CC&S #135: A Double Challenge!

A fifth Thursday in the month means a double challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches with both a colour palette AND a sketch to work with together. Some hate it and some love the usually tougher challenge but Jane has made it easy for us by giving us both a super colour trio and a delightful sketch to work with.

I needed to make a card for Martin's Mum whose birthday is next week so decided to kill two birds with one stone as time is precious at the moment! I have interpreted the sketch using flowers, with leaves in place of the dots. I used a Marianne Designs die to cut the spirals for my paper roses in a scrap of navy paper. The centres of the flowers are white Candi that has been coloured with an appropriate Promarker and fixed with foam pads. The leaves have been cut using the same die set in a scrap piece of green card carefully matching the colour palette. The banners have been cut with a CB tag die again using scraps of cardstock. Lastly the sentiment from Paper Smooches has been stamped using a Memento ink pad.

Supplies Used:

Spiral & Leaf Dies: LR0162 Roses (Marianne Design)

Candi: Icing Sugar (Craftwork Cards)

Promarker: Buttercup (Letraset)

Banner Dies: Tag Along (Clearly Besotted)

Sentiment Stamp: Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)

Ink Pad: Nautical Navy (Memento)

Snippets: Navy, Green and Textured Yellow cardstock

As all the cardstock I have used is from my snippets box I would also like to enter my card into this week's recipe challenge #234 at Less Is More and at the same time wish Chrissie a very happy birthday. I have followed her blog and her challenge for some time now.  All her cards are fabulous and she is a great source of inspiration to me and, I know, many other crafters! Edit: I forgot to link up my card to the LIM challenge - silly me!

I think I had roses on my mind because I have been making some paper roses for the wedding from a pattern found on the internet by Lia Griffith. Katie is making her bouquet from paper roses using pages from an old copy of her favourite book 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. So I am making some extras to partially decorate the cake and maybe for the tables, etc. I'm very pleased with the way they are turning out and more importantly Katie likes them too so I thought I would share photos of them with you.

That's it for now. Hope you enjoy the double challenge. 

See you next week!

Stef x

CC&S #134: Heart Sketch

A quick post from me today. It's 'Wedding Central' here at home now that term has finished as we're busy preparing for Katie's wedding on Saturday 15th August. She is getting married in the church next door, the reception is here at home in a marquee in the garden and we are doing all the catering ourselves! She must have caught me in an 'off' moment *lol*.

Jane has given us an uncomplicated sketch to work with this week and it screamed shaker card at me. I chose the colours to match a wedding that my other daughter Laura is attending in a few week's time and have followed Jane's sketch pretty closely. The sentiment has been stamped with Versamark and embossed with gold EP.

Supplies Used:
Die: Classic Hearts (Spellbinders Nestabilities)
Stamp & Die Set: Tag Along (Clearly Besotted)
Snippets: Textured orange cardstock, Sequins and sparkly bits, Gold EP

Hope you all have fun with the sketch and if you're taking a break, enjoy your holidays!
Stef x

CC&S #133: Colour challenge

I made my card for this week's CAS Colours and Sketches colour challenge very late one night for my friend Ros's retirement from the school where I work. Sometimes those cards turn out to be better than those made when you're wide awake! I'm not entirely happy with the way the background came out but I loved watercoloring the flower.

I have used the Gerbera stamp set from Uniko Studio. The flower has been stamped with Versamark and heat embossed using white EP. I masked the flower and stamped and embossed two leaves to sit behind it.

The other week I found a fantastic Brilliance ink pad in my local craft shop. The colour is 'Rocket Red Gold' and I have been dying to have a play with it. It is the most gorgeous shade of red/orange/pink with a gold shimmer in it and I thought it matched rather well with Jane's choice of Melon Mambo for this week. The flower has been painstakingly colored with this and a matching turquoise green for the leaves. I thought the flower needed lifting from the background a little so used a very watered down shade of brown. I then cut a frame from the image and mounted both pieces onto separate pieces of dark brown cardstock before sticking them back one on top of the other. A sentiment from the same set stamped in the same brown ink finishes the card.

I would also like to enter the following challenges:
CAS on Sunday: Challenge #62 Embossing

And also CAS-ual Fridays: CFC #141 Embossing

Supplies Used:
Stamp set: Pure Florals: Gerbera (Uniko Studio)
Ink pads: Rocket Red Gold (Brilliance), Celadon (Versacolor) & Espresso Truffle (Memento)
Snippets: White EP, White linen & Dark brown cardstock

I hope this close-up might show the gold shimmer in the ink a little better! It would be lovely to see a few more entries in this week's gallery before you all go off on your summer holidays! Just remember to only use the three challenge colours chosen by Jane plus any neutrals.

Thanks for visiting today!
Stef x

CC&S #132: Stars and Stripes

This week Jane has given us a lovely sketch to work with on CAS Colours and Sketches. My card has also been influenced by the themes from a couple of other challenges and so I thought I would make a patriotic card for all my blogging friends from across the Atlantic and a graduation card for my friend Rachel at the same time!

I haven't done any paper folding in a while so the focus of my design is a five pointed origami star made from a piece of blue starry paper. A video showing how to fold this star can be found on YouTube HERE. These make wonderful hanging decorations and I have made them previously in all different sizes. This one was made from a pentagon in a 6cm square (Edit: 12cm square). I cut some stripes from some matching paper and two smaller stars from a piece of red starry paper and stuck them to the card blank. The sentiment is computer-generated and finally the origami star was placed between the other two.

The other challenges I would like to enter are:
Less Is More Week #231: Colour theme 'Red, White & Blue'

And Addicted to CAS Challenge #67: Code Word 'Patriotic'

Supplies Used:
Origami Star Instructions: http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/5-pointed-origami-star.html
Sentiment font: Grilled Cheese
Snippets: Striped and starry papers

It's so busy at the end of the school summer term. Roll on the holidays!
Hope you have lots of fun with Jane's super sketch.
Thanks for visiting!
Stef x

CC&S #131: Colours and LIM #230: Sketch

Busy week so quick post from me today! Jane is our hostess for the challanges at CAS Colours and Sketches this month and we have a lovely summery set of colours to start us off. They reminded me of cornfields/sand & sea/sky so have gone down that route and created a little sunset scene.

By masking off areas of my rounded cardstock one at a time I have blended inks to create the basic landscape. I then used a watercolour brush to give some depth to the scene by creating a few shadows and textures. The meadow in the foreground has been stamped with two colours using different parts of the same stamp.

The sentiment has been die-cut and the negative placed over a piece of rounded cardstock coloured with the same ink that I used for the sun. The butterfly has been die cut from a spare piece of the same cardstock using the same die and mounted slightly off the edge of the main image.

When searching for inspiration I came across this wonderfully uncomplicated sketch at Less Is More #230. I thought it would suit the design I had in mind so would like to enter it into their challenge too.

Supplies Used:
Inks: Amethyst & Turquoise (Versacolor) and Toffee Crunch (Memento)
Stamp: Wild Meadow (IndigoBlu)
Die: Happy Birthday (free with a copy of Papercraft Essentials)
Snippets: White linen cardstock

Thanks for visiting. Look forward to seeing your entries!
Stef x