Month: February 2019

Santa Kitty and Candy Canes

Hello again everyone. Welcome to this posting and the second challenge for my Design Team position at ABC Christmas Challenge. This month, the alphabet runs to ‘C’ for Candy, and/or ‘D’ for Decorations.

Here is my card:

and another view:

I took the opportunity over Christmas and New Year to order from Simon Says Stamp, when they were having quite a sale on their products, as I have liked the look of these Picture Book dies for ages…….

This cat is black and white because my cats are black and white. I thought this would stand out from the coloured background too, and show the Candy Canes in his hands. I decided to put the head on the body with a little tilt – looks like a cheeky chap to me.

Those candy canes are from a Tim Holtz set – never used before.

The background green and red striped DSP from Stampin Up, and the glitter on the hat is from Crafters Companion.

I enjoyed the die cutting, but I must admit to checking out some You Tube videos for hints and tips – those little pieces do get away from you, let me tell that now!

It’s a good job I have plenty of scraps of card, as these little scraps were ideal for all the die cut pieces. Placing them and gluing them were a challenge – but I like how this turned out.

The body is a die cut from the same group of dies, and I like how the arms have a cut part to them so you can put things in them, as though the cat was holding them – hence the candy canes.

If you enter this challenge, you are in with a chance to win some stamps, dies and washi tape from this months host Wilma, and the rest of the Design team have some amazing projects to share with you – A-maz-ing! We all seem to have different styles of cards to share, but all great inspiration, so I hope you can join us…….. :) :)

CASology Bouquet

Hello everyone. I have a card for you today that is for the Guest Designer position this week at CASology: (little jumpy dance!)

The cue word is ‘BOUQUET’, and let me tell you – I actually struggling with a stamp set and design for this card………..

I hunted through my stash and took out several stamps to consider, but as you can see – I finally settled on Altenew ‘Celebrations‘ stamp set and this little bouquet image, along with a sentiment from the same stamp set.

I stamped it on a separate piece of card first and tried several variations of colour with my Copics, then decided on this layout, and these colours. The stamp itself is quite sketchy – so I went that way with the colouring too – no shading, and not quite filling in the leaves and flowers.

It ended up being a one layer card – very, very unusual for me – but I am really pleased with how this looks.

I hope you can play along this week, and I look forward to seeing what you can create. :)

Love and Best Wishes

Hello again. It seems crafting is a good distraction for me today, and I have been able to create a couple of cards. My puddy tat is still doing alright, and in fact seems a little better with moving around as he is on an anti-inflammatory…….he even jumped onto my craft desk this afternoon. He’s not been up there for weeks!

Here is the card he interrupted, so it took me much of the afternoon:

The scribble is a Tim Holtz die and the tags are from MFT. The card stock is Stampin Up. The little stamps are from Uniko, a set I have had for a while, and like to use when I am trying to fill some space, and there are lots of little stamps in these sets.

The layout AND the colours are the double trouble (!!) challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches this week. I shall also be entering this into the current challenge at Crafty Gals Corner, asking for a CAS card, and Just Us Girls – asking for a card with the word prompt being ‘Love’.

This second card:

is based on the colours from Color Throwdown, to use Aqua, saffron, brown, and yellow; the layout sketch is from Freshly Made Sketches.

The stamp set is a new one from Altenew – courtesy of Seven Hills Crafts (again!!). I buy most of my American stamp and dies sets from there, as the price is always good, and the delivery is 99% within a 48 hours time frame. (I think I need to take shares in that company………..!!)

Anyhoo – I used the set of brown Altenew inks for the Primrose – why?, I hear you ask – well, because I could, and because I like brown flowers…..I was in a floral mood today, but not a bright flowery colourful floral mood, but I am definitely going more vibrant with these flowers in the very, very near future – the detail is a good as one has come to expect from Altenew, and I can’t wait to see these flowers in the purples and the reds and the pinks and the yellows and the……well, you get my drift.

The first layer of the leaves was stamped in yellow, the second layer in Saffron, and the third layer in one of the browns – who knew that would work as good as this for leaves?

The aqua you can see, is Aquatini from Catherine Pooler, blended onto the base rectangle, and the sentiment strips are from a Sue Wilson die set and stuck down after putting them through my Xyron.

I hope you are getting some crafting done yourself – have a good one, and I’ll catch you again real soon. :)

Bronze Thanks

Hi there. I have a CAS card to share with you today:

I took refuge in my craft room, as I may have to put one of my puddy tats to sleep this next week, and sought some challenges I could mix together. I have just received my Concord and 9th Turnabout Toolkit too, so I thought I would combine all things, play around a little and see what came up.

I used two green inks and two brown inks for the turnabout stamp – masking off the top and bottom – keeping the card quite neutral.

The sentiment is stacked four times with white card stock, with the uppermost letters being embossed with a bronze embossing powder to create some dimension and shine, which I think shows better in the first picture.

I do have to get my head around a couple of other things – I continue to be on the Design Team for ABC Christmas Challenge, and the new challenge starts next week, and I am also the Guest designer for CASology this coming week. What a roller-coaster I am having at the moment!

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

AAA Cards – use up to one third, optional masking

Watercooler challenges – anything goes

Addicted to stamps – anything goes

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes