Crafty Kazza's Cardmaking: March 2020

2020 Christmas Stampathon Challenge

Hi there. Today I would like to share with you some cards that I made specifically for the Christmas Stampathon and the other cards that it inspired me to make which I finished just last night.

But first; "What is the Christmas Stampathon?" you might ask? Well, it's a facebook group run by Ellen Woodbridge and Esther from Stampin Star Creations, both independant Stampin Up demonstrators.

The challenge is to get prepared for the Christmas season throughout the year by creating cards/projects up to the end of the year. I missed the challenge last year and only participated in a couple at the end of the previous year. This year I decided to participate and get prepped early so I wouldn't be rushed to make my Christmas cards in December, as usually happens!

Each of the challenges gives you until the 24th of the following month to complete the challenge, and there's none in December as the November challenge is due by 24th December.

Now, on to the first!

For January we had a sketch challenge, and I rediscovered that I really like sketches. I also usually try to follow them as closely as possible and have to admit that sometimes I look at other people's creations and wonder how they got to there using the sketch as they look completely different. But I know that the idea of a sketch is that it's a starting point, elements can be moved, altered etc. so I've learnt to let that go a little. But I'm still me, so I stick to the sketch closely, lol.

For the January challenge I used all Stampin up products (it's a Stampin Up challenge) and ended up making these black, white and silver cards that I love! The sentiment is from the SU Christmas Gleaming set.

I liked this design so much that I decided to make 9 more cards in three different colour ways: Dark blue/grey with silver, light grey with rose gold and pink with rose gold. I'm loving the pink ones but am still surprised with how much I like the light grey and rose gold ones - a combo I wouldn't have thought of but took inspiration from the designer series paper (Die Cuts With A View/DCWV Merry and Bright 12x12 paper pad that includes foiled accents).

Below are the one of each of the colours that I made as well as a few multi shots:

The February Challenge was proving to be a big challenge for me as you were only allowed to using stamping and nothing else... I was going up the wrong garden path there for a while which means I was colouring and die cutting various Christmas characters when I realised die cutting was out... So I had to change my train of thought. I had a look through my Stampin Up collection and settled on using the SU Peaceful Boughs set and a load of washi tape. I used washi tape to mask off the edges of the card base, as well as the pine combs and sentiments and came up with another creation that I love :o)

Yeah, you can see the masking around the pine combs a little, but they're handmade cards and I think they look fabulous anyway.

So, that brings me to end of the challenges so far, stay tuned as I'll keep adding them to the bottom so that all of them are on this one post.

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Friday 10th April, 2020

Hi there, and Happy Easter Friday everyone! Today I'm posting my March Christmas Stampathon creations.

The challenge this time was to use non-christmas stamps! This wasn't so easy. At first I went through all of my Stampin Up non-christmas stamps and stamped the most promising looking ones on a sheet of A4 paper in red and green. I was trying to get a Christmassy feel and hoping for an inspiration for a theme. I did this a little bit over a couple of days and when I picked up Beach Happy, I'd settled on my final idea.

When I'd finished the cards and was looking at them I thought that the red umbrella was so in your face and too bold or too much of a stand out on the cards... I grabbed my favourite white pen and drew stripes on a stamped test piece - and loved it! Once the stripes were completed, they really tied the umbrella in with the chair and the presents - perfect!

These cards were completed using the following items:

sentiment from New Wonders
christmas lights from Sheltering Tree
presents made out of chocolates in the More Than Chocolate
christmas tree and chair from Beach Happy
designer series paper from Lullaby
gold shimmer ribbon
Gelly Roll 08 #50 white gel pen
Gelly Roll #700 Clear Star gel pen

Here is a little close up to try to show the Christmas sparkle (bling and tinsel) that I did with a sparkly Clear Star Pen.

Well, those are my March creations. I'm happy with them and I don't mind that some of the presents are kind of floating, I think the overall impression is Christmassy so I'm calling them a win!

... and now, on to April! (as I write this on 2 August at 1:43am! lol

The challenge: Make 4 or more Christmas Cards using the below colour challenge. I managed to follow the colour inspiration apart for one colour which I didn't have - Poppy Parade - substituted with Watermelon Wonder. (Of course, I've since bought Poppy Parade and added to my arsenal/collection.)

So at first I was messing around with ideas using baubles and stamped a few in the different colours but wasn't 'feeling it'... so I stamped a few trees in the colours and that is what made my mojo fill with ideas - and the rest is history. I ended up completing these cards using the following items:

Festival of Trees stamp set
Petal Pink ink
Blushing Bride ink
Mint Macaron ink
Watermelon Wonder ink
Soft Suede Ink
Gelly Roll #700 Clear Star gel pen

I think the cards are simple but I really like them. I think having all of the trees popped on the card with dimensionals creates natural shadows which I think add a lot to the look and feel of the cards. I hope that you like them as well!

... and now, we go to May's cards!

The challenge: Make 4 or more Fancy Fold Cards.

I was quite excited to do this one as I hadn't done any fancy fold cards in a while. I sought inspiration from a few different YouTube videos and funnily enough I ended up doing a simple set of easel cards.

I pretty much knew exactly how I wanted to do these ones which is very unusual for me! I knew I wanted to use a wreath, make it a landscape card and have it be fairly clean looking. Viola! I think I succeeded! What do you think?

I completed these cards using the following items:

Wondrous Wreath stamp set
Merry Christmas To All stamp set
Garden Green ink (I think)
Real Red Ink
Stampin Up All Is Bright designer series paper (I think)

... and now, we go to June's cards!

The challenge: Make 4 or more Christmas Cards using the inspiration picture below.

I completed this challenge late (finished it today 1 August but it was due on 24th July). I was behind doing some other challenges and just doing them in order. For this card set I thought about the house pictured and that it was a snowy scene - which doesn't really fit with what I know living here Queensland, Australia, as I've only seen and touched real snow once - so I don't gravitate towards snowy landscapes.

I thought about what stamp sets I have (a lot!) and any that were like a house and I settled on Pretty Pavilion - which I have always called a gazebo. It was a structure and I had the matching dies.

My first attempt involved me stamping gray granite cardstock with the matching ink for the pavilion and then I coloured over the whole thing with a white charcoal pencil. I really liked how that looked so I die cut them all out and moved on to the other elements.

I stamped four christmas trees in green ink and then coloured them with a stampin blend marker using just the inked image for colouring. I then also did some vines in the same way but didn't like how they looked on the pavillions as they covered up too much of the doorway and I wanted the tree in there.

So, next I decided to pick up on the presents in the picture and coloured 16 of them in copic markers that were a match for kraft, Pretty Peacock, Cherry Cobbler, Lemon Lime Twist and Bumblebee colours.

Now I had all of these lovely presents and when placed with the watercoloured trees the presents really took over and made the trees look less than I wanted them to. So - solution - copic colour new trees. Done! I liked them much better when they matched the presents.

Then I thought, it's too bare! It needs more! So I settled on copic colouring some ivy vines and they look great on the pavilion.

Now I had a white card base - 'cos I use pre-cut and scored card bases in 300gsm cardstock from Blue Edge Crafts and the grey pavilion didn't look right. So I stamped some white pavilions, fussy cut the stairs and roof from the grey ones and combined them.

The background - well it was white and boring and blank. It needed something. I decided to use matching cardstock to the ink colours then I die cut a panel using the ornate layers dies in white to put the pavilions against.

Finally I stamped the sentiment and added a few bits of bling to each tree and called them done! I really like them and I think I've got quite a clean feeling organised way of creating my cards - I don't do very well with 'messy' elements :o) What do you think?