CC&S Sketch Challenge 190: I too must say goodbye ...

I'm sad to say that this will be my last post as a DT member of CAS Colours and Sketches. To cut a long story short and keep this post about crafting, my mum has not been well recently and had a short stay in hospital. She has been staying with us since she came out as she lives on her own but it is going to take her some weeks/months to recover. Having taken on a more demanding role at work this term, something has to give so that I have more time for my mum and for now that means that my crafting time will have to be restricted.

So to finish with a card featuring a technique (which, if anything, is what I'll be remembered for at CC&S) and some flowers and butterflies. Karen is our hostess this month and this week she has given us a sketch with lots of possibilities! When I saw it I immediately thought of making a cutaway card which I hope shows up in the photo. To save time, I used part of a masterboard on the inside of the card that I made some time ago having followed a video on the fabulous Eileen Godwin's YouTube channel HERE. I cut away the curve from the front of the card and then trimmed the edge with die-cut and punched butterflies to match the colours used on the masterboard. The sentiment is printed directly onto the card and, after I had photographed the card for my post, I added some pearls to the butterfly bodies.

I think I can just about get away with calling this a CAS card because over half the front of it is still white even though the rest of it is quite busy! I'm going to give this to my friend Angela at work who is lucky enough to be taking early retirement in a couple of weeks' time.

Supplies Used:
Stamps:  Beautiful Blooms 1 (Uniko Studio) 
Ink Pads: Milled Lavender, Tumbled Glass & Worn Lipstick (TH Distress) - I think, though not sure exactly which colours I used now
Stencil: Small butterfly (free with a magazine)
Die & Punch: Small butterfly (XCut)
Sentiment Font: Rage Italic
Snippets: White gesso, Small bubbles stamp, White and silver gel pens

I will carry on crafting, card-making and blogging but maybe with not as much regularity in the next few months. I love it all too much not too and it has definitely become my sanctuary, somewhere where I can lose myself, listen to music and be creative.

Thank you all so much for being part of my CC&S journey and for your continued support of our CAS challenge. I will always remember it for being my first ever DT and I will continue to follow what's happening and join in when I can. The rest of the ladies on the DT are a brilliant bunch of crafters to work with and I am thankful to them for their friendship and support and for helping me to extend my creative boundaries over the last couple of years!

Stef x

CC&S Double Challenge 180: Eileen's butterflies

I had lots of fun again this week making my card for CAS Colours and Sketches and it was in no small way thanks to my friend Eileen Godwin!

Eileen is very generous in sharing her time and talent with fellow crafters and made a YouTube video this last week showing a really colourful way of using Distress inks and this is my version of it. The depth of colour is not as good as Eileen's but that is what makes her a superstar and anyway I'm pretty pleased with my result. I was delighted when I saw I could combine both our sketch and colours and Eileen's tutorial into just one card! I actually made one in another colourway too but it's not quite finished so will share next time.

I inked and misted an acrylic block with Distress ink pads and stamped it onto a piece of card. Stamping in the shape of an arc as in Bev's design proved quite tricky until I hit upon the idea of making a mask from a plastic punched pocket so that I could see through it and clean it easily and it worked really well! The rain drops were stamped when the ink was dry, removing some of the colour from them with a water brush and highlighting with a white gel pen. I coloured a few spare pieces of card with the three ink pads and left them to dry thoroughly before die-cutting and punching the butterflies. These have then been stamped with a swirly stamp and highlighted as before. I love this sentiment stamp but don't use it nearly often enough and thought it fitted well here. I used a black matt, a colour I don't use much on my cards but think it works well for this technique. Finally I glued the butterflies in place along the line of the arc. Job done!

Supplies Used:
Ink Pads: Cracked Pistachio, Squeezed Lemonade & Worn Lipstick (TH Distress), Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Stamps: Water Drops & Nature Speaks (Inkylicious), Klimt Swirl Block (Tanda Stamps)
Dies: Sizzlits Butterfly #12 (Sizzix), Small Butterfly XCU220 (XCut)
Punch: Small Butterfly (XCut)
Snippets: White & black cardstock, White gel pen

Remember that you must use both Bev's colour palette and sketch together on your CC&S entry if you want to be considered as one of our weekly winners. Looking forward to seeing your interpretations.

Thanks for visiting!
Stef x

CC&S #143 Sketch: Snowflake Circles

If I ever make this card again, I'll know what to do differently! It was such a faffy card to make and when I first saw Lizy's sketch for this week at CAS Colours and Sketches, I hadn't envisaged making such a complicated card!

I began by sticking a square of snowflake patterned paper to the front of my card blank and printing the sentiment onto it. I chose my snowflake dies and punches but unfortunately had to choose slightly larger circle dies than I would have liked to allow the flakes some movement! The snowflakes are double-sided and I was going to stick the paper layers together before cutting and then realised that if I wanted to attach thread through the middle that I would have to cut them separately and then try and stick them together! Silly me also chose metallic thread which slipped all over the place when trying to sandwich the various layers together!

I need a piece of card on the inside to cover the thread and because the circles were bigger I decided to place it so that it forms a shadow to the outer circle. The whole card did take me much longer than expected but I quite like the finished design so maybe I might make something similar another day!

Supplies Used:
Dies: Snow Flakes (Die'sire), Standard Circles Large (Spellbinders Nestabilities)
Punch: Large snowflake (XCut)
Sentiment Font: Allegro
Snippets: Snowflake patterned paper, Metallic papers and thread, Pale blue cardstock

I would also like to enter my card into this week's challenge #165 at CASology where their cue word is 'Circles'. I hope Lizy's seemingly straight forward sketch doesn't lead you astray too far? Can't wait to see what you come up with. It's my turn to host again next month and I'm just finalising my colour choices and sketch designs.

Looking forward to sharing them with you and seeing your entries this week.
Stef x

NNBUS Versus RONBUS!

Lots of you will have come across Darnell's quirky blog! She coined the phrase NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) and set up a challenge to encourage us all to use our NBUS to avoid it being forgotten about and left at the back of a drawer somewhere! Some people have interpreted this to mean any stash they haven't used before, even newly acquired items. So I set myself a challenge this afternoon to make two cards, the first using some NNBUS (brand New NBUS) and secondly to use what I'm going to call RONBUS (Really Old NBUS)!

 

Bev' original card used for inspiration

My first card uses some of my sale goodies from Uniko Studio. It uses the Background Builders: Chevrons and the Flower Power 2 stamp sets. I was looking at Bev's Pinterest board for some ideas as her products are relatively new to me and have CASed one of her cards, so I hope she doesn't mind!

I have chosen the turquoise and lime colours (along with black and white) to fit in with the ShowCASe your style challenge #6: Colour challenge. The inks are Versacolor Turquoise and Split Pea. To make the leaves I have coloured a piece of hammered cardstock with Split Pea ink and punched with a Martha Stewart leaf punch. 

This CAS challenge is new to me and this card is definitely where my style is at the moment. I will also enter it into Darnell's challenge and see whether she thinks my NNBUS card is better than my RONBUS one!

My second card uses stuff that I have had for years and personally I don't like it as much as the first card. It reminds me of cards I would have made a few years back and I guess that's why!

The die is an XCut Lacé die and I thought I would use it given its appropriateness to the time of year. The fabric brad is from a set called Riverbank Revels by Trimcraft. I think I bought both these items in a sale quite some years ago! The sentiment stamp is a freebie from a craft mag that I have had for ages. CASology have linked in with Darnell's challenge this week and have NBUS as their cue card so I would like to enter this into their challenge #129 (I think you can only enter once otherwise I would have entered both cards) and also into Darnell's (where I know you can enter more than once).
Edit: I can't see how to enter two cards from the same post on my blog into the same link more than once on a challenge blog.

I have also colour-themed it to fit in with another new challenge to me Colour Me where the colours are Pacific Point and Real Red (along with neutrals).

That's all from me today. I will be back later in the week with my CAS Colours and Sketches card. A new year and I have entered three new to me challenges. Can't be bad!


Take care
Stef x