This is a FUN one!  Not that all the Just Add Ink challenges aren’t, but I did enjoy making this card, as much as it took a little longer than usual…

So the challenge this week is to Just Add Stitching – real, faux, whichever grabs your fancy.

Here’s what grabbed mine….

Ribbon flowers!  I also added a couple of rows of faux stitching along the top and bottom of the Mellow Moss strip just in case ribbon flowers didn’t technically meet the stitching criteria

Being less of an embroiderer than a stamper, I Googled ribbon flowers to figure out exactly what I needed to do, but didn’t really find what I was looking for.

Then I had a vague recollection that Kristina Werner had done a similar thing ages ago, which I dutifully searched for – and found – in this post that she did back in January 2008.

I actually managed to include a second challenge in this card, as I caught a glimpse of Karen Giron’s Sweet Sunday Sketch #71 and had to have a go.

Here’s the sketch that helped inspire the card…

If you have a window of stamping opportunity and a fairly patient mindset, I would encourage you to give ribbon flowers a go!

Entries for Just Add Stitching close at midnight on Wednesday, so get out your sewing machine or your Mat Pack and Paper Piercer and jump in to the challenge!

Stamps: Embrace Life, Tiny Tags, Sanded background
Paper: Always Artichoke, Pretty in Pink, Mellow Moss, Whisper White, Tea Party DSP
Ink: Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke
Accessories: Pretty in Pink and Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon, Ovals Original Die, 1/2″ Circle Punch, Crafter’s Tool Kit, Always Artichoke Stampin’ Write Marker, Chit Chat rubons (retired),  Stampin’ Sponges, Stampin’ Dimensionals

So I’m back with my project for Just Add Ink Challenge #9, which is another sketch challenge!

Personally, I’d be delirious if every challenge included a sketch, as I just love having a map of where things go for a starting point and many times will return to a sketch over and over to save myself time and angst when I need a card in a hurry.

So here’s what we got for this week…

And here’s what I turned it into…

The obvious thing to do where the sketch indicated a scalloped edge was to use a punch, but I wanted to do something a little bit different to show how a sketch can be interpreted in something other than the most obvious fashion.

I used a border style stamp from one of my brand new stamp sets out of the up and coming Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue to convey my idea of a scalloped edge and am quite happy that it turned out pretty much how I envisaged it

The other thing I wanted to do, not necessarily specifically with this sketch, but sometime soon, was bust out my Chunky Sprinkles which I got when they were part of the Inventory Clearance Sale a couple of months back, but haven’t shown the light of day to since!

To create the very glittery (and as it turns out, quite heavy!) effect that you can see here, I first stamped a piece of Whisper White with my new stamp set from the up and coming Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue, then covered the entire stamped piece with Versamark.

I then covered the whole thing with Heat & Stick Powder, blasted it with the Heat Tool, then liberally spread the Crystal Iris Chunky Sprinkles over the top.

Before I returned the excess sprinkles to their container, I pressed down on them with my fingers to ensure maximum stick-ability and to try and avoid them all coming off again as soon as the card was vertical.

It seems to have worked a treat, and also ensured that everything I touched for the remainder of the day was dusted with a chunky sprinkle or seven

If you’d like to play along with the challenge for this week, or see what the rest of the Design Team have come up with, head on over to Just Add Ink then get busy!

Just Add Ink #9 – Sketch Challenge
Stamps: A new stamp set from the up and coming Autumn/Winter Mini catalogue (!)
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Regal Rose, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Regal Rose, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Heat & Stick Powder, Chunky Sprinkles, Chit Chat Rubons, Button Bouquet, Stampin’ Sponges

It’s week seven over at Just Add Ink, and this time around it’s another colour challenge – a most challenging one for me that gave me a good old shove out of my comfort zone.

Here are the colours:

They look quite delightful and Springtime-ish here, but Bold Brights have never been a strong point for me, and having to create anything with such bright colours, quite frankly, ‘frightens my life out’ as my girls would say.

I will admit to a false start with this challenge that never made it into a complete card.   I wasn’t happy with the stamped panel that I had created, so that was cast aside in favour of this…

The Flower Fancy stamp set that I have used here is usually one that I reserve for colours such as Rose Red and Always Artichoke, so inking up those flowers in Pink Passion and the leaves in Green Galore was quite a stretch.

The panel of Whisper White that you can see at the bottom of the card has been scored at random intervals using my bone scorer and paper trimmer.

To get this effect, you simply insert the cardstock into your paper trimmer as though you were going to cut it, but instead run the tip of the bone scorer down the cutting groove.  It’s one of those great techniques that adds a little something extra to a project, but without requiring any fancy tools or equipment.

Not that I have anything against fancy tools or equipment – heck knows I own a lot of those (and have another en route as we speak….!) – but sometimes it’s nice to be able to achieve simple but effective results using nothing other than what you have in your basic stamping kit.

Don’t you agree?

I’d love to see what you can come up with using these colours – mostly so I can CASE some awesome ideas for myself – so make sure you head on over to Just Add Ink and play along!

“Just Add Ink Challenge #7″
Stamps: Flower Fancy
Paper: Pink Passion, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White
Ink: Punk Passion, Green Galore
Accessories: So Saffron Marker, Large Oval Punch, Eyelet Border Punch, Chit Chat Rubons, Whisper White Taffeta Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

It’s week four over at Just Add Ink!  Isn’t it amazing how time flies when you’re having fun?

And judging by the number of entries in the challenges each week, a lot of you are having fun with the various assignments too!

For your stampin’ pleasure this week, it’s a colour challenge…

As many of you would know, I am a huge fan of colour challenges, and if not for them, it’s unlikely that I would use more than a handful of colours EVER!

In this case, Rose Red, Kraft and Whisper White get very frequent workouts at my stampin’ desk.   Sage Shadow a little less frequently, but I love it still.

More Mustard I also like, but am quite often stumped as to what to put it with, so it frequently stays in the ‘too hard basket’, while I move onto other colours that I’m more comfortable with.

For this reason, I was very happy to be challenged with it this week, and here’s what I came up with based on this set of colours….

The smokey effect of the flowers was achieved by stamping onto Kraft cardstock using Whisper White Craft ink, then dabbing Stampin’ Pastels over the top.  Except for the flower petals – those are just the plain ink.

I stamped the image onto two separate pieces of Kraft and cut the flower images out of the second one, mounting them on top of the first images using Stampin’ Dimensionals to give the card more dimension and realism.

The rest is pretty self explanatory, with some punching, some ribbon, a rub-on and a whole lotta layering to finish it off.

One thing that I will point out since we’re talking colour, is that you will notice that although there are five different colours used in this card, they’re not used in equal proportions.

In order not to have all the colours competing with each other, and to achieve a good balance, you want to make sure not to use the same amount of each colour, but use a slightly lesser proportion each time you add a new colour in.

You will notice in my card that Kraft is the colour that you can see most of, followed by Rose Red, Whisper White, Sage Shadow, then More Mustard.

It’s a rule I follow with all of my stamping and creating and it seems to have served me well.   I can always tell when I haven’t quite got the proportions right, as I won’t be happy with the result until I add some colour here or subtract some there.

Give it a try and let me know how you go!  I’d love to hear if this little tip has helped you out

“Just Add Ink Challenge #4″
Stamps: Inspired by Nature
Paper: More Mustard, Whisper White, Kraft, Sage Shadow, Raspberry Tart DSP
Ink: Whisper White Craft, Rose Red
Accessories: Eyelet Border Punch, Rose Red double stitched grosgrain ribbon, Whisper White taffeta ribbon, Chit Chat Rub-ons, Stampin’ Pastels, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Stampin’ Sponges

Aaarghhhh!  I’m late!

And I’m exhausted due to my big girl having started back at school today and all the fun and frivolity and fresh new stationery (mmmmmmm!) that comes with the last week of the summer holidays.

But mostly I’m late.  To show you my card for the current Just Add Ink challenge (that kicked off …….last Thursday!)

Chances are you have already seen my card on the JAI blog itself, and I suspect that a good many of you have judging by the many, many challenge entries that are flooding in!

The challenge this week….?  Just add HEARTS!

This theme suited me perfectly as we had an engagement party to go to last weekend, so this card was created, photographed, emailed to the Just Add Ink girls and given away, all in the blink of an eye!

‘Tis a pity that it wasn’t blogged with such speed and frightening efficiency…

I’m not sure if you can quite make out the detail of the heart image, so here’s a bit of a closer look…

The heart image from Simply Said was stamped onto Vellum Cardstock in Whisper White Craft Ink and embossed with White Embossing Powder.

Then I coloured onto the back of the vellum using markers to create the stained glass window type effect.

Then with the two different sized square punches and a goodly amount of stuffing about to get the layers to line up, I created the little see through window-ish type thingamy that you can see in the above photo.

Then some background stamping, ribbon and a rub-on completed the job!

If you’re keen to join the challenge for this week and you have a window of stampin’ opportunity to do so between now and midnight on Wednesday, I’d encourage you to jump on in!

“Just Add Hearts Engagement Card”
Stamps: Simply Said, Sanded background
Paper: Close to Cocoa, Whisper White, Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip, Vellum cardstock
Ink: Whisper White craft, Close to Cocoa
Accessories: Rose Red Wide Double Stitched Ribbon, White Taffeta Ribbon, Stampin’ Write Markers, Chit Chat Rub-ons, 1-3/8″ and 1-1/4″ Square Punches, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Stampin’ Sponges

Mother’s Day came and went a good month ago now and I have yet to share the cards I made for my delightful mum and mum-in-law, so here they are!

My mum has always loved all things owl-related, looong before they became the next big thing in stamping and scrapbooking!  She is a setter of the trends rather than a follower, as you will read all about in an upcoming post about her brush with fame, Trinny and Susannah style, but that’s a WHOLE other story!

Back to the owl….

This guy is from the Level 3 hostess bundle Hand Drawn, more specifically he is one of the Loop to Loop rub-ons.  Isn’t he adorable?!

In order to incorporate the two different styles of Designer Series Paper, I carefully cut the wings away from the rest of the owl before I rubbed on the rub-on.

Then I applied the body portion to the pale pink spotty paper from the Candy Lane series of DSP, and the wings to a darker spotty piece from Raspberry Tart and popped the wings up on Stampin’ Dimensionals for some, well, dimension

“Nanny’s Happy Mother’s Day Card”
Stamps: None!
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Kiwi Kiss, Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Holiday Treasures, Candy Lane & Raspberry Tart DSP, Kiwi Kiss Patterns DSP
Ink: None!
Accessories: Loop to Loop rub-ons (Level 3 Hostess Bundle), Double-Stitched Rose Red Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals

This next one was for for my dear MIL, beloved ‘Mama’ to my girls and amazing crafter too!  She is the most incredible quilter and has recently applied her crafty hand to papery pursuits, with large amounts of success I will add!

This one was inspired by the card on the back cover of the current Idea Book & Catalogue.  I am loving this colour combination and the Sweet Stems set is the sweetest!

“Mama’s Happy Mother’s Day Card”
Stamps: Sweet Stems, Occasional Greetings
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Rose Red, Watercolour Paper, Raspberry Tart DSP
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Wide Oval Punch, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain, Aquapainter, White Gel Pen

The catalogue is such a wonderful place for inspiration, be it for a layout idea, or a colour combination as I have used it for here.  Make sure you make use of the wonderful resource that it is and save yourself the trouble of re-inventing the wheel every time you sit down to stamp!