Connie and Mary 408

The colour challenge at Connie and Mary this week seemed perfect for my new favourite stamp set, Wild About Flowers. Not a new set, it's new to me so I'm still experimenting with it and the soft pastels conjured up a summer field of flowers.

I like soft, dreamy result. Although I intended it to be a birthday card, it could be used for lots of things with this sentiment. 

Possibly the consumable item I will miss the most once the new catalogue is live, will be candy dots since I've used a lot of them with butterflies! What will you miss?

Update: Delighted to be a Top Pick at Create with Connie and Mary

Ingredients

Card: Blushing Bride, Whisper White

Stamps: Wild About Flowers, Papillon Potpourri, Endless Birthday Wishes

Inks: Blushing Bride, So Saffron, Mint Macaron, Tuxedo Black

Other: Lots of Labels framelits, Elegant Butterfly punch, Blushing Bride baker's twine, Mint Macaron dotty lace ribbon, Softly Falling embossing folder, So Saffron candy dot and brad base, dimensionals, sponges.

Masculine Birthday CAS 175 CF 148

It seems ages since I last made a card. Between going away last weekend and work stuff, it has indeed been a while. Necessity saw me in my room this afternoon though as tomorrow is my husband's birthday and a card was needed. He's hard to make a card for. Most 'male' stamp sets are just not him but golf is his passion.

The sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches gave me the idea of a golf ball in motion....

... and ended up with this card.

I cut the circles out with nesting framelits and then embossed them with a spotty-dotty folder. I used the debossed side and sponged the edges and one side to define the circles and to create a more 3-D look to the golf balls. The ball on the tee is on dimensionals.

The little grass stamp I found in a jumble box at the Church Fair a couple of years ago. The -RRIFIC I got by masking off part of the sentiment from No Bones About It - it was originally DINO-RRIFIC. The 'TEE' is made from little scrabble tiles from the leftovers of an old Kaisercraft sticker set. The golf tee started life as the letter T from the Little Letter framelits, with a wee scissor shave to make it more the right shape.

I hope he'll like it. Tomorrow will tell...

I'm also entering this card into the Birthday Boy challenge at CAS-ual Fridays.

Update: So delighted to be a Weekly Winner at CAS Colours and Sketches.

Ingredients

Card: Early Espresso base, Whisper White

Stamps: unknown Grass stamp, No Bones About It, W&W Big, Bold and Party

Inks: Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Wild Wasabi

Other: Little Letter framelits, Circle framelits, Swiss Dots embossing folder, sponges, dimensionals, Kaisercraft scrabble tile stickers.

As You See It 135 - DT card

If the number and quality of cards we got for our last challenge at As You See It is anything to go by, then it was a good move to make our challenges run for two weeks. SO hard to pick winners!

This time round we have another sketch for you.

Here's what I've come up with.

We'd love to see what you make of it too, so join us at As You See It during the next fortnight.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Watermelon Wonder, Cucumber Crush, Timeless Elegance DSP

Stamps: Botanical Blooms, Endless Birthday Wishes

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Watermelon Wonder

Other: Botanical Builders thinlits, Lots of Labels framelits, Lucky Stars embossing folder, Cucumber Crush dotty lace ribbon, Itty Bitty punch, rhinestone, dimensionals

Retro Rubber 38

I've followed along looking at Retro Rubber pretty much since it started but have never entered there before. The bowl of bright flowers in their most recent challenge was too enticing to pass up. It's autumn outside my window but you could be forgiven for thinking it was still summer, temperature-wise, even if the large drifts of golden leaves say otherwise. Bright tulips are a long way ahead!

I was also looking for a challenge that would let me play around with an idea I've had for a few days now. I like making cards that reveal a glimpse of somewhere else but I've not used acetate much before, although I had a play earlier in the week. In this card, the idea is a little more refined than my first attempt and I learned a lot of stuff along the way, so I think the next one will be better! 

It's also an experiment in another way. This is the first time I've used aqua-painters as I've always used a brush before.

Inside view

I masked and stamped in Stazon one of the flowers from Flower Shop. These I coloured using ink and an aquapainter although the centres are jazzed up with some black and white stippling using pens. Then I masked the flowers again and stamped in the leaves from Summer Silhouette. Some of them I watered and some I touched up with a marker to give some variation.

The ages of stamps used

Flower Shop was the third Stampin' Up set I ever got. It would have been around 2013.

Summer Silhouette I think has been in two catalogues.

The sentiment I got from a set I bought in a retired items sale at Stamp Camp in February called For You. It must have been retired by then, so I'm thinking must be older than a year.

Update: Utterly delighted to make the Top Picks at Retro Rubber.

Other items used

Card: Rich Razzleberry, Very Vanilla, watercolour paper, acetate window sheet

Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasabi, Stazon

Other: Black marker, White gel pen, aquapainter

Just Add Ink 311

The  challenge this week at Just Add Ink is to Just Add: Masking. I love masking. It's such a versatile technique and one of my favourite ways of using it is to create a background for a small collage or cluster of stamps. Since I was playing with the new in-colours and my newest stamp purchases Wild About Flowers and One Big Meaning, I ended up with this...

Ingredients
Card: Emerald Envy, Whisper White
Stamps: Wild About Flowers, One Big Meaning, Papillon Potpourri, Dictionary (retired)
Inks: Emerald Envy, Sweet Sugarplum, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Other: Bitty Butterfly punch, pearls, dimensional

Paper Craft Crew 194

Today was the first chance I've had to play with my pre-order stuff, which arrived during the week. I didn't get any new stamp sets but I did get the new colours to try out and a re-appearing stamp set, Wild About Flowers. I had a play around with them and decided to give them an outing at The Paper Craft Crew's challenge Flowers.

Picking up on an idea I played with earlier in the week, I came up with this:

It uses all the new colours except Dapper Denim. I've added a black shadow to the stacked die-cut 'thanks' to help it show out against the background. I can't quite believe I left it so long to get such a beautiful set of stamps!

Ingredients

Card: Flirty Flamingo, Whisper White, Sweet Sugarplum, Basic Black

Stamps: Wild About Flowers

Inks: Peekaboo Peach, Emerald Envy, Flirty Flamingo, Sweet Sugarplum

Other: Lots of Labels framelits, Hello You thinlits, Softly Falling embossing folder, sponges.

Paper Players 294

This week, there's a very spring-like colour combination at The Paper Players. Since outside my window, I'm seeing golden leaves and bare branches I thought I'd give it a go.

I'll also admit to a bit of experimentation. I've been thinking about a card like this for an new catalogue extravaganza I'm involved with, although with a set from the new catalogue. So I used this as a bit of a try-out. I left the card front really plain so it wouldn't detract from the sponged and stamped scene. My other prototype had an embossed front in a colour and I liked it less, but now I'm wondering...

I like the acetate window with the sentiment stamped onto it using Stazon. I'm happy with the sponged and stamped garden. I think I like the plain white front better than a coloured and embossed one.

Ingredients
Card: Whisper White, Window sheet
Stamps: Wild About Flowers, One Big Meaning
Inks: So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder, Black Stazon
Other: Sponges, Wisteria Wonder seam binding