CAS Colours and Sketches 127

It was a great pleasure and delight to be offered a chance to guest design for the month of June at CAS Colours and Sketches. It was even more exciting when I saw the challenges and the wonderful colour palette for this week's challenge. The new catalogue at Stampin' Up came out this week and three of the new in-colours for 2015-17 make up this week's challenge.

These colours were just so amazing to work with; they look even better in real-life than they do in the catalogue!

I've played at CAS Colours and Sketches quite a few times since I started playing at challenge blogs, about ten months ago now, and the challenges there are always interesting and alternate between a colour challenge and a sketch challenge. If you've never played a challenge before, this is a good one to start with. Head on over and visit the blog to join in the fun!

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White, Tip-Top Taupe, Watermelon Wonder

Stamps: Butterfly Basics, Kinda Eclectic, Crazy for You

Ink: Mint Macaron, Watermelon Wonder, Tip-Top Taupe

Other: Square framelits, Elegant Buttefly punch, Bitty Butterfly punch, Brad base, Crumb Cake candy dots, dimensionals, linen twine, Tip-Top Taupe marker to colour cut edges.

Paper Players 247

 I like to play at Paper Players but it's been a few weeks. I couldn't bypass the Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge, though.  I really enjoy these - choose a line and play it.

I've played the bottom line: die-cut, patterned paper and any shade of yellow, although now I'm coming to write up my blog post, I see I've inadvertently done the middle line as well: birthday, embossing and flower! Oops.

The daisy petals have been cut in So Saffron and sponged at the edges with Hello Honey. The under layer of the 'happy' is cut in Pear Pizzazz and slightly offset to create a shadow outline.

Ingredients
Card: SU So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Whisper White, Subtles DSP So Saffron
Stamps: SU Crazy for You
Inks: SU Hello Honey
Dies: MFT Gerbera Daisy, MFT Birthday, SU Leaf sizzlit
Other: SU Square Lattice embossing folder, dimensionals, Teresa Collins brad, Garden Green marker to outline the leaves.

As You See It Challenge 89

Another challenge blog I always look at is As You See It and this week there was an adorable sketch, for which I actually had an idea immediately and because of the long weekend, got a chance to do!

I've turned into such a blog follower that I've had to set up My Feedly to keep track of them all, but one where I often learn things is at Kwerner Designs, where a few days ago there was a great little video tutorial on the Ink Smooshing technique. I was pretty keen to give it a go and that's how I've done the coloured background for the filmstrip.

I'm also going to enter this card at Showcase Your Style because my card matches the inspiration board there.

And also at Colour Throwdown because it was the beautiful colours on their board this week that made me choose the three colours I did for this card.

This feels a bit strange because usually I only enter a card into one challenge, occasionally two but I've never done three before!

Update: Delighted that this card was picked for Featured Artist at As You See It.

Also delighted when this card was picked as Style Queen at Showcase Your Style.

Ingredients

Card: Watercolour paper, SU Blushing Bride, Early Espresso, Whisper White.

Stamps: Heidi Swapp Mini-stamp Together, Camera stamp from Typo.

Ink: Distress inks Spun Sugar, Scattered Straw, Evergreen Bough, SU Early Espresso, Versamark.

Other: Clear embossing powder, MFT Mini filmstrip die, SU 1 3/8" circle punch, dimensionals, pink enamel dots from PaperVine, Early Espresso marker.

Freshly Made Sketches 188

It's been a while since I've played at Freshly Made Sketches but when I saw Karren's sketch this week, I really wanted to have a go at it. It was such a lovely sketch and it had endless possibilities.

Despite it being a long weekend here, for Queen's Birthday it has not turned out to be quite the craft-fest I'd hoped for since one of my children ended up in hospital with appendicitis. But she's home now, is on the mend and I haven't missed the deadline!

I cut a window into the Hardwood stamped panel and made a frame for the window using square framelits. This panel is raised on dimensionals and the sponged and stamped scene is attached to the Early Espresso card base.

Ingredients - all Stampin' Up Products
Card: Early Espresso, Pool Party, Whisper White
Stamps: Hardwood, Wetlands, Banner Blast.
Inks: Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Other: Banner punch, Early Espresso baker's twine, brad base, Early Espresso candy dots, dimensionals, Early Espresso marker, sponges, square framelits

Try Stampin' on Tuesday 220

I've been following both Try Stampin' on Tuesday and the Monday Lunchtime Sketch Challenge for a couple of months now, and I'm not sure why, but I keep confusing them. Perhaps it was because I discovered them at the same time or some of the same people are involved.

Anyway, last week I posted a message on the Try Stampin' Facebook page and later in the day, realised that I had publicly confused the two of them! Which really goes to prove that you should not post a comment on Facebook until the first cup of coffee of the day has had a chance to kickstart your brain! So, in atonement, my first task this weekend has been to play the challenge at Try Stampin' on Tuesday.

A pretty straight forward interpretation of the sketch. My first plan had been to use my beloved SU Dictionary stamp in the background but since I'd gone to a 15cmx15cm card to better accommodate the sketch, that wasn't a go. So I had to turn to my discarded library book, first butchered for a Paper Players Challenge earlier this year. Dismemberment gets easier each time you do it, I have discovered and I cut the index page to make the background for this card with hardly any guilt at all. Which, for a librarian, is really saying something!

The result is a quite masculine card and I really love the little glasses die cuts.

Ingredients

Card: SU Black, Coastal Cabana, Whisper White. Book page

Stamps: MFT Eye Chart

Inks: Black

Other: MFT Geek is Chic Glasses die, black marker to colour cut edges, dimensionals

Just Add Ink 264

Well, for me, May has flown by as far as Just Add Ink challenges are concerned.  It seems no time at all since I was nervously posting my first ever challenge as a guest designer and now, here we are at the last challenge for May. Thanks so much for the great month I've had with you!

I've loved every challenge and this week's sketch challenge is no exception.

When I look back over the month, I see that butterflies have featured each week! Accidental, I promise!

This butterfly was a bit experimental. I stamped it then coloured it with Marina Mist, Perfect Plum and Elegant Eggplant, highlighted it with a silver gel pen then covered it in Glossy Accents. Pretty happy with how it turned out, really. The pearls are a soft blue and the under butterfly is Perfect Plum.

I made the Eggplant border by cutting a film strip die that I have, then cutting it lengthways to get that cool little dotty border to tie in with the circle dots around the butterfly.

I'm also happy with the Soft Sky/ Elegant Eggplant combination.

Ingredients

Card: Soft Sky, Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum.

Stamps: SU Papillon Potpourri, SU Gorgeous Grunge, Clearly Besotted Fabulous Fuchsia.

Inks:  Elegant Eggplant, Marina Mist, Perfect Plum

Other: MFT Filmstrip die, MFT Stitched Circle die, Elegant Butterfly punch, Couture  Classic Chevron die, Kaisercraft baby blue pearls, Circle framelit, dimensional.

Cas-ology Story

It was an unlooked for, and unexpected, pleasure to have my card chosen at Casology for the Music challenge. Even more so when I was offered the opportunity to be a guest designer for this week's challenge.

Given my background as an English teacher, my current work as a Young Adult librarian and being in possession of a long-established reading habit, story to me will always be books.  As indeed, it is for many of my friends.

This presented something of a problem to me as a stamper - the only  stamp set I had to hand for this is Darkroom Door's Bookworm. It's got the coolest reading sentiments and it was in support of my reading habit that I originally got this set.

The set is semi-distressed in style, with lots of shades and shadows but I wanted to convey the idea that the books are a source of light and joy - more than dusty pages and antique covers. That is why I water-coloured each book in the pile in a rich shade of the rainbow and so making the book pile the focal point of the card. 

Then I counterbalanced the weight of the books by stamping the sentiment as a reflection of an imaginary vertical line down the centre of the card. I divided the card by scoring a line under the books. 

Yet, it just looked wrong. Originally, I had imagined the books sitting in a sea of words but working on the theory that its best to plan your card and then take one thing out, I had omitted that. But after a bit of a think, I masked the books and stamped the top zone of the card in pale grey using Dictionary. This was more successful as the books were then grounded to the page but the airiness of the stamp did not close up the white space but was more akin to adding texture. (So the thing I had to 'take out' was to omit a second score line I'd planned.) 

I'm very happy with the contrast between the monochrome of the sentiment and background words and the vibrant rainbow of books: the story is the joy.

This will make a great card for friends who love books and reading, whose idea of a good time is sneaking time to read a good book! Like me.

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White

Stamps: Darkroom Door Bookworm, SU Dictionary

Ink: Basic Grey, Black

Other: Derwent watercolour pencils.