CC&S #122: The dreaded double?

Do you dread it or do you love it? As April has five Thursdays we have both a sketch and a colour palette chosen by Louise for you at CAS Colours and Sketches this week.

I've been wanting to join in the challenges over at Uniko Studio for a while and thought I would try and kill two birds with one stone. It's been a real challenge! I pondered over Louise's sketch and decided to use one of Bev's trailing vine stamps, but then couldn't find an ink pad to match 'Calypso Coral' from amongst my stash anywhere! It got really complicated as I only have a small collection of Uniko Studio stamps at the moment and definitely don't have anything that remotely resembles 'Things With Wings'...hmmm!

So after some thought, I set about creating butterflies from one of the 'Flower Power' sets using the half flower, experimenting with stamping two of the three petals and then trying to create a mirror image. I think they turned out OK and have got a few spares to use another time. I cut them out and mounted on foam pads adding some adhesive pearls and stamping a few tiny flowers and dots from the vine set in the challenge colours along with a sentiment also from the 'Flower Power' set.

I hope that Louise thinks I have been true enough to her sketch and that Bev approves of my butterfly creations.

Supplies Used:

Stamp sets: Background Builders - Vines & Flower Power #2 (Uniko Studio)

Ink pads: Pacific, Smoke Blue (Versa Color) & Orange (Whispers)

Snippets: White adhesive pearls

Next month it will be my turn to host the CC&S challenges. I can't wait to share my colours and sketches with you and hope you'll continue to play along!

Stef x  

CC&S #121: Triangles (Sketch)

I must admit that Louise's sketch for CAS Colours and Sketches this week had me a bit stumped and I pondered over what to do for ages. Then I looked at the negative rather than the positive image, turned the sketch through 45 degrees and thought I could do something with the cross shape. I might still give that a go but then remembered I had some triangular-shaped corner stamps so set to work with those instead.

I thought that might be the easier option but trying to get them all lined up without the help of a gadget was trickier than I had remembered! I inked the stamps with two shades of ink and made a thank you card in pink and purple for Paul and Gel whose daughter, Emily, I made the baptism card for last week.

The design was mat and layered onto a piece of the same white cardstock coloured at the edges with the same pink inkpad to match. The card was finished with a few white adhesive pearls and a sentiment printed directly onto the card from the computer.

Supplies used:
Stamp: Corner stamp (Clarity) - sorry don't know the name of it!
Inkpads: Rose Bud & Lilac Posies (Memento)
Snippets: White linen cardstock, White adhesive pearls

No other link ups, just a classic card from me this week. Can't wait to see what you all do with your triangles!

Stef x

CC&S #120: Sing, Baby, Sing!

Oh how I loved the Stylistics, back in the day! I needed to make a baptism card this week and the friends who it's for are both musicians so I started my DT card for CAS Colours and Sketches this week with the premise of using our wonderful springtime challenge colours and combining them somehow with music! Inspiration for the butterflies came from a couple of other challenges and so the card was born!

I found myself playing for some hours on my computer trying to design a 'music tree'. If you look carefully you will see that most of the leaves (and the trunk) of the tree have musical notes and symbols on them. The tree was printed onto the middle of the card blank so that half the tree is on the back of the card. The sentiment is computer-generated and printed in the same colour.

I found an image of the sheet music for one of my favourite pieces of classical music, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, online and printed a section of it firstly onto plum cardstock and secondly onto rose cardstock. I die-cut the two butterflies and mounted them, centres only, onto the card finishing with some white pearls.

I love how the card turned out and really enjoyed creating something a bit different!

I would also like to enter it into the following brand new challenges to me and thank them all for their great inspration:
Butterfly Challenge: #28 Butterflies & M is for Music

AAA CAS Card Challenges: Game #37 It's Springtime - love the colour of those gorgeous tulips in their challenge image!

House of Cards: April Challenge ~ Add a butterfly or colour combination

Supplies Used:
Stylised tree: Computer-generated
Butterfly die: Sizzix Sizzlits Butterfly #12
Cardstock: Core'dinations
Snippets: White pearls

Hope you have fun with our colours this week. It's lovely to have some new players joining in with our challenges at CC&S since the rules were slightly revised.

Look forward to seeing your creations!
Stef x

CC&S #119: Sketch

What with being ill and having family to stay for Easter, my card for CAS Colours and Sketches is ever so slightly late this week but only by about half an hour so I'll make this a quick post.

My inspiration came from Louise's fab sketch and also from Less is More where their challenge this week is a colour challenge to use 'predominantly black'. I was going to do some Zentangle which I love doing but ran out of time, so I used some 'zentangly' stamps instead! The black background has been embossed with a birthday embossing folder. I have used touches of turquoise just to 'lift' the design by edging the background with a narrow mat, by using small turquoise sequins in the centres of the flowers and finishing the design with a small butterfly.

Supplies used:
Stamps: Mini flowers (Woodware)
Embossing folder: Happy Birthday (Papermania)
Snippets: Turquoise card, sequins and butterfly

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Can't wait to see what you do with Louise's great sketch!
Stef x

CC&S #118: Monochromatic Shades Of Green

I've not been very well this week, flu, even though I had a flu jab back in October - hey ho!

This month's challenges at CAS Colours and Sketches are being hosted by Louise and for her first colour challenge she has chosen three shades of green. I thought I would make a card for my daughter, Katie's, birthday who will be 23 on 1st April!

The squares started out as a piece of my favourite white linen cardstock. I stamped various leaves with Versamark, clear embossed, then sponged and blended inks in three shades of green. This was then spritzed with water and left to dry. I sponged the same inks onto a spare piece of cardstock and die-cut the base of the dragonfly. I used the dragonfly stamp on vellum with Versamark and white EP, die-cut and glued just the bodies together, finishing with three small gems. I printed the sentiment straight onto the card blank and then assembled the layout, raising the dragonfly slightly with thin foam pads.

Close-up of dragonfly's wings

I would also like to enter my card into the following challenge:
Less is More: Week #217 Combine any three previous Less is More challenges
The three challenges I am combining are:
Week #04: Sketch or Recipe - 3 squares
Week #15: One Layer - Embossing
Week # 89: One Layer - Wings
The DT stated that 'Should you choose a challenge which happened to be a One Layer card in the original challenge, there is no necessity to make it one layer for this challenge, unless you particularly wish to do so'.

As it also fits the criteria of a couple of other challenges, I would also like to enter my card into:
CASology: Week #140 where this week's cue card is 'Spring'

and Seize the Birthday, a new challenge for me, where this week's birthday theme is 'Anything Goes' (with no toppings)!

Supplies used:
Stamp set: Leaf decor stamps (Clear Choice)
Die & stamp set: Dragonfly (Creative Dies) - free with Simply Cards and Papercraft #134
Ink pads: Bundled Sage & Peeled Paint (TH Distress); New Sprout (Memento)
Shimmer dots: Pearlescent black/green (Papermania)
Snippets: White linen cardstock, Clear and White EP 

I'm rather pleased with this one and will definitely make a couple more with the leftover pieces. I'm glad as it's for a special birthday and I hope Katie likes it too!

Stef x