The new Color Hues Challenge is up, and I’m the hostess this time. I chose Copper and Green with a metallic planter and green plants in mind. 

I didn’t post the first card I made on the Color Hues site, but I’m including it at the end of this post. I wasn’t 100% happy with it, and after seeing a card by my friend Kelly, created with The Greetery’s  Modern Planters I decided to do a remake. I had reward points at The Greetery which paid for a portion of the new purchases. I’m happy I own the planters as well as Plant It: Spider Plant as I think there will be lots of opportunities to use them.

The planters come in two sizes with a stand and a saucer. I took advantage of all of them. With some copper metallic cardstock, I die cut the two pots, and ran the small pot through a Sizzix embossing folder for some texture and dimension.  The spider plant ink blended with some Distress Oxide inks after it was die cut from a yellow/green cardstock. I needed some plants for the smaller pot and found them in the Spellbinder Bold Blooms die set. 

I decided on Papertrey Ink’s Soft Stone cardstock for the background and die cut the smaller panel with Ellen Hutson’s Lattice Background die. I mounted it on the card base with dimensional tape.

You can see the shine better here as well as the sentiment embossed with Copper Pearl Embossing Powder which has been in my stash for awhile. 

Here’s the first card I made. There’s nothing wrong with it, exactly, it just didn’t seem interesting enough. I’m sure I’ll find a good home for it one day.

The background here is an embossing folder from Taylored Expressions, and the greenery came from a number of dies. The Pretty Pot is from The Greetery as is the tag and sentiment.

The copper embellishments were die cut with a berry die since I didn’t have any copper gems or pearls.

Hop over to the Color Hues blog and be inspired by our Guest Designer, Greta, and the Design Team. I’ll be looking for your cards in our gallery!

I’m sending the first card to Darnell’s NBUS Challenge – my third entry which means I’m doing a better job of using new and unused stamps!

Jules has chose a wonderful color combination for our new Color Hues Challenge.

There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to create a Christmas card. When I flipped through my holiday dies I found The Greetery’s Jumbo Curiosity Round Ornament. I’m not sure if I’ve ever used it before, but I ended up making a card for this challenge and another one I’ll share later. 

I die cut the ornament from gold mirror cardstock which always poses a challenge when you want to photograph it, but it certainly fills the bill for Gold Metallic. The red card base and circle are my favorite red cardstock, Pure Poppy by Papertrey Ink. The hanger for the ornament was die cut with gold glitter paper as well as the band in the middle. 

After adding the band to the ornament, I inlaid some cream shimmer paper and some red metallic paper for the berries.  The sentiment is from a new packet I purchased this year from Memory Box called Greeting Tags. They come in a variety of fonts, but what I love about them is their thickness–no need to add any dimension. 

I’m way behind in making holiday cards this year, so it’s good to have another one in the stash. I hope you’ll take time to visit the Color Hues Blog to see the creativity of our Guest Designer, Claire, and the Design Team. And please join us if you can!

It’s mid-October already and Hannelie has gifted us with a new color combination for the Color Hues Challenge:

When I sat down to create a card for this challenge, a new leaf die from Pinkfresh Studio was sitting on my desk. The Fall Leaf felt like a good place to start. I have to admit that the rest of the elements took a lot longer to create than I anticipated, but when they all came together, I was quite happy with the card. I tried some ink smooshing for the first time in a long time, adding three different yellows to the mix, and letting the watercolor paper dry between the layers. 

From the start, I wanted to incorporate The Greetery’s Woven Cane Background.  I ended up smooshing a piece of Classic Kraft in a mixture of Classic Kraft and Honey Nut inks. Being standard cardstock, it didn’t take as well to the well ink smooshing, but worked out fine when die cut with the Woven Cane Bakcground and used behind a Pierced Oval Frame from Papertrey Ink cut with Classic Kraft.

I tied the leaves together with a piece of gold metallic thread from Altenew and added a tiny gold pearl to the bow. 

The sentiment is gold foiled from The Stamp Market’s Foiled Card Phrases. 

I know you’ll find lots of inspiration from the Design Team, so click through and check out the amazing variety of cards. Hope to see yours in our gallery!

I’m adding my card to the mix at the Four Seasons Challenge where the challenge is Anything Goes for Fall. The challenge always posts an Inspiration Board to get you started, but it’s not required that you take anything specific from it. Other than two of the colors in the bottom right photo my inspiration really came from the color challenge and the fall leaf die on my desk!

Today, I’m honored to announce a very special Challenge at Color Hues!  

In conjunction with our normal Color Challenge, The Color Hues Design Team and a few guests, from our sister challenge Seize the Birthday, are participating in a Blog Hop! 

Collectively as a team and with other crafters, we are hopping in memory of our dear friend, fellow cardmaker, and Design Team member, Lindsey Martin-Penny, who sadly passed away last year from a rare and aggressive form of Ovarian Cancer. 

 

The purpose of this hop will be to honor Lindsey, celebrate her life and all that she loved, as well as spread the word to raise funds for Clear Cell Ovarian Cancer Research.  

How can you Help? You can find all the fabulous details and the start of the hop at Emily’s Blog HERE!

In honor of Lindsey, the Design Team has created a variety of cards using her favorite color combo of Purple and Red.

In honor of Lindsey, I chose a CAS design with hearts of red and purple. I’m not quite sure where I first saw the technique of using recessed die cuts, but I think it was one of Laura Basson’s cards. It worked perfectly for this card.

I first die cut a square of 110# Neenah cardstock with one of the Simon Says Stitched Rectangles and popped it up with dimensional tape on a square cardbase. Using Simon Says TicTacToe dies, I cut hearts in two hues of red and two hues of purple, and adhered them to the card base.

The sentiment was a preprinted one from The Stamp Market’s Foiled Card Phrases. The final touch was to add a gold pearl to six of the hearts.

I hope you’ll join the Color Hues Design Team and our Special Guests, Barbara and Glena from Seize the Birthday Challenge, and create a card in red and purple in honor of Lindsey. Please hop along and support the cause in any way you can!

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!