CAS Colours and Sketches 258

Just a quick post this morning. I loved the colours at CAS Colours and Sketches this week. They just screamed floral so I got out my Altenew Peony Bouquet set. It's so lovely, it needs little else with it. Everything is directly stamped onto the card front except the central bloom which is die cut and popped up on dimensionals.

Update: Delighted to be a Top Pick at CAS Colours and Sketches this week.

Ingredients - all products Stampin' Up unless otherwise stated
Card: Powder Pink, Whisper White
Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, Stampin' Up Big on Birthdays and Timeless Textures
Inks: Tuxedo Black, Powder Pink, Berry Burst, Wild Wasabi
Other: Altenew Peony Bouquet dies, Glitter enamel dots in Berry Burst, dimensionals

Retro Rubber 75 - DT Card

We had some really clever takes on our last sketch challenge at Retro Rubber.  I look forward to seeing what you do with this new challenge. It's a colour challenge - all you have to do is use the colours in the picture as inspiration and make sure you use stamps older than a year to make your card.

I liked the weathered grey look of the seat, so chose that as the background for my flowers. The purples and pinks took my eye the most and so I made those my main colours. I used the Pinewood Planks dynamic textured impression embossing folder for the wood grain then lightly sponged the surface with Smoky Slate to bring out the texture further.

The stamps are both stamps I've had for a while. The sentiment is Winnie&Walter's Big, Bold and Party which I got soon after I started serious stamping, so sometime late 2014/early 2015. The gorgeous blooms are Altenew's Peony Bouquet. I'm not sure of the date but I've had them for about eighteen months.  They are so very, very beautiful and I wanted to try out my new Stampin' Blend alcohol markers. I've never had alcohol markers before, so I felt like a kid on Christmas morning!

So, today my watermark is wrong - images are not by Stampin' Up but Altenew.

If you'd like to join us at Retro Rubber, we'd love to see what you do. The rules are really easy: Use a stamp that's at least a year old, tell us the approximate age of it and don't link up to more than ten challenges in total.

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below.

Ingredients - Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted.

Card: Smoky Slate, Whisper White

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, W&W Big, Bold and Party

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Smoky Slate

Stampin' Blends: Rich Razzleberry, Pink Pirouette, Old Olive - lights and darks, Colour Lifter pen

Other: Altenew Peony Bouquet dies, Pinewood Planks impressions folder, Enamel shapes, dimensionals, sponges

The Paper Players 328

With the summer holidays drawing to a close and return to work looming large, I did not want to waste a chance to play at The Paper Players.

Today was yet another experiment for me. I wondered how things would turn out if I had one bold flower against outlines of foliage, almost acting as a kind of spotlight. I do love Altenew's Peony Bouquet as it's so dramatic and quite challenging to use. It's a multi-step stamp, and I've used the whole four steps for the peony but have only used the outlines for the buds and foliage in the background. I masked them to create a foliage background.

Since this was a friendship card, a yellow flower seemed the right choice.

As this was an experiment, I also made one on a white background with black ink. Sadly, that one just did not look anywhere near as effective has been consigned to the snippets bin.

Update: Delighted to be A Cut Above at The Paper Players this week!

Ingredients

Card: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, So Saffron

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, Stampin' Up Thoughtful Banners

Inks: Early Espresso, So Saffron, Hello Honey, Delightful Dijon, Tuxedo Black

Other: So Saffron enamel dots, Peony Bouquet die, dimensionals

Cas(e) This Sketch

It looks as though this is a week for experiments: one yesterday and now one today. When I bought Altenew's Peony Bouquet, two things appealed to me: the multilayered stamping option and the option to use just the outline stamp for water colouring. I've done a few of the former but today is the first attempt at the latter. Inspiration came from the beautiful sketch at Cas(e) This Sketch.

So glad to have this stamp in my collection. Other than some stamps used, everything else is Stampin' Up.

Update: Delighted to be a CTS Favourite!

Ingredients

Card: Old Olive, watercolour paper, Whisper White

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, W&W Big, Bold and Party, SU Gorgeous Grunge and Timeless Textures

Inks: Rose Red, Old Olive, Soft Sky, versamark

Other: white embossing powder, dimensional, aquapainter, silver metallic thread, metallic shapes

Case this Sketch 201

I thought I was over making Christmas cards but the sketch at Cas(e) This Sketch this week gave me a chance to try out an idea I've been thinking on for a few days. I've been thinking about using non-Christmas stamps for Christmas cards, like this beautiful peony from Altenew's Peony Bouquet set.

Here is Cas(e) This Sketch's inspiration:

And here is my non-Christmas stamp Christmas card. The main image might not be a Christmas stamp but you can't get a much more traditional colourway than Cherry Cobbler and Gold.

It was also my first play with using Shimmery White cardstock to watercolour on. It does have a lovely shimmer in the paper too, that worked well wiht the gold embossing.

Lots of masking happened also in this card. The flower was masked to add the leaves and both were masked out the add the starry background. 

I'd certainly be happy to be sent this card, so I hope the eventual recipient will too!

Ingredients

Card: Cherry Cobbler, Gold foil, Shimmery white cardstock

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, Stampin' Up Holly Jolly Greetings and Holly Berry Happiness

Inks: Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Versamark, Gold

Other: Gold embossing powder, post-it notes, water and paintbrush.

Freshly Made Sketches 264

Sometimes, when you buy a stamp set, you just get obsessed with it. That's what's happened with one of my recent purchases, Altenew's Peony Bouquet. I've used it several times of late and here it is again in this card inspired by the this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

The aspect I like the most about this sketch is the way the round element breaks out of the panel it's in and nudges into the card base. That's what I wanted my flower (round element) to do.

I like the way my SU stuff fits so well with any stamp set.

Ingredients

Card: Hello Honey, Old Olive, Whisper White

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, SU Timeless Textures and Sunshine Sayings

Inks: SU Old Olive, So Saffron, Delightful Dijon, Wild Wasabi, Memento Tuxedo Black.

Other: SU Softly Falling embossing folder, Hello Honey satin stitched ribbon, Altenew Peony Bouquet dies, dimensionals.

Paper Players 318, LIM Acetate

I've had the most fabulous long weekend away with a friend while our respective husbands were off doing their own thing. The only negative to the scenario was the lack of card-making opportunities!

This morning, while checking out my feeds, I discovered two lovely and compatible challenges. The sketch at The Paper Players, one of my favourite challenges, was gorgeous - as usual.

Meanwhile, it was recipe week at Less is More and the recipe was to use acetate or vellum.

I recently purchased some magnificent foil acetate. Like many of my paper purchases, it seemed destined to end up suffering from "I-can't-use-you-you're-too-beautiful syndrome." Fortunately, I managed to overcome that for today's card...

I'm also still very much in the in-love phase with my new Altenew Peony Bouquet set. I'm still playing with it a lot, trying out new colours and uses. This is normally not a colourway I'd use but the apricots and oranges do seem to work well with black and gold.

Update: Delighted to be a Cut Above at The Paper Players this week.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Whisper White, Foil acetate

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, SU Zoo Babies (retired for the sentiment)

Inks: Tuxedo Black, versamark, Peekaboo Peach, Calypso Coral, Tangelo Twist, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive

Other: gold embossing powder, Peony Bouquet dies

Freshly Made Flowers

Today's card is inspired by two challenges: the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and the 'anything goes floral' theme at a brand new challenge, The Flower Challenge.

Update: Utterly delighted to be chosen as The Queen of Clean at Freshly Made Sketches.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Whisper White, Blushing Bride, Blushing Bride DSP

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, W&W Big, Bold and Party

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Pear Pizzazz, Blushing Bride, Flirty Flamingo, Rose Red

Other: Peony Bouquet die, Basic Gray marker to colour cut edges, sequins (unknown provenance), dimensionals

FMS 255

As I talked about yesterday, I've both been on holiday and have received some new stamps that arrived while I was gone. Today, I spent some time acquainting myself with the second of the Altenew sets I bought, Peony Bouquet. Beautiful - but the flowers are four step stamps, so quite a bit of practice was required! To focus my thinking, I was aiming to produce a card for the challenge at Freshly Made Sketches this week.

Yesterday's playing also reacquainted me with Delightful Dijon, a colour I usually by-pass but it got another outing today.

I've stamped the multi-layered leaves and grunge splatters directly onto the card but die cut the flowers so I could build up some dimension - and so I could play around with the matching framelits.

Update: So very delighted to be a Perfectly Made Princess this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

Ingredients

Card: Delightful Dijon, Old Olive, Whisper White

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, SU Touches of Texture and Timeless Textures, W&W Big, Bold and Party.

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, So Saffron, Hello Honey and Delightful Dijon

Other: Peony Bouquet framelits, Sparkle embossing folder, dimensionals