CC&S #148: A Double Challenge

I'm not sure that my card for CAS Colours and Sketches this week is either clean or simple enough to really do the challenge justice. I was making some cards with my mum the other day and obviously had one of those indecisive days so this is what I ended up with. 

We were making some cards using Craftwork Cards products and I thought I would make a card for the challenge using patterned papers and die-cut flowers. As it does sometimes, the design started out one way and finished up another. The card has an acetate panel on the front with a patterned panel on the inside of the card. However, the finished design could just have easily had the patterned panel on the front of the card but I had a different plan when I originally sat down to make it!

I wanted to make my own flowers to match the graphic but ended up cutting and shaping flowers from the papers and using some die cuts. Also, it did prove a real challenge to find papers that only used three closely-matching colours to the ones I chose for CC&S - talk about giving myself a hard time!

Anyway, I have made it for a special friend's birthday this week and I'm sure she'll love it, especially the colours. I've got a really busy week of birthdays so I must go and make a few more cards. Then I will see about enjoying what's left of half term!

We would love to have you join us in the challenge this week. We had a bumper crop of entries last week, so thank you!

Stef x

CC&S #147 Sketch: Christmas Tree Triangles

Hi everyone! When I drew this week's sketch for CAS Colours and Sketches, it just screamed Christmas trees to me and therefore it wasn't hard to come up with a design.

I used a lovely 5-piece layered Christmas tree die set which I really haven't used enough especially as the trees are so easy to assemble. I curled, shaped and inked the edges of each layer to give the trees some dimension. The trunks are cut from snippets of brown paper and each tree is finished with a silver star. They are mounted onto a die-cut stitched rectangle which has also been debossed using a swiss dots embossing folder. The sentiment is printed directly onto the card blank.

Supplies Used:
Patterned Papers: Christmas Fancy (Dovecraft)
Dies: Christmas Stacker Tree (Dee's Distinctively), Stitched Rectangle Layer (Memory Box)
Embossing Folder: Swiss Dots (Magazine Freebie!)
'Greetings' Sentiment Font: Scriptina
Snippets: Brown paper, Linen cardstock, Sequin stars, Crystal Stickles

Well, that's another Christmas card made. Thanks so much for visiting. I hope you get a chance to play along with us this week!

Stef x

CC&S 146 Colours: Autumn has arrived!

Welcome to everyone visting from CAS Colours and Sketches where it's my pleasure to host again and this week I've chosen an autumnal colour palette for you.

I have a lot of close male relatives with birthdays at this time of the year (my husband, my son and my two brothers), so it's natural for my thoughts to turn to male cards for a few weeks before getting stuck into the rest of my Christmas cards. So an autumn colour palette and design suits these just perfectly.

The background is masked and inked using the bleeding art tissue technique, learnt from the fabulous Eileen Godwin's blog. She creates some amazing mixed media art and if I didn't live at the opposite end of the country, I would love to go to one of her workshops - one day maybe! I used tissue in the three challenge colours, let them run into each other and then left the card to dry completely. I didn't want to use black for my stamped leaves and sentiment so have gone for a very dark shade of brown as my neutral colour because I think it works better with the colour palette. I hope that's alright with the rest of the CC&S DT!

As I have done everything in one layer I would also like to enter my card into this week's challenge #245 at Less Is More where the one layer card theme is 'Autumn'.

Supplies Used:
Tissue: Spectra Art Tissue (from Amazon)
Stamps: Leaf Decor Stamps (Royal Langnickel), Happy Birthday (Clearly Besotted)

Thanks for dropping by this week. Please come and join in the fun and share your designs with us at CC&S. We'd love to see them!

Oh, and happy birthday Stu!
Stef x

CC&S #145 Sketch: Two for the price of one!

Hi everyone! I hope that you like my tag sketch for this week's challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches and that you'll be inspired to have a go and share what you make with us.

I needed to make a new baby card for a work colleague and at the time of making it she was still waiting for the happy day to come not knowing what sex her baby was so I made two cards, one for a boy and one for a girl. I'm happy to say that she had her little girl on Sunday so that is why I have featured the pink card first and shown the other one further down.

The tags for both were die-cut with a stitched die and stamped with free dies from old copies of two different magazines. The stamping on the pink card is simply highlighted with a matching coloured pencil. The coiled string graphic is printed onto the card background.

With the blue card I have coiled some gold metallic thread behind the tags to replace the graphic and stamped the image with a coordinating ink pad. Both cards are finished with a matching ribbon bow.

As it's an 'Anything Goes' week and I have principally used one of their dies, I would also like to enter my cards into the Paper Smooches Sparks October Week 1 challenge. I only have a few of their products but love using them and the dies cut really well.

Supplies Used:
Die: Tag Stitched KFBD126 (Paper Smooches)
Stamps: Magazine freebies
Ink Pad: Atlantic Blue (Versacolor)
Snippets: Coloured cardstock, Ribbon oddments, Pink pencil, Gold metallic thread

Congratulations to Jaye and her husband on the safe arrival of their beautiful baby girl, Sophie!

Thank you to our readers for visiting and for joining in with us each week at CAS Colours and Sketches. See you next week with another colour palette and more inspiration from our DT!

Stef x

CC&S #144 Colours: Night of Navy, Metallic Gold and Soft Sky

Hi everyone! It's my turn for another month of hosting the challenges at CAS Colours and Sketches and as usual we are kicking off with a colour palette.

I had decided that I wanted to do a masked and sponged sky design but TBH it's not come out quite as nice as it was in my head. I guess that's what comes from working hard all day and only having a couple of hours to make a card for this week's challenge.

I used a harsh sponge, a mask and an old credit card with Versamark to create the sun. It looks better in real life as there are a few more gold speckles that don't show up in the photo but using inks over the top of it has definitely dulled it's brightness! The sky was coloured using my fabulous ink dusters from Inkylicious and there are also a couple of hills which, again, don't show up too well. I stamped the trees before removing the masking and then stamped and embossed the greeting. I love getting messy with inking techniques but definitely need some more practice at this one when I'm not too tired.

Supplies Used:
Ink Pads: Nautical Blue & Summer Sky (Memento)
Stamps: Lone Spruce and Sprucescape Trees (Clarity)
Sentiment: Xmas Wishes (Inkylicious)
Snippets: Ink dusters, Gold EP

Looking forward to seeing what you make of my colour and sketch choices this month.
Thanks for playing along with us!
Stef x