CASEing Dee

Good night!
Well it's time for a late night scheduled post to announce the latest challenge over at
Addicted To Stamps.
Here is my card for our challenge

MAKE YOUR MARK 

My inspiration for this card is the latest challenge over at Time Out where they are CASEing the lovely Dee of Dee's Art Utopia. This is her fab card. 

Now I did think of using her idea of the glass jars but my stamp was too small (did find one after I made this card though!) So I went with the gingham table cloth look and the white embossed flowers and leaves. I also went with my own twist of using kraft instead of black. My bow kept a rustic look as I used jute string. The flowers are my favourite STAMPloration Sketched Blooms Daisy. I just love this stamp, it's so elegant and makes a fab bouquet when stamped and masked. I used  w/c pencil crayons to colour the flowers and leaves and the DP is a NitWits gingham check that was in the bits box, left over from a previous project.
Pop over and check out the rest of the fab DT and have a go yourself!



I'm joining in at

Time Out - CASE with your own twist

This time I've gone across the middle
Birthday / Embossing / Flower
Loves Rubberstamps - AG

Thanks for popping round.:)

Caseing Virginia

Good afternoon.
This blog is going to be a little busy this aft as I have two posts due to go live at the same time because the new CASEplorations challenge and the new Sketch challenge from STAMPlorations, go live at the same time! This is coming up just before the new sketch challenge.

Here is my CASE of this weeks card.

Here is another view as the gold embossing didn't show up in the first!

This is the card we are showcasing for you to CASE by the wonderful Virginia Lu.





My CASE took various elements from this fab card.
Vellum overlay, gold embossed flowers, kraft greeting panel and grey card.
I didn't have any gold twine so I used a Tim Holtz scribble heart in gold mirror card instead.
The flowers are from STAMPlorations, Bloom Sketches, Blossom Overture and Eclectic Florals, masked to make a bouquet. They were coloured in Copics from the back as they melt the embossing!
The sequins cover up the dots to attach the vellum.

OK that's it, pop back to see the latest sketch at STAMPlorations in a tick.

Joining in at :-



I went diagonal, Die cut, Embossing, Sequins.

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Photo Inspiration

Hi folks, its time for another challenge over at Addicted to Stamps .
This is my DT card for your inspiration.

This week it is our 

As you can see this was quite a literal interpretation, but that doesn't have to be the case. You could go with the colours or just take a couple of elements and run with that, the choice is yours.
Luckily I had a birdcage stamp that was free on a recent mag purchase so that was my starting point.
I used the sketch over at CAS Colours and Sketches for the layout, popping the right hand square up on multiple layers and cutting out the other two. The branch is a MB die with some white leaves cut from a scrapped MB wildflower corner diecut and some freehand ones. The purple birdies were cut freehand after stamping with the birdcage. The sentiment is from STAMPloration's Bloom Sketches.

This week we are sponsored by



who are offering a $15 coupon to the winner
and



who are offering 5 digis.

So why not pop over and check out the rest of the DTs fab inspiration projects and join us.

I'd like to join in at:-


         

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon. :)

Sketch #34

Good afternoon and welcome.

Today sees the launch of a new sketch challenge over at STAMPlorations. 

I love a good sketch and I must admit that sometimes I'm a little too literal in my interpretation, so this time I've gone a little off piste with my DT card.

Looks all quite normal until you look at the sketch!

When I first saw this I thought of the obvious interpretation, but then the wavy lines on the edge reminded me of a set of card blanks I bought over 12 years ago that were quite expensive. As they were sort of special I kept them for special projects, and there were still a couple left in the stash as I had forgotten all about them and tastes move on.  If I was going to use them it meant mirroring the sketch and then I thought about using flowers instead of butterflies. I kept the same pattern, 1 large and 3 smaller flowers. In the end though I had to make a card base myself as the colours left weren't quite right, a bit too pale and pastely!

The large flower and sentiment are from the Bloom Sketches set and the small from the very useful Eclectic Florals. I stamped the flowers with DIs then washed in the petals with more DI and water, then fussy cut them and worked the petals with an embossing tool and mat to give them some depth. I added a few leaves from my leaf box( all my left over green gets used to punch leaves when I've a spare moment) to add even more depth.

As usual Shery is offering the following prizes:-

Winner (voted by the design team)

 2 stamp sets (3" by 5") if you use STAMPlorations stamps, 1 stamp set if you don't

+ guest designer spot in a future Sketch Challenge

Top picks 3 digi stamps 

+ the option to be a guest designer too in the next Sketch Challenge if you will use a STAMPlorations digi stamp (to be provided ) OR if you already have STAMPlorations clear stamps.

All winners and top picks will receive a personalized guest designer badge that they can display on their blogs, as well as a STAMPlorations guest designer watermark.

So no excuses not to have a go and join in.

Pop over to the DT's blogs for more inspiration and info on their designs and check out our fab GD.

Carol Mayne GD

Becca DT

Laura Jane DT
Nonni DT

Sari DT

Tenia DT

Wei Wei DT

I'm joining the fun over at-

CAS on Sunday - Cheer up Buttercup

Stamping Sensations - Flower Power

Thanks for stopping by, come back soon. :)

Blog Hop Day 3

Welcome back STAMPloration followers to day 3 of the April release blog hop. Today the team are show casing the NOTEWORTHY set.

When trying to come up with a suitable design I wanted to make the words the focus, so for my first card I kept the stamping down to that. The words 'Remember the good times' brought a sympathy card to mind.

I splodged a few spots of colour using watered down Marvey marker in eggplant onto white card then added some stems and foliage with another w/c marker and a bit of DI using a fine brush. The same DI was sponged into the square after the panel was embossed with a Spellbinders Fleur de Lys square die but before the die was removed. I'd seen something using this idea of the embossed die ages ago but not sure of the link, my apologies. I stamped the sentiment in Memento Grey Flannel. The mauve mount was plain white edged in eggplant using a water brush.

My second card is a total opposite to the first. It's very blousey in it's colouring. I was trying something different, sploshing the colour on  very loosely and a bit messy, I tend to be too controlled sometimes!

This time the sentiment echoes the bright vibrant colours of the coloured panel in this one-layer card. In the end I had to sharpen up the design with an inlaid die cut frame!

Here is the actual set with the rest of the sentiments.

NOTEWORTHY

The card for my Sketch #32 post also shows one of the new sentiments. (here)
OK, that's about from me for today.

Comment on this post and the rest of the team's blogs for a chance to win one of the prizes. Commenting closes on April 27. Winners will be announced on April 29.

Check out what the rest of the team made! You'll find links to all our projects here.

Stops on the hop:

Darnell - Guest Designer

Becca

Cornelia

Deepti

You are here     Julie - Me                

Maria

Monika

Shery

Shirley

Vicki

Prizes:

• FIVE (5) commenters randomly drawn from the designers' blogs will each win a $10 gift certificate.
• ONE (1) commenter randomly drawn from the STAMPlorations blog will win a $25 gift certificate
• + surprise prizes 

Thanks for calling by, see you tomorrow for more STAMPlorations inspiration.

I'd like to join the fun at

Creative Insprations - Anything Goes (Daisy card)

Paper Players - Watercolour CAS ( Daisy)

Curtain Call  (Sympathy)

Kraft CAS

Good morning, I hope I find you well this Saturday morning.

Today marks a new challenge over at Fantasy Stampers. For this challenge we would like to see your creations that are:-

CAS - Clean and Simple

Yippee, my favourite style, no added extras, minimal embellishments and no frills! We just need to see some good old fashioned stamping on your creation.

So without further ado here is my card -

I went a little out of my comfort zone with this creation as I don't usually use kraft as a base but the challenge over at CASual Fridays is to weld kraft with flowers and twine.

I die cut a panel of kraft with my MFT pierced rectangles and then stamped and masked the daisies from STAMPlorations with Versafine Onyx Black. 

I used white w/c pencils to colour the petals and added shading with a black one and a little bit of softening with a w/c brush. The daisy centers were coloured with the same set in yellow, orange and brown then softened with water and a brush. Where necessary I added a little white gel pen to brighten up the petals. The twine was added to the base card along with a stamped label from LOTV and the panel mounted on a bright yellow piece of card then mounted on the base with pads.

So that's about it. Check out the rest of the DT's inspiration and join us for the next two weeks.

I would like to join in the following challenges:-

Loves Rubberstamps - Anything Goes

Sketch #31

Good afternoon crafty friends and welcome my post to announce a new sketch challenge over at STAMPlorations. I do like a sketch so I had real fun with this one. Here is my take on it.

This is the sketch that we are asking you to use.

I saw a post from Cornelia that referred me to a link to a video by Laura Basson at Make it Monday. It was all about double partial die cutting. I love finding new ways for combining dies and I loved this idea as well as the colours she used. I used an Avery Elle word die and a Spellbinders Label 25 die to make the die cuts. The first time I managed to cut the whole word out, so be careful with the cutting!  I used Bloom Sketches text for the embossed white sentiment and Vignette: Electic Florals to stamp the flowers and leaves before cutting them out. I used DI in matching colours so you have to look hard to see the stamping.

You can see the orange and green but not so well on the yellow. I added some punched circles to the centers of the flowers. I haven't coloured the panel under the hello as Laura did, as the word takes up quite a lot of space. I popped up the panel on pads onto a A6 white base to finish.

Don't forget you can use stamps by other companies in projects that you enter to our challenges but we ask that you please not use our challenges for the sole purpose of promoting another stamp company if you are a design team member of that company. If you have our stamps and/or stencils in your stash, we'd be tickled if you use them!

As usual Shery is offering the following prizes:-

Winner

(voted by the design team)

prize: 2 stamp sets (3" by 5") if you use STAMPlorations stamps, 1 stamp set if you don't

+ guest designer spot in a Sketch Challenge

Top picks

prize: 3 digi stamps 

+ the option to be a guest designer too in a Sketch Challenge if you will use  STAMPlorations digi stamp (to be provided )OR if you already have STAMPlorations clear stamps

All winners and top picks will receive a personalized guest designer badge that they can display on their blogs, as well as a STAMPlorations guest designer watermark.

Frequent Players Spotlight. Play in all 3 challenges for the month for entries to the random draw. Prize is always going to be a stamp and stencil pack valued at $10.

So no excuses to have a go and join us.

Pop over to the DT's blogs for more inspiration and info on their designs and check out our fab GDs.

Kim GD

Pooja GD

Becca DT

Laura Jane DT

Sari DT

Tenia DT

Wei Wei DT

I would like to join the fun over at -

Tag it @Cards und More

Good morning crafters and welcome to my latest post for the new challenge over at Cards und More.

This fortnight we would like to see your projects using a :-

TAG

For my card I took inspiration from the latest challenge at Tag it .. You're it!

I've used kraft for the tag die cut from a Marianne die and stamped and embossed in white a line of a music score, then stamped and embossed some flowers from STAMPlorations. The flowers were coloured using DI in a w/c effect then fussy cut and mounted on the tag, adding some Marianne swirls and a Spellbinders Happy Birthday die cut in white and silver. 

If you look closely at the inspiration card you will see chevrons in white over the base. I used some zigzags cut using a MFT die, a bit of ribbon and twine from the stash finished it off.

Pop over to the CuM site to check out some more inspiration from the rest of the team and join in.

I would also like to join in at -

Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes

2015 World Wide Open Dt Challenge 

Sketch #30

Good afternoon folks and welcome.

Today sees the start of a new sketch challenge at STAMPlorations. Here is the card I made using the sketch-

and here is the sketch -

As you can see I sort of played with the way the shapes overlap but so long as we can see the sketch you can do what you like, rotate, flip change the shapes, its up to you, but do explain if it is a bit off the wall!

I used the remaining uninked stamp from my Bloom Sketches set. I read on the wonderful Darnell's blog a couple of weeks ago that the poppies were in full bloom so perhaps they have been and gone over in California, the photos were certainly spectacular. I do love poppies but our's are more delicate and bloom on disturbed ground in the summer, a field washed red with these beauties is a site to behold. Perhaps I can persuade Shery to release some poppy stamps of the UK variety!

The poppies on this were coloured with Copics and the frame coloured to match, the 'thanks' was from the bold sentiments set. The background was embossed using a Spellbinders embossing folder.

As usual Shery is offering the following prizes:-

Winner

(voted by the design team)

prize: 2 stamp sets (3" by 5") if you use STAMPlorations stamps, 1 stamp set if you don't

+ guest designer spot in a Sketch Challenge

Top picks

prize: 3 digi stamps 

+ the option to be a guest designer too in a Sketch Challenge if you will use  STAMPlorations digi stamp (to be provided )OR if you already have STAMPlorations clear stamps

All winners and top picks will receive a personalized guest designer badge that they can display on their blogs, as well as a STAMPlorations guest designer watermark.

Frequent Players Spotlight. Play in all 3 challenges for the month for entries to the random draw. Prize is always going to be a stamp and stencil pack valued at $10.

So no excuses to have a go and join us.

Pop over to the DT's blogs for more inspiration and info on their designs and check out our fab GDs.

Robyn Oliver GD

Stephanie Severin GD

Kathy Schweinfurth GD

Becca DT

Laura Jane DT

Sari DT

Tenia DT

Wei Wei DT

On the subject of spring here are a couple of lamb photos.

Number 84b has a splint on it's leg as it broke it just after birth. We think he got trampled on by another ewe. He is coping well and getting bigger.

Thanks for calling around.

I would like to join the fun over at-

Time Out Challenges - Picture 

ARTplorations Blog Hop Day 2

Afternoon folks and welcome to day 2 of the -

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's hop and are ready for another stencil fest. Thanks for all the lovely comments you left yesterday, don't forget to leave one at each step of the hop today to increase your chances of winning a fab prize.

So without further ado here is another card using the ARTplorations Bubble stencil.

For this card I first inked my card with a selection of DIs and then spritzed the stencil surface and used it as a stamp. The water acts as a bleach to remove the ink, so to get a good contrast you need quite a bold panel of colour to start with. The second part was a bit of luck really as I have had the die cut and coloured MB Perky Poppy floating around my desk for awhile wondering what to do with it and I just laid it over the top and liked the look of it. I did die cut the poppy out of the panel and inlaid it so it became more of a OLC. I originally cut the poppy in white then coloured the stem and flowers with Copics replacing the petals after colouring. The greeting is from my Stamp Club set Bloom Sketches, I am certainly getting my monies worth out of this set!

The main panel was then mounted on a black mount then on a pink base card.

Leave a comment at the end of this post and on the rest of the team's blogs for a chance to win one of the fantastic prizes. Commenting closes on March 13. Winners will be announced on March 15.

Check out what the rest of the team made! You'll find links to all our projects here

Come back tomorrow for the final installment of our blog hop.

I'd like to join in at -

Stencils and Stamps

Good afternoon crafting friends.

Today is the start of a new monthly challenge over at STAMPlorations and this is my card for your inspiration.

Can you guess the theme, well it's -

Well I had a great time playing with the new stencils from Shery and for my card I used the Leaf Print stencil along with my favourite Bloom Sketches Daisy stamp.

 I stamped the daisies then embossed using white embossing powder then coloured them with a w/c effect using DIs and then used the stencil to create the foliage by applying DI with a sponge. The happy birthday is stamped using the Sentiment Builders-Happy set. I mounted the top panel on a very slightly larger black one then on an A6 white base.

As usual Shery is offering:-

Winner

(voted by the design team)

prize: 2 stamp sets (3" by 5") if she used our stamps, 1 stamp set if you don't

+ guest designer spot in the May Challenge

Top picks

prize: 3 digi stamps 

+ the option to be a guest designer too in the May Challenge if you will use  STAMPlorations digi stamp (to be provided )OR if you already have STAMPlorations clear stamps

All winners and top picks will receive a personalized guest designer badge that they can display on their blogs, as well as a STAMPlorations guest designer watermark.

Frequent Players Spotlight. Play in all 3 challenges for the month for entries to the random draw. Prize is always going to be a stamp and stencil pack valued at $10.

So no excuses to have a go and join us this month.

Pop over to the DT's blogs for more info on their designs.

Milla GD

Becca DT

Laura Jane DT

Sari DT

Tenia DT

Wei Wei DT

I would also like to join in the fun over at -

Virginia's View

Mixed Media Card Challenge - (no birds for me)

Masking

Good morning, an unusual extra post because we didn't go to our Son's this week as hubster is a little under the weather as am I. So no craft class for me but I do get extra time in the craft room.

It's my friend's birthday in a few days and I have made a card for her. She loves red flowers so I had to include some here. She retired from work at the same time as I was ill many years ago and has been a great support over the years. I don't know how she fits all her commitments into the day. As well as looking after her Mum, she is converting a bungalow with her husband, babysitting for her youngest, taking me out for lunch, housekeeping for her Son and Daughter in law in Italy and even walking the dog for her middle son! I don't really know how she had time to fit work in!

Anyway here is the card I made for her.

There are a few challenges around that I was thinking of when I made this.

It is One Layer week over at Less is More with the extra theme of Love, OLS has the theme of blend

and ATCAS is masking!

To make the card I stamped my first daisy in red DI then masked it before stamping the second then again with the 3 leaves, I overstamped all the masks with script greetings in black before removing  them and colouring using Copics.

That's where the blending came in as I used 5 reds to get the dimension right on the petals and 4 greens on the leaves.

That's about it then, thanks for calling by and see you again soon. Don't forget to leave a comment then I can reciprocate!