Month: August 2017

CAS Safari

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Bonjour from Quebec City everyone. (That’s about the limit of my French, so don’t worry that I’m going to try more!)

I have been raiding my sister’s crafting stash again, for an idea to enter the CASology challenge for this week. The cue card is above. I see there are already lots of great cards on the challenge site, and wondered what to do. Then my sister showed me her Heroarts monthly stamp set. Have you seen this set? Absolutely amazing. So many images – animals, trees, grass, birds, hillocks – you name it, this stamp set has it.

As soon as I saw this cute little giraffe I was hooked. And then I saw there was a grass stamp…….sorted. Well, so I thought. Talk about trying to position a straight stamp along the bottom of a piece of card. That took me a little while, then placing the little giraffe ‘just so’…….huh. Definitely not the ‘simple’ of clean and simple, let me tell you.

The colours are basic – green for the grass, (Stampin Up), and black for the giraffe (Versafine Black Onyx) and sentiment, so I added the piece of white card directly onto a black base card.

Tomorrow’s posting will be the colour challenge from CAS Colours and Sketches, my third post as guest designer this month. I hope the colours chosen inspire you to create a card to join in the challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

Travelling and challenge entry

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Hello everyone. Have you noticed I have been a little quiet this week? Well – I am currently in Quebec City visiting my sister! I know, trans-atlantic travelling. I love this city, and have been here several times before.

I arrived from London on Friday evening – after 2 hour delay from Heathrow – flew into Montreal, then flew up to Quebec. Not so bad, actually, as Air Canada transfers all your luggage for internal flights anyway.

Yesterday was spent doing a little food shopping, a little craft shopping – I know, first day! – and chilling. Then – raided her craft stash.

We both make cards, our styles are quite different, but she has LOADS of stuff I can play with.

This card is using the Altenew ‘Doodle Blooms’ stamp set, then colouring in Cracked Pistachio Distress oxide, then die cut with matching dies.

The embossing folder is from Spellbinders ‘Garden Delight`M-Bossability, and I used the curved die from Simon Says Stamp `Stitched Slopes and Hills’. The sentiment from a Stampin Up set ‘Les deux font la paire’ – thought I`d stay with the French language seeing as how I am in Quebec.

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

Fusion Challenge – sketch

Crafting with Dragonflies – embossing wet or dry

 

 

Guest Designer sketch

Hello again everyone. This card is based on the sketch for the second challenge I am guest designer for as CAS Colours and Sketches. For some reason my mind turned to Christmas. I have no idea why, but that’s the way I went.

I wanted a shape hanging over the edge of the card, as per the sketch, and looked at my dies for snowflakes and baubles. I went with snowflakes from Stampin Up ‘Starlight Thinlits’, and cut the shape out of glimmer card, also from Stampin Up.

I used a dark blue card from Creative expressions as a base card, and a second layer which I embossed with my Sue Wilson ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ embossing folder. I did toy with the idea of insetting the snowflake, but decided to stick it on top, so I then had to cut another one out with some double sided sticky tape on the back as I didn’t want glue everywhere.

Once attached, I looked at what dies I had for a Christmas sentiment, and again used a Stampin Up set ‘Christmas Stocking’ thinlits, the same glimmer card, and cutting down the original die cut to leave just the word.

I tried to photograph the background of the stars, which I think came out well, but I just couldn’t get the picture right for the glimmer card. This really is a twinkly card, and the photograph just doesn’t do it justice.

I hope you can play along, and I look forward to seeing what you create with this wonderfully simple sketch. :)

I shall also be entering this card into the Crafty Friends Challenge – Christmas in July.

 

Juicy

Hi everyone. It’s been a couple of days since I posted – I actually had some social events over the weekend. I had a great night out at hubby’s golf club last night – nice meal, great company, some Prosecco was drunk – and some dancing. 50’s music – even though I wasn’t born until the 60’s……great music from the 50’s. Isn’t it surprising how many songs we know from that time?

I made this card to be part of CASology this week. The cue card was:

I have said in the past that I struggle with clean and simple, I struggle with open space, but I do keep trying. This is my take for the challenge. I had to do some lateral thinking, as I don’t have any stamps of fruits. I did think about some juicy and luscious lips, but didn’t have anything which would work.

I had a search through my stash, and found the above circle and lines in  a Stampin Up set – ‘Balloon Celebration’. I decided it looks like a section of fruit, even though it isn’t symmetrical.

I then looked for some stamps which could be seen as drops or rain, anything which could be seen as dropping from the fake fruit, and came across a stamp set from Craftwork Cards – ‘Celebrations’ – which was again about balloons, but these little circles seemed to work well when I tried them out on a scrap piece of paper. I did have some rain drops from another stamp set, but they seemed a little too big.

Once stamped in Versafine black onyx, I coloured with Catherine Pooler ‘Tutti Frutti’ ink. A luscious, gorgeous bright orange – don’t you think? I then waited for that to dry and added some glossy accents for a more shiny look. Even though the ink is gorgeous, I thought adding the glossy accents would make it shine even better.

I struggled a little with the photo to try and show this, but I hope you can see what I did.

On Tuesday I shall be posting my second card of the month as guest designer for CAS Colors and Sketches – I hope you can play along…… :)

 

 

Wild Flowers

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Hi everyone. I wanted to post a quick card this evening, so I attacked my Catherine Pooler stamps, inks, and matching dies. I wanted to use the colours from the Color Throwdown challenge, and as the challenge was to use green, Kraft, and white, I wanted the green to be a bright and vivid green against the other two colours.

‘Grass Skirt’ from Catherine Pooler fits the bill nicely, showing against the Kraft really well, and I am pleased how this turned out.

I stamped the ‘Wild Flower’  stamps in the green, die cut them, and added them to a Kraft piece of card cut with my wonky rectangles. This particular Kraft card is a little textured, certainly not smooth. So this added a very muted feature and detail to the base of the card.

I added that to a white base card, and stopped there. I didn’t add a sentiment, and I am quite liking cards with no sentiments at the moment. They can either be added later, or these cards would be ideal to write a little note inside for any reason at all…….

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – Green, Kraft, White

Aud Sentiments challenge – no sentiment on front

Craftaholics R Us – die cuts

House Of Cards challenge – floral images and/or colours (floral)

 

 

Guest Designer – three colours

Hi everyone. I have been invited to guest design for CAS Colours and Sketches for four challenges during August, and here is the first card I have made for the first colour challenge. The challenge was to create a card using the Stampin Up colours Blushing Bride, Cajun Craze, and Tempting Turquoise. My first thought ran to a flower card, but wondered which flowers I could use artistic license on for the three colours mentioned above.

I looked through me collection of stamps, and came across the set from Altenew ‘Under the Cherry Blossom Tree’. I couldn’t find any images of blue cherry blossoms – so did it anyway! I think I am getting more like that when I craft. It doesn’t matter if it imitates nature or not, if it looks good – do it anyway!

I didn’t have the ink pads for the three colours, but I did have my markers. This made stamping a little more challenging, as I had to cover the stamp carefully using the marker at an angle to ensure it was covered, but as the stamps are quite small anyway, it came together nicely.

I stamped the outline of the branch and flowers twice using Cajun Craze, then used Tempting Turquoise for the flowers. One stamped directly onto the layer added to the card base, and one I die-cut using the matching dies. This one I stuck down hanging off the top of the card, and cut down.

The first bird layer was stamped using Blushing Bird, and the second layer with Cajun Craze. When I stamped him, I set him too high, so had to go in and add a branch for him to sit on with my marker….

The sentiment is from the same set stamped in Cajun Craze, with another smaller detail stamped randomly around with Blushing Bride. So I then thought – why are the petals around the sentiment a different colour to the petals on the branches? Well – because they are! Maybe another tree is alongside this one with Blushing Bride petals………..

I hope you play along with us using these colours, and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone creates. :)

06/08/17 – Here is a close-up of the little birdie as requested by a lady who commented:

close up