…a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star…

Sharing a CAS Christmas card I made featuring the layered Nativity Star set of dies from Birch Press and a sentiment from the Christmas Blessings Sentiments by Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps.

I’d love to say this is me getting a head start on Christmas cards for this year but it’s actually my penultimate one for 2018 that didn’t even get finished by the 12^th day of Christmas!

Over at Inkspirational their word prompt is CASE, which did actually prompt me to take another look at this fab card on the Frilly and Funkie blog by Sara Baker of Sara’s Closet.

Sara made a few different designs but I really loved the look of the one she called ‘boundless imagination’.  To make the card my own I changed up the die cut from a snowflake to the star.  I didn’t have the mixed media powder Sara used so substituted with Fran-tage, which gave me a somewhat similar look.  I liked how Sara used the black ‘shadow’ layer so cut my base layer also in black.  I wanted to keep my card quite CAS so while I also made my own background I went for a simpler ink blending without any dry embossing.  I added a bit of bling in the centre of my star to match Sara’s die cut but, as my card is winging it’s way across to the USA, I skipped on the metal embellie for the sentiment for the lighter option of a stamped one.

At Crazy 4 Challenges they are asking you to share your favourite card type.  Mine would have to be a 6x6 square in CAS, has been for some time now.  So no surprises this card is on a 6x6 base and I’ve kept it all CAS.

For my colour scheme I was inspired by the silver and blue challenge at CAS Christmas.  The jury is still out for me on the Jane Davenport Squid Ink I used for the sentiment.  I’ve juiced up the pad a lot and there seems to be plenty of ink on my stamps but it doesn’t seem to give very good coverage.  I actually added clear embossing powder to the sentiment to help it stand out on the background.  So the hunt for the perfect metallic ink pad continues for me.  It also doesn’t show up at all in the picture but there’s an added bit of silver with the Tonic silver mirror card mat sandwiched between the blue inked panel and a black mat.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Stampendous! Fran-tage Embossing Enamel ~ Aged Silver

Ranger Embossing Powder ~ Super Fine Detail Clear

Ranger UTEE ~ Black

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Birch Press Dies ~ 57212~57215 Nativity Star (Layered)

Embellishments

Prima Say It In Crystals ~ The Archivist

Inks & Paints etc

Jane Davenport Squid Ink ~ Silver Trinket

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Chipped Sapphire

Tim Holtz Distress Oxide ~ Broken China, Faded Jeans & Salty Ocean

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bazzill Classic Cardstock ~ Licorice

Bazzill Smoothie Cardstock ~ White

Bellbird Paperarts ~ 210gsm Cotton Blend Card

Tonic Mirror Card ~ Chrome Silver

Stamps

Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps ~ Christmas Blessings Sentiments

Challenges

Crazy 4 Challenges #465 ~ Favourite card type

Thanks for stopping by!

The snow did not even whisper its way to earth…

Sharing my first, and possible only, Christmas card for the year featuring some of the cute stamps from the Holiday Village set by Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps.

I needed to make up this card as it has to get over to Japan before I am uber late again.  And by uber late I mean this one will be going over with last year’s in the same box!  Have been working crazy long hours so bit short of creative ideas but a quick scout around the challenge blogs threw up a wintery theme over at CCC Digi Creations.  Cue my new Holiday Village stamps from Kraftin’ Kimmie and I had my idea.

I created a little water coloured scene with several of the stamps from the set including both trees, the village hall (think it’s a hall it has a clock on its front), picket fence, mailbox, Santa and his reindeer and street light.  I also used one of the sentiments from the set.

At Simply Create Too they’re looking for cards with more than one fold, so I decided to make a gatefold card to enter.  To make it a bit more interesting I did the folds vertical and cut the top of the larger bottom section using my new Snow Capped Mountain die from Mama Elephant.

I wanted to play along at Sparkles Christmas as well so have lots of heat embossing on my card.  My sentiment is heat embossed in the same gold I added a border to the bottom layer of my card with.  The snow capping on the mountains as well as the snow on the ground are also heat embossed, with some lovely sparkly glittery embossing powder.  I also added a layer of clear embossing powder over my silhouette of Santa and his reindeer to deepen the black.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Bellbird Paperarts Embossing Powder ~ Clear Sparkle

Ranger Embossing Powder ~ Super Fine Detail Clear

WOW! Embossing Powder ~ Metallic Gold Rich Pale

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Mama Elephant ~ Snow Capped Mountain

Sizzix Tim Holtz Paper Punch ~ ½" Circle

Inks & Paints etc

Kuretake Gansai Tambi Water Colors ~ No. 10 White, No. 56 Marine Green & No. 58 Ever Green

Stampin’ Up! Stampin’ Pad ~ Basic Black

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Black Soot, Blueprint Sketch, Broken China, Chipped Sapphire & Weathered Wood

Tim Holtz Distress Paint ~ Picket Fence

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bazzill Monochromatic Cardstock ~ Typhoon

Bellbird Paperarts Card ~ Cotton Blend

Stamps

Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps ~ Holiday Village

Challenges

CCC Digi Creations #98 ~ Winter Time!

Simply Create Too #144 ~ More Than One Fold

Sparkles Christmas #95 ~ Embossing Heat or Dry

Thanks for stopping by!

A man can’t retire his experience

Sharing a quick card I made for someone retiring from work featuring a bit of embossing and a sentiment from a retired Kraftin’ Kimmie set.

I’ve used the current sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches for my layout.  I created the circle element using one of Tim’s Embossing Diffusers and one of his Texture Fades.  I was really struggling for ideas for this card but clocks and time always seem a good idea for retirements and you can’t help but love Tim’s clocks.

My Texture Fade gave me one kind of embossing (dry) and I added the second (wet) through embossing of my sentiment.  So I’ve well and truly covered the theme to enter my card in the current challenge at Crafty Friends.  I realised I didn’t have any retirement sentiments but thought this one from Kraftin’ Kimmie’s Bessie Bus Stop set suited.

For my colour scheme I took inspiration from The Paper Players, where Anne Marie put together a great palette.  I used the Crumb Cake to ink over my embossing and the Blackberry Bliss for my stamping.  Have to say it’s such a dark ink it almost looks like black.  Added the Mint Macaron with my coloured cardstock mat.  My extra colour is silver I have in my embellies, unless you count the base white.  Raided my stash for the embellies with another clock, some game spinners and a brad from Tim’s Idea-ology range.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Ranger Embossing Powder ~ Super Fine Detail Clear

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Sizzix Alterations Tim Holtz ~ Embossing Diffusers

Sizzix Alterations Tim Holtz Texture Fades ~ Pocket Watches

Embellishments

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Fasteners ~ Dapper

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Findings ~ Game Spinners & Time Pieces

Inks & Paints etc

Stampin’ Up! Stampin’ Pad ~ Blackberry Bliss & Crumb Cake

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Stampin’ Up! Cardstock ~ Mint Macaron

Stamps

Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps ~ Bessie Bus Stop (retired) sentiment

Challenges

Crafty Friends #92

Thanks for stopping by!