CAS

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. :)

Colour Layering Trimmings

Hello everyone. I am pleased and excited to announce that here is the first post as fully-fledged Design team member at ABC Christmas Challenge.

The current challenge is the start of the New Year, and the start of the alphabet. Goodness – there are some amazing themes coming up – I hope you can play along. I have discovered an amazing and friendly team, I have learnt how to use blogger – a little, anyway – and I’ve discovered that I’m going to be making Christmas cards all year long. All. Year. Long.

All those will be posted here, and will all be posted on Instagram. Please say hello when you see our cards.

The first challenge is ‘A’ and ‘B’, of course. The theme being anything goes, and/or berries. Now, I hunted everywhere for berry stamps or dies, and couldn’t find anything with berries that I really wanted to use. What I did find, was this unused, yet been with me for ages, Hero Arts Colour Layering Trimmings stamp and dies.

Here is the card – anything goes (Christmas):

I stamped the layers of the leaves on a white piece of card, then added to a green and white card base – then stamped some more, die cut them, and added to the edge for dimension.

I wanted to give the impression of a Christmas Tree hanging over the edge of the card.

I hope you are able to come and join the fun, and I look forward to seeing your makes – and I even get to comment officially now – yay!

I shall also be entering this card into the following challenges:

AAA cards – three of something – (three added branches)

Clean and Simple on Friday – CAS Christmas card

The Alphabet Challenge blog – ‘T’ for Trees

Joy Wreath dies

Hello there. Having time to craft today, I started off with one project – and came up with this one. Does that happen to anyone else?

It’s only a few more days until I begin my first challenge as Design Team member for the ABC Christmas Challenge, but in the meantime I have this card for you:

I was looking for some holly stamps – for some reason I don’t have many that I could put my hands on – then I remembered my Catherine Pooler ‘box’. I have a whole storage box where I put my Catherine Pooler stamps and dies – there is a bunch of stamps I’ve never used, and I came across this die set from the Winterhaven collection.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m learning all about alcohol markers – Spectrum Illustrators and Copics. I recently bought some Copics from Ebay – and I really, really see the attraction. What amazing pens these are – totally fallen for them. And – I think I’ve developed a ‘full set’ syndrome……help me now!

I’ve been doing a little internet searching and currently reading all about Copics from the Copic Marker Tutorial page, and the Kit and Clowder tutorials. Still not feeling relaxed and chilled when colouring, but enjoying the process of learning.

This card is made from the die cut wreath, with the individual parts coloured simply with Copics, and adhered to the card base.

The sentiment is cut from a Copic coloured piece of card, with several layers underneath for just that little dimension.

I may have to return to my craft room to complete the project I was initially going to do – I think I can manage that. :) :)

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

Stamplorations CAS card challenge – CAS with option to use green

CASology – CAS Holly

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!)

20181013_130118 20181013_130124

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:

20180724_200828

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:

20180724_200822

20180724_200631

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

20180706_161725

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…

20180619_202221

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…….

IMG-20180620-WA0000

Oh My Stars!

20180619_202236

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

CASology ‘Pearl’

20180609_100322

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

Week 304 - Pearl.jpg

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!

20180518_164923

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.

loopyloocards