How Ya Bean?

Hi, everyone!  I'm thrilled to be here guesting at Coffee Loving Cardmakers in December.  I've decided to go with a critters and coffee theme for my guest spots and here is my first card:

As soon as I saw this stamp from Stampendous, I had to have it.  The image is so adorable and it's a nice, big stamp.  I stamped it onto some X-Press It cardstock with Amalgam ink and coloured it with Copics.  The stamp already has lots of shading, so it wasn't too difficult to colour - because I'm certainly no expert!  

I used the colour guide on the Stampendous website to colour the mice, which was a great help.

Once I was finished colouring, I went hunting for a small, coffee-related sentiment and found the perfect one in the (retired?) Oh Frappe! set by Essentials by Ellen.

I white-embossed the sentiment onto black and die-cut it with one of the sentiment dies in the Sentiment Labels die set by Simon Says Stamp, before adhering it to the coloured panel.  

I went looking through my cardstock to find something that matched the coffee cup and found a sheet of Peacock cardstock by Simon Says Stamp, which was a pretty close match, so I made a card base from a half piece of Peacock and then adhered the panel with foam tape.  Here's a photo of the Copics I used, but as there are a lot of E's in this container, I've split out what I used for each element of the image.

Mouse in Sack:  E53, E35, E57, E50, E51, E93

Gray Mouse:  W3, W5, W6, E50, E51, E93

Mouse Drinking:  E21, E23, E25, E50, E51, E93

Sack:  E47, E44, E43, E42, E40

Coffee Beans:  E37, E33, E31, E30

Coffee Word:  E47

Coffee Cup:  BG57, BG34, BG32, BG11

Shadows:  N2, N0

Thanks so much to Amy, for inviting me to be a Guest Designer.  Please head over the the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog and have a look around.

Products used:

Stamps:  Coffee Break (Stampendous), Oh Frappe (Essentials by Ellen)
Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versamark
Cardstock:  X-Press It, Peacock (SSS), Black Licorice (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics, White Embossing Powder

Cheers
Karren

Spring Bouquet

Hi and welcome!  I'm back with a card for the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches and this week our hostess is camp mum Jennifer Timko.  And here is her wonderful sketch:

I had a floral image I'd colored up earlier in the month for the Daily Marker 30 Day Challenge and I was determined to make it into a card with this sketch.  I had to flip the sketch to make it work, so I hope Jennifer doesn't mind!

The image was colored with both Copics and Prismacolor pencils and then I went around the outside with pale blue Copic markers.  I fussy-cut part of the image and die-cut the rest with a stitched rectangle die. The sentiment comes from the fabulous Essential Sentiments set by MFT.

 Onto the Fog card base, I added some black and white striped paper then popped up the image layer with foam tape.  I finished by adding clear sparkle pen to all the flowers.  

Thanks for visiting!  If you haven't already, I encourage you to head on over and check out the gorgeous cards made by the DT.   I'm going to link this card up to Seize the Birthday's Anything Goes Challenge.

Products used:

Stamps:  Jumbo Spring Bouquet (Stampendous), Essential Sentiments (MFT)
Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  Fog (SSS), X-Press It, Black & White Patterned Paper (MFT)
Dies:  Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics, Prismacolor, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Cheers
Karren

Truck Tidings

It's my turn to host over at Inspired By All The Little Things and I've chosen a classic Christmas inspiration pic and a wonderfully talented guest to join me - Anita Madden.

There is so much to be inspired by in this photo - the plaid, the tree, the colors, the truck...  As you will see, I went pretty literal with my card!

The truck and tree were stamped and colored with Copics before being die-cut with the matching dies.  Onto a white card base, I adhered a black panel, then some plaid paper.  I stamped the sentiment under where the front wheel would go and then adhered the truck and tree.  On the tree's baubles I added some Stickles to give them a glittery, raised look.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you'll have time to play along and check out Anita's gorgeous card, as well as the design team's wonderful cards.

Products used:

Stamps:  Truck Tidings (Stampendous), MMH Oct 16 (Hero Arts)

Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Black Soot Archival

Cardstock:  White, X-Press It, Black, Perfectly Plaid (Lawn Fawn)

Dies:  Truck Tidings

Accessories:  Copics, Stickles

Cheers

Karren

Framed Silhouette

Hi!  Today's card was made using the beautiful Muse card as my inspiration.  I'm also linking it up to Addicted to CAS who have a cue word of "Silhouette".

I was inspired by Marilyn's warm background, black frame and silhouette images.  I started by sponging a mini layering stencil over white cardstock using various distress inks and then stamped my silhouette image.  I was going to mat that onto black, but saw my pierced rectangle frame dies and decided to go in that direction.  I used a black frame then a white frame, placed at an angle.  I then covered up most of the card and spritzed some Brushed Pewter Mica Spray across the bottom.  It is so beautiful and shimmery IRL.

Once I'd adhered that to a white card base, I sponged a scrap of card with Spiced Marmalade, Abandoned Coral and Carved Pumpkin ink and die-cut the word "hello".  I layered that onto a black die-cut, slightly offsetting it to make it pop a bit more.

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Leaf Sprig (Stampendous)
Ink:  Black Licorice Hybrid, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade, Carved Pumpkin, Abandoned Coral Distress Inks
Cardstock:  White, Black
Dies:  The Big, the Bold and the Happy (Winnie & Walter), Pierced Rectangle Frames (MFT)
Accessories:  Mini Layering Stencil #14, Brushed Pewter Mica Spray (Tim Holtz)

Cheers
Karren

Embossed Foliage

It's a glorious Saturday afternoon here in Christchurch and I should be outside enjoying it, but instead I decided to make a card in between loads of laundry.  I chose the Fusion Card Challenge - both sketch and inspiration photo as well as the "Thank fall" theme at Card Concept.  

I used my Silhouette to cut the three windows in a piece of black cardstock.  I then took a sheet of newsprint patterned paper and white embossed the foliage and sentiment. I stuck that behind the cut-out windows. 

From there I sponged Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon onto the newsprint, leaving the center the lightest color.  I finished off the card with some white homemade enamel dots.  I would call this card Clean and Layered.

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Leaf Sprig (Stampendous), Say it in Style (Clearly Besotted)

Ink:  Versamark, Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon

Cardstock:  White, black, First Edition DSP (SU)

Accessories:  Enamel Dots, Silhouette Cameo

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout-out at Fusion.

Long, Tall Christmas Card

This week's inspiration at Merry Monday is this gorgeous looking photo:

Use Red, Dark Brown, Vanilla and Champagne/Gold with some shimmer.

And this is what I did with the challenge:

While this card looks really, really long, it's actually just 8.25" long and 3.5" wide.  I made the card size to fit my images which were gold-embossed onto Very Vanilla then colored using markers.  The horn was colored using Champagne Shimmer paint and a paintbrush which ended up more grey looking than champagne but c'est la vie.

The Cherry Cobbler layers were dry-embossed using the Finial Press EF, just to give a bit of texture to the card.  Adding to the texture is the gorgeous Cherry Cobbler Quilted Satin Ribbon which I've run down both sides of the card, using Sticky Strip.  Here's a close-up of the texture:

Thanks for looking.  I urge you to check out the rest of the Design Team's cards and hopefully all the wonderful submissions we'll receive over the days to come.

Products used:

Stamps:  Occasional Quotes (SU); Stampendous image stamps
Cardstock:  Very Vanilla; Cherry Cobbler
Ink:  Versamark; Early Espresso
Accessories:  Cherry Cobbler Satin Quilted Ribbon; Gold EP; Finial Press EF; Cherry Cobbler; Sahara Sand markers; Champagne Shimmer Paint; square nesties