CC&S 178 Colours: Summer Butterflies

Welcome to our latest set of colours for CAS Colours and Sketches! This week I have gone with my go to favourite 'butterflies' (that's after the first design ended up in the bin)!!

I sponged the blue and green inks through part of the stencil until I got the effect I wanted and then overstamped with the text stamp using all three colours and misting before stamping. I coloured three scraps of cardstock with each of the inks and then die-cut and punched the butterflies, curling them before adding them to the card. Finally I stamped the sentiment and added a few adhesive gems.

I would also like to enter my card into the CAS on Sunday Challenge #85: Butterflies

And also the Inkspirational Challenge #110: Word Prompt 'Text'

Supplies Used:
Stencil: Doodle Squares (Creative Expressions)
Stamp: Script Background SB1 (IndigoBlu)
Die: Butterfly #12 (Sizzlets)
Punch: Small Butterfly (Personal Impressions)
Ink Pads: Bamboo & Celadon (VersaColor), Abandoned Coral (TH Distress)
Snippets: Sentiment stamp, Adhesive gems

Thanks for visiting. I hope to be able to visit more of your entries this week than I've had time for lately!
Stef x

CC&S #133: Colour challenge

I made my card for this week's CAS Colours and Sketches colour challenge very late one night for my friend Ros's retirement from the school where I work. Sometimes those cards turn out to be better than those made when you're wide awake! I'm not entirely happy with the way the background came out but I loved watercoloring the flower.

I have used the Gerbera stamp set from Uniko Studio. The flower has been stamped with Versamark and heat embossed using white EP. I masked the flower and stamped and embossed two leaves to sit behind it.

The other week I found a fantastic Brilliance ink pad in my local craft shop. The colour is 'Rocket Red Gold' and I have been dying to have a play with it. It is the most gorgeous shade of red/orange/pink with a gold shimmer in it and I thought it matched rather well with Jane's choice of Melon Mambo for this week. The flower has been painstakingly colored with this and a matching turquoise green for the leaves. I thought the flower needed lifting from the background a little so used a very watered down shade of brown. I then cut a frame from the image and mounted both pieces onto separate pieces of dark brown cardstock before sticking them back one on top of the other. A sentiment from the same set stamped in the same brown ink finishes the card.

I would also like to enter the following challenges:
CAS on Sunday: Challenge #62 Embossing

And also CAS-ual Fridays: CFC #141 Embossing

Supplies Used:
Stamp set: Pure Florals: Gerbera (Uniko Studio)
Ink pads: Rocket Red Gold (Brilliance), Celadon (Versacolor) & Espresso Truffle (Memento)
Snippets: White EP, White linen & Dark brown cardstock

I hope this close-up might show the gold shimmer in the ink a little better! It would be lovely to see a few more entries in this week's gallery before you all go off on your summer holidays! Just remember to only use the three challenge colours chosen by Jane plus any neutrals.

Thanks for visiting today!
Stef x

CAS Colours and Sketches #114

Jane will be our hostess for the month of March at CAS Colours and Sketches and the first week is a colour challenge. My card didn't exactly turn out as planned, it kinda just went that way - still they do that sometimes, don't they!

The stamps are from Indigo Blu, one from the 'Wild Meadow' set and I think the other is from the 'Nature 1' set. They have been stamped using Memento inks, 'Grape Jelly' and 'Summer Sky'. I covered the bottom of the cardstock with a random piece of paper from my stash to match the 'Mossy Meadow' challenge colour and tied a piece of matching satin ribbon over the join. This has simply been layered onto a card blank. The sentiment stamp is by Uniko Studio.

Thanks for looking.
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