Cards a la Kate: April 2025

Thursday, 24 April 2025

Carnivale Celebration

Challenge #287 at Time Out has just gone live and this fortnight we have a

Photo Inspiration Challenge

Here's a closer look!

Challenge 278 is being sponsored by Uniko and they are very kindly offering our top pick as chosen by the design team a £25.00 Store Credit.

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge and speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Heather Heroldt of Heather's Pages - our winner from Challenge #282! Be sure to check out her gorgeous creation inspired by our photo as well as those of my talented team mates over on the Time Out Blog!

This photo was taken at the KuKi (Kulturfestival zu Kielen) festival in May 2022. The bi-annual festival attracts many of Luxembourg's artists and artisans as well as many from further afield but it's actually held in my village so I try to "pull out all the stops" as they say - the cards in the photo were all mine! This particular year we had street artists wandering about in Venetian Carnivale Costumes and it really did feel like a time to be celebrating (you may remember a little thing called Covid) and I was lucky enough to have my friend Sonya snap this photo as this handsome gentleman and his partner were admiring all my hard work!

Luckier still to have the perfect stash when Stephanie chose this photo as inspiration for the Time Out Challenge having bought this Masquerade set from Verve before Julee Tilman closed the company many years ago now! I don't know how many others have this set in their stash, but there is a lot of other inspiration in the photo - the flowers, the colours, the embroidery, the cards!

I stamped in Versafine Clair Rain Forest on pink card stock and cut with the matching dies. I went around all the edges of the die cut image including around the eyes (from the rear) with a fine foam brush to hide any pink edges. Once I had stacked up the image, I added Glossy Accents, sprinkled a little holographic glitter and added more Glossy Accents. I did something similar with the "60" and the mask grips. The masks were mounted on foam tape so they sat above the grip.

Given how the flower trail on my tent matched the embroidery on the gentleman's coat, I just had to incorporate a flower spray into my design and remembered this set (Yvonne Creations Swing Set) that I had bought in 2017 and was still NBUS! I cut three from pink and coloured the stems and leaves with alcohol markers (and a Wink of Stella not that I was able to catch that in any photos of course)!

Since I didn't have a celebrate sentiment die, I spelt out "a time 2 celebrate" using a Gummiapan alphabet die set! This card is for my sister so I don't mind putting in a bit more effort but if I ever revisit this design, I'll be printing out a sentiment - the cutting and lining up was a bit of a nightmare and I had moved it several times before I took the above photos and I still wasn't happy with it.

I tried one more time to realign the sentiment (praying that any holes left from adhesive could be covered up) and I am a little happier now (though I may still replace the "2" with "to" now I have the space 😉)

I can't wait to see how this Time Out's Photo Inspiration captures your imagination!

I'd like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #73 - Flower Trail (Yvonne Creations Swing Set) and background art deco cover plate;

Neglected Stuff Challenge 4/25 - The Masquerade Set hasn't been used since 2015;

Cut it Up Challenge #328 - Something starting with C (Carnviale and Celebrate);

Traumfabrik Challenge #138 - The movie is Magnolia but any flowers will do;

April 2025 Word Power - Hopefully all the work in this sentiment will catch the eye;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired! Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated! And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Thursday, 17 April 2025

Easter Blessings

I'm here with a reminder for Challenge #286 at Time Out Challenges where you still have another week to Pick (at least) 2 of the following word prompts to spark your creativity and come play cards with us!

Stencil, Floral, Spots, Arch, Water and Pastel

Some words may have a double meaning; for example 'Water' may inspire you to pull out your water colours you may be inspired to have a nautical theme (i.e. on or around the water)! Please mention which words you have chosen and how they inspired you - especially if it isn't obvious! And please remember we only allow a total of 5 challenges - ours plus 4 others!

This challenge is generously being sponsored by Gina K. and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design team members a $25 credit to the store! The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!

This pretty die was Day 1 of the Gummiapan Easter Advent Calendar. This is the first year Gummiapan has released an Easter Advent Calendar and as I am so sick of losing weight only to put it on again at Easter and Christmas that I told my husband I did NOT want any chocolate this Easter and wanted him to preorder this set instead!

Unfortunately, I've been laid low for a week now with yet another bug, but was determined to make an Easter card for my choir director. I just hope my shaky voice will last the next few days for the musical marathon that is Easter in our English-speaking parish (5 services in 4 days)!

I cut the whole floral oval twice and then just the blooms along the bottom once. Once I trimmed off the blooms and foliage, I coloured them using pastel alcohol markers and overlaid them back on the stacked oval frame.

So I've included Pastel and Floral on my design and I guess since the oval frame is closed at the bottom it's an Arch of sorts as well!

I was able to cut the frame from snippets of white card left over from previous projects (a failed pillow box in this case) and the Easter sentiment (The Greetery) was cut once from a snippet of gold cardstock and then again from a snippet of a more reflective gold paper. The flower centres, "blessings" and the carefully nestled Easter eggs (Poppy Stamps Whittle Chickens and Eggs) - were also cut from from the same snippet.

I'd like to enter the following fabulous challenges

NBUS Challenge #73 - the floral frame is NBUS;

Darnell's Weekly IDEAS - D for Dies this week;

Krafty Chicks Challenge #704 - CAS week;

Word Power April 2025 Challenge - Sentiment as focus;

Snippets Playground Challenge #504 - Snippets of gold as follows;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired! Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated! And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and should be able to find you!

Kate

Thursday, 10 April 2025

Spots and Flowers

Time Out Challenge #286 has just gone live and it's one of our new challenges for 2025 - a Pick 2 Challenge!

This is our 2nd Pick 2 Challenge and the concept is simple - we give you 6 words to choose from and you use at least 2 of them to inspire your creation! TBC, you can pick more than 2 if you like - all 6 if you really want to challenge yourself but just make sure to pick at least 2!

The Words for this challenge are

Stencil, Floral, Spots, Arch, Water and Pastel

Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Fran of Fran Made in Oregon our winner of Challenge #281! Be sure to check out the Time Out Blog to see how how Fran and my talented team mates were inspired by these 6 words!

I do hope you enjoy our challenge and I do hope you can take Time Out and join us for some fun! And please, if it isn't obvious let us know how these words inspired your creation! And please remember we only allow a total of 5 challenges - ours plus 4 others!

I started by Stencilling some Spots (Spellbinders Advent Calendar 2024) in Pastel colours onto an Arched Panel (Spellbinders Essential Arches), then added a Floral arrangement (Spellbinders Advent Calendar 2024) and some Water droplets and finished my card off with a simple "Hugs" sentiment (Spellbinders Vivid Script).

So I managed all 6 and was pretty chuffed because everything was NBUS - the stencil, the set of arches, the flowers and the "hugs" sentiment - but as I said it's only necessary to Pick 2! I hope you'll Pick 2 and join take some Time Out of your busy schedules and join us!

I'd like to enter the following fabulous challenges

NBUS Challenge #73;

Die Cut Divas April Challenge - Spring;

Moving Along with the Times Challenge #177 - Spring Flowers;

Fab 'n Funky Challenge #614 - Think Spring;

Triple B April Challenge - Blooms;

Kate

Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Winter Wreath of Joy

I just had to have this die set (Sizzix Festive Wreath) when I saw it - there were so many useful elements I thought it was great value! However as is often the case, when it arrived it was a little bit bigger than I had anticipated and so it fell into that black hole that is my NBUS pile and I soon forgot about it!

Thankfully, Dawn has chosen Christmas Foliage as the theme for the month of April at Sparkles Christmas Challenge 171, so I was inspired to dig a little deeper in my NBUS pile and found it!

Once I had constructed the layered elements and arranged them satisfactorily on my wreath I added a single word sentiment (from an old Reverse Confetti set I think) in red to pick up the red berries (both glossily accented) and added them to a red card base!