Paper Players 314

I loved the sketch at The Paper Players this morning and set to work on it straight away. Although the card looks good in real life, I've struggled to get a decent photograph of it.

Metallic embossing is notoriously difficult to capture, so I hope that viewers use a little imagination...

What I am particularly happy with is the Christmas tree. I stamped it first in Early Espresso, then added in the leaf block with Pear Pizzazz. Finally, I restamped the branch area only in Versamark and embossed it in copper and added a little embossed star to match. I like the contrast between the copper blinginess and the humble linen twine. 

Ingredients

Card: Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, Copper foil, Pear Pizzazz

Stamps: Merry Medley background stamp, Totally Trees, Holly Berry Happiness (sentiment)

Inks: Versamark, Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz

Other: Linen twine, Copper embossing powder, dimensionals, Pinecone embellishment.

All products Stampin' Up.

CAS Colours and Sketches 192

I've spent the afternoon playing around with fancy things: copper and silver embossing, silver glimmer paper, baker's boxes and window sheets all in aid of some upcoming Christmas classes. 

Yet all the while this lovely sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches seemed to be calling me to play with it and eventually, I succumbed to its charm.

Sometimes it's hard to beat simplicity: a classic colour combination, some stamping and lots of open space.

Thanks for a great sketch to play with this week.

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

Ingredients

Card: Garden Green, Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler

Stamps: Holly Berry Happiness, Holly Jolly Greetings

Inks: Garden Green, Wild Wasabi, Cherry Cobbler

Other: Oval punch, Oval Scallop punch, 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

GDP54 and FabFriday96

So, I've been away on holiday for the last couple of weeks. It was fabulous seeing parts of New Zealand I've not seen and spending time with my husband. Going to see Peter Jackson's Hobbiton set for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies was a great favourite of the many things we did, along with exploring parts of New Zealand's early colonial history.

But I digress. I was very pleased to get back home and find that, in my absence, my new Altenew stamps had arrived. So very exciting! I've spent a lot of today playing with them and to give that play focus I've taken inspiration from two challenges. The first is the sketch from the Global Design Project.

The second was the colour challenge at Fab Friday.

The Altenew sets I bought (yes, I got two) I got because in addition to offering layered stamping they gave me a chance to explore water colouring which is what I've done today. Well, more of an ink wash really. I hope neutrals are ok in the colour challenge because I've used a touch of gold and Soft Slate as well.

Great sketch - I loved working with it. It's funny how your view of colours can change. Initially, I didn't like Delightful Dijon but I've used it in a couple of things lately and now feel that I'll buy a pack of it. It's actually great!

And I just can't resist adding in a Hobbit set photo - it's amazing to walk around the best representation of Tolkien's Shire you'll ever see. A real Hobbit village in the middle of a sheep farm! I feel a re-read of the books coming on...

Delighted to be the Fab Fave at Fab Friday with this card.

Ingredients

Card: Emerald Envy, Very Vanilla, Delightful Dijon, watercolour paper

Stamps: Altenew Tulips, SU Timeless Textures

Inks: Emerald Envy, Delightful Dijon, Soft Slate, versamark

Other: SU Softly Falling embossing folder, gold embossing powder, Delightful Dijon and Emerald Envy stamp'n'write markers, Emerald Envy solid twine, dimensionals, paintbrush and water.

LIM 293

The challenge at Less is More this week is to create a one layer card using your favourite flower.
I'm a bit of an avoider where one layer cards are concerned, but I do so love my Wild About Flowers set...

The background was created using a spodge in stamped-off Wisteria Wonder, a fine splatter of Sweet Sugarplum and some medium splats in Perfect Plum. The flower is stamped in black and Elegant Eggplant.

Ingredients

Card: Whisper White, heavy weight

Stamps: Wild About Flowers, Gorgeous Grunge, Timeless Textures, Better Together

Inks: Wisteria Wonder, Perfect Plum, Sweet Sugarplum, Elegant Eggplant, Tuxedo Black.

CAS(E) 189

Great sketch this week at CAS(E) This Sketch.

I've taken a fairly literal approach to it because I wanted to play around again with the idea of filling a masked shape with stamping. I've not used these stamps for a while and enjoyed playing with multi-stamping again.

Ingredients

Card: Mint Macaron, Whisper White, Black

Stamps: Altenew Painted Blooms, Clearly Besotted Say it in Style, Stampin Up Timeless Textures

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

Other: White embossing powder, dimensionals, rhinestones, circle framelit to make the mask.

CCMC 423

I really like the sketch at Create with Connie and Mary this week. It inspired yet another Christmas card for my current Christmas card spree.

I started by creating a piece of faux metal paper using the Holly embossing folder, some sponges and inks and a touch of gold embossing.

The faux metal paper was so pretty that the rest of the card needed to be kept quite simple: a die cut ornament, a little Wink of Stella and twine plus a simple sentiment. I like the richness of the Early Espresso and gold.

Update: I've been asked about how I made the faux metal paper. There are a bunch of videos about it around and from them, I've made my own way. I started with the lightest ink, which was Crumb Cake. I inked the folder and ran it through the Big Shot. Then I randomly daubed and sponged Emerald Envy. (You don't want to be too even handed about this -you want a bit blotchy.) I always add in some kind of green/blue to give that hint of verdigris. (Lost Lagoon was great and Pear Pizzazz works well.) Then I sponged on Soft Suede a bit more evenly and with more sponging and less daubing. Then  I lightly sponged with Early Espresso but aimed to highlight the impressions rather than all over coverage. (Save the darkest colour for last. ) Finally a light swipe over with the versamark pad and sprinkle on a metallic powder. This card uses gold. Check before you heat to see that you don't have stripes and that you haven't got too much on. I often rub it over lightly with my finger and/or give it a light brush over with a paint brush to make it more random. Don't worry if you end up with little clumps of powder as it adds to the random effect. Also, I use sponges not daubers to apply the inks.

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

Ingredients

Card: Early Espresso, Gold metallic paper, scrap of Very Vanilla

Stamps: Holly Berry Happiness

Inks: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Emerald Envy, versamark

Other: Holly embossing folder, sponges, Gold embossing powder, Delicate Ornament thinlits, Gold wink of stella, Gold twine, dimensionals