Happy Birthday Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is celebrating 8 years! Congrats on 8 years of inspiration and challenges.  Thanks too to Heidi at Simon Says Stamp for sending vouchers for the store to the winners.

This week they are giving away 8, yes 8, vouchers away to 8 lucky challenge entries.  Boy, oh boy, do I want one of those vouchers to help with my massive wishlist at Simon Says Stamp! Unfortunately, I have only been able to create 2 entries for this challenge; sometimes life just gets in the way of craft time!

This entry is a birthday card for my niece.  Her birthday isn't for another couple of weeks so I hope she doesn't read my blog! When I set out to make this card I thought it would come together very easily.  Once again it felt like a struggle trying to put this together! I persevered with it and I am so glad I did!

To get the two-toned colour for the background stamp I actually stamped it first in Archival Black on another project, cleaned the stamp with baby wipes, then stamped the card base with the gorgeous Simon Says Stamp hybrid coral ink.  Actually, I discovered this 'technique' by accident, not realising the black residue would still stamp after cleaning!

I just love the Coral Reef hybrid ink by Simon Says Stamp and I felt like I needed to do another card with this pretty colour.  For this challenge I added just a pop of mint to the mix as I love the two colours together with black as an accent (the paper looks pale blue in the picture but in real life it is mint). Hence, I am adding this card to the Southern Girls Challenge: Show us you Favourite Colour Combo challenge.

The frame for this card was actually white which was too stark for the overall card.  I toned down the white by adding some Zig fawn colour ink with a waterbrush to grunge it up a bit.

A lot of older items from my stash were used on my card! Yay for using up my stash.  After making this card I have popped the background stamp in my 'For Sale' pile for a de-stash event I am attending in a few weeks.  Hopefully I will make a little money to buy new supplies with!

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Happy Birthday
A Blog Named Hero: Anything Goes
Southern Girls Challenge: Show us your Favourite Colour Combo I'm having trouble linking this project to this challenge today.  I will try again later.

Materials:
Stamp: Hero Arts, Stampin' Up! (background)
Ink,  Simon Says Stamp hybrid Coral Reef, Ranger Archival Ink Black (for edging), Zig (on frame)
Numbers: American Craft Thickers
Frame: Maggie Holmes
Markers:   (for watercolouring the white frame to match)
Papers: Webster pages (journal card), La-De-Dah (paper used inside the frame), Grace Taylor (tag behind the frame),
Other: card

A Quadruple Whammy

Instead of a double whammy, today's card is a quadruple whammy as it covers 4 challenges!

Before I created my card I checked out my favourite challenge sites. Once I had chosen my challenges, my theme and colour scheme was already chosen for me. You'd think this would make my card quick and easy to make. No such luck! From the get-go I struggled with this card. I chose my favourite colours and combos and I knew I wanted to make a birthday card but the technical skills to bring my ideas together were lacking.

It started with my poor attempt at watercolouring over a clear embossed image. Watercolouring is something I really struggle with. I thought I'd improved but when I was working on the colouring I realised my improvements were nonexistent! Sigh. I decided to continue with the watercoloured base card any way.

My next great idea failed in its execution. I wanted to emboss the Happy Birthday in Versacolour Celadon to match the edging of my card. First attempt I inked the sentiment with embossing ink and stamped it. Then I realised I actually wanted to stamp it in Celadon ink then heat emboss it with clear powder! A quick scrub off and dry then I had to turn the vellum over to use the other side. Would it lay flat? Absolutely not! Cue handy washi strips to beat it into submission, I mean, tie it down flat. Then I realised the ink was too pale after all that.

Time for a break! Or so I thought. As I got up to leave I decided to chose some liquid pearls to add matching drops in part of the background image to help distract from my attempt at blending my watercoloured background. I ended up sitting down again and adding the liquid pearls drops. Of course some got on to the vellum. Sigh. After other small annoyances I am glad to say my card is done. And I quite like the finished product, certainly more than I was expecting too.

This card is being submitted in the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Happy Birthday  This set my theme: birthday
A Blog Named Hero: Anything Goes   Had to use a Hero Arts birthday stamp
Scrapbook.com: Submit & Win    I was inspired to use their April colour inspiration in a recent newsletter. I love this colour combo as it uses some of my favourite colours: Coral, Mint, Dark Teal, Grey and Pale Grey. They go so beautifully together.
Southern Girls Challenge: Show Us Your Favourite Colour Combo  Used a combination of my favourite colours: Coral, Mint, Dark Teal, and Grey.

Materials:
Watercolour Card: Bockingford
Ink: Simon Says Stamp (Coral Reef, Audrey Blue), Versacolour (Celadon, Cement), Ranger Distress (Hickory Smoke)
Stamp: Hero Arts
Liquid Pearls: Ranger
Washi Tape: 7Gypsies
Other: Vellum, Flower, Paper Scrap (behind the sentiment to help it stand out)

Final Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

3 blog posts in one day!

This is the final one for today - I promise

This final project is a 4x6 pocket scrapbooking card I made.  I really like the "Laugh Out Loud" chipboard with the inked doily (Ranger Distress Oxides again) but I didn't really think it was a good sentiment for a card. So, I decided to make a pocket scrapbooking card instead - I'm sure there are many photos that can be used with "LOL".  I'm not 100% sure about the 4x6 size of this card but I centered the doily so that I can cut it down and use it as a 4x4 pocket page if I want.

Excuse the watermark on the top of the paper. My guess would be it touched a wet baby wipe on my desk when I was setting up my photo - grrr

This is my final entry in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Materials:
Ink: Ranger Distress Oxides - Broken China, Cracked Pistachio
Paper, Doily, Chipboard - brands unknown

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

More creative play with distress oxide inks for me in this blog post. And seeing that the challenge this week at Simon Says Stamp is Anything Goes I got to create cards/projects without any limitations.

For this card I stamped an older Heidi Swapp background stamp on Kraft again but not spritzing it with water like my previous card. I like the fact that the colour shows up on Kraft card and gives a smooth, chalky finish. From there I inked a doily to match, chose patterned paper, stamped/embossed my sentiment on Kraft card and added silver glitter numbers. Done!

For some reason the silver glitter numbers don't stand out in the photo as much as they do in person.

Materials:
Kraft Card: Ormolu
Inks: Ranger Distress Oxides, Ranger Embossing Ink
Stamps: Heidi Swapp, Studio G
Numbers: American Crafts
Papers: from my scraps bin
Embossing Powder: Celebrations of Australia
Other: Fiskars Circle Cutter, Doily

Simon Says Stamp Monday and Wednesday Challenge

It seems I have found my creative groove again after a long period of inactivity on the blog. Thank goodness.

This week I created a card for two challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Make a Rainbow I even used Tim Holtz products!
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Some Distress Oxides arrived by courier today (ordered after my March #nospend ended - fail?).
I just had to sit down and play with them immediately - in my pjs! The background for this card was the first item I created. I wanted to see how the distress oxide inks would show up on Kraft card. I also tried stamping on black cardstock; at first the colours were vivid but when they dried they just gave a chalky finish with just a hint of colour. To start my collection I got: Cracked Pistachio, Broken China, Worn Lipstick, Fossilized Amber. (For this card I did not use Broken China)

I actually love these ink for just plain stamping on white card! I have a few (😜) distress inks but I mainly use them for inking the edges of things as I don't like the results when you use them with clear stamps. I also stick to dye based inks because I don't like waiting for pigment ink to dry and I'm too lazy to get out my heat tool! So, these new distress oxides will be a great resource for me.

Now on to my card.

When my dad saw the background on my card he said: "It's like a rainbow!".  I knew then that it definitely fit the Make A Rainbow challenge!

For some reason the sentiment stamping went awry on this card.  I don't know if it is because it is so humid in NZ at the moment (100% humidity) or maybe I pressed the stamp too hard into the embossing ink.  Unfortunately, I had already invested my time and supplies on this card so I m keeping it as is.

Materials:
Kraft Card: Ormolu
Inks: Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Oxides, Ranger Embossing Ink
Stamp: Hero Arts
Embossing Powder: Celebrations of Australia
Number: American Crafts
Other: Chipboard, Scrap Ribbon.