Just Us Girls #804 - Die Week

Happy New Year everyone!  Welcome to the first challenge of 2026 at Just Us Girls with Elizabeth as your host.  It's die week and she wants us to use a coverplate on our cards.  

We also need to welcome Laurel Seabrook as our guest designer for the month.  I'm sure you'll be delighted and inspired by her card making skills.  

As for me, this is what I made.

I used Altenew's 3D Floral Zero Waster coverplate, cutting it twice from white cardstock so I could layer some of the flowers.  The background was covered with Hickory Smoke Distress Spray and the flowers colored with a variety of inks.  The sentiment is from Honey Bee. 

The Design Team has some wonderful ways to use a coverplate and you can see them all at Just Us Girls with details on their respective blogs.  Be sure and check them out.  We hope to inspire you to enter the challenge.

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Just Us Girls #795 - Die Week

I'm the host at Just Us Girls for our Die Week challenge and I want you to use your leaf dies.

With Autumn in the US, this should be a colorful gallery but leaves of any color will be welcome. 

Speaking of welcome, I want to say 'hello' to our guest designer for October Greta Hess from GG Creations.  

Honey Bee's Fall Foliage was colored with Distress Inks, added to a panel of Spicy Yogurt cut with a Jillian Vance coverplate and layered over Gina K Warm Cocoa.  The sentiment is from HB's Sweater Weather.  

After seeing their inspiration cards, Greta and the design team are hoping you will make a card with leaves for the challenge.

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Inkspirational #348

The challenge at Inkspirational is Clean and Simple with the option of flowers.  You know I had to make a card 1. because it's flowers and 2. because I was honored with a top pick in the last challenge. 

Any one who reads my blog knows I love daisies and this one from SSS is called Sunrise Stem, cut in white and colored with Distress Inks.  White space doesn't have to be white so I put it on a yellow background embossed with a plate from STAMPlorations.  The sentiment is from BetterPress.

Edited to Add:  I just saw the challenge at Krafty Chicks and am going to send this card to their CAS Challenge #782.  

Thanks for dropping by.  Have a wonderful week!

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Color Hues #102

I missed the deadline for the last Color Hues.  I'm not going to let that happen again.  Here's my card in navy and lime green.

The first thing I thought of was my Honey Bee dragonflies.  I stamped one on lime vellum, heat embossed it and cut it out along with another in Gina K's Key Lime cardstock.  I was trying to figure out what coverplate to use and found the navy one already cut but none of the holes were punched out.  I must have gotten lazy and just put it aside for another time.  This was the time.  After poking them out, I attached the panel to a green one.  It looked rather plain so I added Penny Black's Ascending die.  I couldn't see a good way to add a sentiment so it's going without.  

I'm so glad you stopped by.  Have a wonderful weekend.

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Color Hues #98

The other day I posted a card made with ornaments from Pinkfresh Studio that had been stenciled last year and left in the package.  You can see that card here.  There were more finished ornaments that I think work well for the Color Hues challenge.

 

They had been foiled in red and stenciled with Altenew grays.  I added red thread to hang them on a black card base embossed with a snowflake coverplate from C9 but it doesn't show up well in the photo.  The foiled sentiment is from Simon Hurley.  Not quite your traditional Christmas colors but elegant all the same. 

I'm so glad you dropped by.  I hope you'll leave a comment.

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The Flower Challenge #94 - Reminder

There is still time for you to make a card for The Flower Challenge.

The Design Team has more inspiration for you using these colors.  Be sure to check them out.

I always loved making Hollyhock dolls when I was growing up so when The Greetery came out with the Hollyhock dies I had to have them.  They were cut in white and colored with Altenew inks.  The back panel is a coverplate from Stamplorations. 

I hope we see your card in our gallery.

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Just Us Girls #734 - Color Week

Stephanie is the host for Color Week at Just Us Girls and these are the colors she has chosen.

I went a totally different way than you would expect with these colors.

The yellow said lemon to me so I got out my Lawn Fawn set and made a bunch of them.  The background is Watercolor Stripes coverplate from Altenew cut in coral cardstock.  I cut one of the stripes in white so that I could stamp the sentiment from Trinity Stamps and inset it in the space.  

I said I made a bunch of lemons so here is the other card I made with them. I must admit I made this first but then realized I couldn't use the green for the challenge. 

I ink blended a background with Squeezed Lemonade and Abandoned Coral and arranged the lemons across it, including some leaves and a flower.  Same lemons but these look brighter than the first card.  It's all a matter of photography. 

What do you think of when you hear coral and yellow?  We'd love to see what you come up with using our colors.  For inspiration please check out the Design Team and our guest Cat Craig. 

In case you haven't noticed, we've extended our timeline, moving the challenge deadline to Wednesday at 6:00 pm.  The Winner of the Week will be posted at 7:00 am the next day, one hour before the challenge goes live.  

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Color Hues #86 and Double D Florals for Mom

 Hey there!  I'm so glad you dropped by.  

Today's card is for two challenges:  Color Hues and Double D.

Cathy at DoodlebugsWA had a birthday a few weeks ago and celebrated with a store sale.  I took advantage of course and bought the Sweet Violets from Altenew.  I usually color die cuts with ink but I happened to have just the right four colors of lilac and three of lime.  At least I hope Color Hues thinks so.  They always say you can use hues of the challenge colors and I did.  What goes better with sweet violets than white eyelet so I made the backgroundw ith a Lawn Fawn coverplate.  The Hero Arts sentiment looks a little funky because I fussy cut it but I didn't have anything else that would work in the space.  It's stamped in Andromeda, an Altenew dark purple. 

Double D had a challenge with a mood board featuring violets so my card is joining their gallery too.

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Group of Seven Card makers - April Eclipse.

Hey there!  I'm glad you dropped by.

I didn't realize until I typed the title of my post that the Group of Seven Cardmakers technique is quite appropriate for this month.  I happen to live right in the path of the best view of the solar eclipse and my son and his family are coming to join us (and thousands of other people I've heard) to watch this incredible event.  Yes, we do have the required glasses.  

But you came here for cards and the Cover Die Eclipse Technique.  

I have a ton of cover plates but much to my chagrin, most of them won't work for this technique.  Here I've used one from Waffle Flower with patterned paper. You need two sheets - one for the base layer and one to cut.  I added two layers of heavy white cardstock behind the cut panel.  It looked like a birthday celebration to me so I added the die cut sentiment from Altenew. It was tricky making sure the letters had a place to stick.  

A lot of the Go7 cardmakers stenciled cards to use and so I tried that next.

The flowers are Daffodil Delight from Altenew that comes with a stencil.  You have to be sure to color them as close to the same as possible.  Like I said before, I have a ton of cover plates but most of them just make stitch lines on a panel.  I didn't pay close enough attention and tried to use one of them on my stenciled panel.  Yikes!  Onward and upward I go by cutting again with one part of a plaid die from Concord and 9th and layering it.  You can still see the stitch lines 😢 but I think it's still okay.  I did hate to see the stenciled pieces fall from the plate and thought for just a brief moment of saving them for another card.  Then I thought better of it and watched them fall into the recycle bin.  

This is a fun and rather easy technique so I hope you give it a try.  

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52 Christmas Card Throwdown 6.24

Hey there.  I'm so glad you dropped by.  

I missed a couple of weeks of 52 Christmas Card Throwdown but I'm back today with their color challenge - blue and white.

The layered snowflake is from Altenew, cut in two layers of blue, one from a mica spray panel and one from white.  The coverplate and sentiment are both from Concord & 9th.

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Just Us Girls #691 - Color Week

It's Color Week at Just Us Girls and our host Vicki has chosen these colors for our cards.

Looks like flowers to me. ;)

The forget-me-nots from The Greetery were cut from smooshed paper and the green stems and yellow centers were colored with Zigs.  They are arranged in The Greetery's Market Basket that was heat embossed in Platinum, lined with vellum and a sentiment added.  The background is a coverplate from Concord and 9th.  

You may see something else in these colors.  We'd love to see what you make.  Check out the Design Team for inspiration.

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TIme Out # 244 -

This week we challenge you to be monochromatic at Time Out.  

I saw a video from Jennifer McGuire on using up your glitter and decided that technique would work for my monochromatic card. 

I don't often use glitter so don't have much that is colorful but I happend to have these two greens that came from the grocery store I think.  I used an Altenew double sided adhesive sheet on my card panel before adhering the die cut from their Curtain Leaves.  Then I proceeded to add the glitter, pressing it into the adhesive.  For a sentiment I used Altenew's Sweet Sentiments dies, cutting the word from the same paper as the leaves and the shadow from some that matched the darker green. 

The sponsor of this challenge is Varada Sharma and she is offering two $15 credits to her digital store. 

The Design Team has some wonderful monochrome cards for  your inspiration.  Please check them out. 

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Inkspirational #293

Christmas in July!  What a great way to add cards to your stash.  Inkspirational is helping us along with their challenge this week. 

My card features the Mondo Holly from EbyE, stamped on Bristol and colored with Zigs.  It was die cut, layered and added to a panel that had been cut with a coverplate from PFS.  The sentiment is from C9. 

So glad you dropped by.  Please be sure and leave a comment.

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The Flower Challenge #81 - Reminder

There's still time for you to play at The Flower Challenge using your favorite flower.  The challenge closes on June 25.

Here are more daisies just like I promised. 

This one is from Altenew called Spring Daisy.  They are colored with Zigs and placed on a Lawn Fawn coverplate that has been spritzed with Lost Shadow Distress Spray. 

Have you made a card yet?  Get inspired by the Design Team's cards and then join us in the challenge.  We'd love to see your card in our gallery.

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Double D and Triple B for April 2023

I have a card to share today that fits both the challenge at Double D "Things that Fly" and the one at Triple B which is always Birds, Butterflies and Blooms.  I had to buy the birdhouse and bluebird after seeing a video from Dawn at WPlus9.  I used the house on an earlier card but the bird is making his debut. 

The birdhouse was cut from TH Woodgrain cs and then I ran an ink pad over it to bring out the details. The bird was cut from white and ink blended to look like a bluebird.  The ones I have at my feeder are much darker but he was done first. I needed something to perch him on and went with Dogwood from Honey Bee.   The 'sky' is Spring Rain from PTI, embossed with a coverplate from STAMPlorations. 

Thanks for dropping by.  Have a great weekend!

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Triple B Challenge #1

Diane and Darlene, the creative geniuses behind several other card challenges have come up with another one.  Triple B which stands for Birds, Blooms and Butterflies.  That is right up my alley so I'll be sending cards to them often.  The one I have to share today I made for another of their challenges but missed the deadline.

 

I wanted to see if I could turn HoneyBee's Winter Birds cardinal die into a female.  I think she looks pretty good in Desert Storm cs with selective inking.  I gave her a snowy branch from HB's Winter Foliage to perch on with a little gloss for the berries.  An inked oval with splatters and a coverplate from Altenew make up the background.   

Thanks for dropping by.  Have a wonderful week.

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