The Color Throwdown #527 - Guest Designer Post

Hey everyone!  I'm back with my week 4 post for The Color Throwdown Challenge this week, #527 with the colors Navy, Green, and Gray.  This is a color combination I wouldn't have thought of, but I love how it turned out and I plan to use it again in the future!

I have been wanting to play with a new stamp set I got recently from Altenew called Wild Ferns Stamp Set and this was a perfect time to try it out.  Each of the three ferns in the set has three layers so I started by laying out the arrangement of the ferns on my card front and then choosing the inks I wanted to use.  I used the three darkest shades from the Green Valley Mini Cube Set; Grass Field, Shadow Creek, and Mountain Pine working from lightest to darkest. These ferns are so realistic and I think they could work for several types of cards.  Today I chose to make a thank you card for some of the gifts received this Christmas.

I used Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select White, Weathervane, and Dark Indigo cardstock.  The "Thanks" die is from Simon Says Stamp.

This is super clean and simple cardmaking with a lot of white space and a bold design.  I'll be checking out your projects all this month to see the cards you've created using the color challenges.

Here's the Blog List:

Barbara Anders

Broni Holcombe

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put

Vickie Zimmer

Wanda Cullen

Amy Rysavy

Amy Rohl

Vicki Finger, January Guest Designer (You are here)

The Color Throwdown #525 - January 2019 Guest Designer

Hello all!  I'm back with this week's guest post for The Color Throwdown Challenge #525.  This week's colors are Black, Brown and White.

The inspiration image has a rustic farmhouse vibe and I really wanted to capture at least the "rustic" part of that in my project.  To that end, I recently purchased the Tree Ring Die from Altenew.  I felt like it would be an easy way to give a more masculine feel to guy cards which I sometimes really struggle with.

I started my project by selecting the papers I wanted to use.  As always, I started with a cardbase made from Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I die cut a 4.25 x 5.5-inch panel of Bitty Big Black and White paper using the larger checked background side to mimic the pillow and blanket in the photo.  I die cut three of the leafy branches from Stamper's Select Vellum using the Papertrey Ink Songbirds Dies.  This die puts a little stitch line down the center of each leaf.  For a more rustic feel, I used Delicata Gold Ink with a Stencil Brush to add a little bit of very light color to the semi-translucent vellum.

I die cut the tree ring from Tonic Studios Cinnamon Silk Cardstock.  I love this cardstock because of the texture it gives my projects.  They have a few in this style called Silk Look or Silk Effect.  I have another in Tonic Golden Satin Silk Look that is more of an antique gold rather than the brown of the Cinnamon.

For the sentiment, I used the Papertrey Ink 2012 Birthday Tags with the Limitless Layers 2¼ inch ovals and stamped in Black Amalgam Ink.  I wanted the black to be super crisp and it is.  My grandson, Charlie, turns 18 in a few weeks and I am planning to make a card similar to this for his birthday card.  He loves graphic design and I know he will appreciate the design of this card and the fact that it isn't girly.

I can't wait to see what you create using The Color Throwdown's Challenge colors for this week.

Here's the Blog List:

Barbara Anders

Broni Holcombe

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put

Vickie Zimmer

Wanda Cullen

Amy Rysavy

Amy Rohl

Vicki Finger, January Guest Designer (You are here)

Twinkling Paper Studio 3rd Anniversary + AECP - For The Guys

I actually made these cards a few weeks back after watching the For The Guys Video Tutorials at the Altenew Academy for my AECP.  When I first started the classes for the program, I was having to watch on my phone, which was a little hard and I didn't go in order so I had to go back and look to see the order I was supposed to be working in.  Hooray for finally having Internet Service in my house! 

Some of you might have seen some of these photos on my Facebook Page, but I'll give you many more details here.  So if you go back to this link on my blog you'll see that I actually started with a class on Dynamic Die Cutting where I created this card using a technique called inverted die cutting.

For my For the Guys projects for today, I'll show you the card I made with all of those leftover stars from that card to create this one.

My husband, his twin brother and my grandsons, Lance and Chandler all have early August Birthdays so I didn't want to write this post until after a couple of the birthday's had passed.  I know the two grandsons don't read my blog so even though their birthdays are next week, I think it's okay to go ahead and write this post. 

Using all of the die cut leftovers from the first card which were all the white stars, I used a technique from another class called Impressive Heat Embossing.  I started by covering the white stars with Versamark and heat embossing them with Antique Gold Embossing Powder three times each for a really thick layer of embossing powder.  Now I admit, I am a very messy artist/crafter so I made sure to put a piece of printer paper underneath my embossing area so I could pour all of the excess back into the container.  Once those were done, I laid them out on my craft mat and heated them one by one again adding in sprinkles of Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder on top for the two toned look.  After they were cool enough, I adhered them from largest to smallest with Multi Medium Matte and set a heavy piece of glass on the top while they dried. 

Guys always like geometric patterns and metallics in gold or silver so I decided to combine them.  I also went to my supply of Gold and White Cardstock to see what type of geometric print I had that would look good with the stars and decided on the one you see here.   I added foam tape to the back of each of the star stacks and stamped and die cut the sentiment adding it to a black banner the same width of the card.  As always, I was careful to use anti static powder on the area before the heat embossing part and then wiped the excess away with a microfiber cloth before adhering the die cut "wishes". 

When I showed this card to my husband, he asked me to send this one to his brother.  It was then that I decided to create something similar for my husband so I started die cutting a bunch of sizes of gold stars to stack on his card.  Because I didn't want the cards to be identical, I chose to go with a Black Kraft and Gold Cardstock for his background panel.  This particular paper pad came from Die Cuts With a View and the prints in it are fantastic and also, mostly Art Deco in style - which is one I love.

For the stars on this one, I added foam tape between each layer from largest to smallest and then added foam tape to the back of the star stacks as well.  I love using rich designer/foiled papers for quick cards. Everything else was the same as the one I sent to Wayne.

It's interesting to me that until I started making cards I would have thought my style was feminine with lots of flourishes and scrolls.  But I realized that mostly, I like very clean and graphic design with crisp lines, etc. 

One of the decisions we made when we were starting to move was to sell our old living room furniture and get new.  When we were talking with our sales person  about what style we wanted, I said, "clean lines, nothing ornately heavy, overstuffed or overtly feminine", nothing scrolly, or flourish-y" - maybe something with a mid century modern kind of vibe.  Let me tell you - she did a fantastic job and if you live in the Dallas Area and want furniture, you contact me and I will give your her name.  We even ended up going back for one more piece that we originally hadn't planned on because when we got a new TV for the living room, the table we planned on using and had been using, was too small.  Fayne is still working in Tulsa so he has a small place there where he is using our previous TV. 

This is our last house and I had my previous furniture for 21 years so I was ready for a change. The thing was, it was Clayton Marcus Furniture, so it was very well made and still looked like new.  But we felt the style and colors didn't go well in our new home. While we do have some very traditional elements in our home like the built in book cases I designed, the rug and some other things, we also have a lot of more contemporary pieces in things like our furnishings and our kitchen back-splash and our concrete and wood combination tables.  Here's a picture of our living room.  Don't mind the two cabinets laying on the living room floor.  They are for the bathrooms and will be getting installed tomorrow.

I hope you enjoyed my thought processes of how these birthday cards came together starting with the leftover bits and pieces from the previously made card for Dynamic Die Cutting. 

I have been blogging now for three full years.  In this last year, I have collaborated on two stamp sets with Tasnim at Altenew and it has been an honor!  Even though I haven't been able to do as much the past 6 months with the house and our move, I have still had over 75,000 visitors and more than 1000 comments in the past 3 years.  I hope now that I can get back to work on a regular basis, that you will keep checking in often with me here.  We still have a lot to do with the house but for his birthday, Fayne's driveway extension got done!  He's pretty excited to see that when he gets home tonight!  Tomorrow we celebrate Chandler and Fayne's Birthdays with dinner at our new house for the first time 

Have a great day everyone!  Thanks so much for stopping by and hanging in with me if you've read this far.

The Paper Players & Fusion Challenges

My card today is for not just one, but two challenges; The Paper Players Challenge #337 which is a sketch and The Fusion Challenge - "Paris Rain".   We can be inspired by the colors, the imagery, or the sketch or we can combine all of them at the Fusion Challenge.  I was inspired by the color palette but used the sketch from The Paper Players Sketch Challenge to make my card.  This card is for my hubby and will be a little surprise that he finds somewhere -- his lunchbox, or his closet or laying on his keyboard in his home office; everyone likes to feel appreciated and he is no exception although I think he would deny it if you asked him.

This card uses SU! Smoky Slate Cardstock for the background panel on top of a top folding card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  The circle and banners are cut from True Black Cardstock.  The Silver and Red piece was made by stamping the Simon Says Stamp Emma Background on Stamper's Select White Cardstock, heat embossing with Silver Embossing Powder and then ink blending with Festive Berries and then Pure Poppy on top. I think Ink Blending is my 2nd favorite technique after heat embossing.  I cut a 2 inch strip down the center of the panel and then punched it with a Stampin' Up Banner Ends Punch. I cut two of the shorter banners from the Doubled Ended Banner Die, one from Smoky Slate and the other in True Black. I cut the Smoky Slate banner in half and then put that on the back of the black banner so that just a bit was showing on each end to help it pop. I used Thin 3D Foam Squares to mount it.  For the sentiment, I used "you are my favorite" from the Hero Arts Hello Stamp & Cut Set.  He is, after all, my favorite husband! *Ü*

The supplies I used are linked in the post or you can find links for the Simon Says Stamp Store and Papertrey Ink Store on the right hand sidebar. Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you'll come back soon.