Katzelkraft S7/C2

Week 7's recipes for the Katzelkraft challenge are:

1 Use some weaving.

2 A colour combination.

3 A sketch.

DT Make a notebook card in the style of DT member Dominike. 

I managed to complete the colour combination for week 7 because I knew as soon as I saw it which stamp I wanted to use. The nice thing about this challenge is you don't have to make the cards in order but as long as you have finished all of them by a certain date you are deemed to have completed the challenge.

 

This is the colour scheme:

 

The stamp is an old one from Non Sequitur that I haven't used in a while. I stamped it in Brilliance starlight black and clear embossed it. I then used milled lavender, tumbled glass and weathered wood DIs along with Impress cerulean blue and a watercolour brush to add some detail. I added some punched photocorners and snowflakes  and a strip of embossed paper.

Katzelkraft S6/DT

For this card we had to take inspiration from DT member Ana's work which you can see here. I like the way she uses sprays for her BGs and also her use of script word die cuts. I don't have any die cuts like that but I thought this Memory Box die gives an impression of a script font. The BG is a Shimmerz spray and a very old Sticky Fingers olive spray. The stamp is from Katzelkraft's nuits de Noel set coloured with coloursoft pencils with a little rock candy Stickles brushed onto the lamp. The sentiment is by Paula Pascual.

Katzelkraft S6/C1

Here is my pocket card. It is a very simple template that I found here. I've used various patterned paper scraps and the text is some washi tape I found in Paperchase. The sides are secured with DST.  I've made 2 tags to go in the pockets and have stamped them with a Katzelkraft flourish in Impress spring green. I punched a few stars and added those for extra interest. The reverse of the tags looks like this:

 

 

 

It's a quick and easy template with a lot of uses that's ideal for a gift card for a child.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - S

I think I have overimbibed of the spirit bottle for this fortnight's Craft Barn Challenge the letter of which (no surprise) is S.
So many possible S words to choose from I have gone for Suitcase. I started with this Crafty Individuals stamp - see it's a seagull standing on a stack of suitcases (stamped in Archival sepia) and it's held in place with a shiny silver star brad. My background is salty ocean DI and Impress spring green and on the right hand page I've used a stencil with silver paint. Of course in my excitement I stencilled all over my definition as well (duh!) but you can just about see it on the right hand page with the suitcase sketched around it. My stencil BTW is the lid of a gel air freshener. The quotation is from the internet (dare I say matted with saffron coloured card?) and I've added a stack of sepia-toned suitcases - I could tell you they are Samsonites but that would be silly. Enough now I'm off to have a lie down in a darkened room. Normal services (oops) will be resumed shortly (double oops).

Less Is More - 147

This week's challenge on the Less Is More site is to make a Christmas card with a bird. I send a lot of cards overseas at this time of year and the cost of postage has become so exorbitant that I have tried to make my cards lighter. I saw these 4"x4" scalloped cards at a show and thought they would be perfect card blanks for the overseas cards. The stamp is by Katzelkraft in archival sepia and I have coloured it with coloursoft pencils and Sansodor. A light sprinkling of Glamour Dust adds a bit of sparkle.

Katzelkraft 10 weeks Before Christmas - Week 6

Well we're past the halfway point with the Katzelkraft Christmas Challenge and so far I have managed to keep up. This week's recipes are:

1. A card with a pocket.

2. A 6 colour combo with heat embossing.

3. A winter card with a soft element (snow), a transparent element (frost) and a shiny element (ice).

DT.  Use DT member Ana's cards as inspiration.

 

My thinking cap is now on...

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - Q

I've taken time out from the Katzelkraft Challenge to complete this fortnight's entry for the Craft Barn Dictionary Challenge. We're down to the last few letters now and Q is the letter that has been chosen. I went with question - a BG of tumbled glass and broken china DIs and some question marks stamped randomly in Versafine majestic blue (some questions come out of the blue). I diecut most of the question words from various alphas I have and stamped 1 of them. Finally I asked a question myself 'why is it that so many question words begin with a W?'.
I am sorry that I'm going to be very busy with work over the next few weeks and I may not be able to visit all your blogs. I will try and catch up towards the end of next month.

Katzelkraft S5/C2

I find colour schemes really hard to work with. What I usually do is look at the colour combination and write down the inks I have that are closest in colour. This colour combo was really hard to match - I tried my inks, I tried my coloursoft pencils (I have all 72 of them) and I tried a pack of Japanese rice paper that has a great selection of hues and tones. The colour scheme is below and in addition the card had to have some embossing:

Numbering the colours from the top I thought 2 looked like Brilliance pearlescent jade and 5 Brilliance pearlescent beige. I found Japanese papers for 3 & 4 but 1 had me stumped. I finally found the closest colour I had was the reverse of some black magic colour core card. I cut small banners and embossed the card base with an Embossalicious lattice folder.

1. Reverse of black magic colour core card stamped with a KTZ border stamp in Brilliance jade.
2. Reverse of black magic colour core card embossed with swiss dots folder.
3. Japanese paper stuck on card and embossed with CB star border folder.
4. Japanese paper stuck on card and embossed with candy cane folder.
5. Ivory card stamped with KTZ border stamp.

The sentiment is by Hero Arts stamped with Brilliance jade.

Katzelkraft S5/C1

Here is my triptych card for week 5. I used the Katzelkraft paisley dome BG stamped with Versafine crimson red as the base for the 3 parts. Parts 1 and 3 have a Katzelkraft bauble and bell stamp which I coloured with embossing pens and embossed. My gold EP is getting old now and is not giving as good a finish as I would like. The holly berries are candi dots, some of which I punched out to give the smaller berries. The central sentiment is a very old PSX stamp. I used pieces of white card for the hinges and covered the back with red handmade paper cutting it to leave a border around the whole card.
Here's a pic of the card as it's meant to be seen:

Katzelkraft S5/DT

This week's DT card is to use the technique shown by Gaëlle in this card:

 

I put torn eclipse tape over the card, stamped some Non Sequitur snowflakes randomly and clear embossed them. Then I used tumbled glass and broken china DIs over the front of the card (the foam pad had a touch of green, perhaps crushed olive? on it). Removing the eclipse tape left the white lines you can see on the BG. I added a few scraps of patterned paper from Dovecraft Christmas Blues pack and a bit of card lying on my desk from the previous cards. The tree is a silver brad and I silver embossed a tiny sentiment onto a scrap of card. It's a nice technique that I shall use again.



Katzelkraft S5/C3

We had to use the quotation and/or the layout of the following poster as inspiration for this card.

I decided to use an old Non Sequitur stamp I haven't used in a while. The quotation is by Sadako Sasaki. If you do not know her story please click on the link which will take you to her Wikipedia page. I was lucky enough to visit Hiroshima and her memorial many years ago and her story has stayed with me.
I made a BG on coated card by dripping cloudy blue and stonewashed alcohol inks and blowing through a straw. I then added a tiny spritz of some blue shimmer spray. The bird is from a Crafty Individuals set. I also used the same inks on a felt pad to make another card:

I am also entering my first card into Craft Stamper's Take It Make It Challenge 5. 

Katzelkraft 10 weeks before Christmas - Week 5

This is the halfway mark for the challenge and so far I've managed to keep up to date but I can see problems ahead especially in the first 2 cards this week.

1. A triptych card.

2. A card using embossing and a tricky colour combination.

3. A quote and layout inspiration poster.

DT A card based on a card by DT member Gaëlle.

 

 

Wait until you see the colour combination...

Katzelkraft S4/C3

 

 

This card is very loosely based on the poster below. I used similar colours and incorporated some numbers. The embossed sentiment is from Papermania and the numbers and small shapes have been cut from the Olivia alphabet die set and various punches.

Katzelkraft S4/DT

The DT challenge for week 4 is inspired by DT member Gwen Scrap's recent card on the Katzelkraft blog.

We had to heat emboss with a mask, heat emboss with a stamp in another colour, put some splatters and use some decorative tape on the card.
The card above is my third attempt and I'm not entirely happy with it but in a weekly challenge of this type you can't spend ages on 1 card - you just have to move on or you get behind. My main problem was embossing through a mask - I couldn't get my ink to stay wet long enough so finally I went for a partial distressed  embossed look (that's my story & I'm sticking to it!) The snowman is a punched shape embossed with holographic powder (the stamp is by Paper Artsy). The splatters are barn door and mowed lawn DIs brayered over the card. The mask is coloured with Adirondack pigment ink in watermelon and embossed with clear powder. The decorative tape was stamped in black and clear embossed.

Katzelkraft S4/C2

After the previous all-black card I was in need of some colour but I wasn't planning for it to end up quite so colourful! The challenge was to use one or more feathers and I immediately thought of those feather wreaths that were so popular a few Christmases ago. One of the great thing about these challenges is it encourages you to use stuff that hasn't seen the light of day for a long time. This was the case with a bag of rust coloured feathers I had bought for something or other several years ago. I cut out a doughnut shape with 2 framelits circle dies to use as a base and then stuck some feathers on (not as easy as I thought). My desk still has bits of feather to go with the bits of black glitter that I haven't cleaned off yet. I decide to decorate the wreath with some ribbon and found a teal bow that I had made sometime ago. If I end up with a reasonable sized offcut of ribbon after trimming it from another project I tend to tie it into a small bow for future use. Even quite small pieces that can't be tied into a traditional bow can be knotted like the black ribbon in my previous post. So having tried  various coloured bows I found the teal really stood out against the rust and I added tiny matching gems. I used alcohol inks (stream, sailboat blue, cloudy blue, rust, terracotta and peach bellini) with blending solution to create a coordinating BG. I added some gold heat embossed snowflakes and a greeting but TBH they don't really show up that well.

Katzelkraft S4/C1

This was definitely a challenge and required the use of many grey cells! The card had to be all black - not black with a hint of something else. It was a tough one to do and a tough one to take a pic of, trust me the glitter, the ribbon and the card is all black. I would have liked to use some pearlescent card but I couldn't get hold of any in the given time so I decided to go with texture on black card. I used a Sizzix frame embossed with a CB candy cane folder. The inner rectangle was embossed with the CB snow folder and I added a tiny blob of PVA (white glue) to each snowflake. This dries clear to give a slight sheen (click on the pic to get a better view). The chipboard was coloured with a black Sharpie and then sprinkled with black glitter. The ribbon is waste from a box of M&S Belgian chocs. I'm quite pleased with the effect. The glitter has been lying in a box for a few years and it looks very dark and sophisticated IRL.

Katzelkraft 10 weeks before Christmas - Week 4

This week's very interesting recipes for the challenge are:

1. An all black card.

2. Use 1 or more feathers.

3. A number collage inspiration poster.

DT. Following from Gwen Scrap's fab card on the DT blog  we have to:

(a) Heat emboss with a mask.

(b) Heat emboss with a stamp in a different colour to (a)

(c) Put some splatters on the card

(d) Use some masking tape.

Phew! Now I really need to get my thinking cap on for these.

UK Stampers ATC Swap - November

This is the last ATC swap for 2013 on UK Stampers and Vonny has chosen the brilliant theme of Office Supplies. I covered some card with the patterned paper found on the inside of envelopes and randomly stuck on some ring reinforcers (you know the doughnut shaped sticky things you put over punched holes when they have torn. I then sponged salty ocean DI all over and then removed the reinforcers. I highlighted the centre of each hole with a blob of white corrector pen (Tippex type stuff). The pen and airmail sticker are by Clearly Impressed and the other stamps are by Paper Artsy (do not bend because documents have to go securely, numbers because that's what we deal with in our office and I don't feel like working because that's me). The airmail sticker is secured with a staple and I've used a jumbo paperclip with a scrap of ribbon as an embellishment.

Katzelkraft S3/C1

The final card for week 3 is to use paint. I'm more of an ink person myself but I do have some paints and for guidance I turned to the queen of all things painty - Trish of Ink, Paint, Beads. She has a great tutorial on how she achieves her wonderful painted backgrounds, I followed and ended up with this:

The grey strip at the bottom is the unpainted card I started with. I used Paper Artsy Fresco rusty rose, Reeves titanium white, Ranger silver & lettuce paint dabber, English Stamp Co pink (through a stencil). I stamped the KTZ number border in Archival plum and a KTZ flourish in Impress old rose. I cut a piece out and edged it with peeled paint DI and matted it on some green card. The sentiment is by Paula Pascual. I still have lots of painty background left to make more cards with.

Katzelkraft S3/DT

The DT card for week 3 is to take inspiration from DT member Ellie's work. I chose the card below:

I masked off an area and stamped and clear embossed some snowflakes. The masked area was coloured with tumbled glass, salty ocean and broken china DIs. I cut 3 snowflakes from some Marianne dies and added a small readymade sentiment.

Katzelkraft S3/C2

Card 2 for week 3 is a card with musical scores and splashes or as they say in French 'des partitions musicales et des éclaboussures' isn't that latter word just wonderful? The music, splats and baubles are all KTZ stamps. I gold heat embossed the music, coloured the baubles with coloursoft pencils and stamped the splats with dusty concord DI. The baubles are raised on foam pads.