Not Quite Navy Indeed

Back again, this time with a card for the new colour challenge at CAS Colours &Sketches . There are usually three colours in the palette for these challenges and we like that you use all three plus a neutral black/ white for stamping. I have used all three but you might be mistaken in thinking that I haven't since I used the very dark navy for blending and it's not come out as dark as I'd hoped. Take a look and you'll see what I mean

I stamped the image from an old set called Just believe in the pale blue and Watermelon. I used clear embossing powder and the emboss/ resist technique. Then, using a circle as a mask I blended the navy over the top, but just couldn't get it to go very dark. I promise you it is the right colour ink!

I used a piece of DP for a mat and then, as the embossing powder was out on my table, I made a 'cracked glass/tile' with the sentiment, which is from Happiest Birthday Wishes.  Basically, you just add several layers of embossing powder over your image and then, when it's cool, bend it to crack the glaze. You can see the cracks on the close up shot below.

I used a final white cardstock layer to 'crisp up' the appearance of my card. The photos have a bit of a blue cast, I'll try and get a better one in the daylight later.

It's Snowing!

OK so we are here in December, the countdown to Christmas has begun and to keep you in the festive mood we have a Christmas challenge for you at CAS Colours & Sketches. We are looking for cards using a previous sketch challenge but made for Chritmas this time. I have gone with a sketch which I just loved but didn't design for as I was away on holiday. Remember this one?

We were doing an evening of white embossing on coloured card at my craft club back in October and this one came together there. The sentiment is a magazine freebie and the card is from a set called jewels. I used black card to make the card blank, adding a liner so that I can write inside when I come to use it

The snow is a piece of acetate, layered on top of the base and the snowflake is a peel off

These two pictures show the dimension I achieved using foam pads. The sticking down of the acetate is cleverly concealed by these panels!

My stash of cards for Christmas is growing slowly. Soon it will be time to write and send them all and then I can start all over again in January! When do you start with your cards?

Icicles from Grunge

I'm still hosting at CAS Colours & Sketches and today I've chosen a colour combo which I have used for some contemporary Christmas cards. I've got two variations to show you, both are CAS of course but first let me show you the colours

I saw a card that used this stamp from Gorgeous Grunge and it reminded me of icicles, especially stamped and embossed in metallic silver. I added a peel off sentiment and used cardstock to add the colours

This is a tent fold card and you can see a sprinkling of silver stars.

Whilst I like card number 1 in real life, it looks a little 'heavy' in the photo so I had a go at the same design but stamped on white card, just adding the colours in the mats. This time the sentiment is stamped and its from Holiday Home

Instead of the peel off stars this card has a few strategically placed silver rhinestones to add the Christmas twinkle.

Spotlight on Dasher

It's my second week hosting at CAS Colours & Sketches and it's the turn of the sketch. Now I don't mind telling you that this sketch has caused a few problems for me, not least because over at the challenge blog we are celebrating 150 posts! Yes, 150... We are nearly three years old, and so it had to be a good one as there are prizes up for grabs! Enough, you say, show us the sketch

I think the fact that I've added an aperture, rather than a shape, may push the challenge. Also, you must use a 1 5 and/or a 0 to qualify for the prize draw. I decided to go all Christmas on you again

Recognise him? Yes, it's Dasher again. Stamped and heat embossed in gold, set into the aperture

Teamed up with a number stamp from Merry and Type and some SU DP.

You can see the aperture more clearly on the following shots. Very clean, very simple, quick and easy once I had decided on the theme.

The gold and the plaid go together so well for Christmas don't you think?

You can see I have used 25, which has a five in it, so it's good for the draw, you don't have to use just the 1 5 or 0, as long as we can see one of them there. Hope you find time to join in this week.

Spread A Little Christmas Cheer

Yes, I'm back again with another Christmas card. I've used Holiday home to make this one and it's based on the sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches, designed by our lovely hostess for October, Stef.

As you can see it's another one that just screams out "Christmas" but I looked for something different from trees and spotted what I thought could work well in the Holiday Home stamp set. I chose two houses and stamped them onto coloured card, before carefully cutting them out.

I stuck the one down onto some white card and popped the other one up, overlapping them to follow the sketch. I added a stamped wreath to the door of this house. I took out the centre of the wreath by punching small holes using my hand held punch

I added the greeting from the same set and finally popped the  white card layer onto the card base. Very quick and easy to make, I might make a few more of this design to send out to family and friends.

It is actually my birthday today and I'm celebrating quietly at home, as hubby and offspring are all out and about with things on for work, uni and school. Not complaining, may be I will get to do some crafting and I'm sure they will spoil me when they get together at the weekend.

Christmas is coming!

Oh yes it is! So I thought it was time to turn my thoughts to making sure I have enough cards for family and friends. It was the sketch, over at CAS Colours & Sketches which got me started.

Perfect for a card with  Christmas gift tags, although some of my teamies had other ideas- and jolly good they are too, so do hop on over to the challenge blog and have a look, if you haven't done so already

I've gone with a classy white and silver theme. I stamped the Merry from Seasonally Scattered in Versamark before heat embossing in silver. Then I cut it out in a tag shape. The plain one below didn't look quite right so I embossed it with my Mosaic background folder.

I added a swirl of silver stranded twine and a gorgeous bit of bling in the form of a sparkly brad (always room for a bit of bling on a Christmas card, I say).  You can see the details better in this next photo.

There is also a silver glitter card mat with just the smallest edge showing. 

I'm told there are less than twelve weeks until the big day so I guess you'll be seeing a few more cards on my blog in the coming weeks.

Christmas Keepsake

Thursday's sure come round quickly! It's time for me to share a card made for today's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. It is a sketch challenge this week. I also had a little help from the colour challenge at Cupcake Inspirations and from the cue word at casology. I haven't made a Christmas card in a while either. Some of you will remember that I used to design for 52 Christmas Card Throwdown and I hope my old teamies over there won't mind me playing along this week with their challenge too.

So here it is, or rather they are. I made two cards, in truth because I messed up one and had to make the second but the first one was still good and well, you can't have too many handmade Christmas cards can you?

This one is for CC&S. I used Ornament Keepsakes, a retired stamp set from SU, but still a good one and an embossing folder with a holly leaf pattern. The sentiment is from Holiday Home and I used a die tag to cut it out. The images were stamped, die cut and recessed behind the embossed card. This is my card for Cupcake Insirations too.

Here is my second card for the other challenges. I've used the same sketch but not used the embossed layer. I changed the tag and used tape to affix the ribbon to look like the strings from the ornaments. With its lack of embellishments I think this would be a great Christmas card for a guy and that's the challenge at 52CCT.

You can see that the ornaments were popped up this time. The Casology cue is circles, and I want to thanks those ladies over there because that's what made me go rummaging through my stamp sets to find this one again!

Oh, nearly forgot, here is the sketch and the colour palette

CAS Floral Birthday

Its holiday season and like many people I am scheduling this post to go live when I am away, I hope it works and you are seeing this for the first time on the right day at the right time! It's my DT card for this week's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. 

It's a fab sketch, so many possibilities. I knew what I wanted to do as soon as I saw it...

Using Kinda Eclectic and Stippled Blossoms, I dropped the design to the bottom of the card so that the sentiment, from Fabulous Four, could take centre stage. The border is hand drawn. Inside I have stamped a traditional Happy Birthday greeting.

I kept the card monochromatic, using just Primrose Petals, stamped off to create the lighter tones on the flower and just coloured in a few stamens on each bloom

I don't often use flowers on my cards, but when I do it is often using this two step stamping set. I do like the effect it creates. Fussy cutting out the two blooms and using foam pads on one gives some easy layers whilst keeping things CAS with lots of white space.

Just noticed the date I'm scheduling this post for and it is my wedding anniversary today! 26 years! I expect we will be celebrating somewhere, it will be ' Our Day'.

Third Time Lucky

This is a tale of three cards. I got up early to make my DT card for the new colour challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. I needed to make a few cards in advance because I will be off on holiday again next week, so I wrote the challenges down and started selecting stamp sets, inks, card stock and so on. I finished the first card quite easily, ideas were flowing and I made all the ones I needed by lunch time. Then I went to upload my card on the blog and realised I'd got the colour palette wrong! Instead of

..I had used Blushing Bride, So Saffron and ....green! Oh no! So I got all my stuff out again (I don't have a craft room, just a dining table) after dinner and made another card. Correct colours, all was fine and here it is...

I used the small flower stamp from Bloomin' Marvellous and an embossing folder I've had for years. I used tone on tone stamping and added a small embellishment in the centre of the flowers. It wasn't until I took the photo that I noticed a glue smear on the top- disaster for a clean and simple card. 

My third and final offering is this one, using Mosaic Madness, Wisteria Wonder card stock, a pale pink card blank which will pass for Blushing Bride and the embossed sentiment cut out of the previous card (waste not, want not, as they say)

I actually like this card the best, I think it makes the most of these soft, pastel shades. I do hope you have more success than I did when you make your card

Faux Pinwheel card

Look out for the new challenge this morning at CAS Colours& Sketches. It's a sketch and it's a really great one, where there are so many different ways of using it.

I had all sorts of stamp sets out on my table for this one, but in the end I saw something on the internet that I wanted to try. It's called a faux pinwheel.

The other change I made is that I decided not to go with the square cards I usually do but to go tall and thin. I moved the panel up to the top of the card, as you can see.

  The sentiment is from Sweet Cake, one of the sets I was originally going to use, stamped in Daffodil Yellow

The card panels I used for the faux pinwheel, the closest match for Coastal Cabana, I embossed, using a Patchwork embossing folder. By carefully positioning the squares of card on the folder I could get a different effect on each square with just one pass through the Big Shot. The red, coral  and yellow DPs are all from my Stampin' Up stash, as is the giant brad. The pinwheel does actually turn as I only attached it using the brad.

If you are wondering about the colours, I had a little help from

The ColourQ Challenge with these gorgeous summery shades

Summer Time.....

Good morning and Happy Thursday. June already, it will soon be the longest day and the long school holiday is not that far away now. Feeling good this morning as I post this card for the new challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. Lazy is this month's hostess and she's bang up to date, using some of the new in-colours from Stampin' Up

Fab colours, aren't they? Sadly, I have yet to get any of the new stuff in the new catalogue so I had to improvise, for me this meant primrose petals, Crumb Cake and Pistachio Pudding. You don't have to use Stampin Up colours at all, just shades that are as close as possible.

I got out a stamp set I don't use much, inspired by browsing through the new catalogue, Serene Silhouettes. I stamped the birds on the branch image onto  white card, using my Stampwrite markers. Then I cut an aperture in a piece of Kraft adds tick, which I embossed with a brick wall background embossing folder.

I used foam tape to raise the 'wall' off the card front to give depth to the aperture. Then I stamped the second image and sentiment on more white card. Die cutting this to leave the banner uncut was the trickiest part of the whole card!

I am a bit cross that the 'wall, does not seem perfectly centred on the card base, in real life it is so I guess the shadows on the photo are causing this effect. A small star shaped rhinestone completes the sentiment. So, a summery themed card to celebrate the fact that summer is upon us.... Now, will somebody turn the heating up???