Category Archives: Sponging

Season’s Greetings

Hello again.

I played with another challenge yet again, but this time it is from the team at Freshly Made Sketches.

Quite a simple design but you can be very creative with this. Some entries already submitted are very clever. Since I am on a Christmas themed stint of card making there are no surprises with my creation.

I am loving the Dainty Diamonds embossing folder as it gives a beautiful pattern in vellum paper. Vellum paper is something I have been using a lot lately. It’s a great addition to any card without making it ‘heavy’. On this card I have backed it with Real Red CS. As you can see I am still on the spritzer wagon. I love the randomness of it.

Oh, and this card only took me 35 minutes to pull together from start to finish…..maybe sketch challenges are the way to go.

See you agin soon,

Kirsty xx

Jingle Bells

Hello again. I am back with another challenge entry. I must say these challenges are helping me get inky even if it takes two days to complete. I did have this one in mind for two challenges, but I have missed the deadline for the Color Throwdown challenge #617 of Kraft, red, dark green and light green. I do, however, have some time left to enter the TGIF Challenge #288. This challenge is all about circles.

I had a quick look through my stamps and found Cherish the Season with all the bells in the set and thought it would work well. I ended up using the matching die set Sounds of the Season to create my bells and used the sentiment out of the stamp set. I have also decided I will probably buy a whole heap more spritzers and create a colour mist for every current SU colour I have. I am definitely addicted. I used Real Red, Frost White and White.

Even though it took two days to put together I liked the end result. Now I am off to find another challenge (hopefully one that doesn’t take me so long to complete…lol).

See you again soon,

Kirsty xx

Artful Stampers Challenge #50

Hello everyone,

Wow, I am on a roll. This is the third challenge in a row that I have participated in. The people who know me will know that is a huge feat in itself. LOL!

We are having a colour challenge, and the colours are gorgeous, check them out-

Artful Stampers Challenge #50

Here is my entry-

Perfect Peacock

I decided to pull out the gorgeous Peacock stamp. I only played with it once and that was with the Blendabilities. This time I water coloured it. This was lots of fun and I should do it more often. I love how the Watermelon Wonder flowers really pop. I also deliberately did messy embossing. I wanted extra texture and having splatter of white embossing was perfect. I used five different stamp sets to create this one. Can you guess them all?

Perfect Peacock

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Thanks for dropping by!

Kirsty xx

Silent Night!

Hello everyone,

I have been playing with my new goodies again. Jingle All the Way is very fast becoming a favourite as it gives a great opportunity to create beautiful night skies. With this particular design I found a card that Billie Moan made and I loved it. She had a colour combo for her night sky that I haven’t  played with before and decided to CASE her card. I do love how it turned out except for that dreaded smudge. You know the one that shows up just as the final piece of the card is put together?!

Silent Night

Ughh! I hate that! But I wasn’t going to create it again. LOL! Now my starry night is a little different to Billies’ where I stamped the Gorgeous Grunge in White Stampin’ Craft Ink, got a tissue and wiped it in one direction then came back and stamped the white again, but this time I did not smudge it. It reminds me slightly of those blurred night sky photos I see a lot of, and I suppose very lose to the Bokeh technique……which in fact I have made a Bokeh Technique card, I just cannot find it. I suppose that means I have to make another.

Thanks for dropping by!

Kirsty xx

P.S. Again the Stamp and Die set are not listed below as they are not available yet. Not long now!!

Catalogue Sneak Peek

Hello everyone,

Very soon, in just 10 short days, we have our Holiday Catalogue going live. I have a creation with some of those goodies to share. I used a technique I have seen a lot lately and I love how it turned out and you will laugh when you realise how easy it is….not too mention you have probably accidentally done it before and thought “Well that’s ruined”, because I know I have. LOL!

DSC_0135

See those splotches in the ink? Well that’s just plain old water. Now I will have to back up a few steps first as I am sure a lot of you will want to know what colours I used for my evening sky.

Jingle All the Way

I started down the bottom with So Saffron and I sponged it on quite liberally, then Calypso Coral, be careful to leave a little Saffron showing. I did go over again with the Saffron to blend the two together better. These two coulees were only put on the bottom. I then sponged Perfect Plum over the rest of the card stock and blended that with the Calypso as best I could. I then splotched Bermuda Bay and Island Indigo over the purple. I finished it off with Blackberry Bliss and Night of Navy last to get that deep night sky. It’s my first attempt and I am sure I will find more colours to add or swap some out for different depths and tones.

So now the sponging is done, grab your Stampin’ Up! Aqua Painter, make sure the reservoir near the tip is full of water and flick it over your night sky. Stop and mop up the water with a tissue and repeat (This is what I was talking about in regards to stuffing past cards up by accidentally wetting them!! haha). I found the longer I left the water on the whiter the spots. I did ones that were left on for 10 seconds and some left on for 2. It gave me quite a few different tones.

Now you could have done the emboss resist technique with this, but I think the water droplets would have turned out differently. I covered it liberally with the Embossing Buddy as you could imagine this piece of paper is quite wet being full of ink and water. I am sure a zap with the heat tool would help too. Using the Versa Mark I stamped the sentiment and stars and used white embossing powder. I nearly used gold but on a scrap of paper it was too dark. Silver might be nice though.

I then added the die cut along the bottom on Dimensionals to have that beautiful shadow effect.

If you do CASE it please let me know in the comments with a link so I can check out your creation.

Thanks for dropping by!

Kirsty xx

P.S. The Stamp Set and Die cut is not listed below as it is not available yet.

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You Brighten My Day!

Hello everyone,

I have been playing with some of my Sale-A-Bration goodies, and also wanted to create some cards to give to some friends who have been there for me a lot lately. I did make another one with a matching wine bottle topper but would you believe I forgot to take some photos. I really loved the design as well. I was just in too much of a hurry to give it away! LOL.

Instead I will share this one which is destined for another friend who has been my rock lately.

You Brighten my Day

 

 

Here is a close up of the main image

You Brighten My Day

 

This was such a simple basic design which would also work very well on a square card.

The star burst stamp is from the Kinda Eclectic stamp set. I very carefully lifted the stamp, after the first impression, did a very slight turn and stamped it again in second generation. If you are not comfortable in doing that free hand you can use a Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to help you stamp it perfectly.

The light bulb and sentiment is from the Sale-A-Brtion stamp set You Brighten My Day.

I used some Crystal Effects and some silver sparkle glitter adhesive to enhance the light bulb.

So in all a quick, easy, effective card. I hope you like it.

Thanks for dropping by,

Kirsty xx

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Can Never Have Too Much Happy With Everything Eleanor

Hello everyone,

I decided to have a play with a challenge. It is something I haven’t done in a while and it was absolutely fabulous. One of my team leaders Alisa Tilsner is a designer at Around the World Stampin’ Up! Challenges and encouraged me to have a play. Here is the challenge-

Colour Challenge

I love colour challenges, it opens you up to so many more possibilities, than say an inspiration challenge. Here is my entry-

Everything Eleanor, Around the World Challenge

I loved playing with the Dictionary stamp as a background on the Peacock card so much, I had a play again. I inked up the whole stamp stamped it off and second generation stamped selective parts of the Dictionary stamp. I use a clear mount stamp, as it is easy to manipulate and bend. What I love about it, is it’s not exact and you never know what you’re going to end up with.

Everything Eleanor is one of my most favourite stamp sets. I just haven’t played with it in a while and it was time to moisten that stamp with some ink. I sponged the edges very lightly with Basic Grey Ink, it really makes the Whisper White border pop.

Everything Eleanor, Around the World Challenge

Something else I haven’t done in a while is play with my Aqua Painter, and I enjoyed that immensely. Colouring improves my stress levels so you can imagine how relaxed I am since the release of the new Blendabilites! LOL.

I hope I have inspired you to participate in a challenge or have a play with one of your favourite stamp sets.

Thanks for dropping by,

Kirsty

Fine Feathers!

Hello everyone,

I just held my retirement workshop yesterday and I have one of the cards to share. I used my most favourite stamp set that is retiring from the Stampin’ Up! catalogue this year, Fine Feathers. I definitely didn’t get enough use of this set, so I might just hang onto it for hobby use.

Fine Feathers

There is a lot going on on this card, but I think well worth it. After creating a circle mask with the circle framelits, I stamped the Hardwood background, followed by gold embossing the feathers. I sponged with Crumb Cake ink and then splattered the background with Calypso Coral and Whipser White.

The sentiment piece consists of Burlap ribbon, Modern Medley DSP, paper doily, Very Vintage Designer Buttons, Vellum clear embossed stamped feathers, Linen Thread, the Oh, Hello stamp set, punched with the decorative label. All this on the base of Naturals White card stock. I told you there is a lot going on, right?!

I love how this one turned out. I must say there are few of its sisters sitting in the bin all crumpled up. We won’t go there……all I’ll say is I’m rusty.

Fine Feathers

The girls enjoyed making this one, which was good news. I love working them hard. LOL!

Thanks for dropping by!

Kirsty

Gorgeous Grunge!

Hello everyone!

I have just placed an order from the new Stampin’ Up! Idea Book and Catalogue (you can find a link for it in my sidebar), and I am just full of creative mojo. I also have the Christmas in the Country Craft show coming up in November. I know it sounds like ages away but this year has gone so fast already, so I am now in design mode for that. I’m very excited indeed. I am also holding a Catalogue Launch in a couple of weeks, I know, I know….I’m a little behind, but I have only just rediscovered my mojo. It was patiently waiting behind the “Get you life in order” box. Now that box is unpacked, mojo was found.

Anyway I had a little play with one of the stamp sets we received at convention. Gorgeous Grunge, which is fast becoming one of my favourite stamp sets. Back ground elements are so very useful and can create a quick and easy card.

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The colour combo I used came out of the catalogue too. On every page there are photos of samples and they list the background colours of every pic and they  are great colour combos. This one is Raspberry Ripple, Island Indigo, Soft Sky and Crumb Cake.

Well I’m off to do all that creating I told you about! LOL.

Thanks for dropping by,

Kirsty

 

Festive Friday Challenge #32

Hello everyone,

Time for another Festive Friday Challenge. This round is a Father’s Day Special, mixed with the challenge of using brads as the focal point. I think I did okay, I struggled with it a little. Usually when doing something manly I don’t think brads, but I like what I cane up with.

I used the Best Dad Ever stamp set, and matched it up with the Just Add Cake and Well Worn DSP’s. The colours I used are Wild Wasabi, Early Espresso, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla. The middle tie is full of polka dots and I used the silver Mini Brads in place of them. After making this card I think it would have been more effective if I popped that one tie on dimensionals to stand out and look more 3D. I love the aged look of this card too. I just sponged some Soft Suede around the edges of the main panel and the Wild Wasabi DSP.

I hope you get a chance to play along this week, I would love to see what you create.

Thanks for dropping by!