CD 345 - Lovin' Those Stitched Daisies!

Welcome to Colour Dare Challenge #345!

This week, it's another Tic-Tac-Toe challenge - and these are popular challenges! 

We do take our colours from the Close To My Heart colour palette - and these ones are also taken from the True Love paper pack. However, please feel free to use the closest colours you have. You do need to follow at least one row or column but you can use as many other colours from the palette as you wish. We just ask that you add the palette to your post and identify which colours you have used!

 I used the following: 

• Bottom row: New England Ivy, Ballerina, Sugarplum
• Diagonal : Eggplant, Gold, Sugarplum
• Diagonal: Sage, Gold, New England Ivy

I love the new Stitched Flower Thin Cuts from Close To My Heart. However, I didn't want to use them as they were so I cut up the daisy flower into sections so I could layer it and make it look more like a 3-D flower. It also made it a little smaller so I could place three of them on my card instead of just one. I used the reverse side of the Eggplant cardstock for one of the flowers so it is a slightly lighter shade. I did the same with the Sugarplum fronts to add some interest there. 

There is no sentiment - I can add one to the inside of the card when I decide to use it. 

Come and join us at Colour Dare and show us how you use the colour palette shown above. 

You have two weeks to link up your project. 

We can’t wait to see what you create! 

Products used are all CTMH

Paper: Sweet Girl Paper Pack, True Love Paper Pack, New England Ivy Cardstock, Eggplant Cardstock, Sugarplum Cardstock

Stamps: none

Inks: none

Accessories: Stitched Flowers Thin Cuts, Thin Foam Tape, Foam Tape, Gold Gems, White and Gold Skinny Ribbon

Enjoy,

Alyson

AH 318 - Happiness Today with Two Cards

Welcome to this week's sketch at Atlantic Hearts!

There is a lot happening on the sketch this week - a sentiment within a frame, a border, two separate images and some embellishments. 

The first card I created for this sketch was one I wasn't particularly happy with so I created a second card. That original card is shown later in this post. 

I used the same sentiment for both cards but I wanted to use an image that could be seen both above the sentiment and in the lower corner as shown in the sketch. I ended up choosing a plaid paper and then I coloured some flowers that I embossed in silver. The green leaves add a nice touch to the overall card and takes away from the large amount of grey. That's why I went back after photographing the card the first time and added the silver embellishing thread, just to give it a little more emphasis to the flowers and help to draw the eye away from the grey. 

This is the original card that I created for this challenge... It works but it isn't my favourite. I brushed some of the flowers with a clear shimmer brush but that didn't show up in the photograph. 

Come and join us at Atlantic Hearts and show us how you interpret the sketch shown above. 

You have until Sunday evening to link up your project. 

We can't wait to see what you create! 

Products used are as follows: 

Paper: Sweet Girl Paper Pack, Heather Cardstock, White Daisy Cardstock, Peach Cardstock (all CTMH) 

Stamps: Sentiment Collection (Penny Black), Wild Roses (Pretty Pink Posh)

Inks: Versamark, Heather (both CTMH)

Accessories: Silver Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Silver Glitter Gems, Silver Embellishing Thread, Thin Foam Tape (all CTMH), Oval Dies, Oval Open Scalloped Dies (both Nestabilities), Wild Rose Dies (Pretty Pink Posh), Touch Markers

Enjoy,

Alyson

H2H - Dog-Gone Awesome

Welcome to this week's Heart 2 Heart challenge! 

It's all about pets - the love of pets, to be exact. So many people own pets of some sort - dogs, cats, something else. I know my dog is my life - I don't know what I would do without her. She just seems to know when I am happy and also when I need her to be there just to cuddle when I am not doing so well. Pets are remarkably in tune with their owners and I believe they are FAR more intelligent than we will ever really know. There are stories out there that just make your head spin about the things that pets have done to and for their owners and others - simply remarkable.

However, it's time for the artwork! I chose a stamp by My Favourite Things called Lucky Dog. It has a variety of dog images plus some fabulous sentiments. I created a shaker card using three of the dog images. The new Sweet Girl paper from CTMH was a great background for my card and gold embellishments worked perfectly to add some extra interest to my card. 

Come and join us at Heart 2 Heart and show us your love of pets for this challenge! 

You have until the end of May to link up with this or any of the other May challenges. 

We can't wait to see what you create! 

Products used are as follows: 

Paper: Sweet Girl Paper Pack, White Daisy Cardstock, Fern Cardstock (all CTMH), Neenah Solar White Cardstock

Stamps: Lucky Dog (MFT)

Inks: Intense Black, Peach (both CTMH)

Accessories: Gold Embellishing Thread, Loose Gold Sequins, Basic Circle Thin Cuts, Stitched Circle Thin Cuts (all CTMH), Touch Markers, Sharpie Markers, Foam Tape, Acetate

Enjoy,

Alyson

CD 343 - Glitter Flower Oval

Welcome to Colour Dare Challenge #343! 

Take a close look at the colour grid shown above - it's an interesting one... blues and greens with one pink/purple colour. There is linen which is a sightly off-white colour, plus silver. 

Neutrals this week include back, white and greys but NOT browns or other neutrals! 

I chose to use Sage (green), Sugarplum (a pink/purple) and Linen plus Silver and avoid the blues completely. I really like colour schemes with limited colours.

The flowers were definitely going to be Sugarplum and the leaves were going to be Sage - but since the flowers were open, I ran into a problem almost immediately as I needed somewhere to hide the leaves. I had to back the flowers with something and that's where silver came into the picture. I didn't want to use white, especially with linen already planned for the background of my card. The front was embossed with a basket weave pattern and I set the flowers and leaves back after die cutting an oval into the embossed card front. A large silver scalloped oval surrounds the floral display and then a few details provide room for the sentiment and a few other embellishments. 

Come and join us at Colour Dare and show us how you use the palette shown above. 

You have 2 weeks to enter your project. 

We can't wait to see what you create! 

Products used are all follows: 

Paper: True Love Paper Pack, Linen Cardstock, Sugarplum Cardstock, Sage Cardstock, Silver Glitter Paper (all CTMH)

Stamps: Artistic Impressions (SU)

Inks: Sage, Charcoal, Sugarplum, Versamark (all CTMH)

Accessories: Silver Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Sugarplum Glitter Gems (all CTMH), Springtime Impressions Thinlets , Frosted Bouquet Thinlets, Basket Weave Embossing Folder, Pink Ribbon (SU), Nestabilities Ovals, Nestabilities Scalloped Ovals (Spellbinders), Silver Ribbon (unknown), Foam Tape

Enjoy,

Alyson

AH 316 - Lots of Flowers!

Welcome to Atlantic Hearts Sketch #316! 

I stayed absolutely true to this week's sketch - I wanted to use a floral background and that made everything really easy since that is the focus of my card. 

I did hand stitch around the floral paper, just to add some interest but the rest of the elements are exactly as they are seen on the sketch - the three layers across and the two circles - although those can be whatever shapes you want them to be. I chose to leave them as circles because I wanted my inner circle to be a stitched circle. I added a few white pearls for interest. 

Come and join us at Atlantic Hearts and show us how you interpret the sketch shown above. 

You have until Sunday evening to link up your project. 

Products used are as follows: 

Paper: Petal Promenade DSP (SU), White Daisy Cardstock, New England Ivy Cardstock, Lilac Cardstock, Sweet Leaf Cardstock (all CTMH)

Stamps: A Bunch of Love (CTMH)

Inks: New England Ivy (CTMH)

Accessories: Basic Circle Thin Cuts, Stitched Circle Thin Cuts, White Pearls, Bitty Pearls, Thin Foam Tape (all CTMH), White Embroidery Thread, Needle 

Enjoy,

Alyson

Love the Wreath Builder!

A very special friend of mine is celebrating her birthday early next week and a while ago, she spent some time playing around with my Wreath Builder stamp set along with a stamp press. Now, she is not a crafter - far from it - but she LOVED the fact that she was able to create a beautiful card without much skill or effort. She went home and showed her card to everyone she knew - she was SO proud of what she had created! It was awesome :) 

So, knowing how much she loved working with that set, I decided to use it to create her birthday card. After creating a 4 inch wreath, I simply cut mine in half and placed some patterned paper between the two halves along with some shimmer trim. I stamped one of the sentiments from the original Wreath Builder stamp set in an oval frame using the rock and roll technique to get two colours for the image and then added a few embellishments. Such a simple card with great impact. 

I KNOW she will love this - mainly because she will recognize how it was created! 

Products used are as follows: 

Paper: I Heart Us Paper Pack, White Daisy Cardstock, Lagoon Cardstock, Mint Cardstock (all CTMH), Neenah Solar White Cardstock

Stamps: Wreath Builder, Autumn Wreath Builder (both Gina K Designs)

Inks: Lagoon, Mint, Lemon, Thistle, Pixie, Raspberry (all CTMH)

Accessories: Bitty Sparkles, Purple Glitter Gems, Aqua Shimmer Trim (all CTMH), Touch Markers, Sharpie Markers, Foam Tape, Oval Dies, Oval Scalloped Dies (both Nestabilities) 

Enjoy,

Alyson

Eclipse Birthday Card

A friend of mine is celebrating a birthday shortly and  I know how much he enjoys my cards... so it was time to create one for him. 

Masculine cards are so often a struggle for me - for this one, I decided to pull out a Kaisercraft stamp with a leaf image and create an eclipse card. 

I had to create the background first. That was done using three yellow ink pads and and one yellow/orange ink pad and blending them together from light to dark. After my hand was worn out from that process, I stamped the leaf image in black, masking it as needed to cover the bottom third of the card. I then die cut the letters from the background - spacing as needed 

as I only had one letter P. 

The word Birthday was stamped and mounted at the bottom. I tried embossing it using yellow pigment ink but it wasn't visible enough on the black cardstock, so I had to go the opposite route and use yellow cardstock with black ink instead. 

The letters are popped up quite high - much higher than they appear in the photo. 

Products used are Close To My Heart unless otherwise indicated: 

Paper: Lemon Cardstock, Black Cardstock, Saffron Cardstock, White Daisy Cardstock

Stamps: Breathe (Kaisercraft), Well Said (Stampin Up)

Inks: Lemon, Canary, Saffron, Goldrush, Black

Accessories: Block Alphabet Thin Cuts, Foam Tape 

Enjoy,

Alyson

CD 341 - Watercolour Smooshing card

Welcome to this week's Colour Dare challenge! 

It's an inspiration photo... and one that is full of bold and bright colours. 

I chose to take some of the colours from the photo to develop my card. This ended up being interesting...

Using water-colour paints, I made sure that I had the correct colours to start - the right shades of the following colours: red, pink, purple, green and yellow. 

Based on the background of my design and the way the paint colours moved around once I applied the plastic wrap and mixed some of the colours, you would not even know that pink was used - and the shade of purple that I so painstakingly made sure was a match to the blanket colour looks more like a lighter shade of purple than what I started with, as does the green that I also mixed so carefully... So much for great ideas. I decided to leave it, though, because I like the way the background looked in the end. 

I added some red, yellow and green cardstock and a few embellishments to pull some of the colours from the background. The butterfly is also brushed with a shimmer brush. 

Come and join us at Colour Dare and show us how you interpret the inspiration photo shown above. You have two weeks to enter your project. 

We can't wait to see what you create!

Products used are Close To My Heart unless otherwise indicated: 

Paper: White Daisy Cardstock, Candy Apple Cardstock, Canary Cardstock, Clover Cardstock, Watercolour Paper (unknown), Neenah Solar White Cardstock

Stamps: Butterfly Friendship, Barn Door (SU)

Inks: Intense Black, Clover

Accessories: Red Pearls, Watercolour Paints, Brushes, Butterfly Friendship Thin Cuts, Clear Shimmer Brush, Black Shimmer Brush, Touch Markers (various), Yellow Twine (unknown), Foam Tape, Plastic Wrap

Enjoy,

Alyson