CAS

Simple Christmas

Hello everyone. I have remiss in my blogging recently, as I have been busy with work and family ‘stuff’. I have doing a little colouring and playing the past few days, and trying to build a stock of Christmas cards for a charity thingy in a few weeks.

Here is an example of one – including my attempt at alcohol marker colouring! (I think I need to get the grey’s a little less blendy!)

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I used the Lawn Fawn ‘Quilted Backdrop‘ die for the – well – backdrop……and layered with foam pads to create a little dimension.

The little hippo is from Clearly Besotted – ‘Hippo Christmas’ – and coloured with Altenew Alcohol Markers. I love these markers, but am finding a problem with colouring of animals – browns and greys etc…….I may have to invest in some Copics! Any ideas on colours I should purchase?

I am not a huge fan of colouring, and actually struggle with sitting down to do it. I have quite a few hippos and deer and penguins stamped – just not coloured. I don’t know why I don’t just get them coloured – maybe it’s because I find colouring a ‘task’, and not something I would think to turn to for relaxing……I’ll keep looking at the YouTube videos and keep trying…..

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps – Holiday

Allsorts Challenge – Christmas

The Holly and the Ivy Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Christmas at Sweet Stamping – anything goes Christmas

 

 

A Tweet note

Here I have a one layer very clean and simple card following the colours and sketch layout of a couple of challenges:

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I used the MFT ‘A Tweet Hello’ stamp set and three of the little birdy images, stamped directly onto the card base, and coloured with my Zigs. I don’t have the exact Stampin Up colours named on the challenge, but I tried to match as best I could. The sentiment is from the same stamp set. (And…………no smudges. Yay!)

I had this set in mind as I have a colleague going through some exam issues at the moment, and I liked the sentiments.

The colours of the birds are from the current challenge at Just Add Ink, and the layout from the current sketch challenge at CASE(E) This Sketch.

Trying to photograph this card in the fading light was a challenge, but I had a little help:

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This is Rosie, otherwise known as Girly Girl or Fluffy One. It all depends on what we feel like calling her, and whether she is in an affectionate mood – or not! Having lost one of our two cats at 14 years of age earlier this year, we decided to obtain not one cat as companion for our main big boy – Spike – but two more cats. She has a brother Jim – …..Rosie and Jim. 12 years old from the Cat Protection League. I am sure he’ll appear in a card photo in the future……

🙂

 

Altenew Folksy Florals

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Hello there. I have a bright and cheerful one layer, clean and simple card for you today. I was playing with this new stamp set from Altenew – ‘Folksy Florals’ – and decided that these stamps are just crying out for bright and vibrant colours.

As some off the stamps are solid, I turned to my Catherine Pooler inks, as they give great coverage from the get-go.

I played around with the colours, and just swapped and changed for each flower, leaves, and stem. The sentiment is also from the same stamp set, just mixing around the multitude of words and phrases you are supplied with. Who says you can’t have blue, purple and orange leaves?

I didn’t actually follow their guide for stamping and adding the different bits to each flower, and just went with the flow. It was actually quite hard to stop myself, so much so that I carried on and created some backgrounds with this set – I just kept stamping and stamping.

I shall be entering the current challenge at Addicted To Stamps, with the theme of ‘clean and simple‘.

Have a great day, and I’ll catch up with you soon – but not until I have watched the England match this afternoon!

Hello Lovely…

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Hello everyone. I have one card to share with you today – and at the end of the post a photograph of my car boot after an Ikea shopping trip……!!!!!!

This card is the first one layer card I created without any smudges, without trying to get it done at least twice, so I just had to post it.

I used Altenew ‘Simple Shapes XL‘ stamp set, and Catherine Pooler inks. These stamps are quite large solid images, and Catherine Pooler inks just make life so much easier for this kind of stamping. I didn’t stamp any of the shapes more than once – and I hadn’t even used most of them before, so they were brand new. I have had them for ages, but never used them!

I did use my Misti – just in case – which again makes life easier, and just played with the different shapes. I didn’t have a plan for them, I just knew I wanted a rainbow effect with the colours. I arranged the inks around my mat, started with the pink at the bottom left, and just went with it.

As the colours are bold, I used a bold and black sentiment from The Ton ‘Peony Notes‘ as that was on my desk from the other day. A large sentiment, and I used Catherine Pooler ‘Midnight‘ ink to get a dark black and crisp image. I did need to stamp that a couple of times with my Misti, but I think it’s because I didn’t let the other inks dry enough.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

AAA cards – CAS geometric

Addicted to CAS – CAS rainbow

Now – for the Ikea shop. Ikea opened in Sheffield last year, and this is the first time I’ve been. I’m trying to organise and sort out my craft room. It’s a fairly small room, and at the moment there is stuff everywhere – in boxes, disorganised on shelves…….this shopping trip should help!!! 🙂 Thank goodness it all fit. I don’t think I’ve put the back seats down before. Maybe I should have taken the Transit van……but perhaps that would have too dangerous! (not that this wasn’t bad enough!) I’ll let you know what hubby says…….

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Oh My Stars!

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Hi there. A quick card for you today, without any die cutting. I know – after the past couple of postings, I was kinda all die cut out……so I made this card with stamping only. I was going for a clean and simple look – which I believe I achieved.

I used the small three star stamp from Concord and 9th ‘Shine On‘ stamp set, stamping the outline in Catherine Pooler ‘Midnight’ ink, then filling-in with an Altenew orange ink.

The sentiment is from a Uniko stamp set, again stamped in ‘Midnight’ ink.

There’s not much more to say about the card, so I’ll leave it at that – except to say I will be entering the following challenges:

CAS(E) This Sketch – sketch

Inkspirational Challenges – use small stamps

Addicted to Stamps Challenge – black and white and one colour

Our banner for your blog

CASology ‘Pearl’

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So here it – my guest designer spot for CASology. Here is the cue card:

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I was initially going with a wedding anniversary card for hubby, as it is our Pearl anniversary at the beginning of July. 30 years married – I obviously got married very, very young. 🙂

However, I was looking at something to colour in a pearly kinda way, but came across these couple of dies from Stampin Up. I thought the sentiment would be great for a clean and simple card. I did think about colouring the star in a pearl colour, but I decided to go with adding some pearls to it instead. Even though there are quite a few pearls, I still think it gives a clean and simple look, a symmetrical look for the pearls, and as the card is only in two colours – except the pearls – it remains quite clean.

I also used  a Catherine Pooler die from a previous Stamp Of Approval for the postage stamp layer to add some more simple detail.

I hope you are able to join this challenge with us, and I look forward to seeing what you create. I always enjoy seeing how these cue cards ate interpreted by other people, from the more traditional to the more quirky.

 

 

Wow!

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Hello again. I am posting this card early today, as I want to settle down and watch the build-up to ‘The Wedding’. I may not have time to craft until later, so I wanted to get in early.

This card is inspired by the colours from CAS Colours and Sketches, and using my new purchase from Uniko. I have had this stamp set for a while, but Bev has just released the matching dies – so here we are.

I ink smooshed some ‘Pacific Point’ onto my Tim Holtz glass mat, and ran some water-colour card through it. I did this yesterday, whilst my hands were still mucky from the ink smooshing I did for the previous card – the Peony Dream 3D. I didn’t totally wet the card down, nor add too much water to the ink, as I wanted some of the card texture to come through.

I then ink smooshed some of the ‘So Saffron‘ and ‘Pear Pizzazz‘ so I could die cut the explosions out and layer them together.

The sentiments are from the same stamp set, also with the matching die around the ‘WOW’.

I seem to be making some encouragement cards recently, and aren’t they great to have in your stash? I think this card also looks quite masculine, which I struggle to make generally.

I shall also be entering the anything goes challenge with QKR Stampede.