The new Color Hues colors chosen by Steph are just perfect for summer. There are so many directions these colors could take you. My choice turned out to be quite different than I originally thought when I first saw the new colors. 

Earlier this summer, I saw some wonderful cards by Uniko. I just love the graphic design and think it will work especially well for both masculine and feminine cards as well as for a variety of occasions. Using them continues my streak of using new or unused stamps for my Color Hues cards. This is the fifth month in a row. 🙂

I do have to say that coloring the center card using Uniko's Background Blocks Arts Decoratifs turned out to be a challenge. The red Copic marker bled every time I tried to use it, even when I embossed the stamp so I switched to Tombow markers and that red marker bled out of the lines once, too. I finally managed to get a clean coloring, and I do think it was worth the effort. 

My original idea for the card, however, was to use some of the smaller designs from the Bauhaus Blocks set. There are four different designs, and I tried using three of them on a card but couldn't find an arrangement I liked, so I went Clean and Simple—always a good decision. The layers on all three cards were cut with Ellen Hutson's Essential Rectangles. Her Essential Shape dies are some of my most used dies. 

All three sentiments are from Sugar Peas Everyday Sentiments. 

Be sure to check out the great designs by our Guest Designer, Annette, and my fabulous team members at the Color Hues blog, and join us with your Red and Yellow cards!

Organizing and cataloging my supplies is an ongoing process. Earlier this summer, I moved all my stencils to a three-ring binder which makes it much easier to flip through them to find what I want. As I was going through them, I discovered the Waffle Flower, Layered Triangle Stencil which I had purchased earlier, but never used. I'm quite sure I bought it because I thought it would be good for a Color Hues challenge and indeed, it is. 

Sheri has chosen a great combination for us this time: Teal and Orange.

I'm always a fan of geometric patterns, and I think they make particularly good cards for guys, although I wouldn't mind getting this card myself.

I used two Concord & 9th inks for this: Oceanside and Marmalade. The stencil takes up nearly all of an A4 card, but I trimmed it down just enough to have a narrow black border from the card base.

The gold foiled sentiment is from the Spellbinders' Everyday Sentiments 2. Since the card base is black, I decided to add a white panel to the inside and stenciled two of the triangles on it as well. I didn't think any embellishments were needed. 

The inside sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Inside and Out Birthday.

I hope you'll join us during the next two weeks and be sure to check out the Color Hues blog to see the amazing cards created by our Guest Designer, Deborah, and the Design Team. You're sure to be inspired.

I'm also adding this to the current Inkspirational Challenge: Use Stencils, and to the August NBUS since it's a first time use of the stencils.

Our newest Color Hues challenge is up, and it's another great combination: Olive and Berry.

At first I wasn't sure a lighter berry color would work, but truly, Color Hues is named that way so that different hues of the basic color can be used. In the end I chose three Altenew inks that were designed to go together with the darkest one named Cosmic Berry. Finding olive inks was easy as Concord and 9th has a great combo.

Keeping with my determination to use new stamps, I broke out one of my newest purchases, Pinkfresh Studio's Pretty Blossoms.  It's a full card rubber stamp with coloring stencils and a very interesting die that cuts out all the spaces between the flowers. It's easier to see with a closer view.

I love the layering stencils and the variation in color you can create in a relatively brief time. 

The sentiment is also from the Pinkfresh, from the Floral Vase set. "Beet" cardstock by Paper Source was a great match for the darkest color in the floral so I embossed the sentiment in white and die cut it with the Itty Bitty Banner die from My Favorite Things. Luckily I had some beautiful berry pearls in my stash which finished the card.

There's a wonderful variety of cards (as usual) from the Color Hues Design Team and our special Guest Designer, Bonnie. After checking out the inspiration there, I hope you'll come and join us! 

Marcia is our hostess at Color Hues this week, and she's chose a rich color combination:

When planning this card I had two objectives: use a new-to-me but never used product (I have far too many of these) and create a masculine birthday card.

The closest paper I had is a bit deeper merlot than in the challenge logo and is from Paper Source. The navy cardstock is Concord & 9th's Midnight paper. I was rather disappointed the last time I ordered it to discover it's now a brighter navy than the previously released Midnight which was the darkest navy I owned. The wonderful Concord & 4th Triangle Background was the starting place. I die cut the small triangles from the merlot and navy cardstock as well as some silver shimmer paper from Paper Source.

This angle shows the shimmer a bit better. I embossed the sentiment from The Greetery and die cut it with one of Simon Says Stitched Banners, and stacked it up with three additional banners die cut from navy. That piece had been die cut with the smaller rectangle from Gina K's Master Layout #1, and I layered it on a larger rectangle from the silver before adding it to the navy card base. I debated about using the silver pearls, but think they are just fine even for a masculine card. 

I'm sure you'll find lots of inspiration from the Design Team and our Guest Designer at the Color Hues blog, and I hope you'll add your take on these colors to our gallery during the next two weeks. 

I'll be sending this off to the new July NBUS since I'm happy to have another Never Before Used Stuff off that list!

I'm the hostess this round for Color Hues, and I've chosen two colors specifically so I could play with a wonderful Spellbinders die set that a friend loaned me. These colors definitely say SUMMER to me, and we're finally seeing the warm temperatures and sunshine.

This die set of lemons and pretty white flowers makes such a happy card. I chose a sentiment that can be used for a variety of occasions, so it could easily be sent as a birthday card or a encouragement card.

Papertrey Ink's Lemon Tart was the perfect color (and name!) for the lemons. For the leaves I chose Gina K's Asparagus and The Stamp Market's Leafy. One of the things I particularly like about these dies is all the detail that they add. I did do a bit of ink blending to add more dimension to the lemons and added tiny yellow pearls to the flowers.

I backed the pretty stitched scalloped frame with some black and white striped paper from My Favorite Things. The sentiment from Waffle Flower was stamped on a Stitched Circle from Simon Says.

Please hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what our Design Team and our fabulous Guest Designer, Michele Ferguson, have created with this color combo. It's sure to inspire you, and I hope you'll add your cards to our gallery in the next two weeks!

I'm throwing my card into the ring at the Double D Challenge: Lemon-Ade and the Yellow Challenge.

We arrived home 0n Monday from a fabulous tour of Portugal and Spain. I'll have lots more to share in a week or so. The tour lived up to all our expectations–and more. This post was written before we left. I'm anxious to get back to the crafting table, but it will probably be another day or two. Today is the first of June and time for the new Color Hues Challenge.

Red and Aqua are such a happy combination, and Jules is our hostess at Color Hues this round.

I've chosen a Pinkfresh Studio Suite of products, Farm Fresh, for this challenge. It was another of the products we received as part of the Create and Connect even in February, and one of my favorites.  

Despite several layers all with dimensional tape, it's quite a CAS card. I chose to color the flowers with Copic markers rather than the accompanying stencils. The card photographed darker than it really is, and even photo editing didn't quite fix it. There's definitely more shading in those florals than is shown here. I used an embossing folder from Taylored Expressions, Subway Tiles, to create a backdrop for the milk can full of flowers.

I added some shading in gray to the milk can and die cut two ovals from white and aqua papers for the sentiment which also is included in the Farm Fresh set. I briefly toyed with the idea to layer the focal images on either an aqua or a red card base, but decided the clean look of white was much better.

Please hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what the Design Team and our Guest designer have in store for you! Then help us fill the gallery with your Red and Aqua creations!

Julie has chosen a color combination I have always loved for this round of the Color Hues Challenge: Orange and Slate Gray. I have multiple orange sweaters which look great with gray, and a couple of very lovely gray and orange print scarves. 

The cardstocks I chose for this were Simon Says Slate (perfect name!) and Gina K's Tomato Soup, which is a darker hue of orange than the graphic above. One great thing about this two color challenge is the "hues" part of our name which allows for quite a bit of variation in color. 

I'm trying to focus on using different techniques for the Color Hues challenges. Two challenges ago, I had a floral that was stamped and colored with stencils, and the last challenge was a geometric hot foil plate colored with stencils. This time it's another graphic design but with Waffle Flower's Triple Line Diamond Panel which I die cut from the gray paper. It was layered on a top folded orange card. Next up was to choose a sentiment, and after much deliberation, I chose a sentiment from Spellbinders hot foil plate: Everyday Sentiments II which was foiled in silver and die cut with one of Simon Says Sentiment Labels.

Instead of adding embellishments. I die cut a portion of the panel again in metallic silver paper and inlaid some of the diamonds to coordinate with the silver foiled sentiment.

I hope you'll jump over to the Color Hues blog and see what the rest of the Design Team and our Guest Designer have created, and join in the fun with your orange and gray cards!

When you read this, I'll be about halfway through a tour of Portugal and Spain! Before the pandemic we took a tour with the same company to Morocco, and I was so tired at the end of the day, I had no energy for the internet so I'm anticipating a break from technology while we're away. I know there won't be any action here on the blog, but I may try to upload some photos to my Instagram account. 

Hannelie is our hostess for the May Day Color Hues challenge. It's a bright and vibrant combo, and I cased myself this time around.

In February I created a set of masculine cards using one hot foiled panel of Geo Blocks by Pinkfresh Studio. For those cards I used only one stencil and one color of ink to create the pattern. This time I used the same stencil but alternated colors–using Simon Says Positively Saturated Inks in Peony and Ocean. They were a good match for the two cardstock papers I that were closest to hot pink and cyan: Concord & 9th's Oceanside and Paper Source's Fuschia. Just by changing colors, the cards are much more feminine. 

After cutting the hot foil panel in three pieces I added them to the card fronts with narrow strips of gold paper. The sentiments are exactly the same as I used on the earlier set. From the top:  a hot foiled sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio's Wonderful Words, a gold embossed sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Banner Sentiments, and a gold embossed sentiment stamped and then die cut with Simon Says Hexagon Greetings. I did add some dimensional tape to the back of the hexagon greeting. 

It's easier to see the gold embossing and hot foiling as well as the gold pearls that were add to all three of the cards.

Please join us in the next two weeks and add some bright and happy pink and cyan cards to our gallery. For inspiration, be sure to check the Color Hues Blog to see what the Design Team and our Guest Designer, Kristin,  have created.

Cindy has chosen a great color combination for this round of Color Hues: Purple and Green.

I couldn't resist the chance to break out Pinkfresh Studio's Nothing But the Best stamp, stencil, and die set. It was part of the package that I received for the February Create and Connect event. We used watercolors in class, but I chose the stencils this time. 

Over time I've acquired a few sets of Simon Says Pawsitively Saturated Inks which are fabulous for ink blending and come in set of three. I used the two lighter shades for the large flowers and then the darkest shade for the centers of the small flowers. The centers were colored with a gray Copic marker, and I added some dimension with a black Glaze pen.

After die cutting them, I arranged the florals on the large Rounded Braided Rectangle that was also included in our kit, but was made available during the March release. The gold foiled sentiment and Gold Glitter Drops are also from Pinkfresh Studio.

I hope you'll check out all the amazing cards created by our Guest Designer, Amanda, and the Design Team on the Color Hues blog, and then add your own creative take to the gallery.