Fancy Dotted Frames looked to be a great base for the flowers and the leaves, and I was happy with how they fit on the frame which I added to the card base. I die cut a narrow strip of blue paper for contrast at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment is from Memory Box and is one of their Black Greeting Tabs--this set is all birthday greetings. Because the lettering is gold, I added a PFS gold pearl to the center of the flower.

I took a photo of the leftovers from the Zero-Waste Die Cut so you can see how much restraint I used to get a CAS card! You're certainly going to see more cards soon! (I love these small divided acrylic boxes from The Container Store. They stack and I also have one with just two compartments for larger dies. The work great to sort the die cuts as you cut them as well as when you are ink blending and assembling the pieces.

I hope you'll join us for this new challenge. You'll (as usual) find lots of inspiration from the Design Team as well as our Guest Designer, Esther Asbury. I'll be adding this to the gallery at A Cut Above where die cuts are always the main event.

 

Color Hues #101

Sheri is the hostess for our first Color Hues Challenge of 2025. She chose Red and Kraft, and it was a perfect combination for putting two of my very recent purchases to work.

I couldn't resist ordering the Frosty Buds (and a few other goodies) from The Greetery's November release. Betsy always has a nice sale for this release, and she ships her products very quickly. I also ordered Pinkfresh Studio's Nested Hexagons Blanket Stitch from Simon Says Black Friday sale. 

I die cut the two hexagons and created the card base from Papertrey Ink's Soft Stone paper which is a very pale grey. The Frosty Buds were die cut from pretty red cardstock in my scrap box and the branch from kraft cardstock.

Deciding on the centers of the buds took a bit of trial and error. I first tried crystals from the Crystal Sequin Mix offered in The Greetery's November release. It ended up looking too busy, so I settled for four of the crystals with tiny silver pearls in the centers of the crystals and just the pearls for the smaller buds. 

I silver embossed the sentiment from Pink & Main's Special Day sentiments and trimmed it down. I fluffed up the florals and the leaves a bit for some dimension, and also added dimensional foam between the largest hexagon and the card base. "Time to Celebrate" is one of my favorite sentiments because the card is suitable for a variety of occasions. 

I hope you'll join us in the gallery to start off another year of inspirational color combinations! The Design Team and Guest Designer, Stephanie Severin, have some great inspiration waiting for you on the blog. 

Thanks for visiting. Here's to a Healthy and Happy New Year! 

 

Color Hues 100!!!

Our fabulous leader, Nancy, has chosen the wonderful colors for this amazing 100th Challenge for Color Hues.

Since this is our 100th challenge, Woohooo... there will be a fabulous prize offered to one of our winners. You can read all the details over on the Color Hues blog. 

Originally, I thought I'd create a holiday card for this challenge (and sadly, I'm still in need of a few). But I found a foiled panel on my desk of the beautiful Spellbinders Cosmos Backdrop, and thought it would be lovely stenciled in blue and purple. I'm happy with the result. 

It's hard to see how pretty it is unless your can see the gold foiling as well. You can see the purple card base better in this photo, too.

I used two shades of grays for the leaves. Then I die cut the panel with one of Ellen Hutson's Essential Arches and layered the two pieces on a purple card base. 

The sentiment from a new Pinkfresh Studio Betterpress plate, Here for You was foiled in gold and die cut with the accompanying die which I love. Foiled cards are so hard to photograph well. I hope the second photo gives you a sense of how pretty the card is in your hand.

I hope you'll join us for this monumental challenge. Hop over to the Color Hues blog and see the wide variety of wonderful cards from the Design Team!

 

Color Hues #99

It's mid-November (where does the time go?) and Marcia has a wonderful color combination on the Color Hues Blog for the next two weeks: Pink and Aqua.

These colors were perfect for the Hey, Honeycomb Balloons, by The Greetery. I started out with The Greetery Ticker Tape hot foil plate foiled with Silver Holographic Facets by Spellbinders.

For my hues of Pink and Aqua, I matched the cardstock to the colors of two of the Honeycomb Balls: Party. After die cutting the balloons, I white embossed sentiments from the Hey Honeycomb Sentiments on each balloon. 

I die cut some streamers, the balloon strings, and the sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio from silver metallic cardstock. Before arranging everything, I die cut the main panel and a panel of silver cardstock with Gina K's Master Layout #1, and attached them to a white cardbase. The white stars on the balloons are actually die cut from double-sided adhesive. Once the top layer is pulled off here's the final card.

I knew these products would make a very festive card, and I'm quite sure I'll be using up my supply of honeycomb balls for a variety of cards.

You'll find lots of inspiration on the Color Hues blog, where you'll find great cards created by our special guest, Teresa, and our very creative new Design Team member, Bonnie Klass!

 

 

Color Hues #96

Julie B's choice, Purple and Orange, for the first of October Color Hues Challenge sent me right off to find my Halloween die cuts. 

I reached for my favorite purple (Simon Says' Royal Purple) and orange (Papertrey Ink's Orange Zest) cardstock. Most of these images were die cut two or three years ago when I got together with two friends and used some of their Halloween dies. I die cut enough that I've used some of those for the last two Halloweens, and still have some left for more cards this year and next! All of the dies are from Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is from the Tricky Trio die cuts, and is no longer available. I layered three sentiment together, two purple and then the orange slightly offset. 

The sparkly moon is from the Boo Black Cat and the three ghosts were stamped and die cut from Ghost and Ghoulies. I love their tiny googlie eyes that I found in my stash. Once I arranged them, I decided the card definitely needed something more, so cut a panel of purple and then used Spellbinder's Stargazer embossing folder--just what it needed.

I'll need a few more Halloween cards, but it's good to have one on hand early. I hope you'll join us in the gallery of the Color Hues Challenge. You'll find plenty of inspiration from the Design Team there. 

Blue and Pink for Color Hues 95

Cindy has a great color combo for us on the Color Hues Blog this round: 

I pulled out two new products (NBUS) from Alex Syberia: Garden Tweets and Signature Tags for my card, and I'm really happy with how it came out.

I chose two Papertrey Ink papers for the main blues: Blueberry Sky and Spring Rain. The foliage was die cut with one of my favorite neutrals: Soft Stone. The pinks all came from my scrap box as most of the die cut pieces were very small. After assembling the bird and flowers, I arranged them on one of the two large tags from the Signature Tags set cut from a piece of patterned paper in an older My Favorite Things paper pad, Road Tripper. I like the subtle light blue pattern which adds some interest but doesn't detract from the main images.

After tying a bow with gold thread from Altenew, I added a sentiment that was hot foiled in gold with Spellbinders Better Press Plate, Fancy Sentiment Strips. I used some dimensional tape under the sentiment strip, and adhered the tag to a card base of Spring Rain cardstock. 

There's always a lot of inspiration from our Guest Designer and the Design Team at the Color Hues Blog, so hop over and see what might inspire you to join us in the gallery.

This is off to Darnell's NBUS Challenge.

 

 

Color Hues #94

I knew September would show up long before I was ready to say goodbye to summer. I remember Tracy once saying that now that we're retired "it's  endless summer." Sadly, not. I will miss the long hours of sunshine, the pretty flowers in my yard and garden, and the warm weather. It will still be nice for a few more weeks, but once Labor Day arrives, summer seems to end for me.

Knowing fall is on its way, Carol has a wonderful color challenge for us at the Color Hues Challenge blog:

For this challenge, especially, remember that this is a color hues challenge so there's always room for a variety of hues. I chose two hues of cardstock for rust and two hues of green. I also included some dark brown and white--neutrals are always welcome. I immediately thought of two die sets in my NBUS box:  Spellbinders' The Botanical Solarium and Altenew's Through the Window. 

After die cutting all the elements, I added a bit of ink blending to the greenery and backed the window with a piece of cloud vellum. When I started to consider what I could use I remembered some of this, but I had no idea if there was any left. I had plenty for the window, and enough for several more when I use this die again. 

I had several contenders for a rust card base but chose Papertrey Ink's Terra Cotta Tile. The rust cardstock for the pots is Gina K's Rusty. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things, Sunflower Sweetheart. The only embellishments were the pearls for the flower centers and one for the butterfly. I had a few die cuts left over, and decided to use a few of them on the inside:

The sentiment here is from My Favorite Things Sweet Birthday Wishes. I'll bet there are a few stamps or die in your collection that would make for a great entry to our Rust and Green gallery. Be sure to check on the Color Hues Blog for more inspiration, and come join us!

As noted above, this card definitely benefited from my NBUS box, so it will be an early entry to Darnell's September NBUS challenge. I'm also adding it to the gallery at Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts and Stencils.

 

Color Hues #93

Tracey has chose perfect summer colors for the new Color Hues Challenge.

I pulled out an old favorite for some bright and cheerful Coneflowers by Honey Bee. The layers and size of the florals make a big impact on an A2 sized card.

Catherine Pooler's Chic Chevron coverplate made a good background for the florals. I added a sentiment stamped in dark brown and fussy cut from Pinkfresh Studio's Friendship Blooms stamp set. 

The colors in the photos are quite a bright as they are in real life--a too frequent result of living in an old house with limited light. I added a few yellow enamel dots was the only embellishment. 

I hope you'll join us at the Color Hues Challenge. The gallery is open until August 29th so there's lots of time to create with us! 

 

Color Hues #92

Another month has flown by, and we're at the top of August already: time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Stef has chosen:

Last month, Jill Foster for Penny Black presented ten videos in a series call "Permission to Play." Each video featured a different layout design, and I chose the layout from the second video.

You'll quickly realize I made one major change, using a circle frame rather than an oval. Much to my surprise, I didn't have any decorative oval frames, and no circle ones that I was happy with either. I ended up creating my own using one design from Pinkfresh Studio's Braided Circles and using one of the Ellen Hutson Essential Circles.

I've always love Penny Black's hedgie images, but only own one set. This cute critter rushing off with his package is from the Critter Delight set, and is one I've owned for a long time. Jill Foster used watercolors for all the images in her 10 video series, but I chose Copic markers for this guy.  After adding some ink blending to the background circle, I added the frame with dimensional tape.

The sentiment from The Greetery's Inflated Sentiments was curved to fit inside the frame (and doesn't look as close to the frame IRL.) I added a small butterfly (an embellishment used by Jill on several of her cards.) I didn't have a small die so fussy cut this one from an older Papertrey Ink set, Life is Beautiful. 

There's lots to see at the Color Hues Blog so hop over and take a look at the creative designs by the Design Team. 

Color Hues #91

Sheri's pick for this Color Hues Challenge came at a great time for me. Red and Green called out Christmas, and my stash of Christmas cards is very small. 

In keeping with my goal of using NBUS, I pulled out Pinkfresh Studio's hot foil plate, stencil, and die cut for the Winter Berries Frame purchased months ago and went to town. The first card is my fave and the one I posted on the Color Hues Challenge site, but there are four more cards as well. I challenged myself to try a different design for each of the cards. 

This is the only card where I didn't use the die. I've always love the Savvy Joy die cut and use it almost every Christmas. I used the stencil and two shades of green and red to color the berries. I stenciled enough panels for all the cards first, and actually have quite a few left over.

The closer view shows the beautiful hot foil and the pretty gold sentiment.

For the rest of the cards, I'll just list the additional products used for the card.

black & gold mirror cardstock, Pinkfresh Studio Diagonal Stitched Circles, Spellbinders Betterpress Fancy Sentiment Strip & die (foiled in gold), PFS gold pearls

a premade embossed square card, PFS Perfect Sentiments: Holiday (foiled in gold), PFS Gold Glitter dots

Gina K embossing folder Tapestry, Ellen Hutson Essential Arches die, PFS Perfect Sentiments: Holiday, PFS scarlet clear drops

PFS Basic Banners: Christmas, The Paper Studio gold pearls 

It's not just Christmas on the Color Hues Challenge board although I'm not the only one to add to their stash of holiday cards. Please hop over and take a look at the great designs of our Guest Designer, Rosemary, and our Design Team. 

Some of these cards are off to two additional challenges: Addicted to Stamps and More: Christmas, the Christmas Kickstart Challenge: Festive Frames (which I'd better continue to play with!) and NBUS for the berry frame.