Color My Heart Color Dare #494

Good afternoon, 

This week we have a Six Pack colour challenge at Color My Heart Color Dare. The colours for Challenge #494 are as follows:

We use Close To My Heart colour names but you can use any brand as long as they are a VERY close match. Notice also, that there is a requirement for your card base to be one of the six colours (not including black, white or metallic).

My card base is Mocha but the photo makes it look almost black! My other colours are Toffee, Rosemary, Desert Rose and Sundance. 

The gingerbread people are die cut from toffee card and adhered directly onto the card base. The mug image is a digital file that I have resized and slightly amended before colouring with alcohol markers. I cut this using a scallop edge circle die and added the sentiment strip layered onto Sundance and Desert Rose card stock.

So now it's your turn to head over to the Color My Heart Color Dare challenge blog to join in. Be sure to check out the other amazing creations by the Design Team whilst you are there. 

This week I would like to join in with the following challenges:

The Holly & The Ivy Christmas Challenge #114 - very helpfully an ‘Anything Goes’ as long as it is Christmas theme!

Pattie’s Creations Challenge #193 - again an ‘Anything Goes’ theme but must include a digital image and Pattie has an Etsy shop of her images, and there’s some freebies on her blog. 

Much love

Steph x 

Color My Heart Color DareColor My Heart Color Dare challenge blog

Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Framed Balloons

Hi everyone, 

Welcome to today’s Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration post. I mentioned last month that I wasn’t ready to let go of the birthday spirit and it appears I still have it this month too! I’ve focused my post on the wonderful Uniko Framed Balloons set that was part of the Uniko 10th birthday release.

My first two cards focus on using the full frame and both have been heat embossed. 

This card uses green pearlised card and white embossing powder. I have then added colours, shadows and highlights using colouring pencils. I have given the balloons an extra highlight with a white gel pen. This card has a lovely shimmery finish which does not quite translate on the photo.

Sticking with the green theme (it is my favourite colour after all!), this time I used gold embossing powder. I love how the gold pops on the dark green. On this card I used alcohol markers to add shadows and metallic gel pens to add colour and the balloon highlights. I teamed it with one of the wonderful sentiments from Uniko Anniversaire Arts Decoratifs set. 

Finally I decided to give more focus to the additions in the set as I had not used these in my introduction posts back in February. 

I repeat stamped the confetti and coloured it using alcohol markers. I then cut it into a square before cutting into three triangles. I created a green card blank and cut the front panel into a triangle, reserving the two cut of triangles for the cross over on the card front. I layered my confetti pieces onto the green pieces and adhered to the card front as shown. I added hearts cut from the remaining confetti card and presents stamped and fussy cut. Finally I added the sentiment which I coloured to match and die cut with a fancy die. 

I hope these give you some inspiration of how you can get more from your stamp sets and what different effects you can achieve simply by changing the colour of the card stock, ink or embossing powder.

Thanks for joining me today. 

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #492

Happy Easter everyone,  

This week’s Color My Heart Color Dare challenge #492 is a Tic, Tac, Toe board. All you have to do is choose a row, column or diagonal and make your paper project using those colours. Feel free to add in other colours from the board, but only those on the board, plus the free colours as listed. Don’t forget to let us know in you post which colours your used. 

We reference Close To My Heart colours but you can use any brand as long as it’s a VERY close match.

I thought this board was full of beautiful colours and they all compliment each other so nicely. I chose to use the bottom row of Lemonade, Mink (it’s subtle but it’s there!) and Avocado and I knew straight away what stamp I was going to use!

I made a very Spring looking card base from yellow card and added the dry embossed white layer on top. I stamped the Clearly Besotted Snowdrops main floral and the singular snowdrop head onto white card before colouring with green, grey and yellow alcohol markers. I die cut both and layered the single head onto the main floral using foam pads for dimension. I stamped the sentiment using the Uniko Spring Botanicals Daffodil set and die cut it into an oval followed by a larger oval of yellow card. Mother’s Day in the UK was back in March so you can see how far ahead I crafted this one! 

I hope you like the look of this week’s colour board and want to join in. Be sure to check out the amazing talent from the Design Team over at the Color My Heart Color Dare blog. And however you celebrate, I wish you a nice Easter break. 

This week I’d like to join in the fun with:

Happy Little Stampers April Anything Goes With Dies Challenge 

Taylormade Cards4U who have an ‘Anything Goes’ challenge with optional theme of ‘The Great Outdoors’.

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Craft Challenge #161

Hello there! 

What have we got for you this month at The Male Room? Dry embossing!

Now, I found this challenge, well, a challenge! I don't use embossing folders often because I'm just never sure what to do with the embossed card once I have it! I find it quite hard to incorporate an embossed piece into my layout but as usual, I enjoyed being out of my comfort zone and I don't think my card is all too shabby! 

Here I have used a stamp set and embossing folder that came with a popular craft magazine. I thought the herbs would be good for a male recipient who likes cooking. I stamped the herbs onto white card in two different shades of green. I then selected card that best matched the green inks and embossed these with the small folder. I always find that card rips when embossed so I spritzed it with water first to help the fibres stretch and avoid tearing. I made a card base out of a third colour of green and stamped the herb names in matching ink to give a little more interest to the 'empty' areas.

Now I know you are all going to amaze me with your use of embossing folders so head on over to The Male Room blog and join in the fun. Be sure to check out all the other amazing projects by our very talented Design Team. 

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #490

Good afternoon, 

Welcome to this week’s challenge at Colour My Heart Color Dare. Challenge #490 requires you to use browns plus one colour of your choice.

Again I found this a tough challenge because I don’t often reach for brown, but I do enjoy being pushed out of my comfort zone so here is my inspiration for you.

I do love a Kraft card base so that’s where I started. I dug out various scraps of brown card and patterned paper and played around until I was happy with a combination of three. As the scraps were long and thin in shape this sort of led me to using them as banners across the card front. Finally I die cut some decorative elements from brown, white and green card. To emphasise my one colour choice, I added a green button over a twine bow. I’m short of ‘New Home’ cards so that was the sentiment I dug out for this card. 

If you need more inspiration check out the fabulous makes by the rest of the Design Team over on the Color Dare blog. I cannot wait to see where you guys take this challenge! 

Much love

Steph