Colour Me Playful 95 FMS 210

Today I've been a little experimental and a little playful, in keeping with the Colour Me Playful challenge at Colour Me this week.

For further inspiration, I used this week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

I bought the No Bones About It dinosaur set because it was a bit playful and because my own children had a dinosaur obsession going on for much of their childhood, as did I. So, it seemed a good chance to use it - I've been a bit too attached to butterflies of late!

Ingredients

Card: Cucumber Crush, Whisper White, Real Red, Tangelo Twist, So Saffron

Stamps: No Bones About It

Ink: Cucumber Crush, Real Red, Tangelo Twist, So Saffron, Tuxedo Black

Other: Circle Framelits, Letter Thinlits, dimensionals.

As You See It 110

I can't believe how close Christmas is - it seems last Christmas only just happened. So I couldn't help but see a Christmas card in this week's sketch challenge at As You See It. Please join us for this wonderful sketch challenge.

I've flipped the sketch and simplified the shape of the central panel but made up for that by using a lot more patterns than I usually go for in a card. Love those rich colours though... just delicious.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Merry Moments DSP, Crumb Cake, Mossy Meadow, Cherry Cobbler, gold glimmer card
Stamps: Festival of Trees, Holly Jolly Greetings
Ink: Mossy Meadow, Crumb Cake
Other: Circle framelit, Scallop thinlit from Circle card set, Christmas Greeting thinlits, dimensionals

Paper Players 268

I've spent most of this week without any kind of creative juice but as it rolled around to Friday night, the hint of a smidgeon of an idea wormed its way out. I'd been interested in the sketch at The Paper Players ever since I'd seen it on the first day and now, when there's only hours until the deadline, I finally got it working for me. It's such a great little sketch, that I'd like to use it again sometime.

I have been in a Christmas card frame of mind lately and although I usually avoid snowy scenes, since Christmas is a summer event for us, this one just formed itself. 

The white tree was resist embossed: white embossing powder then sponged with Lost Lagoon with the snow line masked out. The white embossing powder had a tiny bit of Iridescent Ice mixed in, which gives it a hint of a sparkle, in real life. The other trees were added using Lost Lagoon that had been stamped off to various degrees. The 'peace' was die-cut and stacked but I trimmed the long ends of the 'p' and 'e' so the sentiment was more proportional to the rest of the design.

Update: So delighted to have this card selected as A Cut Above at The Paper Players.

Ingredients

Card: Heavy weight Whisper White, Pear Pizzazz, scrap of Lost Lagoon, Winter Wonderland (2014) DSP, Silver glimmer paper.

Stamps: Festival of Trees

Ink: Lost Lagoon, Versamark

Other: Christmas Greeting thinlits, circle framelits, silver trimming cord, Something Borrowed embellishment, dimensional, white/iridescent ice embossing powder.

CAS Colours and Sketches 147

One of the many advantages of a long weekend is the chance to spend more time in my craft room, so I've taken the sketch challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches on.

I guess Christmas trees was the obvious choice but the early arrival of summer on this Labour Day holiday put Christmas thoughts out the window temporarily and butterflies came in instead!

Originally, I intended to make the front butterfly Watermelon Wonder on White with a Watermelon Wonder under-butterfly, so I stamped the other butterfly off first to make it paler. However, the difference in colour just wasn't enough to make them stand out from each other, so I clear embossed onto Watermelon Wonder and this worked much better.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Watermelon Wonder
Stamps: Butterfly Basics, Summer Silhouette
Ink: Crumb Cake, Watermelon Wonder, Mint Macaron, Tip-top Taupe, Versamark
Other: Clear embossing powder, dimensionals, Butterfly thinlit, pearls, Early Espresso Stampin' Write marker.

In{k}spire me 221

I had to make time this week for the challenge at In{k}spire Me because the colours on offer are favourites of mine. Blackberry Bliss and Mossy Meadow are divine together.

It's a long weekend here - four days of holiday. We've had one day of summer, one day of rain and now another day of summer. Hopefully tomorrow does not complete the pattern! But with the promise of summer just around the corner, I've been having a bit of a love affair with Summer Silhouette for the last couple of weeks. Today is no exception.

The background is sponged with Blackberry Bliss and Mossy Meadow and then I flicked it with water then quickly mopped it up. Then I stamped some flowers in Blackberry, built up the leaves with Mossy Meadow and Blackberry. Then finally added in some gold embossed flowers and leaves.

I'm pretty happy with the overall effect.

Ingredients

Card: Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White, Gold foil, watercolour paper

Stamps: Summer Silhouette, Crazy for You

Ink: Blackberry Bliss, Mossy Meadow, Versamark

Other: Gold embossing powder,  Blackberry Bliss satin ribbon, die from Circle Flip Card framelit, dimensionals.

As You See It 109 - Colour

This week's challenge at As You See It is an interesting colour combination. The warm days we've been having this week are making me think summer's almost here and that I should be out in the garden combatting those burgeoning weeds. As tempting as the garden might be... I compromised and got out my Summer Silhouette set instead!

I thought I'd be bold and make my white space, black space for a bit of drama. I made my sky like this because I recently observed a sunset from a plane and thought how pretty that moment just before the sun finally disappears is.

And I also really liked the inside of this card too.

Ingredients
Card: Black, Whisper White
Stamps: Summer Silhouette, Happy Birthday Everyone
Inks: Tangelo Twist (don't have any Pumpkin Pie), Lost Lagoon, Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark.
Other: White embossing powder, dimensionals, rhinestones, Itty Bitty Butterfly punch, Tangelo Twist baker's twine, White gel pen, sponges.

Connie and Mary 377

Really, I should be in bed asleep as it's a work day tomorrow but I wanted to finish this card!
At first, I didn't like the sketch at Create with Connie and Mary this week but it must have struck a subliminal chord because by the time I got home from work and got the chores done, I knew what I had to do.

Earlier in the year, I experimented with a faux metal technique and I wanted to try it again. So I created the background paper using that technique and used the colours in the metalwork for the strips. It possibly worked better with the Beautifully Baroque embossing folder, but this is a nice change that also works well. It is quite difficult to photograph to show the lovely metallic glimmer over the faux metallic surface that makes it a lively card in the real world. 

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White, Early Espresso, Lost Lagoon, Pear Pizzazz

Stamps: Crazy for You, Summer Silhouette, Petite Petals

Ink: Sahara Sand, Pear Pizzazz, Lost Lagoon, Early Espresso, Versamark

Other: Gold embossing powder, Elegant Dots embossing folder, sponges, Lost Lagoon ribbon, Petite Petals punch, Early Espresso candy dots.