Gina K’s January Monthly Mix Challenge

Gina K’s January Monthly Mix Challenge is to “Put your red dress on” and use red as the dominant color and make a celebratory card. I made three birthday cards/tags each with a different style. Cards supplies are listed in the photo caption. Happy crafting!

The red card front was stamped with Gina K’s Background Diagonal Stripe stamp. The edges of the red panel were sponged with distress ink to fade out the diagonal pattern. I die cut the square panel from white cardstock using Spellbinders’ Large Square die set. This is my first attempt at wreath building and I used leaf images from Gina K’s Sketched Wreath Builder and Holiday Tapestry stamp sets. I heat embossed the birthday sentiment from Gina K’s Sketched Wreath Builder stamp set. The last bit after assembling the card was to add some gems to the wreath.

I used snowflake stamps from Gina K’s Joy of the Season and Snowflake Cascade stamp sets to heat emboss the images around the border of the card front. I wet washed the prepared card front and watercolored the front with distress ink. It’s a bit hard to see in the photo but there is some abandoned coral and picked raspberry along the edges of the card. I cut a tag out of vellum using the medium tag die from Gina K’s Tag Trio die set. I stamped the birthday sentiment from Gina K’s Winter Hugs stamp set and heat embossed it. I assembled the card and added a twine bow to the tag.

The last one is a wine bottle tag using the largest die from Gina K’s Tag Trio die set. I lined up and glued down strips of various reddish colored cardstock on a scrap piece of cardstock and then die cut the tag. I also die cut 2 snowflakes using Gina K’s Snowflake Trio die set. I heat embossed the snowflakes with sparkle embossing powder. I heat embossed the gift for you sentiment from Gina K’s Holiday Tapestry stamp set on the prepared tag. Then I glued the snowflakes down on the prepared tag and trimmed off the excess. I stamped the back with the birthday sentiment from Winter Hugs. The last thing was to add the twine to make a loop to put over a wine bottle and add a bow at the top of the tag.

Gina K’s January Monthly Mix Challenge

Gina K’s January Monthly Mix Challenge is to “Put your red dress on” and use red as the dominant color and make a celebratory card. I was struggling with using red and not have it feel like a Christmas card. I ended up pulling out my Inspiring Poppies stamp set to make a set of three birthday cards. I love how the sentiment from Gina K’s Wealth of Wishes worked perfectly with the poppy image. I wanted them to feel different even though I was using the same Gina K stamp sets. I’m going in the order that I crafted them and you can see that they get more toward the clean and simple look after coloring so many poppies. Supplies used in the card are noted in the photo caption. Hope your 2021 is starting off with some time to craft!

The card was made by stamping the poppy image from Gina K’s Inspiring Poppies stamp set multiple times across the card front and coloring them with Copics. I then stamped the birthday sentiment from Gina K’s Wealth of Wishes stamp set on the card base and heat embossed it with firecracker red embossing powder. I added a strip of red foil cardstock along the bottom of the card front before attaching it with dimensional foam tape to the card base. The last step was to color the poppies with a layer of clear Wink of Stella.

The card was made by stamping the poppy image from Gina K’s Inspiring Poppies stamp set multiple times across the bottom of the card base and coloring them with Luminance colored pencils. I then cut the plain white card front at an angle and stamped the birthday sentiment from Gina K’s Wealth of Wishes stamp set across the angled portion. I added a strip of black cardstock along the angled card front before attaching it with dimensional foam tape to the card base. The last step was to color the poppies with a layer of clear Wink of Stella and adding gems for some sparkle.

I stamped a single image of the poppies from Gina K’s Inspiring Poppies stamp set on the card base and colored them with Copics. I stamped the birthday sentiment from Gina K’s Wealth of Wishes stamp set on white cardstock and created a sentiment strip attached it to the card base with dimensional foam tape. The last step was to color the poppies with a layer of clear Wink of Stella and adding gems for some sparkle.

Gina K’s December Monthly Mix, Simon Says Stamp’s Monday Celebrate Challenge, and Simon Says Stamp’s Wednesday Sparkle and Shine Challenge

I combined Simon Says Stamp’s Monday Celebrate Challenge and Simon Says Stamp’s Sparkle and Shine Challenge with Gina K’s December Monthly Mix Challenge to make four cards for these challenges. Gina K’s December Monthly Mix Challenge is to use a line from the Tic Tac Toe board below to make a card. The easiest part of these combined challenges was making Christmas themed celebration cards and adding sparkle and shine to my cards since I seem to add sparkle and shine elements in every card. I previously blogged about the two cards I made for Gina K”s challenge in this post. The cards/tags are presented in the order of my most favorite to least favorite. Cards supplies are listed below each card photo. Hope you are having a good December and getting some time to craft!

I was inspired by Gina’s video talking about how pretty gold embossing is on gold cardstock so I wanted to make a card using green glittery embossing powder on green cardstock. My Instagram post shows another view of this card from a different angle so you can see the sparkly embossing powder better. The stamp is from Gina K’s Christmas Silhouettes stamp set and the sentiment is from Gina K’s Sparkle and Shine stamp set. I sponged Mowed Lawn distress ink around the edge of the card front. The edges of the matching green card base was swiped with embossing ink pad and gold embossed for a bit of extra sparkle. The sentiment was stamped on a strip of vellum. The circles take the shape of metallic pearls on the Christmas tree. The tic tac toe line is circle, heat embossed, and vellum. As I type this, I realize the pearls don’t match the description for circle since they aren’t stamped or die cut. Whoops!

The tic tac toe line for this tag is to use vellum, ink blending, and tag. The ink blending was used on the poinsettia stamping where I used Festive Berries and Black Soot oxide ink to create a darker shade at the center of the poinsettias. The tag was die cut using Gina K’s Tag Trio die set. The poinsettia and leaf images are from Gina K’s Christmas Silhouettes stamps set. The to and from sentiment are from Gina K’s Holiday Tapestry stamp set. The white cardstock base layer was embossed after it was die cut using Simon Says Stamp’s Lumen embossing folder. Added a few clear rhinestones and glittery red twine for some sparkle.

This card was made following the top line of the tic tac toe board, circle die cut, created patterned paper, and emboss resist. This card uses Gina K’s Holiday Tapestry stamp set to create the patterned paper and Ornamental Snowflakes for the sentiment. The circle die cut uses Simon Says Stamps Stitched Circles dies. Added clear wink of Stella on the stitched circle frame, clear rhinestones, and sparkly twine for added sparkle.

I used the bottom line of the tic tac toe board, vellum, ink blending, and tag, on this tag. The ink blending is on the base layer of the tag and used festive berries, fired brick, and black soot oxide inks. The top vellum layer was stamped with poinsettias from Gina K’s Holiday Silhouettes stamp set. The to and from sentiment are from the Holiday Tapestry stamp set. I originally started with the clear embossing powder on the flowers for a smooth shine but when I went to gold emboss the sentiment, the flecks of gold embossing stuck to the poinsettia image. I went with it and added a center of gold to the poinsettia images. Tag was finished off with some gold twine.

Gina K’s December Monthly Mix and Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenges

Gina K’s December Monthly Mix is a Tic Tac Toe selection of different things to combine to make a card. The Tic Tac Toe board is shown below. I also combined these cards with Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Favorite Techniques and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Let it Snow.

Given that I was trying to apply 3 card challenges into one card, I didn’t always know how the card was going to turn out. Often I was focused on one aspect of the Tic Tac Toe board and then had to figure out how to implement the other two elements. Cards supplies are listed below each card photo. Hope you are having a good December!

I used the circle die cut, heat embossing, and vellum line of the Gina K board for this card. As soon as I selected the beautiful tree stamp from Gina K’s Joy of the Season stamp set, I knew I wanted to use Stampin Up! Softly Falling embossing folder for the vellum layer. Heat embossing the sentiment is one of my favorite techniques so it was an easy one to chose for the Simon Says Monday Challenge.

This card uses making patterned paper, square, and ink blending line on the tic tac toe board. I used die cuts from Gina K’s Snowflake Trio dies to make the patterned paper part of the card. This portion of the card makes a perfect square. I used ink blending to color the snowflake next to the sentiment. I love the color range you get with ink blending and it is one of my favorite techniques to use on cards. The sentiment is from Gina K’s Christmas Silhouettes stamp set. I added clear wink of Stella to the snowflakes, some gemstones, and a bit of twine to finish off the card front. I used a pretty lavender card base to tie-in the colors of the snowflake.

Gina K’s November Monthly Mix Challenge – Red/White with a tag, Simon Says Monday Challenge – Happy Holidays, and Simon Says Wednesday Challenge – Christmas

I made several cards for the combined challenges of Gina K’s November Monthly Mix Challenge (red and white and with a tag), Simon Says Monday Challenge (Happy Holidays), and Simon Says Wednesday Challenge (Christmas). For these three cards, I was focused on using the Gina K Snowflake Trio die set to create impressions in letterpress and watercolor cardstock. Happy crafting!

I was inspired to use the snowflake dies to create letterpress images. It looked to plain so I sponged some red ink on it and then added wink of Stella and glossy accents to portions of the snowflake impression. The snowflake die is from the Snowflake Trio die set and sentiment from the Sparkle & Shine stamp set (Gina K). I used two sentiments to create the background. I used the large tag die from the Tag Trio Die Set (Gina K). These items are from Gina K’s Sparkle & Shine Card Kit.

This card has lots of white space because I wanted the impressed snowflake images to really stand out. The card uses the Snowflake Trio die set to create the snowflake impressions, the sentiment from the Holiday Tapestry stamp set, and small tag die from Tag Trio Die Set all from Gina K’s Sparkle and Shine Card Kit. I added wink of Stella and glossy accents to portions of the snowflake impressions for some added visual interest.

On my last card, I took this card in a very different direction because I wanted to use the Gina K free stamp set for November. I had an extra background from attempting to impress the three snowflake dies from Snowflake Trio Die Set (Gina K) into watercolor paper. I tried watercolor over the impressions hoping the snowflake images would show more. Ultimately I ended up sponging white ink on the impressed snowflakes so they are more visible. I stamped the sweater image from the Hot Cocoa stamp set (Gina K) on the medium die from the Tag Trio Die Set (Gina K). I also cut a second tag from vellum and heat embossed the warm winter wishes sentiment from the same stamp set.

Gina K’s November Monthly Mix Challenge – Red/White with a tag and Simon Says Monday Challenge – Happy Holidays

Gina K’s Sparkle and Shine Card Kit was an easy choice to use to combine Gina K’s November Monthly Mix Challenge (red and white and with a tag) and Simon Says Monday Challenge (Happy Holidays). I don’t tend to use tags on my cards so I was a bit stumped as I started on my first card. I got a bit more comfortable by the time I got to my third card and like it the best. I like it when a challenge makes you think outside the box a bit. I don’t know about you but often some of my favorite cards are from challenges that make me stray from my past approaches. Hope you like them! Happy crafting!

I was inspired to use the snowflake image from the Sparkle & Shine stamp set (Gina K) as border stamps. I used the medium tag die from the Tag Trio Die Set (Gina K). These items are from Gina K’s Sparkle & Shine Card Kit.

Close-up of the clear embossed snowflake image on white tag.

Old fashioned feel to this card because of the style of the snowflakes and sentiments. So different from the other two cards. Card uses snowflakes and sentiments from the Ornamental Snowflakes stamp set and small tag die from Tag Trio Die Set both from Gina K’s Sparkle and Shine Card Kit.

My favorite card of the bunch! I used the medium die from the Tag Trio Die Set (Gina K) and used the largest snowflake die from the Snowflake Trio Die Set (Gina K) to create a snowflake inlay into the tag. I used one of the other snowflake dies to die cut an additional snowflake to layer on the inlay snowflake. Lastly for the card base, I sponged the edge of the card front with red ink and stamped snowflake images from Sparkle & Shine stamp set on the card front. I added the look of snow by sprinkling some pearl mist on the card base.

Cards for Gina K’s October Monthly Mix Challenge – Color Blocking Technique and Simon Says Wednesday – Anything Goes

I made several cards for Gina K’s October Monthly Mix Challenge to use the Color Blocking Technique and Simon Says Stamp’s Wednesday Challenge of Anything Goes. I was inspired to make Christmas themed backgrounds using some of my scrap cardstock. As an added bonus, digging through my scrap cardstock convinced me that it needed some organization and now I have a tidy pile of scrap cardstock in photo sheet protectors organized by color! I had fun selecting the colors and only ended up with one card front that ended up in the trash can. What I learned was that I had to keep the stamped image clean and simple since there was so much going on in the background. Hope you enjoy! Happy crafting! Supplies listed below.

Card for Gina K’s October Monthly Mix Challenge using Gina K’s Christmas Silhouettes stamp set.

A straight on view of my card for Gina K’s October Monthly Mix Challenge using Gina K’s Christmas Silhouettes stamp set.

Card for Gina K’s October Monthly Mix Challenge using Gina K’s Christmas Silhouettes and Joy of the Season stamp sets.

Card for Gina K’s October Monthly Mix Challenge using Gina K’s Joy of the Season stamp set.

Card Supplies:

• Cardstock: scrap cardstock from Stampin Up, Papertrey, Simon Says, Amuse, White (Recollection); Sky (Amuse|Studio); Vanilla (Amuse|Studio)
• Ink: Versamark
• Stamps: Joy of the Season (Gina K); Christmas Silhouettes (Gina K)
• Dies: Pierced Rectangle Dies (Spellbinders)
• Accessories: embossing powder, gems