CAS Colours & Sketches #139: A Rainbow of Stars

Two quick posts from me to end the month. After all the hard work (& fun) of organising the wedding we've decided to escape to Cornwall just for a few days before term starts proper! I love the Cornish coast and haven't been for some years so am very excited to be going!

As soon as I saw Patricia's lovely simple sketch for CAS Colours and Sketches this week with its seven stars I was reminded of a rainbow. Then I remembered having a quote on my PC about rainbows and stars and so the card almost made itself!

The background rainbow paper also came from my PC, collected from, I'm not sure where, along my crafty travels. The stars were simply punched and raised on foam pads to follow Patricia's sketch.

Supplies Used:
Punch: Small star (XCut)
Snippets: Rainbow patterned paper, Coloured cardstock

Whatever you're doing this Bank Holiday weekend, I hope you have a good time and if you can find some crafty 'me' space, please do join in our challenge!
Stef x

Wedding Card for Katie & Tom

As promised, a photo of the card I made for Katie and Tom. It was designed with lots of elements from their wedding threaded into the card.

The background was made using the faux mother-of-pearl technique as learnt on Loll's blog HERE. This technique produces lovely pieces of artwork and I chose it because Katie borrowed a string of pearls from me to wear with her dress. I chose shades of blue inks because the bridesmaids wore royal blue and it featured in many of the decorative elements in the marquee, the flowers and on their stationery too. The rose is die-cut from a page of Katie's favourite book 'The Time Traveller's Wife' adhered to a piece of cardstock for strength. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Katie made paper roses for her bouquet with pages from this book and I made quite a few used in the decorations and on the cake too. The book pages also featured in the 66 metres of bunting that Laura, Lachlan and I made to decorate the marquee! Finally, the verse is an extract from the reading from the Song of Solomon read at the church service by Tom's mum, Fiona, printed in gold which there were also small highlights of through the wedding.

As the theme at Less Is More this week is 'Congratulations', I would like to enter it into their challenge #237, especially as the challenge was posted on their wedding day!

And also into the Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge Blog where the theme for August Week 3 is 'Anything Goes' using Paper Smooches products. I absolutely love this rose outline die and this is my first time playing in their challenge!

Supplies Used:

Faux Mother-Of-Pearl Technique: Pearlescent liquid acrylic - White Pearl (Daler Rowney)

Inkpads: Tumbled Glass & Faded Denim (TH Distress)

Die: Roses (Paper Smooches)

Sentiment Font: Edwardian Script

As soon as I get some photos of the wedding, I will post a few for you to see.

Thanks for visiting!

Stef x

CC&S #138 Colours & A Little Masking

Slowly getting back to normal after the wedding! Went back to work today so that brought me down to earth with a bump! For this week's challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches, Patricia has given us a set of colours that I wouldn't normally use together but I have enjoyed the challenge of working with them and am reasonably pleased with the result!

I took inspiration for my card from the current challenge #129 at Muse. I don't think I've ever played there before, though I have often wanted to, so thought it was about time! I was inspired by Anita's square stencil pattern and the die-cut leaves in her design. Using Patricia's colour palette I inked through part of a stencil mask with a biscuit shade of brown directly onto a card blank and then, using the faux cross stitch technique, used a darker shade of brown through a fibreglass screen to achieve the cross-stitch effect.

I chose the sentiment stamp as it has a similar texture to the stencilling and stamped the two-parts using the same shade of dark brown. The flowers are die-cut from two snippets of cardstock that match with the colour palette. I turned the green flower over as it suited the composition better. The card was simply finished with a few adhesive pearls.

As I have used stencils and masking techniques on my card I would also like to enter it into the following challenges:

AAA Cards: Challenge #46 - Masquerade

Happy Little Stampers: August CAS Challenge - Masking

Supplies Used:

Stencil Mask: Doodle Squares (Creative Expressions)

Stencil: Fibreglass Screen (Dreamweaver)

Sentiment Stamp: Happy Birthday (Clearly Besotted)

Ink Pads: Bisque & Brown (Versacolor)

Flower Die: Prim Poppy (Memory Box)

Snippets: Blue & green cardstock, Blue adhesive pearls

I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully, to share the card that I made for Katie and Tom on their wedding day and will post a few photos once I have some! Meanwhile enjoy this week's challenge!

Stef x

CC&S #136: Summer Pastels Colour Challenge

Hi everyone! Just a tad late and missed the CAS Colours and Sketches deadline by a little over an hour but things are getting oh so busy around here with just over a week to go now so I hope you'll forgive me!

Patricia is our hostess this month and has given us a beautiful summer pastel colour palette to work with this week. I decided to use my first ever purchase, a stamp and corresponding die set from Uniko Studio (Beautiful Blooms 1) and it is still my favourite! I inked the centre of the flower with a slightly darker ink and the outer petals with a lighter ink but I don't think this really shows in the final photo.

I found a really nice sketch that I thought would work well with my idea over at Freshly Made Sketches #198, so I would also like to enter my card into their challenge with thanks for the inspiration from their DT! The stamped flowers and leaves have been layered up onto scraps of corresponding card from my snippets box, the rectangles having been die-cut with my stitched rectangles die.

The sentiment has been stamped with a recent Paper Smooches acquisition - I love the fonts in this set! For a finishing touch, the flower and sentiment have been highlighted with a touch of Stickles. I decided to use a square card blank for all my layers so that I could also enter my card into the current themed challenge #256 at The Paper Players: It's Hip to be Square!

Supplies Used:
Stamp and Die Sets: Beautiful Blooms 1 (Uniko Studio)
Die: Stitched Rectangle Layers (Memory Box)
Ink pads: Hyacinth & Smoke Blue (Versacolor), Whisper Pink (Whisper)
Sentiment Stamp: Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)
Snippets: Pale textured yellow, Pale pink & Dotty hyacinth card scraps, Rhinestone Stickles.

I think that's all from me for now! Our guest designer at CC&S this month is Magic Flying Boots who has featured in our weekly favourites several times lately with her stunning designs so be sure to drop by and say hello!

Stef x