AAA has an anything goes CAS challenge with a twist of travel. Seize the Birthday has a cute critter challenge. I decided to combine the two and came up with this card.

Using a negative circle as my mask I sponged some colour into the circle using Tumbled Glass and Bundled Sage inks. Because I wanted to use this cute little Panda image from AI, I used a very old wooden block stamp that has an oriental image. This gave me the look and idea of China for my Panda. I stamped through the mask to get a light impression over the sponging. Once I had my Panda stamped I added some bamboo along one side of the circle and the word explore comes from an old hot air balloon set from GKD. I coloured my Panda with pencils and some Sakura Glaze for nose eyes and ears. The inside carries the birthday message.

I’m happy with the end result and had fun making it. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it.

CYHTP August 10th 2024 Anything Goes With A Twist of Wheels – Twist not taken with this creation.

My dragon boat team member had to put down her aged cat last week and is obviously very sad about it. I decided to make her a pet sympathy card, which I will give to her tomorrow when I see her. I used a paw print border die, as well as a cat die that are from Kokorosa. Taking some scraps of photo CS that I cut from pieces my hubby gave me I first cut the aperture and then ran it through with a Sizzix folder. I did the small strip at the window separately and added it with some tape. The cat was cut from a photo of water and added to the strip. I did the card front with the border die and then added the bricked piece as you see. Another scrap piece was cut using the everyday details die set and I stamped the sentiment from SSS on it before popping it up slightly. Photo paper like this holds onto the stamps so I used some tape at the corners to hold it in place so I could repeat stamp. I learned that photo paper cannot take any kind of tape without it pulling the surface and it is impossible to remove the residue. To hide the marks I added the stamped tiny paw print circles as embellishments.

The glossy photo paper is actually silver coated and it looks really pretty in reality. I also like how using a different printed photo can make the cat look quite real and no inking was required. I did use a pen to darken the eyes, nose and marks along its back.

Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate you and any comments you may leave.

Lynda has chosen birds for her challenge theme here at https://cardz4galz.blogspot.com/ and she will also be choosing the winners. In a previous post I mentioned having the fallouts strips from the Blind die and I also had this banner negative space that I had inked, using a stamp from the Kokorosa set, for another project. I thought the fallout pieces would look good to fill this space so I added tape and proceeded to lay them down. As I had had trouble with the Kokorosa die, trying several times, the inked pieces are actually an art work panel that a friend gave me. The bendy portion of the blinds didn’t cut but the straight parts did. I thought adding them alternately would look nice and I am happy I thought of doing this. The sentiment and 2 chickens are also Kokorosa and I coloured them with pencils and water. The smaller of the two was fussy cut because I wanted the chicken to face the other so I mirror stamped it. I haven’t figured out how to die cut a mirror image although most likely there is a way to do it. I kept to the pink theme and added the panel to a pink card front.

I’m quite happy with how this ended up and like the fun of the images. As I often rush around like a chicken with her head cut off, it amuses me to make a card like this one. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate your time and any comments you leave for me.

The other day I was fooling around with some leftover CS that was mostly just colour strips. I added quite a few to some paper as a backing and this small piece is part of one of them. There was no rhyme or reason to how I put them together and I wasn’t too worried about size or matching everything either.

The challenge at Seize the Birthday is a Tic Tac Toe choice and I chose the diagonal of stripes, CAS and sentiment without the word birthday. Using an older SSS die set I cut a couple of balloons from the piece but decided to only use one of them here. Kind of like an eclipse only I didn’t add the usual black background when I put the balloon back in place. I added the tiny striped bow leaving one end as a wavy piece and then curved the sentiment slightly to add in the downward curve. Sentiment is from an MFT set and twine is from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you have enjoyed an excellent weekend wherever you may be.

Challenge #329 – Forest Bathing at As You See It is a recipe style challenge. To make sure I got all the ingredients I made a list and checked off each one as I achieved it. The easiest part was the shades of green and embossing as I had made this background sometime ago and pulled it from my stash. The folder is one from Tim Holtz. I also had the dark green frame on hand so I added it to the card front and after adding the twine to the background layer I glued the leaf piece inside the frame. The sentiment stamp is from Joy Clair and I fussy cut around it. The tree is from a die by Penny Black and it is cut using silvery photo paper so has shine. I added a bit of colour using a sponge and then glued it to the sparkly layer before adding it to the rest. I ensured that the twine grounds the tree and then added the sentiment as you see.

Perhaps the tree is a bit busy over the embossed layer, but I still like the end result. It is interesting to see how colour sits on this photo paper and it stays put too. As this card fits the challenge at CYHTP but without the twist I am also adding it as a 2nd entry there.

Thanks for stopping by, it is appreciated and wherever you are in the world I hope your weekend is a good one.

These colours are not my favourites by any stretch of the imagination and creating with them isn’t something I would normally do. I guess that is why challenges are good for us. They get us out of our comfort zones.

Color Hues #92 – Pink and Brown is the latest challenge and this card is what I came up with. It started with the water coloured piece that I had played with some time ago. I used a Spellbinders die set that is for creating envelopes to get the two pieces shown here. I used another die in the set to emboss the water colour piece. Then I took another scrap piece that is from an actual painting and did the 2nd one. The PP is from an old pad I’ve had forever and I cut it down, added a ribbon and then added the foam backed shaped layers. Using more scrap CS I stamped the leaves twice using a leaf clusters stamp and die set from Altenew. Sentiment from that set too. I stamped using Gathered Twigs ink and added the leaves as you see attaching them together at the stems. Using a Memory box daisy die I cut the flower twice added some pink ink by swiping and put them together before adding the pink center petals and the flower center. To soften the stark edges of the leaves I took a gold glitter pen and lightly went around some of them.

My hubby likes the end result, I’m on the fence about it. Thanks for stopping by, it is appreciated.