Tag Archives: mailable

Birthday by the Seashore

Posted on by

It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge -> #18 – sketch.

CAS Colours & Sketches #18

And here is my take:

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Birthday by the Seashore

This is such an easy sketch that I know I will use it over and over (heck, I posted a card last weekend that used the sketch – you had a preview and didn’t know it, hee hee).

My colors were very much inspired by last week’s color challenge – but I went with Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, and Riding Hood Red.

For those of you who know my mom – this card will be in the April camp.

Thanks for stopping by!

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Kylie
Louise
Paula
Sandie

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

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

Happy Birthday
All supplies StampinUp unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: By the Seashore, Best Dad Ever;
Ink/Card Stock: Naturals Ivory, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Riding Hood Red, Vanilla;
Other: Circle die;

MIM – Watercolor + Embossing

Posted on by

Yesterday’s Make-it-Monday challenge at Papertrey was Watercolor + Embossing.

Today I was inspired to take that challenge. I was looking through my Pinterest board looking for inspiration, and found something I had re-pinned last week: a bright geometric pillow.

Here’s my card:

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Bright Watercolor

I purposefully didn’t blend my colors, but now I’m thinking this might look a little better if I had. So I decided that I needed to do another and the Dot Spot came to mind. So I made another card:

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Blue Green Watercolor Spots

I’m quite happy with how both cards turned out. I even have a sheet of watercolor paper that I used to soak up the remaining ink from the blue/green card. I’ll try to make something with that soon!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Fabulous Day
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: B ackground-Basics: Super Stripes, Signature Greetings;
Ink/Card Stock: White, Raspberry Fizz, Orange Zest, Harvest Gold, True Black;
Other: white embossing powder;
Celebrate
All supplies Papertrey unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Dot Spot, Celebrations;
Ink/Card Stock: White, Enchanted Evening, Hawaiian Shores, New Leaf;
Other: white embossing powder;

Enjoy Spring

Posted on by

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Enjoy Spring

I created this card for a couple challenges. First, the Addicted to CAS challenge whose code word is Spring. I chose my colors because the make me think spring – and butterflies…can’t wait for them to come around!

Next up is the Paper Smooches Sparks Picture Perfect challenge that showed buttons on a bulletin board. I used circles on my card in reference to the inspiration piece buttons.

The card base is 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 – the sentiment strip is 4 1/4 wide.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Enjoy this Day
Stamps: Flap Happy (Paper Smooches);
Ink/Card Stock: White (PTI); Black ink (Memento);
Other: Country Drive Pattern Paper (Echo Park); Fancy Fan embossing folder (SU); lots of different circle punches;

Star Spangled Banner

Posted on by

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Military Thanks

This week’s CAS-ology challenge cue is Song. I chose to be inspired by the Star Spangled Banner (I even managed a banner on the card!!).

When I first stamped the stars and stripes they ended up being very bold and overpowering the eagle image. One tip I learned in the Pattern Play course was to alter bold patterns to dampen their affect. I used distress inks (Old Paper & Tea Dye) to tone down the colors. Also, I originally cut closely around the eagle, but I think the lack of edge helped it get lost. So I stamped it again and this time left more of an outline; I think that brighter border helps bring focus to the image.

It is hard to tell in the photo, but the sentiment banner has some additional shading. After stamping the banner image with Linen ink, I went back with a Copic marker and slightly darkened the “behind” pieces.

The reason for the anchor is that this will be going to a naval recruit.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Thank You
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Est.1776, Bountiful Banners, Paper Tray;
Ink/Card Stock: Kraft, Cream, Linen, Dark Chocolate, Enchanted Evening, Pure Poppy; Distress Inks (Ranger);
Other: Banner die;

Dino-Party

Posted on by

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Dino Party

I created this card for the Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge – Fiesta Colors. I love those colors!

With a challenge name like Fiesta – I knew I needed a party card. To get the green in the card, I decided to go with a green animal. I had fun coloring the dino and even added a few spots for interest.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Happy Birthday
Stamps: Cuteasaurus, Hullabaloo, Geographic, Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches);
Ink/Card Stock: Summer Sunrise, White (PTI); Black (Memento);
Other: Flag die (Paper Smooches); markers (Copic);

Stamp Free

Posted on by

The latest CAS-ual Friday challenge (#95) is to make a card but NOT use stamps. What?!?

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Party Pieces Birthday

OK, that was actually easier than I thought. Since I signed-up for the Online Card Class Pattern Play (I say “signed-up” and not “participated” because I am just now getting around to watching the lessons – this week was just too crazy at school!)…um what was I saying – oh yes, pattern paper. I figured I could use pattern paper to make a card without stamps.

In my pattern paper stash are old Stampin’ Up scrapbook kits – complete with pre-printed accents! This card was so quick and easy. I didn’t have to come up with a color scheme – the kit took care of that for me! To bring all my colors together, I took a strip of stripe pattern paper (included in the kit) and used it like I learned in the Pattern Play class.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Happy Birthday
Stamps: None!
Ink/Card Stock: White (PTI);
Other: Party Pieces Scrapbook Kit (StampinUp);

FYI – Desert Balloons

Posted on by

It is time for another For Your Inspiration challenge. Check out the latest challenge -> FYI42.

FYI Challenge #42

I really like the striking color combination in this photo!

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Desert Balloons

Honestly, this is probably my 4th attempt at a card (but that is what I get for waiting til the last minute!) – so I went old school simple with this layout (and we won’t talk about how eerily similar it is to the card I post a bit ago).

Thanks for stopping by!

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Debbie
Michelle
Mynnette
Rochelle
Rudlis
Sara
Steph
Vicki

I hope you join us at For Your Inspiration!

A Little About the Challenge: The For Your Inspiration challenge is posted the first and third Thursday of every month; each challenge is open for two weeks. To play, use the photo to inspire you and create a card – very simple! Make sure you tell us in your blog post how you were inspired!

Birthday Wishes
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Up Up Away;
Ink/Card Stock: Pacific Point (SU); Blueberry Pie, White, Terracotta Tile, Canyon Clay, Summer Sunrise;
Other: Up Up Away dies, Linen/Canvas Impression plate;

Hey Chick

Posted on by

I know, right? Nothing from me for days on end – and now 3 posts in 1 day! I’ve been so busy that I just haven’t had time to stamp. While my schedule hasn’t lightened, I’ve decided for sanity sake to try to get some stamping in every day. That doesn’t mean I’ll post everyday, but I need the mental down time of stamping.

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Hey Chick

I created this card for the Paper Smooches Sparks Designer Drafts challenge.

This was a hard sketch for me, but I just kept to the bones/general idea of the layout.

I totally forgot to put pigtails on my human 🙁 I’ll have to add them before I send it off. I did have fun coloring!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Hey Chick
Stamps: Green Acres, Debonair (Paper Smooches);
Ink/Card Stock: Pure Poppy, White (Papertrey Ink); Black (Memento);
Other: markers (Copic);

Tiffany’s Box

Posted on by

It is time for another CAS Colours & Sketches challenge. Check out the latest challenge -> #16 – sketch.

CAS - Colours&Sketches #16

And here is my take:

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Tiffany's Box

I am so happy with how this card turned out! I got the idea as I was browsing my index looking for stamps to use for this sketch. When I came across the Ribbons & Bows set – I knew just what I would do.

This card may be clean and simple, and actually relatively easy, but it was NOT quick! So much embossing! I started by embossing the large bow, then I went back with a line/stripe stamp. I’m not sure it matters, but I did use an Xacto to scrape off the embossing powder (pre-heating) from where the line went over the bow (I didn’t want it to look like the lines were on top of the bow).

** ETA – So my mom asked me why I didn’t stamp the stripes first and then the bow (to save from scraping away the powder). Well, I like to do things the hard way! Seriously though, I had a couple reasons. First, the stripe stamps I used are not long enough to go the whole distance of the card (I do have the set by PTI that is longer, but the smallest width in that set was just a bit too wide); so I thought the bow would provide a good “break” point for the lines (if I had tried to connect them perfectly, it would never have worked and the connection point would surely have fallen in an open space and been more visible – this way I had control over where the potential goofs would occur). Second, I don’t do a lot of embossing, so I didn’t know what embossing over embossing would do/look like and I really really wanted the bow to be “in the front”. If I had more time I would have experimented more.

When it came time to do the sentiment, I actually started out by doing a pale grey frame and dark grey sentiment, but something about it just felt off. So I die cut another label and this time embossed the frame in white – definitely the better choice for this card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Make sure you check out the other design team members:
Jacqueline
Kylie
Louise
Paula
Sandie

I hope you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

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

Celebrate
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Ribbons & Bows, Faux Ribbon, Boutique Borders-Mother;
Ink/Card Stock: Aqua Mist, White, Smokey Shadow;
Other: Boutique Borders-Mother die; lots of Versamark & white embossing powder;

Happy Pi Day!

Posted on by

Firstly, a big happy Pi day to my math-loving kid! I think they have about 40 digits memorized (it constantly grows).

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Happy Pi Day

I made this card for them to help them start the day.

To be honest, I hadn’t intended on playing in PTI’s Make-it-Monday clear card challenge, but when I started thinking about creating this card, it just made sense. See, I wanted to use the digits of Pi, but knowing my kid, they’d be upset if I covered any of them up (even if they were digits 300 and above, lol). This way, the digits are in the design, but not obscured.

On the inside (back side of front sentiment – ugh, did that make sense??) is another black circle & red heart with “love you” stamped on the heart.

To get the Pi digits, I used the PiDay website.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Happy Pi Day
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Little Bitty Bird, Fresh Alpha;
Ink/Card Stock: Black, White, Poppy, Clear;
Other: Limitless Layers: Circle die, Framed Out #11 (heart) die, Double-ended Banner die;