Just Add Ink #573 | sketch

Hello! It’s been a wonderful break but I’m excited to be back to sharing on my blog and Instagram again. I’m going to continue to do most of my sharing via Insta – so jump over there to follow for all the cards I share!

It’s fitting that my first blog post back after my break is a Just Add Ink challenge – they are my favourite inspiration! Today it’s a sketch – a great weekend crafty adventure!

I made my first Christmas card of the season using my favourite suite – Whimsy & Wonder.

How cute are those trees! “‘Tis the season” is from the Christmas to Remember stamp set.

If you make a project using our sketch as the inspiration, share it with us on the Just Add Ink gallery – click here to visit the blog.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Just Add Ink #553 | sketch

Hello! I’m excited to be creating tonight with the Just Add Ink Design Team for challenge #553 – a sketch I designed for the team. They’ve knocked it out of the park – the creations are beautiful!

We can’t wait to see what you do with the sketch! You can join the challenge over at the Just Add Ink blog by adding your card to the gallery.

When I looked at this sketch again to make a project, it seemed better on its side. Lots of the design team agreed with me, so you’ll see lots of portrait styles on the JAI blog. You are welcome to adapt the sketch to suit your creativity – as long as you keep the main elements / structure.

I used the front panel and the strips to frame my succulent creation.

You’ll find the Simply Succulent bundle in the Jan-June 2021 Mini Catalogue. Not only does it come with succulent stamps and dies, but you also get the amazing cover plate die you see in the background of my card. Such amazing value and so many options for ways to use this bundle.

I’ve stamped the succulents in Evening Evergreen and coloured with Stampin’ Blends – Soft Succulent, Just Jade, Mint Macaron and Highland Heather. The cardstock colours for the card are Soft Succulent, Evening Evergreen and Basic White. I am enjoying the green duo in the new In Colors – Soft Succulent is so dreamy and Evening Evergreen is a fabulous contrast.

Is this bundle part of your collection or on your wish list? It’s one of the many carryover products that made it to the 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue, so we’ll be able to enjoy this bundle for the next year.

You can shop online for all your Stampin’ Up! needs – both catalogues are available in the online store, open 24-7. Click here to shop.

Have a wonderful weekend. I hope it’s filled with lots of happy!

Just Add Ink #543 | sketch

Hello! Thanks for stopping in for today’s Just Add Ink challenge. It’s a sketch theme – one that I know you’ll love! This would work for a card, scrapbook page or mixed media project. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

To enter the challenge, please visit the Just Add Ink blog and add your creation to the gallery. You can also see how the rest of the JAI design team used the sketch for inspiration.

I thought the layout of this sketch worked well to show off some of the patterns in the Whale of a Time DSP as a whole sheet – using the tiled effect to add texture.

For the turtle card, I rotated the sketch to go with the layout of the swimming turtles.

The sentiment is from the Seaside Notions stamp set, cut out with a Stitched Rectangle Die. I added in a fussy cut turtle from another sheet in the pack and finished it all off with white twine from the Snail Mail twine combo pack.

The second card uses more stamps from the Seaside notions stamp set – which coordinates beautifully with this DSP.

The seahorse was stamped in Versamark on Pretty Peacock cardstock and then heat embossed in white. And then fussy cut! I don’t mind fussy cutting, so I know some crafters that would like a die for everything!

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you have a marvellous weekend.

Just Add Ink #532 | sketch

Hello! I love that Just Add Ink goes live in time for all your weekend crafting. Hopefully there’s lots of it for you! This week’s challenge is a sketch – I hope it’s inspiring for whatever project you have on your to-do list, or just for a play with your favourite products.

This sketch lends itself to any type of card you’d need to make. I’m firmly in the Christmas zone at the moment and have used it to make a holly themed Christmas card using the gorgeous flocked specialty paper – Plush Poinsettia.

The holly stamps and Christmas Wishes sentiment are from the Banner Year stamp set.

Although my favourite Christmas cards are generally not the traditional red & green combination, it seemed like the right choice to coordinate with the flocking. The card base and holly berries are Cherry Cobbler and the holly leaves are Shaded Spruce. I really love how the rich colours against the white turned out!

The final touches for this card was gold twine (from the Wonder of the Season Combo Ribbon Pack) and a white on black heat embossed sentiment.

If you use this sketch to inspire a project this week, please share it with us on the Just Add Ink blog. You can also see all the design team cards here too.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great weekend!

Paper Adventures Team Hop | sketch

Hi!  Thanks for joining us for a team hop where our Paper Adventures team get together on a Friday night once a month and create projects with a shared theme.  Today it’s a fabulous sketch and we’re lucky to be joined by Gail Ellis from Blue Rose Paper Treasures as our guest designer.

This fun sketch was designed by Narelle. I’m so excited to see what the team does with it.  I’m either incredibly literal with sketches (for this one think holly, circle and rectangle) or I run away on a complete tangent!

Today’s creation is a little liberal with the circle turning into a square and the holly becoming a gnome.

I had an idea when I saw this sketch where the gnome was peeking out from behind a present with a tag saying “no peeking”.

How cute is the ruffles of the bow from the Gift Wrapped stamp set?  I’ve paired it with Heartwarming Hugs DSP.

The tag is from the Little Treat Box Dies – such a cute little size with gorgeous stitched detail.  And you’ll recognise the gnome peeking out from the Gnome for the Holidays stamp set.  I had to hunt a little for the sentiment – I knew I had a ‘no peeking’ somewhere and found it in the Itty Bitty Christmas stamp set.

There’s lots more of the team to share their creations if you keep clicking on the ‘next’ links to each blog until you get back to where you started.  The full list of participants is below.

From here, you are visiting our amazingly talented guest designer Gail Ellis.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great weekend filled with all the things that make you happy!

Participant List

Kelly Kent

Gail Ellis

Narelle Simm

Lisa Whitehead

Siobhan Fitzsimmons

Mandy Depiazzi

Sana Arslan

Sheila Pybus

Just Add Ink #512 | Sketch

Hello!  Thanks for joining us for a Just Add Ink challenge.  If you love the sketch we’re creating with today, you can share your project using the sketch with us at the Just Add Ink blog.  You’ll also find all the design team cards there too!

There was a crazy serendipity when I was planning out my card for this week’s challenge.  A jumper I bought online had the exact same layout as the sketch!!!  

So, with that as my inspiration for colour choices, I made this simple but cute card using the Tasteful Touches stamp set.

I really love feathers as an image in craft (not so much real life feathers – they gross me out a little!).

I’ve used two different embossing folders on the coloured panels – Subtle 3D (Night of Navy) & the new Tasteful Textile 3D (Pretty Peacock).

The sentiment is white heat embossed on Basic Gray cardstock and then snipped into individual words.  I love this effect with plain text words.

Sometimes the layout adds all the interest a card needs! 

I hope you find time this weekend to make some cards and that this sketch may be of some inspiration to you.  

 

Just Add Ink #502 | Sketch

It’s sketch week at Just Add Ink.  This little beauty was designed by Tina and I know you’re going to find lots of creative ways to use it.

I needed to make a card for a special little guy who’s turning 4.  Thank goodness the post is still running so I can send him some birthday love.

I love card with layers but I’m not always so good with putting them together.  Sketches give some really great suggestions about where to layer!

For this card I’ve used a strip of the Dinoroar DSP on the card based and then added a mat layer (Pretty Peacock & Whisper White).  The Whisper White is embossed using the Stone Embossing Folder (Sale-A-Bration 2020, it’s no longer available but I love it for this theme!).

On top of that I added a vellum circle, Pumpkin Pie cardstock strip, Old Olive grass strip (this isn’t Stampin’ Up! – it’s a stand alone Sizzix die I’ve had for years) and a dinosaur cut from Dinoroar DSP using the Dino Dies.  I am having so much fun at the moment using the perfectly coloured images from DSP on cards.

The final touch is a “Happy Birthday” sentiment on the front from the Label Me Bold stamp set.

I carried through the theme to the inside adding a number 4 for the birthday boy in Noble Peacock Foil, some stamped dino prints from the Dino Days stamp set and a smaller version of the elements from the front of the card.  I do like matchy-matchy!

This suite is one of many in the catalogue where the dies cut out the DSP.  The added versatility for both the dies and the DSP is wonderful!

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To see all the cards from the design team using the sketch and add your project to our gallery, visit the Just Add Ink blog.

Have a great weekend!

Paper Adventures Team Hop | Sketch

Hello!  Thanks for joining us for a team hop and I wanted to thank the team for always being so willing to join in.  I love that we can share our creations with the crafty world.  Our team is a mix of personal crafters and business crafters, which is totally wonderful!

We welcome Laura Mackie today from the UK.  Laura makes the most beautiful designs with such attention to detail!  I can’t wait for you to see what she’s made.  Make sure to keep hopping until you get to Laura or click on the links in the list below to visit all the blogs as part of this hop.

Today we’re all making a project that is inspired by this sketch, made for us by Siobhan Fitzsimmons.  Siobhan’s designed sketches before, but I’m loving this new presentation style – so trendy!

Sketches are just a starting point and can be used however suits you to get the creative juices flowing.  You can turn, flip, warp, stretch – whatever you like until you have a project you love!

My project started with a plan to use the floating frame technique for that strip down the side.  But once I have all my pieces ready to go, I decided I didn’t want them to float, so I stuck them down on a piece of Crumb Cake which I’d embossed with the Coastal Weave 3D Embossing Folder and the card evolved from there! All the best crafting happens when the plan doesn’t go as planned!!

This card features the Little Ladybug stamp set, which is free until the end of March with every order over $500.

To sweeten the deal, coordinating Ladybug Dies are also available, which means no fussy cutting required of those super cute images.

The dies also comes with accessory dies (dies that make their own shapes rather than cut out a stamped image).  There’s grass, leaves, stem and flowers which will add a heap of character to your projects.

There’s also a stitched swirl – which I love.  I have another project that I’ll share on the weekend, but for today’s card I’ve used it repeatedly to add some texture to the background layer.  It comes through on the other side of the cardstock, which gives an awesome effect on the inside of the card too.

I love carrying over the theme into the middle, so I used one of the extra flowers I’d stamped, coloured & cut on the inside.

All the images were stamped in Memento ink (Tuxedo Black) and coloured with Stampin’ Blends.  Dark & Light Daffodil Delight for the lighter flowers with Light Granny Apple Green stems and Dark Daffodil Delight & Dark Mango Melody with Dark Granny Apple Green for the darker flowers.  The middles are Dark Crumb Cake.

The Ladybug has been coloured with Dark Real Red, Dark Basic Black, Light Petal Pink and Light Gray Granite.

How cute is that sentiment???  This set has it all – thank you, happy birthday, thinking of you and some great ladybug related puns.  I’ve white heat embossed on Basic Black cardstock and then cut out using Stitched So Sweetly scalloped rectangle die.  I’m a sucker for anything stitched!

Did I mention how great this sketch was?  I also used it for a baby card I made for a work colleague.  It features a heap of my retired favourites, as well as a word cut by my Silhouette Cameo and sentiment from Praiseworthy Prose, so I could get the colours and style just perfect for the mum-to-be who doesn’t know if she’s having a girl or a boy!  This card is double the size of a normal card, made by folding an A4 sheet in half.

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Next up on the blog hop is the sketch queen herself, Siobhan Fitzsimmons!

Have a great (crafty) weekend!

Participant List

Laura Mackie (Guest Designer)

Kelly Kent

Siobhan Fitzsimmons

Narelle Simm

Lisa Whitehead

Mandy Depiazzi

Sheila Pybus

Just Add Ink #487 | Sketch

Whoops!  Did you get a blank email from me today where this post should have been?  I started it earlier in the week and had grand plans to finish it – but it’s been one of those weeks with unexpected stuff happening left right & centre and I didn’t get back to it in time before it published.

So, my Just Add Ink card isn’t in fact invisible for this fab sketch challenge created for us this week by Jackie Aitken.  It looks like this…

The butterflies are cut down from the Butterfly Beauty Dies in Whisper White cardstock.  I’ve layered two different Pretty Peacock DSP designs from the Woven Threads pack with more Whisper White in between the layers and then on to a Whisper White Thick mat.  The placement of the butterflies over the mandalas on the DSP was completely by accident – but I always love a happy accident (in life and cardmaking!).

The sentiment is in Night of Navy, stamped from the Welcome to the Team stamp set – one of my favourites in the 2019-2020 Annual Catalogue.  In fact, all products used for this card are from the Annual Catalogue, because although we tend to move our focus forward with each new catalogue release, there are still plenty of wonderful products available for the full year of the catalogue cycle (June 2019 – June 2020).

We’ve love for you to join the final challenge of 2019 and share what you’ve created based on our sketch.  Click here to visit the Just Add Ink blog where you can add your project to the gallery and see the other design team creations.

Thank you for all the comments, visits and love for my Just Add Ink design team cards in 2019.  When I cut back on my blogging commitments, Just Add Ink was one of the few regular commitments I kept.  I love the variety and quality of the challenges and I look forward to more opportunities in 2020 to create pretty cards and share them with you.

Just Add Ink #477 | Sketch

It’s a fabulous sketch for Just Add Ink tonight!

This sketch could take you anywhere!  The design team have had such fun with it – flipping it, rotating it, stretching it and making it into wonderful cards!  We’d like you to do the same – share your project inspired by this sketch to the gallery on the Just Add Ink blog.

I’ve added a touch of magic to the sketch with the unicorn from the Leave a Little Sparkle stamp set.  I’ve been having fun with this sweet set – it’s perfect in a house with lots of girls!

The unicorn is heat embossed in silver and then had its mane coloured with Watercolour Pencils – Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry & Bermuda Bay.

For the background, I clear heat embossed the stars on Shimmery White and then blended inks – Melon Mambo, Gorgeous Grape & Bermuda Bay .Before adding ink.

Add in a bit of Whisper White Polka Dot Ribbon, a Melon Mambo lace border, a white heat embossed sentiment and a couple of pearls  – and we’re done!

This card will be perfect for the next girly party we go to!  It’s always handy to have some cards on hand for when life gets a bit busy and there’s more parties than craft time!