CC&S 164 Sketch: Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

Jane has given us a very simple square sketch to work with at CAS Colours and Sketches this week which opens up all sorts of possibilities.

I went to a Sincerely Yours craft show at Leigh recently where I watched Emma from Inkylicious demo a lovely technique of spritzing their ink dusters and using them on a satin card which gives a lovely subtle brushed effect to the inks.

At a similar time I took a beautiful photo in my back garden on a cold, frosty morning of the sun coming up behind the trees. I thought I would try and replicate that scene on my card. Unfortunately my small camera doesn't really do the colours justice and neither does my finished card as they were much more dramatic but hey ho! To finish the scene I tried to replicate the frost on the grass with a gelly roll pen.

Jane's sketch is square and my stamp is rectangular, though it does have the bold frame around it so I layered it onto a square of coloured card and included the greeting within that.

Supplies Used:
Card: Satin Silk 350gsm (Inkylicious)
Ink Pads: Tumbled Glass, Milled Lavender, Spun Sugar, Squeezed Lemonade, Dried Marigold, Bundled Sage, Frayed Burlap (TH Distress); Tuxedo Black (Memento), Smokey Gray (Versafine)
Stamp: Picture Perfect 1 (Inkylicious)
Stencil: Scenic Mountains (Inkylicious)
Pen: Gelly Roll 'Clear Star' (Sakura)
Snippets: Lavender cardstock, Happy Birthday sentiment stamp

We had tons of entries into our last sketch challenge. I hope you will all want to play along with this one. Please remember to follow the squareness of the sketch if you want to be considered as a weekly winner!

Thanks for your visit!
Stef x

CC&S 162 Sketch: Unusually Orange!

It's my last week as hostess at CAS Colours and Sketches for a while but I've really enjoyed myself this month. To finish I thought I would really challenge myself and dig out an old paper pad in a colour that I don't go for very much - orange! I've also added, unusually for me, a touch of bling! I have a few colleagues at work that I make cards for that do like their bling so I will probably give it to one of them that has a birthday soon.

Instead of adding a sentiment, as in the sketch, I have used a piece of embossed paper that has the main sentiment in a similar position. The rosette was made using a specialist die. Other than that I have used a few papers and the all-important bling (actually I think I quite like the text paper)!

Supplies Used:
Die: Paper Rosette 656931 (Sizzlits Decorative Strip Tim Holtz)
Paper Pad: Sunshine Capsule Collection (Papermania)
Embossing Folder: Happy Birthday (Papermania)
Snippets: Pearlised paper, Button, Sequins, Adhesive gems

Thank you for sharing all your creations with us this month! I hope you'll join us again this week. Next week I believe Jane takes the reigns as your hostess for March.

Have fun!
Stef x

Less is More Recipe Week #195: Newsprint

Yaay, it's half term and that means I get a little bit more time to myself this week and can do some crafting! The Less is More challenge this week is to use newsprint on your card, whilst, as ever, keeping the design clean and simple. I decided to make some newsprint rosettes from a page of the local paper using the large Tim Holtz/Sizzix rosette die. These were easy enough to fold but tricky to flatten out as the paper is quite delicate. I chose a page with some colour on it and decided to make my friend Jane a birthday card using one of the rosettes. Jane is a good friend who shares two of my other passions, for both Girlguiding and narrowboating.

The embossed panel was made using a birthday embossing folder from Papermania and I picked out the main colour from the newsprint to edge the panel. The card is finished with a computer generated tag using an old typewriter font and a button in the centre of the rosette.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenge:

Less is More Recipe Week 195: Newsprint

I am also really enjoying making these 12 stranded kumihimo bracelets, having made three now! This one, also for Jane, is made with plum as the accent colour which was chosen to represent our Bridgewater Boaters' narrowboating colours. The other colours in the braid are Royal Blue and Williamsburg Blue to represent Guiding colours and Dark Grey and Silver which combine to give a neutral base.

I hope she likes both the card and the bracelet and doesn't see this post before I see her tonight!

Fingers crossed!

Stef x