CC&S 146 Colours: Autumn has arrived!

Welcome to everyone visting from CAS Colours and Sketches where it's my pleasure to host again and this week I've chosen an autumnal colour palette for you.

I have a lot of close male relatives with birthdays at this time of the year (my husband, my son and my two brothers), so it's natural for my thoughts to turn to male cards for a few weeks before getting stuck into the rest of my Christmas cards. So an autumn colour palette and design suits these just perfectly.

The background is masked and inked using the bleeding art tissue technique, learnt from the fabulous Eileen Godwin's blog. She creates some amazing mixed media art and if I didn't live at the opposite end of the country, I would love to go to one of her workshops - one day maybe! I used tissue in the three challenge colours, let them run into each other and then left the card to dry completely. I didn't want to use black for my stamped leaves and sentiment so have gone for a very dark shade of brown as my neutral colour because I think it works better with the colour palette. I hope that's alright with the rest of the CC&S DT!

As I have done everything in one layer I would also like to enter my card into this week's challenge #245 at Less Is More where the one layer card theme is 'Autumn'.

Supplies Used:
Tissue: Spectra Art Tissue (from Amazon)
Stamps: Leaf Decor Stamps (Royal Langnickel), Happy Birthday (Clearly Besotted)

Thanks for dropping by this week. Please come and join in the fun and share your designs with us at CC&S. We'd love to see them!

Oh, and happy birthday Stu!
Stef x

CC&S #141: Flowers Sketch

Lizy is our hostess at CAS Colours and Sketches this month and this week her inspirational sketch makes it very easy to create a quick CAS card.

For my background piece, I used one of my Cosmic Shimmer Mist sprayed pieces of cardstock in green with touches of blue and yellow that have merged together to make even more interesting green shades. The gold mica forms a lovely pattern by scrunching clim film over the top while it's still wet. I love getting messy with this technique, it just needs patience whilst it dries.

I interpreted the sector of the circle at the top by using a circular sentiment printed in gold. The poppy flowers have been simply die-cut in white cardstock.

I would like to enter my card into challenge #240 at Less Is More this week where the theme is to use the colours green and gold and very little else!

Supplies Used:
Shimmer Mists: Meadow Lush, Aqua Lagoon, Mango Blaze (Cosmic Shimmer)
Die: Prim Poppy (Memory Box)
Snippets: Circle sentiment

Just beginning to catch up now after my busy summer but still got loads to do!
See you all next week!

Stef x

Wedding Card for Katie & Tom

As promised, a photo of the card I made for Katie and Tom. It was designed with lots of elements from their wedding threaded into the card.

The background was made using the faux mother-of-pearl technique as learnt on Loll's blog HERE. This technique produces lovely pieces of artwork and I chose it because Katie borrowed a string of pearls from me to wear with her dress. I chose shades of blue inks because the bridesmaids wore royal blue and it featured in many of the decorative elements in the marquee, the flowers and on their stationery too. The rose is die-cut from a page of Katie's favourite book 'The Time Traveller's Wife' adhered to a piece of cardstock for strength. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Katie made paper roses for her bouquet with pages from this book and I made quite a few used in the decorations and on the cake too. The book pages also featured in the 66 metres of bunting that Laura, Lachlan and I made to decorate the marquee! Finally, the verse is an extract from the reading from the Song of Solomon read at the church service by Tom's mum, Fiona, printed in gold which there were also small highlights of through the wedding.

As the theme at Less Is More this week is 'Congratulations', I would like to enter it into their challenge #237, especially as the challenge was posted on their wedding day!

And also into the Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge Blog where the theme for August Week 3 is 'Anything Goes' using Paper Smooches products. I absolutely love this rose outline die and this is my first time playing in their challenge!

Supplies Used:

Faux Mother-Of-Pearl Technique: Pearlescent liquid acrylic - White Pearl (Daler Rowney)

Inkpads: Tumbled Glass & Faded Denim (TH Distress)

Die: Roses (Paper Smooches)

Sentiment Font: Edwardian Script

As soon as I get some photos of the wedding, I will post a few for you to see.

Thanks for visiting!

Stef x

CC&S #135: A Double Challenge!

A fifth Thursday in the month means a double challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches with both a colour palette AND a sketch to work with together. Some hate it and some love the usually tougher challenge but Jane has made it easy for us by giving us both a super colour trio and a delightful sketch to work with.

I needed to make a card for Martin's Mum whose birthday is next week so decided to kill two birds with one stone as time is precious at the moment! I have interpreted the sketch using flowers, with leaves in place of the dots. I used a Marianne Designs die to cut the spirals for my paper roses in a scrap of navy paper. The centres of the flowers are white Candi that has been coloured with an appropriate Promarker and fixed with foam pads. The leaves have been cut using the same die set in a scrap piece of green card carefully matching the colour palette. The banners have been cut with a CB tag die again using scraps of cardstock. Lastly the sentiment from Paper Smooches has been stamped using a Memento ink pad.

Supplies Used:

Spiral & Leaf Dies: LR0162 Roses (Marianne Design)

Candi: Icing Sugar (Craftwork Cards)

Promarker: Buttercup (Letraset)

Banner Dies: Tag Along (Clearly Besotted)

Sentiment Stamp: Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)

Ink Pad: Nautical Navy (Memento)

Snippets: Navy, Green and Textured Yellow cardstock

As all the cardstock I have used is from my snippets box I would also like to enter my card into this week's recipe challenge #234 at Less Is More and at the same time wish Chrissie a very happy birthday. I have followed her blog and her challenge for some time now.  All her cards are fabulous and she is a great source of inspiration to me and, I know, many other crafters! Edit: I forgot to link up my card to the LIM challenge - silly me!

I think I had roses on my mind because I have been making some paper roses for the wedding from a pattern found on the internet by Lia Griffith. Katie is making her bouquet from paper roses using pages from an old copy of her favourite book 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. So I am making some extras to partially decorate the cake and maybe for the tables, etc. I'm very pleased with the way they are turning out and more importantly Katie likes them too so I thought I would share photos of them with you.

That's it for now. Hope you enjoy the double challenge. 

See you next week!

Stef x

CC&S #132: Stars and Stripes

This week Jane has given us a lovely sketch to work with on CAS Colours and Sketches. My card has also been influenced by the themes from a couple of other challenges and so I thought I would make a patriotic card for all my blogging friends from across the Atlantic and a graduation card for my friend Rachel at the same time!

I haven't done any paper folding in a while so the focus of my design is a five pointed origami star made from a piece of blue starry paper. A video showing how to fold this star can be found on YouTube HERE. These make wonderful hanging decorations and I have made them previously in all different sizes. This one was made from a pentagon in a 6cm square (Edit: 12cm square). I cut some stripes from some matching paper and two smaller stars from a piece of red starry paper and stuck them to the card blank. The sentiment is computer-generated and finally the origami star was placed between the other two.

The other challenges I would like to enter are:
Less Is More Week #231: Colour theme 'Red, White & Blue'

And Addicted to CAS Challenge #67: Code Word 'Patriotic'

Supplies Used:
Origami Star Instructions: http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/5-pointed-origami-star.html
Sentiment font: Grilled Cheese
Snippets: Striped and starry papers

It's so busy at the end of the school summer term. Roll on the holidays!
Hope you have lots of fun with Jane's super sketch.
Thanks for visiting!
Stef x

CC&S #131: Colours and LIM #230: Sketch

Busy week so quick post from me today! Jane is our hostess for the challanges at CAS Colours and Sketches this month and we have a lovely summery set of colours to start us off. They reminded me of cornfields/sand & sea/sky so have gone down that route and created a little sunset scene.

By masking off areas of my rounded cardstock one at a time I have blended inks to create the basic landscape. I then used a watercolour brush to give some depth to the scene by creating a few shadows and textures. The meadow in the foreground has been stamped with two colours using different parts of the same stamp.

The sentiment has been die-cut and the negative placed over a piece of rounded cardstock coloured with the same ink that I used for the sun. The butterfly has been die cut from a spare piece of the same cardstock using the same die and mounted slightly off the edge of the main image.

When searching for inspiration I came across this wonderfully uncomplicated sketch at Less Is More #230. I thought it would suit the design I had in mind so would like to enter it into their challenge too.

Supplies Used:
Inks: Amethyst & Turquoise (Versacolor) and Toffee Crunch (Memento)
Stamp: Wild Meadow (IndigoBlu)
Die: Happy Birthday (free with a copy of Papercraft Essentials)
Snippets: White linen cardstock

Thanks for visiting. Look forward to seeing your entries!
Stef x

CC&S #130: Sweet Poppy Stencils, Translucent Paste & Micro Beads

Lizy has given us a nice uncomplicated sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches and I have combined my DT card with three other challenges this week. I like to try and design to the sketch we have been given as far as possible and this week it has given me the chance to use my recently acquired stitched rectangle dies.

The technique of using stencilling/pastes features in two challenges this week; Theme week #229 at Less Is More and Game #42 at AAA Cards. I taped my stencil onto my die-cut rectangle having printed a computer-generated sentiment. I then inked gently through the stencil using two different colours of distress inks. I removed and washed the stencil leaving the ink to dry. Then I replaced the stencil and applied some translucent paste. Carefully removing the stencil I covered the image with micro beads and left it to dry overnight. I absolutely fell in love with this technique having first discovered it on Eileen Godwn's blog and then watching the lovely Lucy from Sweet Poppy Stencils demoing at a show. I especially like how the tiny beads also stick to the sides of the paste where it is raised giving a beautiful translucent outline to the image. Some of the stencil is too narrow to ink through successfully but when finished this gives a lovely clear accent to the coloured areas.

Inspiration for the colours has come from CAS-ual Fridays CFC: #140 Michelle's Idea of Summer where we are challenged to create a CAS project using tan, white and one bright colour.

I mounted the finished image onto a piece of tan linen cardstock using some twine at the base of the image to tie in with Lizy's sketch and then onto a white card blank.

Supplies Used:
Die: Stitched Rectangle Layers (Memory Box)
Stencil: Dove (Sweet Poppy Stencils)
Inks: Broken China & Antique Linen (TH Distress)
Paste: Translucent Paste (Sweet Poppy Stencils)
Beads: Clear Micro Glass Beads (Creative Expressions)
Sentiment Font: Bodoni MT
Snippets: White & tan linen cardstock, Turquoise baker's twine

Thanks Lizy for a fantastic month of colours and sketches. Hope you'll have time to play with this week's sketch!

Stef x

CC&S #126: Bunting Sketch & Laura's Birthday

A while back I bought a mini bunting die set from Clearly Besotted and have been itching to find the time to have a play so have put that right by making it a feature of my sketch for CAS Colours and Sketches this week. My thinking was that if I had no other time to play I would have to make a card for that. Why exactly is it that I have to go to work... hmm? I know... retirement will come soon enough!

It is also our eldest daughter, Laura's, birthday very soon so I wanted to make a special card for her. She and her fiance are still away travelling in South East Asia and Australasia. They went at the beginning of December 2014 and will be back at the beginning of July - seven months! I can't send the card to her except via facebook but will save it for her when she gets back - can't wait to hear all her stories.

When looking for inspiration, I found that the themes from three other challenges seemed to fit perfectly and so my card was born. I love making these die-cut metal flowers from beer and pop cans. Each one is different depending on the can colours and not only are they amazing and definitely have that wow factor, they are a good way to upcycle and Laura would definitely approve of that! Today I have used a Pimms can, very appropriate for the time of year though you wouldn't think so to look at the weather outside!

It's recipe time at Less Is More this week and the recipe is 'to use some metal'. I love to join in their wonderful challenges when I can so will enter it there. Besides the flower, I have also used some metallic holographic gold card as the base for some of the bunting.

I would also like to enter it into the twin sister of the recently discovered Happy Little Stampers challenge and enter this card into their May CAS challenge where the theme is to use die-cuts or punches on your card. As well as the flower, I have obviously die-cut all the bunting elements.

The final challenge I would like to link to is the May challenge at Uniko Studio where the theme is 'flowers'. I would like to wish Bev a very belated happy birthday and in case I don't get a chance to enter with a card using Uniko stamps, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone, as it were, with this card!

Supplies Used:
Dies: Bigz Flower Daisies #2 (Sizzix), Mini Bunting Die Collection (Clearly Besotted)
Stamps: Circle Letters and Numbers (See-D's)
Ink Pad: Rose Red (Versacolor)
Sentiment Font: Vijaya
Snippets: Pimms can, Textured white brad, White linen, holographic gold & red cardstock, Red twine

I have so enjoyed my month looking after the challenges at CAS Colours and Sketches. Thank you for all your support, amazing entries and wonderful comments! Lizy will be our hostess for June. In the meantime I look forward to seeing all your interpretations of my summery sketch!

Stef x

CC&S #119: Sketch

What with being ill and having family to stay for Easter, my card for CAS Colours and Sketches is ever so slightly late this week but only by about half an hour so I'll make this a quick post.

My inspiration came from Louise's fab sketch and also from Less is More where their challenge this week is a colour challenge to use 'predominantly black'. I was going to do some Zentangle which I love doing but ran out of time, so I used some 'zentangly' stamps instead! The black background has been embossed with a birthday embossing folder. I have used touches of turquoise just to 'lift' the design by edging the background with a narrow mat, by using small turquoise sequins in the centres of the flowers and finishing the design with a small butterfly.

Supplies used:
Stamps: Mini flowers (Woodware)
Embossing folder: Happy Birthday (Papermania)
Snippets: Turquoise card, sequins and butterfly

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Can't wait to see what you do with Louise's great sketch!
Stef x

CC&S #118: Monochromatic Shades Of Green

I've not been very well this week, flu, even though I had a flu jab back in October - hey ho!

This month's challenges at CAS Colours and Sketches are being hosted by Louise and for her first colour challenge she has chosen three shades of green. I thought I would make a card for my daughter, Katie's, birthday who will be 23 on 1st April!

The squares started out as a piece of my favourite white linen cardstock. I stamped various leaves with Versamark, clear embossed, then sponged and blended inks in three shades of green. This was then spritzed with water and left to dry. I sponged the same inks onto a spare piece of cardstock and die-cut the base of the dragonfly. I used the dragonfly stamp on vellum with Versamark and white EP, die-cut and glued just the bodies together, finishing with three small gems. I printed the sentiment straight onto the card blank and then assembled the layout, raising the dragonfly slightly with thin foam pads.

Close-up of dragonfly's wings

I would also like to enter my card into the following challenge:
Less is More: Week #217 Combine any three previous Less is More challenges
The three challenges I am combining are:
Week #04: Sketch or Recipe - 3 squares
Week #15: One Layer - Embossing
Week # 89: One Layer - Wings
The DT stated that 'Should you choose a challenge which happened to be a One Layer card in the original challenge, there is no necessity to make it one layer for this challenge, unless you particularly wish to do so'.

As it also fits the criteria of a couple of other challenges, I would also like to enter my card into:
CASology: Week #140 where this week's cue card is 'Spring'

and Seize the Birthday, a new challenge for me, where this week's birthday theme is 'Anything Goes' (with no toppings)!

Supplies used:
Stamp set: Leaf decor stamps (Clear Choice)
Die & stamp set: Dragonfly (Creative Dies) - free with Simply Cards and Papercraft #134
Ink pads: Bundled Sage & Peeled Paint (TH Distress); New Sprout (Memento)
Shimmer dots: Pearlescent black/green (Papermania)
Snippets: White linen cardstock, Clear and White EP 

I'm rather pleased with this one and will definitely make a couple more with the leftover pieces. I'm glad as it's for a special birthday and I hope Katie likes it too!

Stef x

CAS Colours and Sketches #115

Jane has put together a great sketch for us to work with this week at CAS Colours and Sketches. I have also opted to tie my design in with Less Is More where they have a colour challenge this week. Their DT has asked that we try to keep to just the two spring colours of green and yellow, with the optional use of neutral shades if necessary.

I felt very comfortable using Jane's sketch just as it is. I have just used a square image instead of a circular one and placed the sentiment in a more appropriate place. I have managed to use only green and yellow for my colours (with a little bit of white). My well-loved and used daffodil stamp from DoCrafts has been stamped in green, masking off the bottom border which I didn't want to use, and coloured with Promarkers. Even the sentiment has been printed from my computer in dark green directly onto the Core'dinations cardstock used for the banners.

My biggest achievement came from my first ever attempt at the Bokeh technique. I had seen it around quite a bit and have been dying to have a go. I moistened a piece of cardstock quite liberally with water and was then a bit stuck as I don't have any water-based liquid inks or re-inkers! So I sprayed on Cosmic Shimmer mists in Mango Blaze and Meadow Lush. I also tried some ink directly from inkpads using a brush. The darker spots are my experiment at using a green Adirondack alcohol ink, but clearly this doesn't really spread like the other inks and has ended up looking almost brown! I then left it to dry very thoroughly. I made myself a stencil using a piece of acetate and my Spellbinder circle dies and sponged white ink from an inkpad over the top in varying sizes and degrees. I cut a slice to use on this card but still have plenty left for another project and have to say that I'm quite pleased with my first attempt! It's definitely something that I'll have another go at.

I wonder if you'll challenge yourself to try a new technique on your card this week? Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Stef x

CAS Colours and Sketches #113

Being the fourth week of the month we have a sketch challenge for you at CAS Colours and Sketches. I decided to go with the same stamp set as last week, as they were still on my desk, but with colours that I feel more at home with and at the same time enter challenge #212 at Less Is More where their theme this week is 'Wings'.

I wanted to follow Patricia's sketch reasonably closely. First of all I used my ink dusters and Pan Pastels, in shades of blue, green and purple, through a rectangle mask to create a background directly onto my card blank, masking off an area for the sentiment. I then inked my script background stamp from Indigo Blu with  DIs in Bundled Sage, Faded Denim and Dusty Concord, spritzing the stamp with water before applying to my card.

The butterfly is from IB 'Wild Meadow' set which has been stamped onto a piece of spare cardstock in Bundled Sage and Dusty Concord. I then used a water brush and the ink pads to draw the colour further into the white areas. The butterfly has also been stamped in fourth generation Stazon Black ink, so that it didn't overpower the other colours, onto a piece of acetate, cut out, creased very gently and mounted over the top to accentuate the lines and give movement to the butterfly adding three small lilac gems on its body.

The sentiment is one I've had for ages and has been simply stamped in the space I left for it. I may give this card to my mum for Mothering Sunday which is coming soon on Sunday 15th March. I made another one at the same time in slightly different colours so I have one for Martin's mum too! I hunted high and low in my stash for a Mothering Sunday sentiment stamp only to discover that I don't have one so I will have to rectify that for next year!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. I love reading all the comments you leave me and visiting as many of the challenge entries as I can and commenting there too!

Stef x

CAS Colours and Sketches #111

This week we have a sketch for you at CAS Colours and Sketches. It's strange how sometimes the simplest of things can go wrong. I decided what I wanted to do with the sketch but then had loads of problems with the making, mounting and photographing of the finished card. I got ink all over the 'white space' of the card from my messy hands right where I didn't want it so had to remount it and then I had to take about 15 photos before I got one I was happy with! Still, I am happy enough with the finished card and will re-learn the lesson about inky fingers!!

I have stuck very closely to Patricia's sketch and have used Uniko Studio's Background Builders: Vines to stamp the floral borders using the solid rose overstamped with the petals. I went to the 'Stitching, Sewing & Hobbycrafts' show at Event City in Manchester last Saturday. I had decided to replace some of my really old ink pads and bought some Memento ink pads for the first time which I thought I would try out. The stems are stamped with 'Gray Flannel', the solid roses with 'Angel Pink' and the petals with the aptly named 'Rose Bud'. The birthday greeting is stamped with 'Tuxedo Black'.

I would also like to wish the 'Less is More' challenge blog a very happy fourth birthday this week and enter my card into their challenge which is to use the colours pink and grey.

I really loved working with this sketch and look forward to seeing your interpretations.
Stef x