The new Color Hues Challenge is live, and Carol has chosen another good one:White and Green.

They are perfect colors for St. Patrick's Day, and since it's also my husband's birthday, I wanted to find a design would work for both. I ended up with a two-fer which is always a good thing.

The first card I created is the one on the right. I started with the white die cut from Papertrey Ink, Decorative Circles Coverplate, which has always been a favorite. I layered it on a card base of New Leaf (a very shamrock-like color) and inlayed the black diamonds. 

I also added some black gems to the center of each diamond, but they're almost impossible to see in the photo. The sentiment is from Altenew's One-Go Birthday Greetings embossed in white on black cardstock. 

Having die cut a second panel of the coverplate in black for the diamonds above, I realized I could reverse the colors and ended up with this card:

For the sentiment here, I used a new stamp and die set from Spellbinders (their February Stamp & Die Club pick). After stamping and die cutting the sentiment, I die cut three more to stack for some dimension. This card will go to my husband. The inside birthday sentiment also comes from this set.

The white version is already in an envelope to go to a good friend who's birthday is next week.

Be sure to check out all the inspiration on the Color Hues Blog from the Design Team and our very talented Guest Designer, Nance.

I'm sending this off to Darnell's NBUS March gallery. This is the second time recently when I've used a new stamp and die in a timely manner! 

Our February 1st Color Hues Challenge is an exciting collaboration with the Inkspirational Challenge as well. They are joining us with Tracey's great color combination of Pink and Red. I'll let Carol, our creative Design Team member and the designer/behind-the-scenes organizer of Inkspirational Challenges fill you in on all the details.

Carol here. The design team gals and I at Inkspirational are delighted to participate in this first-time collaboration with Color Hues. Creating with Red and Pink – a combination open to such a wide range of hues, as well as occasions/events – makes us even more happy! Hopefully, you’ll find our team’s contributions as inspiring as those created by the team here.

This collaboration serves two key goals: to increase the exposure of both challenges to players who may/may not know about them and to offer YOU a chance to share your projects in two galleries. If you link up here, please be sure to hop over to Inkspirational to link with us there. We’re hoping for an outstanding number of entries over the course of the two week run of both challenges.

A wee bit about Inkspirational Challenge, in general:

We’re a two-week challenge that features a rotation of: Word Prompt, Designer's Choice, Mood Board, Clean and Simple, Use Stencils and Seasonal. We’re pleased to have a strong group of participants who embrace our challenges with enthusiasm and creativity on a regular basis. We look forward to introducing them to Color Hues and hope they'll add this engaging challenge to their crafting repertoires.

This was the perfect opportunity for me to create another valentine. When we were visiting Wisconsin in November, my granddaughter and I ended up having a conversation about gumball machines. I have no recollection of how that conversation came about, but when we returned for our Christmas celebration I brought along my NBUS Spellbiner die, Pop-up 3-D Vignette Bubble Gum Machine. I purchased it awhile ago during a clearance sale. Hannah and I never got around to actually making a card, so using it for her valentine was a no-brainer. 

I chose red metallic cardstock for the machine, and silver metallic for the trim. All the gum balls are cut from paper scraps in my stash. There's a piece of acetate behind the black frame for the window, and although it doesn't show, the bottom of the silver piece lifts up as if to let out the gumballs. I layered the sentiment, die cut from black, on silver. 

The gumball machine is larger than an A2 card base. This card is 6X41/2. I used a premade card from Bearly Arts as a guide for the measurements.  Spellbinder's 3-D Cross My Heart Embossing Folder which is s 5.5X8.5 inches was the perfect background–needed (and appropriate) texture, but white on white so it didn't distract from main event. I layered the gumball machine with dimensional tape before adding it to the card base.

The sentiment on the inside is also a NBUS product purchase after Valentine's Day last year–Simon Say's Love You Greetings. I added three glittery heart stickers.

Whether it's valentines or another occasion, I hope you'll find a reason to play along with the Design Team and  Trina Pham, our Guest Designer. Be sure to link your creations with the Inkspirational Challenge as well. It's a fun two-fer! This card is off to Darnell's NBUS as well!

Stef has chose the new colors for the mid-January Color Hues Challenge:

Typically when I see a color combo like this one I reach for one of my geometric stamp or die sets. I really wanted to branch out this time and have an Altenew collection I've been wanting to use for months. I rarely purchase one of Altenew's kits, but I had some points to use and fell in love with the Craft Your Life Project Kit: Chocolate Flowers. It includes a Zero-Waste die cut, layering stencils, a background stamp set with sentiments, and a 3-D embossing folder. I die cut the Zero-Waste flowers and leaves from white cardstock with no firm idea of what I wanted to do with it. 

I started by choosing two navy inks (Pinkfresh Studio Sapphire and Stargazer) and two lime inks (Papertrey Ink Limeade Ice and Green Parakeet) and set about ink blending some of the flowers and leaves. After coloring the ones you see above, I already had an ideas for the card. I added a center die cut ink blended with Honey Bee's Metallic Silver ink and put the flower together. While we were away, I purchased some Artpop Watercolor paper at Dick Blicks specifically for using as card bases. When I was creating some card bases, I miscalculated on one and ended up with a narrow edge that extended beyond the card.

The Pinkfresh Studio Fancy Dotted Frames looked to be a great base for the flowers and the leaves, and I was happy with how they fit on the frame which I added to the card base. I die cut a narrow strip of blue paper for contrast at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment is from Memory Box and is one of their Black Greeting Tabs–this set is all birthday greetings. Because the lettering is gold, I added a PFS gold pearl to the center of the flower.

I took a photo of the leftovers from the Zero-Waste Die Cut so you can see how much restraint I used to get a CAS card! You're certainly going to see more cards soon! (I love these small divided acrylic boxes from The Container Store. They stack and I also have one with just two compartments for larger dies. The work great to sort the die cuts as you cut them as well as when you are ink blending and assembling the pieces.

I hope you'll join us for this new challenge. You'll (as usual) find lots of inspiration from the Design Team as well as our Guest Designer, Esther Asbury. I'll be adding this to the gallery at A Cut Above where die cuts are always the main event.

Sheri is the hostess for our first Color Hues Challenge of 2025. She chose Red and Kraft, and it was a perfect combination for putting two of my very recent purchases to work.

I couldn't resist ordering the Frosty Buds (and a few other goodies) from The Greetery's November release. Betsy always has a nice sale for this release, and she ships her products very quickly. I also ordered Pinkfresh Studio's Nested Hexagons Blanket Stitch from Simon Says Black Friday sale. 

I die cut the two hexagons and created the card base from Papertrey Ink's Soft Stone paper which is a very pale grey. The Frosty Buds were die cut from pretty red cardstock in my scrap box and the branch from kraft cardstock.

Deciding on the centers of the buds took a bit of trial and error. I first tried crystals from the Crystal Sequin Mix offered in The Greetery's November release. It ended up looking too busy, so I settled for four of the crystals with tiny silver pearls in the centers of the crystals and just the pearls for the smaller buds. 

I silver embossed the sentiment from Pink & Main's Special Day sentiments and trimmed it down. I fluffed up the florals and the leaves a bit for some dimension, and also added dimensional foam between the largest hexagon and the card base. "Time to Celebrate" is one of my favorite sentiments because the card is suitable for a variety of occasions. 

I hope you'll join us in the gallery to start off another year of inspirational color combinations! The Design Team and Guest Designer, Stephanie Severin, have some great inspiration waiting for you on the blog. 

Thanks for visiting. Here's to a Healthy and Happy New Year! 

Our fabulous leader, Nancy, has chosen the wonderful colors for this amazing 100th Challenge for Color Hues.

Since this is our 100th challenge, Woohooo… there will be a fabulous prize offered to one of our winners. You can read all the details over on the Color Hues blog. 

Originally, I thought I'd create a holiday card for this challenge (and sadly, I'm still in need of a few). But I found a foiled panel on my desk of the beautiful Spellbinders Cosmos Backdrop, and thought it would be lovely stenciled in blue and purple. I'm happy with the result. 

It's hard to see how pretty it is unless your can see the gold foiling as well. You can see the purple card base better in this photo, too.

I used two shades of grays for the leaves. Then I die cut the panel with one of Ellen Hutson's Essential Arches and layered the two pieces on a purple card base. 

The sentiment from a new Pinkfresh Studio Betterpress plate, Here for You was foiled in gold and die cut with the accompanying die which I love. Foiled cards are so hard to photograph well. I hope the second photo gives you a sense of how pretty the card is in your hand.

I hope you'll join us for this monumental challenge. Hop over to the Color Hues blog and see the wide variety of wonderful cards from the Design Team!

Cindy has a great color combo for us on the Color Hues Blog this round: 

I pulled out two new products (NBUS) from Alex Syberia: Garden Tweets and Signature Tags for my card, and I'm really happy with how it came out.

I chose two Papertrey Ink papers for the main blues: Blueberry Sky and Spring Rain. The foliage was die cut with one of my favorite neutrals: Soft Stone. The pinks all came from my scrap box as most of the die cut pieces were very small. After assembling the bird and flowers, I arranged them on one of the two large tags from the Signature Tags set cut from a piece of patterned paper in an older My Favorite Things paper pad, Road Tripper. I like the subtle light blue pattern which adds some interest but doesn't detract from the main images.

After tying a bow with gold thread from Altenew, I added a sentiment that was hot foiled in gold with Spellbinders Better Press Plate, Fancy Sentiment Strips. I used some dimensional tape under the sentiment strip, and adhered the tag to a card base of Spring Rain cardstock. 

There's always a lot of inspiration from our Guest Designer and the Design Team at the Color Hues Blog, so hop over and see what might inspire you to join us in the gallery.

This is off to Darnell's NBUS Challenge.