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Color Hues #122

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Mid-November and it’s time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Nancy has given us a beautiful combo that can definitely be used for holiday cards as well as many other occasions.

I’m always in need of a few more holiday cards, and couldn’t wait to put my recent Greetery purchases to use. I restrained myself and only ordered the Shortbread Shapes product suite along with the accompanying sentiment stamps. I created a shaped card inspired by Betsy Veldman’s beautiful samples shared during the new release.

Using Tropical Teal cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I die cut a panel and embossed it in the gorgeous 3-D embossing folder. You can see the wonderful impression it makes. Then I die cut the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle Label from silver paper I purchased at Broadway Paper in Milwaukee. The label die has beautiful stitching and embossing on it that coordinate with the embossing folder. The small teal rectangle is also part of that set, but the cream embossed detail was die cut from one of the rectangles included in the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle die, and then carefully placed in the embossing folder. 

I wanted a bit of sparkle so I die cut a banner from The Greetery’s Sentiment Suites Basics die (an oldie, but goodie) from silver glitter paper (also from Broadway Paper) and stamped the sentiment from the Simple Holiday Mini Sentiments in teal. The last touch were two silver pearls for the sentiment banner. 

We have two wonderful Guest Designers this round, Loll and Joanne and as always, you can find great inspiration from them as well as my very talented Design Team members. We hope to see you in the gallery.

Color Hues #121

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Sheri has chosen two late autumn colors for the new Color Hues Challenge: 

We took a drive a week ago to the Finger Lakes expecting peak foliage. Some areas were past peak—mostly orange and brown, and some were still quite green. I pulled out an older die set from Pretty Pink Posh, Fall Basket, which worked perfectly for this challenge.

I die cut all the pieces from scraps of cardstock in my boxes and then ink blended them for some dimension using three oranges and two browns. Once the pieces were colored, I assembled them in and around the basket on a dark brown Stitched Rectangle from Simon Says. 

The gold sentiment is from The Greetery, and added a touch of elegance to the arrangement. The stamped and gold embossed sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s Color Pop: Autumn, a very old set. It was cut with one of Honey Bee’s Sentiment Banners. Once that panel was complete I added it with dimensional tape to a card base created with Woodgrain cardstock from Simon Says. The little acorn in the corner was also attached with a bit of dimensional tape. 

You’ll find lots of inspiration on the Color Hues Blog from our Guest Designer, Valerie, and the always amazing Design Team. You have until November 14th at 9 am to join us in the gallery, and I hope to see you there! 

I’m going to add this card to the Shopping Our Stash Challenge: Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice and to As You See It: Happy Harvest.

Color Hues #120

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Stef has chosen the perfect colors for the next Color Hues Challenge. 

Knowing I have several Halloween cards to create it was easy to decide on a theme. This Hey, Honeycomb Spider is the last of The Greenery’s honeycomb dies that was still in my NBUS box, so I was delighted to have a chance to use it.

The Letterpress Spider Web Background by Spellbinders also came out of the NBUS box. Once I had the background created I cut it down so I my bright purple card base would create a frame. I die cut the spider from black cardstock, and used the Hey, Honeycomb Basics to white emboss the “directions” for opening up the spider’s body.

I gave some thought to adding googley eyes, but the dies for the eyes looked great, and since this will likely go in the mail, I decided against any more bulk. The spider is attached to the background panel with dimensional tape. The sentiment from Honey Bee’s Sentiment Banners was also white embossed on the purple cardstock.

Be sure to hop over to the Color Hues where you’ll find inspiration for Halloween cards as well as some beautiful fall florals from our Guest Designer, Bobby, and the Design Team. The challenge is open until 9:00 AM on October 29th. Hope to see you in our gallery!

Color Hues #119

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October 1 finds me on the road, and with a pre-scheduled post for the new Color Hues Challenge. Marcia has chosen great fall colors: Rust and Yellow.

My thoughts did go to autumn leaves, but I had a NBUS Concord & 9th set of dies, Friendship Garden, waiting for a debut, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Mums are everywhere right now, and I’m quite sure I still have some Black-eyed Susans in the garden.

After diecutting and assembling all the pieces for the cute flowers, pitchers, and crate, I played around with some different layouts and backgrounds. The rust and yellow flowers were so small, I decided to layer them on a yellow panel with a rust colored mat on a kraft card base. 

The sentiment is also from Concord & 9th but from The Flower Shoppe. When I purchased the Friendship Garden, I thought the dies might play very well together. That will be another project. The end result showcased the color combo well, but I must admit, it feels a bit busier than my usual style.

There is, of course, lots of inspiration on the Color Hues blog from our Guest Designer,  and the Color Hues Design Team. I hope you’ll join us in the gallery.

Color Hues # 118

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Jules has chosen the colors for our mid-September Color Hues Challenge:

Initially, I was a bit puzzled about these colors wondering what papers and inks I might have that matched. It didn’t take long to find Faded Jeans and Bundled Sage Distress Oxide inks which were a pretty close match. I also had a Waffle Flower Postage Collage Wild Flower set that I had only used once before, and I was happy to get it out again.

To achieve some variation in the color, I simply used a light hand for the first floral stencil, and a firmer hand when stenciling the second. Concord & 9th came out with new colors this year, and the Pistachio is a beautiful sage green. After stenciling I added some of the postage images from the Waffle Flower Postage Collage stamp set. I die cut a panel of the cardstock with The Greetery Postal Frames before arranging three of the images with dimensional tape. The sentiment and die are from Waffle Flowers Postage Collage Circle Sentiments. 

For the border I pulled out The Greetery’s Airmail Border stencil. I purchased it a long time ago, but this is it’s debut. One more item out of the NBUS box. I ended up liking this color combination a lot. One of the things I love about card challenges, including ours, is that I try things I wouldn’t have thought to use. This is one of them, and I think it will end up on repeat in the future.

I hope you’ll join us this round, and I’ll look for you in the gallery! Be sure to check out the inspiration waiting for you from our Guest Designer and Design Team on the Color Hues blog.

Blooming with Happiness

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Just Us Girls Challenge this week is Stencils: Anything Goes and the Stencil Fun Challenge is for Nature.  I have one of my favorite ever stenciled cards to share. This was made mid-summer for a friend’s birthday. She lives in Canada, and I’ve waited until I knew she received it before sharing it here.

The color choices were easy–my friend loves the color pink. The stencil is Papertrey Ink’s Wild Blooms. It’s been in my NBUS box for a long time, and once again, I’m chagrined to see how wonderful and versatile it is. Change the colors and you have a totally different feel. 

The sentiment is from the Bloom and Grow stamp set from The Greetery, and die cut with My Favorite Things Stitched Oval STAX.  I die cut the floral panel with Gina K’s Master Layout #1 as well as the narrow pink mat. In addition to Just Us Girls and Stencil Fun, this is off to NBUS–my first September offering, and to Darnell’s I.D.E.A.S. where Week 1 is Inks/Color Mediums.

Color Hues #117

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I'm the hostess for the September 1st (where did summer go?) Color Hues Challenge, and I chose:

CH #117-Orange and Green.001

When I chose the colors, I had nothing particular in mind, but I had recently purchased a geometric design die from Concord & 9th, and thought it would be fun to use. I was right. I loved playing with this die, and came up with two cards. Here's the card I posted on the Color Hues blog. It's the more dramatic of the two.

CH117Black

The Pattern Play die comes with a background coverplate, and six smaller dies that cut out pieces to play with. You can see that I die cut two hues of orange and two hues of green, and started to play around with different placements. On this card the sentiment came from the Pinkfresh Studio "Basic Banners: Celebrate" which stamps and die cuts twelve sentiments with one go.

Here's a cleaner version of the card on a white background. The background color makes such a difference.

CH117White

The sentiment here is also from a one-go set by Altenew appropriately titled "One Go Birthday Greetings". I think either card would work for guys or girls, teens or adults , and I'm quite sure I'll have this out to play with other color combinations. It worked well with just two colors but using a bigger variety of colors would be fun too. 

With fall looming, orange and green might lead you to some autumn themed cards and florals would certainly work. I'm looking forward to seeing all of your creative cards in our gallery this round. As always, check out the inspiration from our Guest Designer and Design Team at the Color Hues Blog. 

 

 

Color Hues #116

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Julie has chosen Blue and Red for our next Color Hues Challenge.

Ch #116-Blue and Red.001

Almost immediately I knew I wanted to use Spellbinders Nordic Ornaments which I purchased over a year ago. I used only the outer die of one of the ornaments last year, but wanted to show their full potential this year. The first ornament is my favorite.

CH116Red

After choosing the hues of blue, I die cut the ornament three times, and inlaid the darker blue and red. I also added some gold pearls as an embellishment. I embossed a panel with Penny Black's Linked embossing folder, and then decided to cut an oval from it. That diminished the embossing somewhat but I decided it was actually good that it was a bit more subtle. 

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I added the embossed panel to the card base with dimensional tape and the ornament as well. The sentiment is one of my favorites from the Memory Box Black Tab series.

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Here you can see the full effect of the beautiful Penny Black embossing folder. This ornament was created with the same process. The sentiment is also from a larger set of Black Tab sentiments in the shape of a banner. 

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You'll find a lot of inspiration for Blue and Red, using lots of different themes, at the Color Hues blog. The Design Team and our Guest Designer, Leslie, have outdone themselves once again. 

Color Hues #115

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Carol has chose one of my favorite color combinations for the new Color Hues Challenge:

CH #115 Pink and Grey.001

I knew almost immediately what I wanted to use for this card–Concord & 9th's Triangle Background die. I die cut the background in white, and the triangles five times in Fresh Pink by The Stamp Market, Lovely Lady by Papertrey Ink, Fog and Slate by Simon Says, and Weathervane by Papertrey Ink. Lining them up on the background was easy once I decided on a pattern. Once they were all adhered, I die cut the panel with Gina K's Master Layout #1 die which gave me a narrow border on the card base.

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I added silver pearls to the intersections of the triangle for some added dimension and interest, and silver embossed the sentiment from Spellbinder's Typewriter Adventure Sentiments.

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This card is off to a friend for her birthday. She's partial to graphic designs. In different colors, it would make a great masculine card as well.

I hope you'll check out all the inspiration on the Color Hues blog by our talented Design Team and Guest Designer, Arlene, and join in the fun by creating a card for the challenge.

Color Hues #114

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Bonnie has chose a very versatile color combination for the mid-July Color Hues Challenge: 

CH #114-Yellow and Green.001

I decided to try a new-to-me technique I saw on Tina Smith's blog called "die cut dipping." You smoosh some ink from an ink pad onto a glass mat or similar surface, spritz it with water and dip your die cut into the ink. Tina started with colored cardstock, but because I had previously die cut multiple images of the flowers, leaves, and pot from Altenew's Houseplants dies, I needed to use a clean waterbrush to smooth out and add ink to missing spots on the die cut. Even as I was going through the process, I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but I'm quite happy with the results.

CH114

I also added some interest to the leaves with a finger dauber and a bit of darker ink. The background for the hanging basket is Subway Tiles by Taylored Expressions. The leaves cover most of the pot, but it was one of my favorites from using this technique. There are four piece to that die cut and it looked so realistic. 

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Once again The Greetery came to the rescue with the perfect sentiment. I used another of those sentiments on an earlier Color Hues card, but this time I added the flourish and die cut it with the die from Garden Gateway die which I have never used before. (Sadly, the Garden Gateway remains in the NBUS box.)

I hope you'll jump over to the Color Hues blog to see what wonderful designs our Guest Designer, Von Marie, and our Design Team have created. And, of course, we'd love to see you in the gallery!

This is definitely off to Darnell's NBUS link since Houseplants have been in that too-full Need to Use box for far too long. It's also off to the TicTacToe Challenge. I used the left-hand side of the grid going down: foliage, layers, flowers. 

NBUS

Clean & Simple for Color Hues # 113

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Tracey leads us off in July with a versatile color combination for the next Color Hues Challenge:

CH # 113 Red and White.001

I have two anniversary cards to share today. The first card design has been a favorite for anniversaries over the years.

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The die cut tree from My Favorite Things has long been a favorite of mine. I die cut it on a white panel and added it to a red panel cut with Gina K's Master Layout #1, which allows the red to show through. I added a narrow black border also cut with Gina K's Master Layout #1.

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The sentiment is from My Favorite Things, Hugs and Kisses. No embellishment was necessary.

The second card practically made itself. I created a card for friend's anniversary, and although it was okay to send, I really didn't love it. Before it went off in the mail, I realized that by changing the card base I could have a clean and simple card for Tracey's challenge. It doesn't get more clean and simple than this:

CH113

The card base is my favorite red: Papertrey Ink's Pure Poppy. The little hearts came from Hero Art's Infinity Hearts die, and the white panel was cut with one of Ellen Hutson's Essential Rectangles. I popped the hearts up with a tiny dimensional foam dot. 

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I used the same stamp set, Hugs and Kisses, from My Favorite Things for the sentiment, and added one small red pearl from AMuse. Those pearls have been in my collection for years.

Be sure to hop over to the Color Hues Challenge blog to see how the Design Team and our Guest Designer, Kim Miller, were inspired for this challenge, and then add a card of your own to our gallery.

I'm sending the second card to AAACards: Anything CAS Goes. 

AAA Cards

 

 

Color Hues #112

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Mid-June already? I so love the warm weather that I wish summer didn't fly by so quickly. One consolation: there's a new color combination on the Color Hues blog, and Stef chose a delightful new combination. Another color combo I would never have thought of, but I enjoyed the challenge.

CH #112-Peach and Cobalt.001

The first place I look for inspiration is in my box of NBUS (Never Before Used Stuff). This time I came across an Altenew mini-stamp, Tulip Motif, that I loved, and knew it would fit right in one of the new Penny Black Classy frames. I actually borrowed the frames from a friend when I created this card, but I now own the set. 

CH112

I started by embossing the image in gold. Sadly, the gold embossing doesn't show up well in either photo. Coloring it was a bit of a challenge because it's so small. I used a combination of Tombow and Copic markers and there were a couple images that hit the circular file before I finished. The cobalt frame was die cut three times and stacked for some dimension. I used The Stamp Market's Pierced Plaid Cover Plate to add some texture to the peach background.

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I decided not to add a sentiment this time. There didn't seem to be a natural place for one, and the inside sentiment will determine how the card is used–a birthday, a thank you, or a thinking of you–all work with this design.

As always, hop over to the Color Hues Challenge blog for some inspiration. It's fun to see how many ways a color combination can inspire someone. The Design Team and our Guest Designer, Teresa S., aced this one! 

This goes off to the NBUS blog since the Tulip Motif saw it's first run today.

NBUS

Color Hues #111

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Sheri is the hostess for the June 1 Color Hues Challenge. She chose Coral and Green:

CH #111 Coral and Green.001

The last time we had coral as one of the challenge colors I spent a lot of time being sure I understood exactly what "coral" looked like. This time I knew which inks and papers would work well, and chose a relatively new stamp and stencil set from The Greetery, Bitty Botanicals. I've always felt a bit challenged by layering stamp sets, but a stamp and stencil pairing was a breeze. The greenery is stamped, and then the flowers are stenciled. Lining them up was easy. 

CH111

I used two hues of coral ink for the flowers: Pinkfresh Studio's Coral Reef and Passion Fruit. Then I die cut the Diamond Ribbon from Concord and 9th's Grapefruit cardstock and added some details with the darker coral ink to the connectors with the accompanying stencil. I love how it all works together so beautifully.

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I decided on The Greetery's Nordic Heart die cut for the sentiment, cutting the larger scalloped heart from the Grapefruit cardstock. I was delight to find that the gold embossed sentiment from The Greetery's Bloom and Grow Sentiments fit perfectly on the heart.

For lots more inspiration from our Guest Designer, Barbara, and the Design Team, head over to the Color Hues blog. Then join in, and I'll look for your card in the gallery! 

This is headed for Darnell's NBUS. All the products except for the Nordic Heart are having their debut today!

NBUS

 

Color Hues #110

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I'm the hostess for the mid-May Color Hues Challenge and I chose:

CH #110-Pink and Plum.001

It's important to remember for this challenge that it's a color HUES challenge, and let me tell you, I had no idea how many hues of plum I would find. Here are just three and you can see how different they are.

HuesOfPlum

I wanted something on the pastel end of Plum so went with the Paper Source hue to stencil my Pinkfresh Studio Magnificent Magnolia after embossing it in silver.

I used a soft gray ink for the leaves. I used Altenew's Dotted Scales Debossing Cover Die on white for the background. After stenciling the image and die cutting it, I added it to the background with some dimensional tape.

CH110Flat

The stamped and die cut sentiment is also from the Magnificent Magnolia set. I added some beautiful Iridescent Clear drops from Pinkfresh as the final embellishment.

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As always there's lots of inspiration to be found on the Color Hues blog by our Guest Designer, Rachel, and the so-talented Design Team. Please join us in the gallery! 

One of my favorite challenges is the Seize the Birthday Challenge. I ought to have an entry every month (at the very least) but it doesn't always happen. The current challenge is Flowers, and I was glad that I could add this card to their gallery.

05-08-Flowers

 

 

Color Hues #109

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It's May Day. When I first went to school we lived in Hays, Kansas. I remember May Day being a big deal. We made little baskets filled with treats, left them on our friends' front porch, rang the bell, and ran away. I can remember dancing around a May pole at school. Such celebratory events never happened when we lived in Ohio, and I've never seen much of it in New York. Now the first of May represents the likelihood that Spring will come and stay, although there has been snow in May on occasion. It's also the first Color Hues Challenge of the month, and Marcia has chose two springy and happy colors:

Ch #109-Blue and Yellow.001

I reached for one of my new Pinkfresh purchases (I was enabled by a generous gift certificate for Christmas) the Radiating Hearts and Stars stencil and die set. I knew it would be great for two color challenges, and it's a very versatile set–good for almost any age. This time I chose the stars.

CH109

I ran the card front through my die cutting machine with Reverse Confetti's Stitched Rays cover die, and then layered two of the stenciled stars at the meeting point of the rays. I used three Simon Says inks for the stenciling: Marine, Cadette, and Sunshine.

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The sentiment was embossed in gold with Altenew's Sentiment Strips.  I added five sparkly gold stars as an embellishment.

I hope you'll join us at The Color Hues Gallery during the next two weeks, but first check out the amazing inspiration from our Guest Designer, and the Design Team. I'll be away for a good portion of the challenge, but will be checking in as soon as I get home! Have fun!