CC&S Sketch 173: Layered roses in navy and mint!

I don't often buy craft magazines these days but when I saw one with an Altenew build-a-rose stamp and die collection with it, well, I just had to get it and try out the latest craze for myself! Caro has given us a fairly straight-forward sketch to work with this week at CAS Colours & Sketches so those were my two starting points.

I found it quite tricky to align the 3-layered stamps with each other but I suppose, with practice, I'll improve! Two outline dies were included for the flower and the leaf but TBH it was just as easy to fussy cut them out, especially the leaves. I used pigment inks in three different shades of blue for the flowers and three shades of green for the leaves. I stuck a spare piece of navy paper onto a square card blank, to tie in with the sketch, and played around with the positioning of the flowers and leaves until I was happy with them. The flowers are attached with foam pads, to add dimension, and the leaves have been curled and glued under the edges of the flowers. The sentiment was stamped onto a narrow length of textured mint paper and then adhered to the card blank to form the second band in the sketch.

It might seem a slightly odd colour combination for my subject but I chose them so that I could play along with challenge #108 at Inkspirational this week. I think this combo is gorgeous and actually I think the navy BG really shows off the flowers well.

Supplies Used:

Stamps: Build-a-rose stamp & die collection (Altenew - free with Simply Cards & Papercraft 149), Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)

Ink pads: Smoke Blue, Atlantic, Indigo, Sage, Celadon, Turquoise (VersaColor), Majestic Blue (VersaFine)

Snippets: Navy & mint paper/cardstock

Well, that's all from me this week! Thanks for visiting.

Stef x

CC&S #150 Sketch: Happy Birthday Us!

We are marking our third anniversary and our 150th challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches this week. I feel honoured to have been part of the DT for almost a year now and delighted to be part of such a fantastic team. This week Louise has designed a very special sketch to celebrate our birthday and we have also have prizes to give away too! So what are you waiting for? Whether you've been with us all the way or have only just discovered our challenge please enter into the fun this week with your clean and simple cards!

When I saw that we needed to design a card with an aperture and a number on it, my mind went immediately to making a shaker card using a circle aperture as the number '0'. The celebrations made me think of designing a 50th birthday or golden wedding anniversary card using '5' as my number. And as Bev is not only our guest designer for this month but her company, Uniko, are sponsoring one of the prizes I thought it would be great to use the large Uniko 'congratulations' sentiment which I have only recently acquired.

And so the card came together quite easily. I have used pearlised card throughout to suit the occasion and kept the design all in one long banner to fit in with the sketch. The shaker element was created using the funky foam technique and the sentiment is stamped with Versamark and embossed with gold EP.

Supplies Used:
Stamp Set: All Occasion Sentiments #1 (Uniko)
Circle Dies: Standard Circles Large & Classic Scalloped Circles Large (Spellbinders)
Snippets: Ivory pearlised cardstock, Gold pearlised paper, a random number '5' sticker, assorted sequins and sparkles

I do hope you'll find some time to join in with our very special birthday challenge this week! I think I'll give my card to very special couple at church who are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks time.

Until next time
Stef x

CC&S #124: Three Squares Sketch and Some Nostalgia!

This week at CAS Colours and Sketches I have a sketch for you. It is based on a design that I made for my daughter Katie's birthday back in April. I really enjoyed working with this particular sketch and the techniques used so I thought I would make something very similar for Martin as this Friday (15th) is our 33rd wedding anniversary!

As before, the squares started out as a piece of my favourite white linen cardstock. This time I stamped various small flowers with Versamark, white embossed, then sponged and blended inks in shades of pink and lilac. This was then spritzed with water and left to dry before die-cutting the squares.

I printed the sentiment straight onto the card blank and then assembled the layout. The butterfly was simply die-cut from a piece of the same linen cardstock, adhered by the body only, lifting the wings, and the design finished with three matching adhesive gems.

I chose the flowers and colours to match the cotton material that I made the bridesmaid dresses with for my two, then young, cousins all those years ago! I made the dresses for the older bridesmaids too with lots of help from my Mum! Don't know if you would like to see, but I thought I would sneek a photo of them in.

Gill, Cathy, Doreen (Mum), Andrea, Ros & Nicola

And whilst I'm being nostalgic this week, one of me on the day too! I usually dislike photos of me, which is why I use a picture of a skylark as my avatar, but this particular photo is one of the nicest I've ever seen and therefore I don't mind showing it!

Those were the days... back to the here and now! I hope you enjoy working with this layout as much as I have done. I can see me using it often. As stated in the challenge post, you do not have to use a butterfly as your focal point. I mainly chose it because it represents our new-look challenge blog. However, we do need to clearly be able to see the sketch in your finished design.

Supplies Used:
Stamps: Various small flowers from Festive Bouquet, Emily's Garden & Mum's Garden sets (Card-io)
Ink pads: Angel Pink & Lulu Lavender (Memento)
Dies: Classic Squares Large (Spellbinders), Butterfly #12 (Sizzix Sizzlits)
Snippets: White linen cardstock, White EP, Adhesive gems

Have fun and I look forward to visiting your blogs.
Thanks.
Stef x

Peace, Love, Joy

I have just discovered a new stamp company (well, new to me anyway!), Uniko Studio, and their wonderful blog. I have made this card for Martin, using inspiration from their current challenge, to celebrate our wedding anniversary on Thursday 15th May (32 years!) As I don't own any of their stamps, I downloaded this digital freebie and coloured with Promarkers to tie in with the challenge theme.  I think it would make an equally suitable card for Easter or Christmas. I decoupaged the central flower and finished the centres with some small dotty buttons that I've had for ages. I coloured in the borders around each flower and used an embossing pen and 'Enchanted Gold' embossing powder to highlight the words. The image is simply mounted onto a pale lemon card blank and finished with a small green banner tag and another button!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:
Uniko Studio Challenge No 9: Easter

I will definitely be putting some of their lovely stamps on my crafty wish list! Thank you for visiting!
Stef