Welcome to the Art With Heart demonstrator team's Colour Creations Blog Hop, celebrating every single colour in the Stampin' Up! colour families, one colour at a time.

We are up to week 9, and that means BASIC GRAY is our focus colour this week.

Basic Gray

On the weekend, demonstrators across the world gathered online for Creativity Now, a Stampin' Up! cardmaking event. We had the option to pre-order a beautiful product suite which will be available later in the year in the September-December mini catalogue. This allowed us to stamp along to half a dozen card projects, using stamps, dies, ribbon, embellishments and an embossing folder from the product suite.

One of the projects used Misty Moonlight cardstock teamed with Basic Gray. A couple of people, including myself thought this colour scheme was a little dark, so after making the sample card, I then made an alternative card, switching out the Misty Moonlight for Boho Blue instead. Boho Blue, like Misty Moonlight tends to a gray tinge and works really well with Basic Gray.

Here is the first card, which most people madeon the left, and my lighter, slightly stepped up card beside it.

   
For my version, I chose to die-cut birds from the Designer Series Paper. The shade of blue in the paper looks like Pool Party, so I used a Blender Pen to pick up some Boho Blue ink from the ink pad and just lightly went over the blue areas to make it a closer tint to match the card base. I wanted the piece to stand out from the cardfront, so I die-cut an extra piece of Basic White card with the same die and glued the two together to add strength to the Designer Series Paper, then popped it up with dimensionals.     

For the inside of the Z-Fold card, I cut another piece of Basic Gray with the foliage frame die, and layered it over basic white. Then die-cut a different bird from the Designer Series Paper and adhered that in the corner. This one was adhered flat inside the card, so I didn't worry about reinforcing it with Basic White card.

I have a dear friend who is crazy about birds - takes some amazing bird photos. She has done a good deed for me recently, so this card will be winging it's way to her (pun intended!!).

Thank you for visiting my blog! Now it's time to see what everyone else on our creative team has created with Basic Gray. Click on the image below to go to lovely Rachel Woolard's blog and see her amazing creation.

Once you have visited Rachel's blog, click her "next" link to keep journeying around the blog hop. If you get lost or find a broken link, you can come back here and click THIS LINK to go to Cathy's blog where she has a full list of participants.

Enjoy the ride! See you again soon with inky fingers!

Kathryn Ruddick

Mansfield VIC

Product List

Basic Gray A4 Card Stock [121689] $20.25	Basic Gray Classic Stampin' Pad [149165] $15.75	Basic White A4 Cardstock [159228] $23.00
Boho Blue A4 Cardstock [161733] $20.25	Boho Blue Classic Stampin' Pad [161650] $15.75	Blender Pens [102845] $25.00

Welcome to another week of Colour Creations with the Art With Heart Stampin' Up! Demonstrator team from Australia.

This week we are creating with the lovely shade Balmy Blue.

Balmy Blue

Balmy Blue is a really pretty blue - however, I struggled to think what to make with it this week, because I just don't have any Designer Series Papers with Balmy Blue in them, or any stamp sets that are particularly masculine which I thought I could use.

Then, I suddenly remembered I have some spare, leftover pieces in the very cute By Your Side Kit from the Kit Collections, and Balmy Blue would go great with the Old Olive, Calypso Coral and Basic Grey pieces in the kit.

Balmy Blue

Old Olive

Calypso Coral

Basic Gray

I love the By Your Side card making kit as it is a fully self contained kit - meaning besides having the card bases and die-cut pieces for assembling the cards, it also includes a stamp set, ink spot, block, adhesive and embellishments for making 8 cards, all in the one kit. But this one has bonus die-cuts and embellishments with 12 of each instead of 8. So there are enough pieces left over to add some card stock and make 4 more cards.

And that is what I did this week, adding Balmy Blue card stock and Balmy Blue Designer Series Paper from the Subtles Paper Stack, a bit of extra Basic Grey card and some Balmy Blue ink, instead of the Old Olive Ink which comes in the kit.

   
If you are going away for a long weekend or short holiday, the kit is the perfect craft item to take with you, because it all comes in one small box which will easily fit under the seat of the car, or in your overnight bag. Then if you have indoor weather, you have something to work on which hasn't taken up much space at all, and because it's fully self-contained, you have everything you  need right there in the box.

Here's some close ups of the actual kit cards, alongside my alternate Balmy Blue cards.

Now it is time to see what some of our other team members have been creating this week with Balmy Blue.

Click on the image directly below this to go to the blog of my lovely friend Ros Davidson - I always look forward to seeing what Ros has created!       

If you are following the blog-hop full circle and come to a broken link, all the links are listed on Cathy's blog here. Thanks again lovely Cathy for hosting our blog hop every single week!

Enjoy the Balmy Blue creations and see you again soon, with ink on your fingers!

Kathryn Ruddick

Mansfield VIC

Product List

Balmy Blue Classic Stampin' Pad [147105] $15.75	Balmy Blue A4 Cardstock [147007] $20.25	Subtles 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 Cm) Designer Series Paper [163776] $21.75
By Your Side Kit (English) [163876] $39.00	Basic Gray A4 Card Stock [121689] $20.25	Basic White A4 Cardstock [159228] $23.00