Happy New Year! And what could be a better way to start than with a new Color Hues Challenge? Nancy has chosen the colors for this round of the Color Hues Challenge. It's an elegant combination, and I decided I wanted to gold emboss a floral design and do some watercoloring. I don't think I used watercolors for any of my Christmas cards this year. Here are her colors:

In just a few months I will need a wedding card for a dear friend so I chose the Pinkfresh Studio Charming Floral Border to watercolor.

I used the Altenew 36 pan watercolors (one hue of pink watered down for the lighter color) and two colors of gold from the Gansai Tambi Starry Colors metallic watercolor set.

It's easy to see the pretty metallic sheen in these photos. It's the first time I've ever tried partial die cutting, but it worked perfectly.  The sentiment was die cut from gold metallic paper with one of Papertrey Ink's Scripted dies. The inside sentiment reads "on your wedding day." (The watercolor paper by Altenew and the Ivory (Simon Says) card base appear to match much better in real life than in the photograph.)

You'll be able to find much more inspiration on the Color Hues blog by the Design Team and our Guest Designer. Although we were sad to say good-bye to Kristie Goulet in December, we're excited to have Jules Peddicord, Marci Hill, and Stef Perry join our Design Team. You'll be thrilled by all their creations!

It's my turn to be the hostess at the Color Hues Challenge this month—and it is a month-long challenge. I chose Navy and Cream, knowing I'd need more holiday cards and that my Jewish friends would find Navy and Cream a good combination for Hanukkah cards as well. And, because the holidays will be over before the challenge ends, Navy and Cream will work for many occasions beyond the holidays.

As I did for our last challenge, I created a set of cards. This time I varied the sentiments. 

I began by die cutting a rectangle from Papertrey Ink's Dark Indigo paper, and then cutting an arch with Ellen Hustson's Essential Arches die. 

On the cream card base, I stamped the Bethlehem silhouette in Dark Indigo ink as well as the sentiment. I embossed a gold star and added a rhinestone for some sparkle before overlaying the navy arch.

The beautiful silhouette is from Spellbinder's Three Kings stamp set as is the first sentiment. The card below uses a different sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's Our Home to Yours.

I hope you'll take advantage of the month-long challenge and join us at Color Hues. For some inspiration, head over to the blog to see what the Design Team and our guest designer have created.

The holidays are sneaking up on me once again, but Julie's choice of Scarlet and Green for this round of the Color Hue Challenge is perfect timing.

I've been working on creating sets of holiday cards this year, so there are ten of these.

I purchased Simon Say's Holiday Sprigs stamp, stencil, and die set last year, but never used it. (I already have a list of products I want for next year, but I'm restraining myself from any purchases until I'm ready to make the cards! Using what I have must come first.) I love using layering stencils with stamps and it certainly speeds up the process when making multiple cards.

I used two shades of red and green for the stenciling to give the flowers and sprigs some dimension. Once the stenciling was complete, I die cut two flowers and sprig, attaching the flowers with a bit of dimensional tape.

I love this sentiment from Simon Say's Inside Christmas Greetings–not only the sentiment itself but the more modern combination of fonts. It turned out to be perfectly sized as well. The focal panel was added to the card base with dimensional tape. It's nice to have another set of cards ready to go.

Scarlet and Green screamed holiday to me, but there are other options to be sure. Check out the cards by the Design Team and our guest at the Color Hues blog and play along!

Hannelie has chosen the next color combination for our Color Hues Challenge: Mustard and Turquoise.

Hannelie is one of the most creative and talented card makers I know, so I'll be curious to see what she's come up with this time around, particularly since I found this combination quite challenging. I turned to die cuts as I often do.

I started by ink blending a rectangle with a Taylored Expression stencil on cream cardstock with Concord and 9th's Stardust ink, the only mustard ink and cardstock in my stash. 

After stamping the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Autumn Abundance set, I die cut the main panel with Gina K's Master Layout #1 and then the slightly larger panel from Stardust for a thin border.

I die cut several flowers and stems with Pinkfresh Studios's Dainty Blossoms from both Concord and 9th's Oceanside and Papertrey Ink's Hawaiian Shores. I ended up using only the turquoise dies, and added a few enamel dots for embellishment. 

Hop over to the Color Hues blog and see what Hannelie, the Design Team, and our guest have created. It's sure to be inspirational. And then, come play along!

We have another pretty fall color combination for you this round at Color Hues: Orange and Green. When this post goes live I'll be visiting with my daughter in Wisconsin, and expect to see lots of green and orange foliage on the trip there and back. 

And foliage is what I chose when designing this card.

I die cut some leaves from the Greetery's Botanicut "Mighty Oak" set and applied some green and orange Distress Inks with daubers. Once that was done, I die cut three small squares from gold metallic paper with Ellen Hustson's "Essential Squares," using only the frames and arranged them on an ivory mini slimline card base before tucking in the leaves.

The sentiment, embossed in gold, is from the Papertrey Ink "Monthly Moments: September" set—one that's been in my collection since early in my scrapbooking days. 

I hope this color combination inspires you to create a few fall-themed cards–birthdays, Thanksgiving, even Halloween, perhaps. Be sure to check out the inspiration on the Color Hues blog by the Design Team and our guest.

Carol chose the new colors for this round at Color Hues, and in my opinion, it is just perfect for Halloween.

Although the card didn't end up the way I envisioned it, I had so much fun creating it, and the end result is so much better than what I first envisioned.

I pulled out Royal Purple (Simon Says) and Orange Zest (Papertrey Ink) for the card. After die cutting an oval into the front of the top folded purple card, I added a piece of orange to the inside of the card. Then I added the spider webs in glittery black cardstock which were die cut last fall with a friend's die. The "Scary Ghosts" are from Poppy Stamps, and I backed their eyes with a scrap of black cardstock. The ghost on the inside of the card is adhered with dimensional tape and the others were adhered to the front of the card, partially floating as ghosts are apt to do.

The sentiment is from Hero Arts, "Witch Feet" set, and the bat is die cut with one of the images from Spellbinders "Spooky Boo" which I cut three times and layered for some more dimension. Here's a look at the inside of the card.

So, one Halloween card down, and four to go! 

Not everyone on the Design Team thought "Halloween" when the colors were announced, so be sure to hop over to the Color Hues blog and take a look at all the inspiration. We'd love to have you play along!

Tracey has given us the lovely Yellow and Brown color combination for the next Color Hues Challenge.

I started out with a general idea of where I wanted to go, but as is often the case, the final card is somewhat different. I started with a Classic Kraft card base, and played around with some different design ideas as well as some different die cut leaves and sprigs. I ended up with the Essential Arches dies by Ellen Hutson. I love that they cut both an arch and a frame. By die cutting them in two colors, you get a perfect set of arches with a darker frame.

I used Papertrey Ink papers for all of the die cuts:  Cocoa Bean and Dark Chocolate for the arches and sentiment banner.

The "Leafy Sprig" by Poppy Stamps is one that's been in my die collection for years. I originally thought I'd have a cluster of them, perhaps tied with twine, but ended up preferring just two, one from Lemon Tart and one from Summer Sunrise. 

The sentiment is from my favorite Pink & Main set: Special Day, stamped in Dark Chocolate ink on a Cocoa Bean banner die cut with My Favorite Things, Itty Bitty Strips die. I thought about adding some embellishment, but decided on a set of five scored lines behind the focal image and the sentiment. 

I'm sending this one over to the current Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge: Birthdays. 

This was actually the second card I made the challenge. I like the first one as well, but it was an almost complete CASE of one Debby Hughes made several years ago when the stamp set, "One With Nature" was released by Simon Says, so I decided to make a second card for the Color Hues blog. Here's the original:

This one was a lot of fun to make. I layered the solid and open leaves in two colors of yellow and brown on white cardstock, and then cut it down for the card. The side panel is cut from Dark Chocolate cardstock.

Then I added the tag with two die cut leaves and a sentiment from Gossamer Blue that was included in a scrapbook kit years ago. 

Be sure to hop over to the Color Hues blog to see all the creative takes on this color combo by the Design Team and our two guests this time around.

How is it that it's already September first, and the second birthday for the Color Hues Challenge!?! It's been so much fun to be part of the creative team at Color Hues, and we have a fun challenge for you. We've asked the DT at our sister challenge, Seize the Birthday, to make birthday cards using the great colors Sheri's chosen: Navy and Lime Green. 

So the change to this challenge is to not only use the Colors below but also to make a birthday card to help us CELEBRATE! 

After you link up a card for this challenge make sure you head on over to Seize the Birthday and link up with them as well!  This challenge and their challenge will be like any other, as each challenge blog will pick its own Winners! Here’s the link for Seize the Birthday.

I love this color combination, and thought the Pinkfresh Studio hot foil plate, "Stained Glass" would be just perfect. Thanks to a lovely birthday gift certificate to Pinkfresh, I have the whole suite of products for this set, but used just the hot foil plate and selected parts of the stencils.

Creating hot foil cards is not as big a challenge as photographing them. No matter how hard you try, the card is much more beautiful in your hand than it is in any photograph. I chose to color just selected sections of this beautiful design, using a bright navy ink from Pinkfresh, and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide for the lime. I die cut the panel with Gina K's "Master Layout 1" and then the coordinating thin frame from Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink) cardstock. Green Parakeet (Papertrey Ink) was a perfect lime.

I did cut the sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's " Scripted Greetings" and added a gold shadow die behind it. 

I hope you'll come celebrate our birthday with a card of your own. You can check out all the wonderful cards by the Color Hues Design Team right here. And don’t forget to link up with the Seize the Birthday Challenge, too.