CC&S 171 Sketch: ... And Just A Few More

I have fallen in love with this set so much that I have used it once more for Louise's last choice for CAS Colours and Sketches this month, a sketch. When I first saw the sketch I'll be honest and say that I thought it would be a tricky one. But when I was tidying my new stamp set away I suddenly noticed my design was staring me in the face!

The image has been stamped onto white cardstock, coloured with Promarkers and finished with some glossy accents and a few pearls once again. The sentiment is another one from the same set. I mounted it onto a coloured card blank and rounded all the corners, job done! And to think I was struggling with it at first!

I think I quite like the idea of taking one stamp set and finding different ways to use it for all our challenges in the same month. I will definitely look at doing that again. It removes some of the time wasted in trying to decide what to do!

Supplies Used:

Stamp Set: Decorative Roses (Creative Stamping 30)

Inkpads: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Onyx Black (VersaFine)

Promarkers: Orchid, Amethyst, Leaf Green, Forest Green (Letraset)

Snippets: Glossy Accents & Adhesive Pearls

I do hope that Louise doesn't think I've strayed too far from her sketch. Can you take some time out to join us over the bank holiday weekend here in the UK? We'd love to see your artwork amongst our entries. I'm spending the weekend narrowboating with some Guiding friends. Must be daft as it's hailing outside right now. Will have to remember to pack lots of layers!

Thanks for visiting.

Stef x

CC&S 170 Colours: More Decorative Roses

As my 'Decorative Rose' stamp set was still on my desk from last week I thought I would have a go at using it with Louise's colour choices for CAS Colours and Sketches this week. It's been a while since I did some straight forward stamping and used Promarkers to colour in, so I thought I would give that a go this week.

I have only used two different pens to do the colouring but have gone over parts of the design several times to get the darker colour. To finish, I used 'Glossy Accents' on the flowers, again something which I'm a bit out of practice at using. It didn't go on as perfectly as it should have, but well enough! I finished by matting and layering onto a coloured card blank with a top fold, again, something I've not used in a while!

Supplies Used:
Stamp Set: Decorative Roses (with Creative Stamping, Issue 30)
Ink pad: Espresso Truffle (Memento)
Promarkers: Rose Pink & Sky Blue (Letraset)
Snippets: Brown textured cardstock, Glossy Accents (Ranger)

So, a bit of nostalgia from me this week. What will you be able to come up with? Sorry that I've not been commenting a lot on the entries in the last couple of weeks. Hope to put that right this week.

Stef x

CC&S 169 Sketch: Just Love This Decorative Rose Stamp

A quick card from me this week as I'm back from my short break and have got so much catching up to do! I love Louise's sketch for CAS Colours and Sketches this week and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

I don't often buy craft magazines these days but I just had to have the latest copy of Creative Stamping. I've not come across it before but it's got the most gorgeous Rennie Mackintosh Glasgow Rose inspired stamp set with it this month and loads of ideas for how to use it inside. I stamped two of the image stamps with grey ink, cut round them carefully and coloured them with my Derwent colour pencils. I cut the two background mats to tie in with the sketch and stamped a sentiment on the largest one again in grey ink. I put it all together raising the bird image on foam pads

Supplies Used:
Stamps: Decorative Roses (with Creative Stamping Issue 30)
Ink Pad: Smokey Grey (VersaFine)
Pencils: 20, 21, 43, 69 & 70 (Derwent Cumberland)
Snippets: Textured blue/green cardstock

I chose this particular sentiment from the set so that I could give this card to a work colleague who is celebrating a big birthday this week! Please drop by the rest of the DT blogs for more inspiration.
Thanks for visiting!
Stef x

CC&S 167 Double: IndigoBlu Butterfly

I actually don't mind coming up with a card for the dreaded double challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches (we have one of these every time there are five Thursdays in a month). You are provided with a sketch and a colour palette, surely that's your card half made! Yet sometimes, something creeps in that makes you wonder what to do exactly. This week, for me, it was the colour brown! Flowers, no, they would appear to be dead; Autumn, no, wrong season!

After flowers, my next go to would be butterflies and yes there are a lot of brownish butterflies in nature but on our cards we usually inject more colours to pretty them up a bit. So I stamped the large butterfly with a brown inkpad, cut a square from part of the image and used the yellow and blue to watercolour (still my favourite technique at the moment) parts of my image. I colour-matched the sentiment on my computer and used a scrap of textured brown cardstock as a band to tie in with the sketch. I also ran a brown inkpad along the edges of my image and sentiment to avoid two slightly different whites coming together and raised them on foam pads.

Don't be scared of the double! Please set yourself a challenge and come along and join us this week. I liked my finished card better than I thought I would.

Supplies Used:
Stamp: Big Butterfly BBII (IndigoBlu)
Inkpads: Pinecone (VersaColor), Salty Ocean & Squeezed Lemonade (TH Distress)
Sentiment Font: Allegro
Snippets: Brown textured & White cardstock

Thanks for visiting!
Stef x

CC&S 166 Sketch: Watercolour Lifting

I've had lots of fun getting messy with inks again creating my DT card for CAS Colours and Sketches this week. I spotted this card on Anita's blog HERE and it reminded me that I had watched the same fab watercolour lifting video technique from Jennifer McGuire HERE and decided to try it out using this week's sketch drawn by our hostess Jane.

Next time I try this technique, and I will try it again because I loved doing it, I will use different paper. For this card I used a 230gsm watercolour paper but it seems to be a bit too porous and I don't think I managed to achieve quite such a marked effect as either Anita or Jennifer. I inked up four pieces of paper directly from inkpads, brushed them with water and dried them off with a heat gun. I then used a background stamp with Versamark and clear embossing powder on each piece. More water on top followed, mopping it up with kitchen roll which removes some of the ink leaving darker patches trapped underneath the embossing!

I then cut five equal pieces, inked the edges and placed them on a 7" x 5" card blank following Jane's sketch. The poppy die was cut from linen card and stuck on top with the sentiment hand-stamped to the side.

Supplies Used:
Watercolour paper: 230gsm (Crawford & Black)
Inkpads: Fired Brick, Broken China, Frayed Burlap, Worn Lipstick (TH Distress)
Stamps: Butterflies Block (Tanda Stamps), Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)
Die: Prim Poppy (Memory Box)

The inspiration for my colour scheme was drawn from this week's challenge #334 at ColourQ so I would like to enter my card into their competition. I don't own any SU colours so have just used the closest that were suitable for this technique.

Thanks for visiting my blog today. I hope you all enjoy a lovely Easter weekend whatever you're doing.

Stef x

CC&S Challenge 165 Colours: I Am Sailing

Imagine my complete surprise when my husband suggested buying me a Brother Scan'N'Cut for my birthday! He knew that one day I would like a digital die-cutting machine with wi-fi connection so that I could create my own designs on my computer and cut them out electronically ... and so much more. But I never expected to get one just yet, I thought I would have to wait for several years! Anyway it has arrived and I have started to have a play with it for this week's card for CAS Colours and Sketches.

As soon as I saw Jane's colour choices with two blues I knew that I would make some kind of nautical scene though it took me a while to settle on this design. The frame and the boat have been cut on the BS&C. It will take ages to learn how to use all the different functions but I'll get there! The waves have been cut with a die using my Sizzix. The frame has been popped up on foam tape to give some dimension.

The greeting is a peel-off, coloured black to fit in with our rules at CC&S. It's such a shame that each week we have to eliminate some entries from our voting as they just don't comply with our few simple rules!

Supplies Used:
Cutting Machines: Big Shot (Sizzix), Scan'N'Cut (Brother)
Die: Breezy Waves (Memory Box)
Snippets: White linen & coloured cardstock, peel-off greeting

Thanks for visiting and please remember just to use the three challenge colours plus stated neutrals if you want to be considered as a weekly winner when entering our challenge.

Stef x

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