Category Archives: cards

Stand Under the Stars

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #72 – colors.

CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #72

And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Stand Under the Stars

These stamp sets may have been out for a year, I only recently bought them. And this card is the reason. That sentiment is awesome and I decided I just had to have it.

I CASEd Pinefeather’s card – just changed up the sentiment and colors.

The background was made using a recent PTI Make-it-Monday tutorial: Water Splats. I used regular white cardstock and sponged on the ink then finished it up with water drops.

Originally I just stamped the star chart image with white ink but as it dried it pretty much just disappeared so I re-stamped (as close to the original placement as I could get) and heat embossed with white powder.

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Stand Under the Stars
Stamps: Star Gazer, Star Gazer Additions (PTI);
Ink/Cardstock: White, Black (PTI); Smoky Slate, Daffodil Delight, Bermuda Bay (SU);
Other: sponges; Versamark & white embossing powder;
Technique: Water Splats (PTI MIM#161); heat embossing;

May Stamp Camp Cards

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Wow, my youngest kiddo has been out of school for a couple days (teacher work-days) and that means I’m not up there volunteering and THAT means more time at the stamp table…and boy have I been stamping!

May is just around the corner and my mom asked me to make a couple cards for her to use at stamp camp. The camp is all about retiring products. I squeezed as many as I could onto these cards!

First up, Fabulous Florets:

by karen @ carefree creations - Fabulous Florets

I stamped the leafy greens a couple times onto the Vanilla panel. The two flowers are hand-cut. The sentiment frame is done using the Designer Frames embossing folder (another retiring product). After I embossed my scrap paper, I cut the frame out and adhered it with dimensionals.

My other card uses Zoo Review:

by karen @ carefree creations - Zoo Review

Another clean and simple card (surprise, lol). Mom wanted a masculine card for this set. The Crumb Cake panel is sitting right-justified on a Midnight Muse card base. The card base is stamped (sideways) with the Woodgrain background to give that little strip peeking out a bit of texture.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Wishes
All supplies StampinUp unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Fabulous Florets, Bring on the Cake;
Ink/Cardstock: Raspberry Ripple, Very Vanilla, Gumball Green, Primrose Petals, Chocolate Chip;
Other: Designer Frames embossing folder;
Wonderful Day
All supplies StampinUp unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Zoo Review, Bring on the Cake, Woodgrain;
Ink/Cardstock: Midnight Muse, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Summer Starfruit;

Embroidered Blog Hop

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Papertrey Ink April Blog Hop is all about embroidered inspiration!
2014-04_PTIBlogHop_EmbroideredInspiration
And here is my card:

by karen @ carefree creations - Mother's Day Stitches

Since I had just purchased the Solid Stitches & Swirls set, I knew I wanted to use that, and with Mother’s Day just around the corner the theme was set too. I chose bright happy colors.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Happy Mother’s Day
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Stitches & Swirls, Solid Stitches & Swirls, Happy Day;
Ink/Cardstock: Black, White, Winter Wisteria, Berry Sorbet (PTI); Lucky Limeade (SU); Orange Fizz (MFT);
Other: Happy Day die (PTI); White embossing powder (Hero Arts);
Technique: heat embossing;

Fine Feathers

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #71 – sketch.

CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #71

And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Fine Feathers

If you follow my blog, you’ll know this card is actually my second attempt. For this card I wanted a more simple card – both in design and color. I decided the blocks in the background could be stamped images and the colors would be more calming.

Since the longest feather was also quite skinny, I decided to make my card a 4 1/4″ square card.

FYI – this feather set is being retired by StampinUp – as is the sentiment and embossed frame!

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Thinking of You
All supplies StampinUp unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Fine Feathers, Sweet Essentials;
Ink/Cardstock: Soft Sky, Naturals White, Crumb Cake, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso;
Other: Designer Frames embossing folder;

Belated Birthday

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by karen @ carefree creations - Belated Birthday

So this here is a sneaky peek at tomorrow’s challenge…shhhh! My blog doesn’t have but a few followers, so I feel pretty safe in posting this.

You might be wondering why I’m posting this card instead of using it for tomorrow’s challenge post. It is because – to ME – this is not CAS…and tomorrow’s challenge is a clean-and-simple (CAS) challenge. I know to some folks this card, with its limited layers and simple design would indeed be considered CAS – and that is fine! – but for me, this is not CAS (I think it is the busy pattern paper).

But, I do like the card! It is fun and festive – something I definitely wanted to convey since it is belated.

And I used a stamp set whose images have yet to see ink (we’ll just pretend that we don’t know I got this set back in 2008, shall we?).

I did try a bit of a technique – the name of which is totally escaping me – on the background. The concept is that you emboss two pieces of paper together so they become embedded and appear seemless.

Just 4 more weeks of school!! Then I’m done with volunteering and PTA and maybe I can get back to doing some stamping! … at least until August 😉

Thanks for taking a peek!

Belated Birthday
Stamps: Stylish Sentiments: Birthday (PTI);
Ink/Cardstock: Pure Poppy, White, Dark Chocolate, Berry Sorbet (PTI); Cocoa (Momento);
Other: Lime Twist pattern paper (MME); Square Lattice embossing folder (SU); Mat Stack 6 die (PTI);

Shades of Grey

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #70 – colors.

CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #70

And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Shades of Grey

This was my first attempt at using embossing paste and a stencil. I definitely need to work on technique! I’m not sure how I got so much paste squished under the stencil, I did tape it down quite well. I suppose practice will help.

To do the gradated colors, I started with plain white paste and added re-inker drops.

Stamping on the paste also made a bit of a mess – it bled too much (but that was probably my fault as I was using lots of pressure to get between the paste – in hindsight I should have just used a marker to fill in). Live and learn!

I do like the concept of the card.

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Happy Birthday
Stamps: Wet Paint (Papertrey Ink);
Ink/Cardstock: White (PTI); Basic Black, Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, (SU);
Other: Gradated Blocks stencil (Simon Says); Embossing Paste (Dreamweaver);
Technique: stencil and embossing paste;

Sweet Strawberry Wishes

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #69 – sketch.

CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #69

And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Sweet Birthday

I decided to make my card a window card. And, score, this is a one layer card!

To make the windows, I used a square die from the Make a Wish die set.

Here is the inside:

by karen @ carefree creations - inside

I like this because I have a hard time writing on such a wide canvas, now it feels more comfy.

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Have a Sweet Birthday
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Strawberry Patch, Strawberry Patch Sentiments;
Ink/Cardstock: White, Pure Poppy, Black (PTI); Gumball Green (SU);
Other: Make a Wish die;
Technique: window

Filled with Smiles

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #68 – colors.

CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #68
And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Filled with Smiles

With pink and green, I knew I was going to stamp flowers! Since the pink is a pale pink and the brown a dark brown, I knew the brown would take the focus, so I decided to use a large sentiment as the focal point.

I used two sizes of flowers. The larger ones are stamped twice to get a darker color pink.

This is a one-layer card – yay me! I love it when a challenge-for-me-style comes easy!

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Filled with Smiles
Stamps: Stylish Sentiments: Birthday, Turning a New Leaf, Green Thumb (PTI);
Ink/Cardstock: White (PTI); Pink Pirouette, Pear Pizzazz, Early Espresso (SU);
Other: nothing!

Party Words

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #67 – sketch.

CAS Colours & Skethes Challenge #67

I’m on spring break – which means I have no idea what day it is! Apparently it is Thursday and I forgot to create a card for the latest CAS Colours & Sketch challenge – eek! Thankfully this is a great basic sketch and I was able to get a card done in no time!

And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Party Words

I have a bunch of male birthdays coming up in April, so I designed a card to use for one of them.

I’ve been wanting to buy the Hardwood background stamp from StampinUp (have you seen the awesome creations out there??). But I already have 2 border stamps that are similar, so I made myself use one of them to make sure that the results would make me happy so I could skip another purchase. I am quite happy with the result (I know I wouldn’t use the Hardwood on every card, so using a border stamp a few times to create a background is no hardship).

Of course, I didn’t line it up all that well and came up with an oops. But I just used a marker to fill in the gap and you can’t even tell! Check it:

oops - mind the gap

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Celebrate
Stamps: Sugar Rush, Word Salad, Group Hugs (Paper Smooches); Background Basics: Farm & Barn (PTI);
Ink/Cardstock: Soft Stone (PTI); Sahara Sand, Daffodil Delight, Pear Pizzazz, Marina Mist (SU); Black (Hero Arts);
Other: Word Bubbles dies (Paper Smooches);

Calypso Flower

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It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge: #66 – colors.

CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #66

And here is my take:

by karen @ carefree creations - Calypso Flower

These colors are quite pretty together! The two blues together allow for variation, but the pop of coral is great contrast.

When stamping the wheel (I unmount my wheels), I off-stamped to get a lighter color – mostly because I wasn’t sure if I was going to stamp my sentiment on or under the gingham.

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Lizy
Louise
Patricia

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little About the Challenge: Posted every Thursday, the challenges alternate between color and sketch (if there is a 5th week in the month you get the double dose of color & sketch).

Happy Birthday
All supplies StampinUp unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Mixed Bunch, Bring on the Cake, Gingham wheel;
Ink/Cardstock: Pool Party, Island Indigo, Whisper White, Calypso Coral;
Other: dimensional adhesive;