FMS 253

Although it is technically spring, and it was indeed springlike for most of the week, a miserable freak Antarctic blast has much of the country in its grip today. The heat's back on and the view from the window is bleak but at least I can be in my craft room guilt-free!

Since I got a bunch of Christmas goodies during the week, I've been on a Christmas card spree. The lovely sketch at Freshly Made Sketches lent itself nicely to a Christmas card and let me try out my newly acquired foil acetate too.

The acetate is beautiful and I can see I'll have to work at not putting it into the 'so-beautiful-no-occasion-is-good-enough-to-use-it' mental box that some things seem to end up in. 

Attaching it was an interesting experience. It was easy to tape it under the other items but the top was just a bit too floppy. Well, it turns out that with care and patience, glue dots can be cut into quarters and successfully applied underneath polka dots. I see that in some parts of the world, foil acetate is included in this week's specials - but sadly not in New Zealand or else I'd be buying up another packet!

Ingredients

Card: Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Foil acetate, DSP from Peace This Christmas, Gold metallic paper.

Stamps: Holly Jolly Greetings, Peace this Christmas (on the inside)

Inks: Versamark(outside) Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, Soft Suede (inside)

Other: Christmas Greetings thinlits, Star framelits, Gold embossing powder, dimensionals

CAS 189 and Paper Players 311

By happy chance I can combine challenges from two of my favourite sites today: CAS Colours and Sketches (it's colour week this week) and The Paper Players.

I've had in mind to try out a technique - Double Masking - that I'd seen on Pinterest. I thought it would look good in the challenge colours and it uses circular elements. The instructions were on Sandi MacIver's blog where she makes a fabulous card with the Love and Affection set. In her stunner of a card, she colours the images with Stamp'n'write markers, which would be much easier than actually stamping the big images in terms of getting a good clean edge - but since I didn't have the markers I had to do it the hard way! 

I do like the way it looks as though the flowers are floating in bubbles although I think you could use any shaped mask if you wanted to. Anyway, it's a great technique and I'm keen to try it out again. I'm thinking it might work with Seaside Shore - I'll let you know!

Ingredients

Card: Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Whisper White

Stamps: Botanical Blooms, Petite Petals, One Big Meaning

Inks: Real Red, Island Indigo, Daffodil Delight, Tuxedo Black

Other: Circle framelits to make the mask, Post-it notes.

Fab Friday 95

Loved the sketch at Fab Friday this week and just had to give it a whirl. In fact, I can see it being used again!

It's easy to get carried away using the new stuff that comes in those lovely brown boxes after a new catalogue but there was a lot of lovely stuff last year too and so I've given some of it an outing for this card. (Although the copper foil paper only arrived this very morning.)

Disappointingly, the sponging behind the trees which is perfectly obvious in real life just isn't showing up so well in the photos. The 'hills' are sponged in Crumb Cake and the sky in Soft Sky.

Update: So happy to be a Top Pick at Fab Friday!

Ingredients

Card: Garden Green, DSP from Peace This Christmas, Whisper White, Copper metallic foil, Mint Macaron

Stamps: Thoughtful Branches, Holly Jolly Greetings

Inks: Versamark, Garden Green, Soft Sky, Crumb Cake

Other: Christmas Greetings thinlits, Delicate Ornaments thinlits, Dimensionals, Cherry Cobbler twine, Copper embossing powder.

Just Add Ink 327

One of my favourite challenge sites is Just Add Ink and it's a colour challenge this week.

The colours naturally made me think of the Seaside Shore suite of papers and stamps but I didn't want to go overly nautical.  Something I've always struggled with is masculine cards and I'm also pretty slack about getting to terms with some of the packaging goodies I own. So, I set myself the task of a card and co-ordinating gift bag, suitable for a male and inspired by the colour challenge.

Here's how that ended up.

I'm really happy with the gift bag. It's the large size, made with the gift bag punch board. The bits I'm most pleased with are the 3D effect on the 'For You' created with the Soft Sky shadow layered in behind and the inlaid stars.

The card picks up on the themes of the bag and also uses a new set for me, Better Together.

Update: Utterly delighted to win at Just Add Ink!

Ingredients

Card: Dapper Denim, DSP from By the Shore, Very Vanilla, scraps of Soft Sky and Calypso Coral

Stamps: Better Together

Inks: Dapper Denim 

Other: Lots of Labels framelits, Mini-treat Bag thinlit set, Circle framelit, Subtles enamel shapes, dimensionals, Burlap ribbon, Gold binder clip

FMS 252

I was intrigued by the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week.

Since the Rich Razzleberry ombre ink pad and Swirly Bird set were both still out from my last week's class, they entered a happy marriage with the sketch.

The top portion of the front panel is raised up using the new foam adhesive strips. While it gives more height than dimensionals, it does give more support to the panel.

The sentiment is from Sunshine Sayings, a set that is growing in usefulness the more I look at it. I like that, with this sentiment, the card is quite multi-purpose.

Ingredients
Card: Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Old Olive
Stamps: Swirly Bird, Sunshine Sayings, Playful Backgrounds
Inks: Rich Razzleberry, Rich Razzleberry ombre pad, Old Olive, Tuxedo Black
Other: Swirly Scribbles thinlits, Rich Razzleberry enamel shapes, Softly Falling embossing folder, foam strips, dimensionals

Paper Players 310

I always look at what's happening at The Paper Players, although I usually only play during school holidays because of the the timing of it so with a bit of time off school, it was a pleasure to play this week.

I really loved the sketch that was put up this week.

 I also wanted to give my Touches of Texture stamps another try out, so here's how that ended up...

Some of the flowers have been stamped off first to give some tonal variations.

The flower centres have been stippled with a metallic copper pen. The bee's wings have had Wink of Stella applied and some of the small flower centres have been embellished with pearls.

Ingredients

Card: Dapper Denim, Very Vanilla, Delightful Dijon

Stamps: Touches of Texture, Labeller Alphabet

Inks: Dapper Denim, Delightful Dijon, Old Olive, Early Espresso

Other: Moroccan suite washi tape, Sparkle embossing folder, dimensionals, pearls, Wink of Stella, copper pen.

CTS187 AAA72

 I know it's a technique that's been around for a while but I've never tried baby wipe stamping before. After some experimenting, I found that it was much better to use reinkers than to try scraping up some excess ink off of the inkpads as the images are a lot crisper that way. I also discovered that the kind of images you get differs between the earlier and the later impressions of the baby wipe. I only have a handful of reinkers so was pleasantly surprised at the tiny amount of colour that you need to use to get a really lovely result.

Two challenges framed this experimentation. One was the challenge at AAA Challenge.

The other was the sketch at Case This Sketch.

And here is how it ended up.

This is definitely a technique that I would use again, although it may require the purchase of some more reinkers!

Ingredients

Card: Blackberry Bliss, Lost Lagoon, Very Vanilla

Stamps: Thoughtful Branches, Timeless Textures, Sunshine Sayings

Inks: Blackberry Bliss, Pool Party and Lost Lagoon reinkers, Lost Lagoon and Blackberry Bliss inkpads

Other: Beautiful Branches thinlits, Seaside embossing folder, dimensionals, babywipes.