Karen Creates Cards: March 2014

25 March 2014

Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge #101 - Use the colours grey, red and white on your Christmas card.

The Merry Monday Challenge for this week is to use the colours grey, red and white on your card. It's a very elegant colour scheme so I am sure the gallery will look very 'posh' this week. The design team have certainly made 'posh' cards.

My card today is mostly die cuts again. I just love layers. Both the grey background and scalloped circle are embossed with dots, large and small, both from Cuttlebug. The banner is a vellum I was given in a sample book. Really lovely, it's very white compared to other Vellums, and it is striped. I have white heat embossed it with an old Penny Black stamp (Merry Memories). It is a list of Christmas words. The snowflake dies are from Simon Says Stamp (medium silver) and Memorybox (large grey). The centre snowflake is a Carl punch and the Merry Christmas banner is computer generated.

See what the design team have created to inspire you by going to the challenge site (link above) or by clicking on the links below.

Karen Davis (you're here)

This month's featured designer is Stacey Schafer

Happy card making.

Addition:
Our 20th Wedding anniversary today (25th)
See my gorgeous flowers from Graham. There are tiny touches of gold glitter in the roses.

20 March 2014

The Card Concept Challenge #6 - Create a Birthday Card

My gosh, the posting hour for The Card Concept Challenge has snuck (is there such a word!!) up on me!! Furiously four finger typing.
Although the only requirement for this challenge is to create a birthday card, how can you not be inspired by this gorgeous image, such lovely colours. The design team have created fabulous cards to inspire you. Choose a style and start stamping, cutting, sticking and linking!! :-)

I haven't deviated much from what you see in the image. I loved the flowers and the lovely design on the cake stand so have vaguely mirrored those.

I have embossed the background with a Cuttlebug folder. Stamped and diecut a sentiment from Verve. Cut out some felt leaves, punched the large flower with PTI dies, and the small flowers with an old Carl punch. Resin flowers, a doily and twine complete the card.

Addition:- I have also linked this card to Seize the Birthday.

Must post.
Have fun creating over the next two weeks.

18 March 2014

CASE Study Challenge #182 - Casing Joni again

Hi! Today I am playing along with another Case Study Challenge. I loved Joni's gorgeous background technique and the colours she used for her card.

I have stayed with the same colours Joni used on her card. The technique I have used to apply the ink can be found on this card by Maria Fisher (Reislingmama). I spread Distress stains on an acrylic block then stamped them on the card. It took a few goes to get a print I liked. Some I sprayed with water, this one was unsprayed. I decided it just needed a few stars and a bold sentiment. One part stamped, the other off the Silhouette.

Off to cook dinner.

Thanks for dropping in.

Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge #100

Today we are celebrating Merry Monday's 100th Challenge with a gorgeous colour scheme and/or a sketch. Lots of scope here. Take a look at the inspiration image. This might be a great opportunity to make two cards for the challenge.

Here is my card. I love the trend of partially covering the card background with a transparent ink layer. I think the secret is letting the white shine through. I then white heat embossed the pink banner, paper pieced a second banner and cut a third from green gingham paper. The circles are from Spellbinders and Lil'Inker. The Poinsettia stamp I used two weeks ago on a MM card. It's a wood stamp from Memory Box called Poinsettia Bloom. This time I white heat embossed it three times on Vellum, then cut out the individual pieces of the flower to form the three layers. The 'Merry' is a Silhouette cut, and the 'Christmas' is computer generated. I finished with a button (backed with a wee black circle to balance the black sentiment), twine and a couple of pearls.

Do join this challenge and help us celebrate number 100. See what the design team has created to inspire you by going to the challenge site (link above) or by clicking on the links below.

Karen Davis (you're here)

This month's featured designer is Stacey Schafer

This is my 26th card for the Merry Monday Challenge so I have done half a year with the team!!

Happy creating.

11 March 2014

Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge #99 - Use chocolate brown, green, gold, and cream or white on your Christmas card

Hello!! We are off with another Merry Monday Challenge. This time, Margaret has asked us to use chocolate brown, green, gold, and cream or white on your Christmas card. Have a look at the gorgeous inspiration image she chose. Isn't this the most wonderfully decorated Christmas fireplace??

As soon as I saw it I thought pine branches and pine cones.....easy huh? Well not quite, not for me anyway. It was the ##@@**#+# pine cones!! I stamped and coloured and stamped again. I stamped, scanned and did a perfect print and cut on my shiny new Silhouette, but alas, not quite right. In the end, after my desk was covered in various pine cone attempts, I ended up stamping with Brown Versafine, adding Stickles and shaking a bit of glitter. I kinda wanted that 'Ye Olde' worldly look....the glittered cards of old. Well, as the Stickles dried, it spread, and glittered more of the pinecone than I wanted. By this time, I was pine coned out, so my very sparkly pine cones stayed!!!!!! ( not as sparkly IRL)

My pine branches, are cut on the Silhouette. I imported a rather manky looking clipart pine branch , lopped off a portion of it, traced the image, then set about point editing. This took a while, but I really enjoyed the process.

The stitched rectangle is from Lil' Inker, sentiment is from PTI (Think Big Favorites #8), the button, twine and bells are from my stash. The brown gingham paper doesn't have designers info.

Do join us for the challenge, you know how quickly Christmas will creep up on you, so have your cards 'good to go'.

I finally got round to writing the DT's names and linking to their blogs. Here you go:-

Karen Davis (you're here)

This month's featured designer is Stacey Schafer

See you next time.

10 March 2014

CASE Study Challenge #181 - Casing Joni

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be joining in the Case Study Challenge this week. We are casing the very talented Joni Nina Andaya! Hop on over to the Case Study blog, Joni has cased herself :-) and the DT have also created the most gorgeous case cards too.

Here is my card. I dabbed and sprinkled a bit of distress ink on the background. For the stripe I used a very old Hero Arts wood stamp. I stamped it in black, on vellum, then used a PTI scallop die to shape the top and bottom edges. The 'Thinking Of You' is from a Hero Arts sentiment set and the lace and wee flowers are from my stash.

Thank you so much for dropping by.

06 March 2014

The Card Concept Challenge #5 - Colours

The floral theme challenge filled the gallery with 172 beauties covering all styles!! Truly a feast for the eyes :-) Great work everyone.

This week at The Card Concept we are really changing gear, have a look at the challenge photo. Lime, espresso and white......not only does it get the saliva running (if you have a sweet tooth), it will also inspire you to get those fingers inky. Enjoy!

This week I have been a little taken up with my new Silhouette Cameo. I have had it for two weeks but it wasn't until this week that I had a day free to learn how to use it. By the end of the day I was able to print and cut, and trace and cut my own designs.....sooooo exciting. There are such wonderful tutorials available on using the machine, one of my favorites is adding fancy edges to a circle using dingbats, I love my dingbat circles. Check out Kay's blog .

The numbers were the first project on the machine. I had saved this sheet of numbers some time ago. I used them to practice my first trace and cut. Perfect! They were blue gradient filled, but a swipe or two of Colorbox green pigment ink fixed that. These numbers were the starting point for my card.

For the background, I stenciled a little moulding paste, coloured with green ink, through a gorgeous new stencil I have just purchased. It's from The Crafter's Workshop - Mini Sketch Grid. It is so delicate, I love it's broken irregular design. Their fabulous designs can be seen here.

I have used Spellbinders Banner Basics 3 for the banner, Clearly Besotted 'You Are' stamp set for the sentiments and Prima wood for the Ampersand.

I have seen photos on Facebook showing huge amounts of snow in some areas of the US, I just can't imagine how those affected are coping. Do have a safe and creative week.

04 March 2014

Merry Monday Christmas Card Challenge #98 - Create a Christmas card with country charm using stitching and buttons.

The aqua, white and silver colour combination for the last challenge produced such clean, fresh cards for the gallery. All were amazing. Congratulations to our winners.

Here is the Merry Monday Challenge image for this week, so inspiring. The design team have completely rocked the challenge, as always!! :-) Look for hand stitching on a few of the cards....LOVELY!!

For my card I used a stitched rectangle and circle from Lil'Inker. The poinsettia is a wood stamp from Memory Box called Poinsettia Bloom. I have stamped it three times, coloured and layered it. The 'Peace' is PTI. I finished the card with the required buttons and a twine bow.