Stampin Up

July Sketch and colours

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Good morning, afternoon, or evening. I seem to be continuing my fixation with Altenew. There always seems to be a stamp set appropriate for any of the challenges I use for inspiration.

This card and design was inspired by the challenge from CASology – Diamond being the theme word, and CAS Colours and Sketches, with a colour theme this time – Night of Navy, Powder Pink, and Soft Sky. These are Stampin Up colours, and even though I don’t have the Soft Sky – I used my Lawn Fawn ‘Mermaid’ – I like the way they look together. I sense a play with these colours on perhaps a floral layout…….

The large stamp set is Altenew ‘Pattern Play – Hexagon’, which I stamped using my Tim Holtz stamping platform. It is a BIG stamp. And even though I knew I only wanted a portion of the stamped image – cut down using my Cutterpillar – (blinking marvellous machine) – I stamped the whole stamp for using the remainder on another card.

I stamped the main image in ‘Powder Pink’, the diamond inserts with ‘Mermaid’, and the sentiment from the same stamp set in ‘Night of Navy’. Not one smudge – so proud of myself. I seem to smudge even when using a stamping platform, maybe I am now doing it right!

You can see from my posts that I am trying different positions and different lighting for photographing. This one is a rusty bird bath on a large stone waterfall feature. I know it looks dirty, but I do think it brings out the crispness of the card and the colours – do you agree?

three toning colours

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Hi everyone. Another later posting for today.

This very simple one layer card is inspired by the colours from The Paper Players – Sweet Sugarplum, Berry Burst, Rich Razzleberry – and the challenge of a one layer card from Tuesday Throwdown.

I used some stamps from Catherine Pooler Foundations box, and stamped away…..the only time I used my Misti was for the solid sentiment stamp, but other than that – just stamped. I also used some smaller flower variations to fill in the gaps after stamping the larger images.

The smaller sentiment was masked off with a post-it note to stamp some of the flowers around it – getting the practise in – and kept the flowers on the left hand side, as you can see. I quite like the effect of stamping on one side, or the top or bottom, and I may have more plays with that in the future, when I batch make cards.

I shall be entering the challenges named above with this card.

 

 

 

Hello Sunshine Flowers

Hi everyone. A later posting today, as it took me so long to sort out the placement of this flower and leaves. I had an idea in my head, but just couldn’t get it right. It seems to be a running theme with me these days – taking ages to plan my layout…..

This card has been inspired by the colours from Just Add Ink, and the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.

I used my Altenew stamp and die set ‘Hello Sunshine’, stamping the flower in black on some Whisper White cardstock, but the leaves in a softer grey. I don’t have the Smokey Slate from Stampin Up, so used Evening Grey from Altenew. I thought the leaves would be too stark if stamped in black, and I wanted a softer look for them.

The flower I stamped in black, and coloured all of them in Lemon Lime Twist, using my water brush on the ink pad casing. I must say, this is now one of my favourite colours. I love it. It comes a very close second to the Catherine Pooler ‘Lime Rickey’ ink – love them both.

The sentiment is from Altenew – Wood Pallet Background. I was going to use the wood pallet, but I used my We R Memory Keepers next level embossing folder instead, to give a trellis look. (I need to move away from the trellis look, I think!)

I stamped the banner in Crumb Cake, as well as the sentiment, and cut it out. And – no die cut for this! All my own snappy scissor work……. :)

The base card is Crumb Cake, layered with the Whisper White embossed layer, the sentiment added with 3D glue gel, and the flower and leaves stuck behind this.

So – Whisper white is used for the stamping and the embossed layer, Lemon Lime Twist for the colouring, Crumb Cake for the base card, and Evening Grey instead of Smoky Slate for the outline of the leaves.

Challenges I will be entering:

CAS(E) This Sketch – sketch

Just Add Ink – colour combination

QKR Stampede – anything goes

 

 

Poinsettia

Hi everyone. Today’s card is a mixture of colours and sketch and Christmas. I have been waiting to use my Altenew ‘Poinsettia and Pine’ stamp and die set, but couldn’t get my head around a layout – until I saw the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. I then had something to work with.

I used that sketch as a layout, and the colours from CAS Colours and Sketches – Lemon Lime Twist, Berry Burst, and Island Indigo. I have just had a Stampin Up delivery, so I had my first two colours, but I didn’t have Island Indigo. I turned to my paper stash, and found a sample of what I think is Island Indigo, and used a strip of designer series paper to complete the sketch and colours theme. I used this side of the paper as I think it looks icy and wintery.

The poinsettia is stamped and heat embossed, then coloured with Berry Burst using my water colour brush, straight from the lid of the ink pad, the same with the two leaves using Lemon Lime Twist. I die cut them with the matching die set, and then thought about the layout – where to put the leaves and twigs.

Once decided, I stuck the flower down with 3D glue, then ‘shoved’ the leaves and twigs underneath after putting some Cosmic Shimmer glue on the tips. I did add some Crafters Companion glittery pen to the flower, but I couldn’t photograph that to show you – you’ll have to pretend you can see the glimmer.

The three stars are from Stampin Up ‘Birthday Blast’ in Berry Burst and Catherine Pooler ‘Aquatini’ – which I think is a pretty good match.

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches – sketch

CAS Colours and Sketches – three colours

Christmas Card Challenges – anything goes Christmas

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

 

?Pizza

I’m having a little titter to myself as I post this card. I can’t believe I’m actually posting it, but it’s brought me some giggles. I am sure from the title of the post that you can see what the theme of the challenge is that I made this card for……..

The cue card is from Casology – ‘Pizza‘. So, I don’t have any pizza stamps or dies, I don’t have anything I could turn my mind to for a real pizza, or anything I could turn use to even come close to representing a pizza. I have been thinking about this for a couple of days now, and was at a total loss.

Until I was driving to work yesterday, was stopped at some traffic lights in Sheffield – outside a Dominoes Pizza place.

I immediately started giggling. I am sure the car in front must have thought I was a complete nutter! Then I thought – why not? It is following the theme of the challenge, Dominoes Pizza is international……….so here you are.

The actual domino took more thought……eventually I die cut two squares using my Stampin Up ‘Stitched Shapes Framelits’, then wondered how I was going to do the dots. I looked at my hole punch – not quite right. I looked at my Crop-a-dile – too small. I looked at my punches from Stampin Up – nothing seemed quite right.

So, while I kept thinking, I decided to tidy my craft table, and to put some things away. I always seem to have lots of stamps and dies just sitting there……anyone else do that? So – putting some of my stuff away, I came across a stamp set from Altenew ‘Simple Flowers’. Guess what – there are a couple of small round dots in that set.

Here we go – I took one of the dots, stamped it in my Ranger Perfect Medium, heat embossed with white opaque powder – and ended up with what you see above. I stuck both the squares down flat with some of my Tombow glue…….

I’m still giggling. We are supposed to have fun when we craft, aren’t we? I think this takes it to another level, though!

What do you think? Outside the box or what? (Pizza box, of course)

 

‘A’ for Avant Garden

Hi everyone. Today’s card was inspired by several challenges, including the colour and the theme.

The first challenge was from Color Throwdown and the challenge to use three colours – orange, green, and brown, the second challenge was from Just Add Ink with the challenge to just add ‘A’, and the third was from Inkspirational with the theme of ‘rural’.

Looking at the colours to use, I must admit I followed many of the inspirations already on the challenge from the other entrants, and thought of flowers. As I hadn’t used the ‘Avant Garden’ stamp set from Stampin Up for a while, I thought this water colour effect from the stamps would suit the orange colour, and of course the title of the stamp set begins with ‘A’.

As for Inkspirational – I was guest designer on the last challenge, and just had to try and enter this challenge also. Such a great theme – rural, and a fabulous card from the current guest designer.  I felt the Avant garden stamp set and the colours would suit just fine.

I used colours from my Stampin Up stash – Tengelo Twist, Old Olive, and Crumb Cake. I started with the three flowers, then used a masking technique to stamp some of the leaves. Now my masking technique does need a little work…..and my mask itself is a sticky note! I just placed it where I thought it needed to go, tore it if it didn’t need a 90 degree angle – and hey presto! And I didn’t use my Misti!

The sentiment is from IndigoBlu, a lovely set called ‘Nature 1’. I love the images on this set and have used them previously. Stamping the sentiment in brown instead of black really lends to a more muted effect, don’t you think?

weekend selection

 

Good morning everyone. I have a selection of cards for you today, as I have been playing with my Altenew ‘Build-a-flower: Aster’ stamp and die set. Now, I’ve had this set for quite a few weeks, ordered from Seven Hills Crafts in the middle of May. I had an initial little play with them, but I couldn’t do, I didn’t like it, I tried several times but I just couldn’t get it right. I don’t know whether it was the colours I was using, but I just didn’t like the effect of using all three layers.

Then – I watched the Altenew programme on Create and Craft yesterday, and she made it look so easy. Why on earth couldn’t I get the hang of this stamp set? So – I went and played again, chose the Sheena Douglass Stamping Card, Altenew inks, and went for it. And – you know what – I liked what I made. Mostly! I didn’t like the images with the outline, I must admit, so I only used the base and detail layer.

I made 8 flowers in total, using a variety of Altenew ink sets I had, played with the different base layer being the lightest or next to lightest colour and moved one colour up for the detail layer, and only one of the flowers didn’t really work well – you’ll see that shortly!

The two cards above will be entered into two different challenges.

The first one was made using the Altenew ‘Layered Plaid Cover Die’, which I’ll be entering into the Altenew June challenge, and Case this sketch challenge, and the second is for Freshly Made Sketches. One of them also being entered into the Allsorts Challenge for ‘Flower Power’.

I can hear you asking what I did with the six other flowers:

I made little cards with a sweet little word from Stampin Up ‘Sunshine Sayings’. Probably to be used a little gift cards, or notelets. I wanted to use them all, as otherwise they would just be left sitting there on my desk – amidst things I haven’t cleared away – yet! I won’t be entering these little cards into any challenges – they were ‘just for fun’.

 

 

 

Sketch Inspiration

Hi there, everyone. Despite it being very, very hot here in Chesterfield, UK, I have been in my craft room. I am not really a sun-bathing fan, except when on holiday somewhere with a beach, pool/sea, and a bar, so I have been in my cool room playing.

This card was inspired by the sketch from CAS Colours and Sketches, and I took the opportunity to use my new Catherine Pooler Stamp of Approval stamps. There is one huge stamp set with lots of different medallions on it, which all can be used individually or that quite a few of them fit inside one another.

I also used the Catherine Pooler inks ‘Lime Rickey’ and ‘Aquatini’ – love those colours.

The two circles are two stamps from that set, and I used a circle to mask the larger image when I stamped the smaller image to give the effect of one behind the other. The three smaller flowers are also from that same stamp set, with the sentiment using two words from separate stamp sets in that collection.

As I stamped the words in black, I added a strip of black paper from Stampin Up I had laying around.

I shall be entering this card into the following challenges:

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch

Brown Sugar Challenge – anything goes

Crafty Catz challenge – anything goes

 

 

Sketch and colours

Hi everyone. Today’s couple of cards are inspired by CAS Colours and Sketches. For this card, you had a sketch to follow, and also a selection of colours from Stampin Up. I didn’t have all the colours they suggested, and used Lost lagoon, Baja Breeze, and Watermelon Wonder instead. I hope they match enough for the challenge…….

I began with a 6 inch square white card base, and added a die cut from Sizzix/Tim Holtz ‘Scribbles and Splat’. I die cut the scribble twice and added it as a band as per the sketch, and decided to use the piece of card I used for die cutting as another band on a similar card – waste not, want not! I stuck the actual scribbles down using my little Xyron so I didn’t get glue all over the place.

For the main piece, I stamped the main flower from Stampin Up ‘Sunshine Sayings’ in the two different colours, and added some smaller flowers as fill-in from Catherine Pooler ‘Amazing Floral’ stamp set. I used all three colours at some point in the stamping.

The sentiment is from the same Catherine Pooler stamp set, in black, as I wanted a contrast to all the colours used, and I feel the flowers actually stand out more with the sentiment in black.

I think I’m getting the hang of less and less layers and embellishments, but I do like to revert back occasionally.

I will be entering the following challenges:

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch and colours

QKR Stampede – anything goes

Artistic Inspirations – anything goes with option of flowers

A bit more time to craft – anything goes

Mix it up challenge – anything goes with option of stamping

 

 

Sparkly Dragonfly

 

Hi there, I have been playing again. I actually haven’t stamped very much on this card, as I just felt the need to die cut and emboss. I took the opportunity to use the Detailed Dragon fly Thinlits from Stampin Up. I also have the matching stamp set, but today just used the die.

I started with the sketch inspiration from Mojo Monday, as I liked the clean-ness of this sketch, leaving a lot open to interpretation. I also had some of the Lawn Fawn ‘Narwhal’ card left over from the previous blog post. I think this grey card is a really nice colour, and decided to emboss a grey panel with the Sue Wilson ‘Climbing Vines’ embossing folder, to go on top of an embossed white panel. I embossed them both together, so the pattern flowed across both the colours.

After sticking that down to a white card base, I die cut the large dragonfly out of white glimmer paper from Stampin Up, and decided not to add any other layers to it, as I think this glimmer paper is gorgeous enough on it’s own.

The three strips I cut down and stamped with a line of hearts in white ink, layering them down as per the sketch.

The main shape is also from Sue Wilson ‘Porto’ die set, which I cut out of white and then in grey, off-setting them so you could see the white on the grey background, and grey on the white background. The embossed detail is from the same die set – just embossed and not cut, to add some detail to an otherwise blank tag.

I used Collall silicone glue to the back of the tag, as I could then insert the strips and play around with the positioning before it set solid. I often do the when I want to add items underneath another item, as it gives you plenty of time to position.

The dragonfly I stuck down with Cosmic Shimmer glue – my favourite go-to glue of all time – but only stuck down the centre body, bending the wings slightly for more dimension.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Mojo Monday – Sketch

A Bit More Time to Craft – anything goes

Crafty Catz – anything goes

Colour Crazy Craft Challenge – anything goes

Monochrome Magic – anything goes monochrome