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

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. 

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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!

It’s mid-April and time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Nancy, our fabulous leader, has chose Lilac and Aqua. It’s such a beautiful, soft color combination.

The biggest problem I had with this challenge was finding the “correct” lilac ink. Although the first ink I used had “lilac” in its name, it was entirely too pink. I tested several more before finding an older Altenew in called Lavender Fields. It was a great pastel purple.

As I did for the last challenge, I chose an older Pinkfresh Studio product. This time the Charming Floral Border with accompanying stencils and die. I used just one ink for each color, starting with a light hand and adding the highlights with a firmer hand. After finishing the coloring, I die cut the border. Then using Papertrey Ink’s Lilac Grace cardstock, I did a partial die cut on the card base with the border die, adding the floral border on top. The foiled sentiment banner, Curved Everyday Sentiments, is by Spellbinders.

The closer view gives you a peek at the beautiful foiling as well as the perfect match jewels from the Pinkfresh collection of Essential Jewels as a final embellishment.

In the next day or so, I’ll post the two additional cards I made while working on this challenge–the pink one and another “fail” when I used a stencil brush that wasn’t clean enough so instead of aqua, I had green! But it’s nice to have a couple additional cards in my stash.

It’s time now for you to hop over to the Color Hues Blog and check out the great designs and creativity from our talented Guest Designer, Caroline, and the Design Team. I hope you’ll join us in the gallery.

I’m sending this off to the April Pinkfresh Studio Challenge: Floral Frenzy.

It’s April Fool’s Day. It was one of my least favorite days as a teacher of 5th graders who delighted in trying to do you in and usually succeeded at some mischief. Today, however, April 1st means a new Color Hues Challenge, and it’s a good one. Jules chose Orange (one of my faves) and Teal. It’s a great combination, and not one I’ve used very often. 

I pulled out an old favorite hot foil plate from Pinkfresh Studio, Geo Blocks and it’s accompanying stencil. I don’t think I’ve ever used all three stencils because I love the way it looks with some white space. 

This time I decided to use a larger hot foiled sentiment from Waffle Flower, Hey, There.  I liked it placed on the diagonal which is not something I often do. 

This gives you a better look at the shiny gold foil. It took me awhile to figure out where I wanted to add some gold pearls, but I’m happy with the final decision.

As always, you’ll find lots of inspiration on the Color Hues blog by our wonderful Guest Designer, Renate, as well as the fabulous Design Team! I hope you’ll come join us!

My schedule has been crazy recently, and although I’ve been crafting, there hasn’t been much that could be shared just yet. I don’t usually let two weeks go by without blogging, but I hope to remedy that this week. The Women’s NCAA March Madness schedule hasn’t helped much. I’m a huge fan of women’s college basketball and watch a lot more television during the tournament. The only consolation to the increased TV time, is that while I watched the games, I finished two big organizing and cleaning out projects in my craft room that have been on the to-do list for far too long. 

As soon as I saw Julie’s pick for the current Color Hues Challenge,

I knew I had exactly the right stamp, stencil and die set. A year ago February, I participated in Pinkfresh Studio’s Create & Connect event. As usual, I never finished all the cards but I hadn’t forgotten the Citrus Twist set which I never used during the course. This card is a CASE of Anett Gelencsér’s Make and Take for that class. 

Her card used a partial die cut technique, but I opted to just cut a diagonal slice from the card front which I was able to use on the inside for the sentiment. I then attached the die cut slices to the front of the card.  Anett used the same coverplate, Stitched Octagons, but she used it on the front of the card, and I opted for the inside.

The stamp was embossed in gold as is the sentiment from Honey Bee’s Be Still stamps. I added some of the additional flowers and leaves included in the set that are die cut separately with the same die for the citrus slices. This card turned out to be difficult to photograph and the gold embossing will have to be imagined by the viewer (probably due primarily to the gray days that extend in western New York through March–and sometimes into April.)

I attached the diagonal piece from the card front to the inside of the card so I’d have a good place for the sentiment.

This sentiment and die are also from Be Still by Honey Bee.

This color combo is a great antidote to gloomy days. Regardless of where you live, I hope you’ll find yellow and green to be inspirational colors and join us in the gallery at Color Hues! You’ll find lots of inspiration from the Design Team and our very special Guest Designer, Michele! 

I’m sending this card to the AAA Colorful Challenge, where the colorboard is yellows and green. Once again, this card is off to NBUS as well as a relatively new challenge Neglected Stuff since I’ve had the stamps and dies for over a year, and have finally found the perfect use for them!

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!