Welcome to a new challenge at Fusion!




I made a panel of watercolour cardstock with Gelatos and blended them with a baby wipe. I added some flowers from Altenew and a sentiment from Hero Arts. I coloured the flowers with white pigment ink.



Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation!

Thanks for visiting :)

Welcome to "Challenge me a Christmas Card" for 2018!
My guest today is Gayatri Murali,and our challenge is to make a card using Faber Castell Gelatos. You can check out her take on this challenge HERE.

Here's what I came up with:
I used the Christmas Rose Bouquet from Wplus9, watercoloured with Gelatos, along with a white embossed sentiment on vellum from Simon Says Stamp. And, btw, I totally CASEd a card by Kelly Latevola for this card - you can see her card HERE.
Thanks for visiting :)

I'm playing along with a sketch challenge today, and also using up leftovers from a card I made last week:
The background is from MFT, white embossed and then coloured with Faber Castell Gelatos, then lots of shimmer with Perfect Pearls and Wink of Stella. The white panels are cut with a die from Lawn Fawn, and the sentiment is from Avery Elle. I added some more Wink of Stella to the "happy" die cut, and also added some Pretty Pink Posh sequins.
 I've used the sketch from the Less is More challenge:
 Thanks for visiting :)

A friend of my parents is in hospital at the moment, so I made this card for my mum to give to her to cheer her up a bit.
The background was not stamped by me! The lovely Aileen Ryan sent me some stamped backgrounds a little while ago, and I finally got around to colouring this one! (I think it's from My Favorite Things, but I'm not sure!!) I used Faber Castell Gelatos with a baby wipe to add some pinks (and a teeny tiny bit of blue) to these gorgeous flowers. Ithen sprayed it with Perfect Pearls mist and also added some extra shimmer with Wink of Stella. I added some foiled strips to either side of the panel (from a failed experiment in foiling with a stencil - don't ask!) and added a sentiment from Concord & 9th white embossed onto cardstock and vellum. A scattering of sequins from Pretty Pink Posh was the finishing touch.
I'll be sharing this card over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge blog, where the challenge this week is "emboss it" 
Thanks for visiting :)

Last Christmas card for this year!

I used the Hero Arts Peace Poinsettia stamp set, stamped onto Ranger watercolour paper, then coloured with Faber Castell Gelatos and blended with some baby wipes and my fingers!  I cut the panel down with a stitched squares die from Lil' Inkers Designs.  I added some vellum over the top, with the words "and bright" stamped in Versafine Onyx Black and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I then cut some Stampin' Up foil paper with the Winnie and Walter "Merry" word die, and attached it an the vellum with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  A few Simon Says Stamp sequins were the finishing touch.
Have a very Merry Christmas - see you next week!

Thanks for visiting :)

Hello!  Today, I'm sharing a card I made for the Altenew video challenge.  I've already submitted one video, so I challenged myself to make another card with the same stamps, but try to achieve a very different look.  Here's what I came up with:
I used Altenew's Hennah Elements, Wplus9's Strictly Sentiments, with Faber Castell Gelatos, and Hero Arts Shadow Inks and White embossing powder. 
And here's my video:


Thanks for visiting :)

Since I posted my favourite cards of 2014 at the end of December, I've had a few emails from crafters asking me how I did the ombre effect on these two cards:
So I decided to do a photo tutorial! 
Here's what you need - a craft mat to work on, cardstock, a stencil (I used the Rain Dance Pattern Stencil from Hero Arts), some tape to keep the stencil in place, Faber Castell / Design Memory Craft Gelatos (I used Raspberry, Red Cherry and Watermelon), embossing paste (mine is from Wendy Vecchi) and a palette knife (not essential, but helpful)
 Start by slicing off a little bit of each of your chosen Gelatos:
Then, put a small amount of embossing paste next to each colour, (not a heap, because it dries out quite quickly, and you don't want to waste it!) and mash them together: 
 Once the palest colour is ready, put it straight onto the stencil and spread out.  Even though I have 3 colours, I covered more than half of the stencil area with the palest colour, which will allow me to blend the colours later:
 Always keep a baby wipe or damp cloth handy to clean the palette knife between colours:
 Continue with the middle colour and then the darkest, overlapping them a bit as you go:
Once all three colours are on the stencil, scrape off any excess, which will allow some blending between the colours.  Remove the stencil and wash in under warm water IMMEDIATELY, or the embossing paste will dry and be almost impossible to remove (ask me how I know!). Leave the cardstock to dry completely before using your textured, ombre panel on a card - here's mine:
I cut the panel down to square and matted it onto some patterned paper from my stash.  I then wrapped a strip of vellum around the panel, and adhered the word "thanks", which I'd cut from some cardstock in a colour that matched the darker colour in the ombre, using a die from Simon Says Stamp.  I adhered the panel to a square card base, and added some sequins for a finishing touch.
I will be submitting this card to Simon Says Stamp's "Something New" challenge - as a couple of the Gelato colours I used today are new - today was their first use!

I'll also be sharing this at Runway Inspired Challenge, as it incorporates pink, ombre and bling!


I hope you found this tutorial useful - thanks so much for visiting, and thanks also for all your lovely comments - I really appreciate them!

I made this card a little while ago, and forgot to write up a blog post about it.  I used a stencil that I bought at Paperific, and embossing paste I coloured using Gelatos.

 I'll be submitting this to Simon Says Stamp "Anything Goes". 
Thanks for visiting :)

I posted a card on A Blog Named Hero on Tuesday of this week very similar to this one - same technique, same stencil, both birthday cards, both ombre.  I just needed, I mean NEEDED to make it again in blue (and my new set of blue Gelatos only arrived in the mail yesterday! Yay!)
This time, I chose a different sentiment stamp (the last one was a much more graphic font), and I also added some bling and enamel dots to create more movement. The embossing paste provides such awesome texture, I thought I'd submit this card to Lawnscaping's current challenge, "Texture, anyone?"  I hope you like it :)



Thanks for visiting :)

I love Shari Carroll's cards.  I have great difficulty making anything remotely like her cards, though - she always includes so much amazing detail, but makes it all look so complete and together.  Usually, when I try to add too much detail, it looks like a hot mess!   Anyway, Shari has made a beautiful card for this week's CASE Study challenge, so I thought I would challenge myself!

This card started as a mess, but I cut the patterned panel down to be less than half the card front, and it became a little less of a mess!  

I started with white cardstock and painted it with a mixture of water and a Gelato (Butter Cream) from Faber Castell.  I then affixed a stencil from Kaiser Craft and added some Wendi Vecchi embossing paste (some of which I'd mixed with some Snow Cone Gelato).  Before I removed the stencil and before the paste dried, I stamped over the embossing paste with my Hero Arts "Friend Definition" stamp in Antique Linen Distress Ink. I then removed the die and, while the paste was still a bit wet, I stamped a little Hero Arts butterfly from Antique Flowers and Butterflies in Brushed Corduroy.


The rest of the card is fairly simple in comparison!  LOL!

I affixed the die cut butterfly onto a die cut piece of acetate, so I will be submitting this to Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge.

Our latest challenge at A Blog Named Hero is up and running - we are taking our inspiration from a Hero Arts artist.  I chose Kelly Rasmussen, who stamped a crisp rainbow background from a small stamp.
My background is much less crisp than hers, because I used Faber Castell Gelatos mixed with water as my "ink" (these were a gift - some from Lyndal Higgins and some from Joy Taylor - thanks so very much, lovely ladies!) This meant that the star stamp sometimes took up more pigment, sometimes less, sometimes got splotches of pigmented water bubbles in it, and sometimes got blobs of more intense gelato pigment.  I'm usually a bit fussy about getting nice, crisp images from stamps, but I quite like the loose quality I got from the gelatos.  

We're playing with Mama Elephant stamps this month - this little giraffe is from their Nursery Deco set - so incredibly cute!!
Mama Elephant is offering a prize for each of our challenges this month - 2 stamp sets!!!
  
There's also a prize from our AMAZING sponsor, Simon Says Stamp
Make sure you visit A Blog Named Hero to check out the rest of the creations by our design team. I can't wait to see what you make!  
Have a great day :)

Supplies: