Getting Krafty with Nordic Noel

Today I'm sharing my newest creation for the a|s challenge blog. I thought I'd try to use every single stamp in the Nordic Noel stamp set, so for the next few days I'll be posting the cards I made from this personal challenge.

Here's my second card from the set. (The first card can be found on this blog post.)

As you can see, I continued the trend of kraft with the candy cane stripe cardstock, and stamped a background using all the smaller images from the Nordic Noel set with french roast ink. The sentiment is die cut from vanilla cardstock using a vintage labels 1 die and stamped with the matching stamp set, as well as the contemporary greetings set.

I've been feeling a little inspired by the Use Your Stamps Challenge on Susan Raihala's blog, so I may just pick out another set when I'm done with Nordic Noel. Check it out. You may find it interest you too.

Stay tuned for my next Nordic Noel card. Coming soon to a blog near you... or maybe just this one. LOL

I hope you'll find some time to enter before the challenge ends on Saturday, November 2, 2013.

Hugs and Kisses!

Supplies Used (all A Muse Studio)
stamps: contemporary greetings, nordic noel, vintage labels
ink: cherry, french roast
cardstock: kraft, french roast, vanilla, candy cane stripe
other: scallop borders dies, vintage labels 1 dies

Blossoming Summer

Here's a little quickie bit of inspiration for this week's challenge: stamped flowers.

I wanted to try some colouring on kraft, so I stamped some Floral Duet in Versamark, embossed in white, and got out my Tombow Markers. I think I liked the way it turned out.

Why don't you give it a try. Stamp some flowers and join the challenge. You have until Saturday.

Supplies used (all A Muse Studio)
stamps: floral duet, contemporary greetings
cardstock: kraft, sugar, vellum
ink: versamark, versafine onyx black
other: tombow markers (025, 703, 847, 856, 899, 912, 933, 947, 993)

Hugs and Kisses.

Colour Inspiration

I'm happy to be hosting on the challenge blog this week. Not too happy about how gray and drippy and dreary it is here with all the rain. Isn't it almost summer? I thought it might be fun to play with some bright colours to cheer me up, so this is what I did:

I chose to use buttercup, melon, apple, watermelon, and pebble. Since the colours were so bright and cheerful, I chose the flowers from Mod Backgrounds 1 (on sale in April). I randomly inked and stamped a panel of sugar cardstock, edged it with my slate Tombow marker and added it to a pebble card base. A sentiment from Contemporary Greetings was added to some more pebble cardstock and adhered with some foam tape. My ink smudged a little so I die cut a medium butterfly from some pebble scraps, stamped it with the Mod Backgrounds 1 woodgrain block using apple ink, and added it to the sugar panel.

Here is the inspiration photo:

(Photo from Design Seeds Blog)

I hope you find time to join us at the A Muse Studio Challenge Blog. You have until Saturday, May 4 at 11:59MST to link up your project.

Until the sun comes out again...

Hugs and Kisses.
TraceyJeanH

Supplies Used
stamps: Mod Backgrounds 1, Contemporary Greetings
inks: apple, buttercup, melon, watermelon, versafine onyx black
cardstock: pebble, sugar
other: butterfly trio dies, Tombow markers

Celebrate 2013 with Something New

Happy New Year! It's the first challenge of the year over on the A Muse Studio Consultants Challenge Blog and I'm hosting! Of course the challenge had to be: use something new. But then I thought I'd add a little twist, so this week we have combine something new with a papercrafting fave. Here's what I came up with:

I started with my favourite technique - heat embossing, which was done using the Venetian Background stamp on watercolour paper. Since I knew I'd be getting out my new Splash! inks and there was a good chance I'd oversaturate the paper, I thought it best to use some paper that was made to get wet. I was right. I sprayed and dabbed with a paper towel over and over, trying to get a perfect blend of the two colours. Then I proceeded to spray the backside with water, spritzed a little water on the front, and stood the whole thing up in a box overnight to allow the lemon whip to slowly blend into the grapefruit.

When everything was dried the next day, I proceeded to matte the inked paper with some onyx cardstock and mount it on a sugar card base. The sugar was a little too stark, so I went for my go-to colour - kraft - and it was perfect. I used a sentiment from Contemporary Greetings, stamped in Versamark and embossed in onyx, and trimmed it out. The sentiment strip looked a little plain, so I jazzed it up with some onyx baker's twine that I sprayed with both lemon whip and grapefruit Splash!

I hope you'll head over to the challenge blog and play along with our first challenge for 2013. The prize is 2 bottles of that gorgeous Splash! ink. So get your craft on and link a project before 11:59 pm on January 26.

Hugs and Kisses.
TraceyJ

A Muse Studio Supplies Used:
stamps: Venetian Background, Contemporary Greetings
cardstock: kraft, onyx
ink: Versamark, lemon whip Splash!, grapefruit Splash!
other: watercolour paper, onyx embossing powder, onyx baker's twine