CC&S Challenge 182 Sketch: Teabag folded dahlia

Sorry that my post for CC&S is late this week; I'm caught up in the juggernaut that is the end of the school summer term! Due to summer holidays each of the DT is taking turns to host in July and August and this week Jane has brought us this quite simple sketch which gives us all lots of scope to be creative!

I was following some links in blogland the other day when I came across a blog of someone who has brought a clean, fresh look to iris folding. It's ages since I did any folding techniques so thought that Jane's sketch lent itself quite nicely to a folded dahlia pattern using eight double-sided circles.

The paper was a bit too thick to fold easily but I managed it in the end and must make a note to self to search out some less heavy double-sided papers for folding. It's mounted on to a birthday embossed background using the same paper just to add some interest.

Supplies Used:
Double Sided Printed Paper: Pink Floral Branch PMA 41652 (Papermania)
Embossing Folder: Birthday (Papermania)
Snippets: Shiny brad!

Enjoy the summer and don't forget to craft along with us when you have the time (I think it's my turn to host next week)!
Stef x

CC&S 176 Colours: A Suffolk Puff Flower Trio

I'm a bit late this week with my DT card for CAS Colours & Sketches, sorry! It has been such a busy week, even though it's half term, with Guide camp at the start and a narrowboating weekend to finish. This month, another of our newer DT members, Bev, is hosting our challenges and has come up with some lovely ideas for us.

I was showing some Guides how to make 'Suffolk Puffs'/Yo-Yo flowers to decorate bags at the weekend and thought I would make some for my card this week. I had a rummage through my fabric box and luckily found some scraps in just the colours I needed. I finished the centres with matching buttons and thread in the same colours. The panelled background was created using a Hero Arts stamp and the design was completed with two small butterflies from the same set.

Supplies Used:

Stamp Set: Birds N Butterflies (Hero Arts)

Ink Pad: Smokey Gray (VersaFine)

Snippets: Cotton fabric, Buttons, Thread, White and yellow linen card scraps, Sentiment stamp

I would also like to enter my card into the following challenges:

CASology who are celebrating their 200th challenge this week!

Addicted to CAS Challenge 89: Petals

The CC&S DT have all interpreted these three colours so differently. Please check out all their ideas and have a go at joining us this week with your card.

Thanks for visiting

Stef x 

CC&S #138 Colours & A Little Masking

Slowly getting back to normal after the wedding! Went back to work today so that brought me down to earth with a bump! For this week's challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches, Patricia has given us a set of colours that I wouldn't normally use together but I have enjoyed the challenge of working with them and am reasonably pleased with the result!

I took inspiration for my card from the current challenge #129 at Muse. I don't think I've ever played there before, though I have often wanted to, so thought it was about time! I was inspired by Anita's square stencil pattern and the die-cut leaves in her design. Using Patricia's colour palette I inked through part of a stencil mask with a biscuit shade of brown directly onto a card blank and then, using the faux cross stitch technique, used a darker shade of brown through a fibreglass screen to achieve the cross-stitch effect.

I chose the sentiment stamp as it has a similar texture to the stencilling and stamped the two-parts using the same shade of dark brown. The flowers are die-cut from two snippets of cardstock that match with the colour palette. I turned the green flower over as it suited the composition better. The card was simply finished with a few adhesive pearls.

As I have used stencils and masking techniques on my card I would also like to enter it into the following challenges:

AAA Cards: Challenge #46 - Masquerade

Happy Little Stampers: August CAS Challenge - Masking

Supplies Used:

Stencil Mask: Doodle Squares (Creative Expressions)

Stencil: Fibreglass Screen (Dreamweaver)

Sentiment Stamp: Happy Birthday (Clearly Besotted)

Ink Pads: Bisque & Brown (Versacolor)

Flower Die: Prim Poppy (Memory Box)

Snippets: Blue & green cardstock, Blue adhesive pearls

I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully, to share the card that I made for Katie and Tom on their wedding day and will post a few photos once I have some! Meanwhile enjoy this week's challenge!

Stef x

CC&S #136: Summer Pastels Colour Challenge

Hi everyone! Just a tad late and missed the CAS Colours and Sketches deadline by a little over an hour but things are getting oh so busy around here with just over a week to go now so I hope you'll forgive me!

Patricia is our hostess this month and has given us a beautiful summer pastel colour palette to work with this week. I decided to use my first ever purchase, a stamp and corresponding die set from Uniko Studio (Beautiful Blooms 1) and it is still my favourite! I inked the centre of the flower with a slightly darker ink and the outer petals with a lighter ink but I don't think this really shows in the final photo.

I found a really nice sketch that I thought would work well with my idea over at Freshly Made Sketches #198, so I would also like to enter my card into their challenge with thanks for the inspiration from their DT! The stamped flowers and leaves have been layered up onto scraps of corresponding card from my snippets box, the rectangles having been die-cut with my stitched rectangles die.

The sentiment has been stamped with a recent Paper Smooches acquisition - I love the fonts in this set! For a finishing touch, the flower and sentiment have been highlighted with a touch of Stickles. I decided to use a square card blank for all my layers so that I could also enter my card into the current themed challenge #256 at The Paper Players: It's Hip to be Square!

Supplies Used:
Stamp and Die Sets: Beautiful Blooms 1 (Uniko Studio)
Die: Stitched Rectangle Layers (Memory Box)
Ink pads: Hyacinth & Smoke Blue (Versacolor), Whisper Pink (Whisper)
Sentiment Stamp: Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches)
Snippets: Pale textured yellow, Pale pink & Dotty hyacinth card scraps, Rhinestone Stickles.

I think that's all from me for now! Our guest designer at CC&S this month is Magic Flying Boots who has featured in our weekly favourites several times lately with her stunning designs so be sure to drop by and say hello!

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 #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

Uniko Studio #12, Freshly Made Sketches #146, ColourQ #251 and Cake!

Looking for some fresh inspiration to make Martin's Mum a birthday card I have decided to combine three card-making challenges that are all new to me as well as having my first play with my recently acquired 'Beautiful Blooms' stamps from Uniko Studio. My current favourite style of card-making is definitely CAS so I immediately loved the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, especially with Bev's beautiful flower stamp in mind. For my colours I decided to play along with the ColourQ challenge and although I don't have any StampinUp products, I have matched the colours as closely as I could. The composition of the card speaks for itself really; the centre of the flower is decoupaged and lightly embossed though this doesn't really show up too well in the photo!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

Uniko Studio #12: Anything Goes

Freshly Made Sketches #146

ColourQ #251

 

 I've also decided to start showing some of my other homemade creations here as life is too short for me to try and keep up with more than one blog! So here is a strawberry cream sponge that I made for a 'Bring and Share' end of term Division Guiders'meeting that I attended during the week! I think they all enjoyed it!

Thanks for visiting!

Stef x

LIM 178 Guest designer spot & my first ever tutorial - pop can flowers!

I am so excited this week to have had the opportunity to be a guest designer on the Less is More challenge blog. The remit was a recipe to use a recycled element on your card whilst maintaining the CAS style. This was a great project for me, not only because I like to recycle and find ways of reusing different things in my crafting but also because I am not fortunate enough to have lots of money to spend on my hobby and therefore if you can create beautiful cards from free stuff what's not to like!

I have played around with several ideas but settled on these two for the challenge. The first card uses the technique of iris folding, one of the first techniques that drew me into cardmaking and made it such an important part of my life. I have reduced the size of the original sailboat design, a pattern I have used many times. The main recycled element is to use the insides of standard envelopes that arrive in the post (mainly blue, but also some orange) to make my iris folding strips. The bright blue strips are from one of my wage packets!

The iris folded panel is finished off with two strips of recycled ric-rac used as waves. I also deliberately chose a scalloped edged card to reflect the watery theme!

The second card I made uses a technique that has become a favourite of mine, making die-cut metal flowers by recycling pop and beer cans. I first discovered this technique several years ago whilst browsing YouTube for different methods of creating flowers. These can be used on cards but could also be used as a brooch or as a hair slide. I think these flowers are so stunning that they just need a little something to show them off but not much so the CAS style is perfect for this!

Over the last few years I have discovered so much information and inspiration from tutorials and photos on other crafter's blogs. To thank everyone whose blog I have ever taken something from I would like to give something back by putting my first ever tutorial on my blog! So here is the method I use to make these flowers. I decided to do it in a pdf format as this made it easier to put together and will, I hope, be easier for people that want to download the project. Apart from that I couldn't place the photos exactly where I wanted to in the body of my post!

Click here to view my pop can flowers tutorial pdf

Thank you to Chrissie for giving me this fantastic DT opportunity. I will visit as many of your blogs as time allows to see how you all get on with the challenge and will look forward to joining in again soon!

Thanks so much for visiting my little world
Stef x

Friday Sketchers 56

I have made this card for my friend Ros's birthday this week. I noticed that all the DT cards used stamped images and I have replaced this with a layered folded flower so I hope it's still acceptable to enter it for the Friday Sketcher challenge.


Supplies:
Flower template: Craftwork Cards
Papers: BasicGrey 'Sultry'
Gems and Flowers: Papermania
Thanks for visiting!