As You See It 127 - DT card

This week we're having a very summery colour challenge at As You See It. I'm out of whack with the rest of the team - in New Zealand, we're just heading into autumn but are enjoying a very hot Indian summer. Anyway, here's the challenge palette:

Out came the Timeless Textures set from the Occasions catalogue, which I've used quite a bit in scrapbooking pages but less so in cards. Don't know why - they're beauties. The flower has had a coating of clear Wink of Stella, but it hardly shows in the photo.

So why not join us in this challenge and show us what you can do with these colours? We'd love to see it.

Ingredients
Card: Cucumber Crush, Whisper White, scrap of Melon Mambo for the under-flower
Stamps: Timeless Textures, Crazy for You, Petite Petals
Inks: Cucumber Crush, Melon Mambo, So Saffron
Other: Petite Petals punch, candy dot, Wink of Stella, Grey Stamp'n'write marker, dimensional

As You See It 126 - DT

This week at As You See It, we have another sketch to enjoy.

The horizontal lines gave me a chance to use my latest stamp purchase - Brushstrokes Background stamp and really, I still am in love with the Botanical Builders dies.

So, get your thinking caps on and join us this week at As You See It. We'd love to see what you come up with using Amanda's sketch.

Ingredients

Card: Blushing Bride, Whisper White, scraps of Watermelon Wonder, Old Olive and Basic Black

Stamps: Botanical Blooms, Fabulous Four

Ink: Tuxedo Black, Blushing Bride, Watermelon Wonder (sponging at centre of flower)

Other: Botanical Builder dies, Gold cord trim, Gold glitter tape, dimensionals, candy dot

Global Design Project 25

When I saw the colour challenge at Global Design Project my interest was immediately piqued by the beautiful combination, although it's taken until tonight to get the idea out of my head and into reality.

A couple of weekends ago I had the pleasure of attending my first demonstrator Stamp Camp with the Creative Inkers. While there, Jackie Noble (aka Creative Jax) gave a fabulous presentation around the Going Global suite and in passing showed a card she'd made with the set using retiform technique. This was something I'd never seen before but I came home and read up about it. This card is my first attempt and it was just so much fun to do! I straight up want to do more!

I used another old favourite set for it - Awesomely Artistic and I'm really happy with how it's turned out. Can't wait to play with other colours and other sets using this technique. Thanks, Jackie, for introducing me to it.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Gray, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White

Stamps: Awesomely Artistic, Crazy for You

Inks: Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, Daffodil Delight

Other: Baker's twine, candy dots, dimensionals

CAS Colours and Sketches 162

This card is for this week's challenge at another of my favourites, CAS Colours and Sketches. I love this sweet little sketch, which opened up a lot of possibilities.

For a deceptively simple card, there's a lot going on. In order to get the two-coloured sentiment, I masked because I couldn't get a good enough imprint using markers to colour the photopolymer stamp. The red glasses are layered to give depth but the first layer is inlaid. The white lenses have been covered with Wink of Stella to give some glimmer but it really doesn't show in the photo. I made the different sized tiny stars using the Confetti Stars border punch - and that fine-tipped glue pen that I got from the Occasions Catalogue came in really handy!

Update: Delighted that this card was a Weekly Winner at CAS Colours and Sketches.

Ingredients

Card: Basic Black, Whisper White, scrap of Cherry Cobbler, DSP Everyday Chic

Stamps: MFT Geek is Chic

Inks: Tuxedo Black, Cherry Cobbler

Other: MFT Glasses die, Silver metallic tape, Wink of Stella (white), Confetti Stars border punch, fine-tip glue pen

JAI 300 and PCCC183

Today's card draws inspiration from two sources. Firstly, my favourite challenge site Just Add Ink has a sketch challenge.

And The Paper Craft Crew has a colour challenge that just happened to incorporate some of my favourite colours.

Since the Occasions and Sale-a-bration catalogues came out last month, my crafting has been dominated by all the wonderful things from those catalogues but today, I wanted to use a favourite from the annual catalogue, Kinda Eclectic. Here's how it turned out.

Update: Delighted to be a Design Team Top Pick at Paper Craft Crew.

Ingredients

Card: Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White, DSP from Moonlight stack and Wildflower Fields

Stamps: Kinda Eclectic, Crazy About You

Inks: Blackberry Bliss, Lost Lagoon, Old Olive

Other: Candy dot and brad base, linen twine, dimensionals, Blackberry Bliss marker to colour cut edges.

As You See It 125 - DT Card

This week, we have a theme challenge at As You See It Challenge.

In truth, I like to keep my sentiments plain, unvarnished and unsentimental - perhaps it's a New Zealand thing as we're a fairly stoic and undemonstrative group - but a plain 'Happy Birthday' or 'Thank You' seemed a little too dull for the challenge. So I went for my favourite 'showiest' sentiment from Perfect Pennants - 'Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful'.

In keeping with the sentiment, I chose to use water stamping as the technique for the focal panel as it gives a moody, but imperfect, image. Then I did a bit of over-stamping to add some depth to the panel and highlighted a few of the flowers with tiny pearls. I added in some silver thread around the sentiment to help focus attention on it. The thread is deliberately not too even and tidy, to add to the idea of imperfection.

Join us this week at As You See It with your own favourite sentiment by 2 March (PST) or 3 March NZ time. I'm also going to enter this card into the sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.

Ingredients

Card: Bermuda Bay, Whisper White

Stamps: Awesomely Artistic, Perfect Pennants

Inks: Distress Inks - Peacock Feathers, Shaded Lilac; SU Bermuda Bay, Tuxedo Black

Other: Elegant Dots embossing folder, Silver thread, Dimensionals, Sponges, Pearls, corner rounder punch, 2" circle punch.

As You See It 124 - DT

After last week's swirls theme, it's back to a sketch challenge this week.

This week's card is a variation on a theme that I've been playing around with since the Sale-a-bration catalogue came out. I like the Botannical Builder dies a lot but the colours of the DSP that are designed to go with them are just not my colours. Regular readers will know that I've done a few things with the dies but exploring different colourways, my favourite being using them with the Birthday Bouquet DSP and colours. But one thing I haven't tried is using them with the Wildflower Fields DSP, so I've used this week's sketch to experiment with them.

So, why not join us this week and show us your own take on our sketch?

Ingredients
Card: Calypso Coral, Whisper White, Wildflower Fields DSP,  scraps of Old Olive, Blackberry Bliss and Hello Honey
Stamps: Fabulous Four
Ink: Tuxedo Black, Blackberry Bliss to sponge flower centre
Other: Botannical Builder dies, Calypso Coral and So Saffron candy dots