Catherine Pooler die

Have a Beary Good Day…..

Hello once again. Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge has started their challenge for February. The theme this month is ‘inky’ – in a CAS style. Here is my card:

I knew I wanted to create an ink smooshed background – but how to keep it CAS? I decided to use two colours of Distress Inks, and smooshed them onto my craft met. I took a piece of water-colour card, added some water to one corner of it, and dropped in the two colours – drying between each colour. One of the layers must have been slightly wet still, so it created an almost orange or peach colour where they blended – which I quite like.

I then splattered those same two colours onto the piece of card.

Whilst that was drying, I stamped the images from the Time For Tea Designs stamp set, and coloured them with Copics, trying to find colours which were very similar – and throwing in a green one there for a different pop of colour.

After stamping the sentiment, I die cut them with the matching dies, and then decided which part of the inky background I wanted to use, and where, to keep things CAS.

I used a Catherine Pooler die set which I’ve had for ages, and cut the panel quite a bit smaller, then added the bear – some of him off the panel using foam pads, and some directly onto the panel with glue – the same with the sentiment.

The last thing to do was add some white gel pen for detail – which I tend to go over-board with but I believe I restrained myself here. I hope you can come and join us with your CAS ‘Inky’ creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Colour Crazy Challenge – week 4 – anything goes with colouring

Cutie Pie Challenge – CAS and a cute image

Nutcracker Christmas

Hello. A little playtime in my craft room created this last minute Christmas card:

The background on this slimlime card is covered with a light green glitter card, then a darker green glitter card over the top using a Catherine Pooler slimline die.

The images from Gerda Steiner Designs were stamped with Gina K Amalgam ink, then coloured with Copics, and then die cut.

All arranged as you see, to create a look like the mice are dancing around the little soldier. I love that one of the mice has her back to us – fits in great with what I wanted to achieve.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Jingle Belles Rock – Christmas

Classic Design Challenge – anything goes

Color Hues Challenge – red and green

INTAAS – use dies and/or punches

Christmas Blog Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Please feel free to copy to your sidebar

The Alphabet Challenge – Just One Word

As you can see from the title, as we have reached the letter ‘J’, the next theme at The Alphabet Challenge is ‘Just one word’. Here is my card:

I used the same technique as previously with the Altenew embossing paste and Prize Ribbon Distress paint to create the blue paste, then used a stripe stencil from Time 4 Tea Designs. The Altenew stamp set was used but not using any of the layers, to keep the circle image simple and clean against the blue striped background.

The blue panel was die cut with a die from Catherine Pooler, as I liked the postage stamp edge……

The ‘Hello’ sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp, and for this I layered it three times with white card, then took the Altenew orange ink, smooshed it onto another piece of card, then die cut that and placed on top of the other layers.

I hope you can come and join us with your ‘just one word’ creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Aud Sentiments – atg with a sentiment

Tuesday Taggers – simple design, simple to make

Craft Rocket Challenge – CAS

Happy Little Stampers Stencil Challenge – atg with a stencil

Flamingo and sketch

Hello there. As I am working tomorrow, and England has another football game tomorrow evening, I don’t think I’ll have time to craft – you never know. Here is a card I made to enter two challenges:

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I took my Distress Oxides and ink smooshed and water-coloured a piece of water-colour card. I wanted to have colours which wouldn’t over-power the flamingo pink, nor the vibrant green of the palm trees.

I took the sketch inspiration from CAS(E) This Sketch and die cut the banner/tag using a Catherine Pooler die, took the flamingo and trees from W Plus 9 ‘Flock Yeah‘, water-coloured them with my zigs, and arranged as you see.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set.

Here is another version:

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I have mentioned before that I struggle with clean and simple cards, but I really think I’m growing in that department. I think the key is to take inspiration from other card makers and challenges – I still like to make a card that is ‘full-on’ – but am actually enjoying my clean and simple journey.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CAS(E) This Sketch – sketch

CAS On Sunday – CAS water-colour

The Ton purchases

Hello everyone. I have a couple of cards to share with you today. Both of these cards are from new purchases which arrived yesterday – and I couldn’t wait to get stamping. This first card is using the ‘Holly Branch‘ stamp set:

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I took the layout from CAS Colours and Sketches and created a simple Christmas card, using the stamps and sentiment from this set. I also added some red glitter card to the top and bottom, and die cut the main piece with a Catherine Pooler die.

I shall be entering the following challenges with this card:

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch

Watercooler Challenges – Occasions

Time Out Challenges – Holidays

This second card: 20180617_140048

is using the colours from Color Throwdown and the newly purchased ‘Peony Notes‘ from The Ton. I also used a Catherine Pooler background stamp for the lines as a back-drop to my flowers. To make the pieces fit together, as opposed to putting one on top of the other, I just turned the die around. Almost like a paper piecing kind of thing.

These flowers are stunning, and I tried them in different colours – and probably made smudges and mistakes on most of them!!

This card will be entered into the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – Coral, Aqua, Yellow Green

4 Craft Chicks – anything goes

Daring Cardmakers – anything but white

Here is one of those smudgy mistakes – I’m still trying to figure out how I can save it! You see the green smudges on the yellow flower? How do I fix that? I may just have to bin this one and start again………….

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An Indoor Garden

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Hi there. I really enjoyed making this card with the Altenew ‘Indoor Garden‘ stamp and die set. I have had this set for absolutely ages – and never used it. The opportunity came when I saw the current challenge at Addicted To Stamps, and the theme for Inkspirational.

I took all of the images from the stamp set, and didn’t realise until I started that each image has several bits to stamp to complete each one. Actually – I had so much fun with the images coming together, and I am sure I will make more similar cards. I did stamp and die cut at least three of each – you have to fill your Misti, don’t you?

I used the Altenew ‘Soft Scoop‘ ink set, as although different colours, they work so well together. I also used some of my other green inks, for more variety, as I wanted the cacti themselves to be quite bright – but not too much.

The lined background is me taking a die cut from the Altenew ‘Gradient Stripes‘ cover die – just laying there on my desk – and using that as a mask. Not too correctly, and using three colours, to give an almost water-colour effect. I liked how this turned out – not too precise, but certainly a little something extra to the background.

Once I had placed the die cut images down, I looked for a ‘power‘ sentiment to match. My thought process in this…..cacti are strong, durable, and seem to survive almost anything – that is my ‘power‘ idea. I have a couple of friends going through some personal issues at the moment – and I thought this sentiment was ideal, taking from Altenew ‘Bamboo Rose‘ stamp set.

I hope you like it, and I hope you come back tomorrow to see what I have created for my guest designer spot on CASology……

Challenges I will be entering with this card:

Addicted To Stamps – photo inspiration

Inkspirational – power