Inkyfingeredcat

Today on Hobbymaker.tv (7pm) there is a Kingston Crafts show and this time it’s Beth Kingston sharing the products as they are broadcasting from the US.

I believe that blending brushes will be back again … so time to start sharing the projects I made with them.

The Kingston Crafts blending brushes come with a fab stand and I chose the white ones … but the first thing I needed to do was of course make them colourful – best way to do that is a project with lots of colour!

I chose to scrap a pic of me at the crop last year and to fill the white page with huge amounts of gorgeous colour!

I used a 12×12 stencil and then chose a range of inks to create my rainbow of a sort.

Using the blending brushes to blend the colours is so easy – start with a light layer and then deepen it with more layers if you need to – with an overlap between the colours.

I absolutely love how this turned out!

I used mainly my SU inks, including some old ones (concord crush, perfect plum, orchid oasis, melon mambo, hello honey, gumball green) – and the dye based inks work so well with the brushes.

I chose to then keep the page pretty simple.

Black and white cardstock mounts for the photo. A couple of die cut bumpy borders (hey little magpie) and then die cut letters for the title.

I then did a heavy scatter of the sequins across the page to embellish.

I finished off by adding my journaling across the top and bottom border of the page.

Love how this came out – a great way to show off the brushes and create a super colourful scrapbook page.

Looking forward to watching the show tonight at 7pm to see if any samples I made get shown and will share more over here on the blog over the next week.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

This is not just the DT contribution I made for the Birthday challenge.

It is also the card I made for my daughter for her 20th birthday!

Yes I now no longer have a teenager in the house – but a real grown up – of course she is still my baby girl!

Now I actually made this when I was half way through packing up my craft room ready for the redecorating and new furniture so was limited in my supplies (many were boxed up in another room) but I had also had a little splurge on Alex Syberia sale and got some new dies so as those hadn’t been packed away they are the main parts of the card!

I die cut all the elements once and then a few bits twice from white watercolour cardstock and then used ink and water to add colours.

I kept to the teal colours for the leaves knowing I would be using the papers in the background as I had pulled them out already – but then bringing in pink and peach for the flowers.

This die cut is like the Christmas bouquet one I am obsessed with. It is so easy to use with the layers and creates a super cluster but can be then used as elements in a different way. This time, as it was its first use, I kept the cluster similar to the design on the front of the packaging. Although I did turn it upside down! 🙃

I glued it together and added wink of Stella to a few elements of the flowers for sparkle. I know M loved using the wink of Stella pen when making Christmas cards so I think she would love that little element!

Then I ripped the background paper into the square to fit the 6×6 card and stuck that down with the opposite side of the paper for the panel down the right hand side.

I added a little pearlescent punchinella to just underneath as an extra texture. Then added the floral cluster onto the card.

Then I die cut the sentiment (also new dies from Alex Syberia).

I used foiled cardstock in teal for the top layer and white for the shadow layer. Such a pretty set of dies.

I then added lots of liquid pearls dotted around the card for embellishment. Of and you might have noted the background paper has some better press scribbles too – these were already on it from another project but thought it looked cool on the background!

Inside the card I added a leaf and a leftover flower with another scrap of punchinella just to finish off!

So happy birthday (it was actually last Saturday) to my princess!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Back in January I joined in with the Scrapbooking Challenges Winter team challenge and so made pages that I didn’t get a chance to share – finally catching up on this one now though as didn’t have a more recent project to share! Plus today is actually M’s birthday so going to be busy all day celebrating with the 20 yr old!

This one I scored points for the team by doing the following – using circles, stitching, layers, a white title and the final wildcard – a hot drink!

This was made from papers in my 100 patterned papers pile too – I added some extras from scraps for the layers under the photo too – but the main background, the red circles and the gingerbread all came from that 100patternedpaper pile of stash I have been working my way through!

Of course with the theme of the photos being the ginger cookies we decorated before Christmas I used the Christmas paper from Kingston Crafts and the acetate kit to include the cookies and the cocoa mugs.

I also used that cute bumpy border die from hey Little Magpie – such a fun element to include. I actually did the sewing to add texture to where it joined the panel above the die cut.

The title is a die set I have and I think it went perfectly with the cookie theme – I did have to ask for help from my scrapping friends to finish the title and someone suggested sweet memories and I knew that was perfect!

Such a fun page about our exploits with icing (we are far from good at this sort of thing!) and one of the Christmas activities we did in December 2025.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I really liked the card I made a few weeks ago as a DT for Creative Knockouts with a digital image raised above an inked background and decided to make a Christmas themed one.

I chose this cute image of the elf rolling his friends in a snowball! It was already colored from when I had last printed the image so I had two of the images ready to use.

I am very short on craft time at the moment so it was a case of grab what I have rather than the more chilled out create at my leisure type of making at the moment!

I added inking to the background- I didn’t worry about the ‘blending’ too much as I wanted some darker and lighter patches. I also used a scrap of cardstock to create a line for the ‘floor’.

Then I splattered some of the ink to create some texture to the background.

Then I fussy cut the image out with the slight outline of white. I used foam adhesive to raise up the image and then placed it centrally on the landscape card.

Next I chose a sentiment – I thought this Joy to the World one worked well.

I then added the gems to finish off.

Inside the card I took another panel of the white and added some blue inking and then added the same image fussy cut but flat on the panel.

I added this to the inside of the card but on the left hand side as it was too big to put on the right hand side where I would normally write a message,

I think if I was making this in a more leisurely way I would have printed the image in a smaller size to then add it to the right but as that wasn’t possible and it was more a case of using what I had to hand this works too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Goodness me – I’ve realised I never got around to sharing the pages I made at the Warrington crop in February as I was still catching up on other pages made the last few weeks of #scrappinsaturday so here goes …

All three pages I made were page kits that I bought from Hey Little Magpie – of course I may have slightly changed them to make sense for my photos too – but largely they are as Sarah designed them!

This one I turned the page and then embellished slightly differently with the floral elements in the page kit pack. Sarah had included a whole pack of the die cut pieces so lots leftover too for future projects!

Pictures are from M’s 19th birthday and the three of us at Las Ramblas taking selfies.

Page two I also turned it because I thought the colours and the stripes worked well with my aunties dress – again a whole pack of embellishments to use so added quite a few florals and the butterflies – I also added in the scraps leftover from the previous page to mount the photo. Love how Sarah had taken the striped paper, cut it apart and distressed it and then put it back together again. So pretty and textural.

Page three I bought some rub ons from the shop to add to this central cluster layout. I kept the design pretty similar though apart from those rub ons radiating out from the cluster and the three arty butterflies.

These two pages are both about my Mum’s 80th taken over that weekend where we celebrated!

So three fab pages and really lovely time was had at the crop – albeit several weeks ago now! Sorry for the delay in sharing!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So I was very last minute in making this as I realized when I finished work I hadn’t made anything for festive Friday – so I went with simple and used the Christmas Tags and More to create this card.

I went with a cream base to make it a little different and then a strip of the patterned paper and a piece of red cardstock that was on the desk, three cut apart panels made into tags and layered, some bits of twine and ribbon in place with the tiny attacher – then some gems and a die cut word to finish off! Simple!

I did add wink of Stella to the top of the stockings on the top tag piece and raised those tags up on adhesive foam for dimension.

Adding little pieces of trim or ribbon really help elevate the card into something more interesting with other textures. And often it is only a small amount needed – so a little can go a long way!

Inside the card – a scrap of the red, a tiny bit of the patterned paper and one of the die cut pieces was all I needed to bring the outside into the card which has been very much an ongoing fixation this year – insides the card are important!

Overall it probably took less than 10 mins to make so a simple one today and I didn’t break my streak on festive Friday! Phew!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today the challenge at Creative Knockouts is Birthday wishes and we are sponsored by Mirtiallamente digital stamps. They have given me the fabulous Sweet Birthday digital stamp to play with and this is the card I made…

Isn’t that image just delicious?

I went with blues and pinks for my coloring using alcohol markers and then after fussy cutting the image I popped it up on adhesive foam. I kept the background really simple – some blue ink blended and splattered to ground the image in the middle of the card.

I then fussy cut the sentiment that came with the image and layered that on the image to the bottom left with a little foam adhesive on the bit ‘hanging off’ to keep it secure. Then I went to town with sparkle and shine!

First I added wink of Stella to the icing/ sauces on the treats and then the fruit and the candle got a coat of glossy accents.

Then I chose some sequins from a mix from Hey Little Magpie to embellish!

Simple and sweet for sure. A perfect birthday card!.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! This is my first Christmas card contribution to the Addicted to Stamps and more challenge for this year and I went with the fabulous Alex Syberia dies I bought back in October last year.

I went with the bow and created a lovely cluster with the foliage dies from the other set I bought at the same time (which you have seen plenty of times as I’m obsessed with them!).

I decided that the bold colours against the white embossed background would be best – I used promarkers to give the red two shades and the greens were also changed up a little with the promarkers added to the dark green cardstock of the holly leaves and then the promarkers on white cardstock for the lighter coloured leaves.

It’s a good idea to remember this trick if you want two shades of the same colour and don’t have cardstock that works for you!

I added the foiled and die cut sentiment banner to the top and decided not to add any gems or sparkle as I loved the bold clean look.

So that’s my design contribution for the Addicted to stamps and more challenge for this fortnight – are you ready to make Christmas cards yet? I love making them so do them all year round – it really brings me so much joy!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Yes I promised another five cards in the patterned paper challenge using Cards By Kendra challenge 21.

This time I pulled in some of the vellum bits and bobs from Kingston crafts to go with the cards and glitter glue featured quite a bit!

I also used some 5×7 cards to mount the card toppers – lovely to make them so bright and cheery!

Card 6:

Card 7:

Card 8:

Card 9:

Card 10:

Still think the design with the little strips is so fun! Great way to use up little bits of patterned paper.

Again I did film the process so you can check out my YouTube video to see that.

Happy crafting!

First of the month = patterned paper and again I went with another Kendras Card Challenge 21 set of cards … only the first five made so far (sketches 11-15)!

I went with Kingston Crafts Christmas papers and a few floral and fauna stamped images.

The florals were from a magazine set of stamps and coloured them using promarkers.

Card 15:

Card 14:

Card 13:

Card 12:

Card 11:

I think a lovely set of cards. Of course if you want to see me put them together the process is over on my YouTube channel.

I have managed to put together another five after this so will need to sort that video out and write another blog post.

Happy crafting!

Catherine