CAS(E) This Sketch 192!

Hello, hello!  It's Thursday which means it's time for an new challenge at CAS(E) This Sketch!  The sketch, designed by Sam Simpson, is classic and simple and wide open to your interpretation!

For my card I got to use some super fun wide washi tape that I've had tucked away in my stash forever which I used as my horizontal layer.  Since it looked lonely all by itself I added a sunflower, a favorite fall design.  Below the washi I added some brads.  Brads!  Who even remembers those!  Nowadays it's all about enamel dots and who remembers brads?  Me, that's who!

The challenge at Just Us Girls this week is all about fall inspiration so my sunflower is perfect.  A stitched background and some stitched leaves and I can add my card to the Addicted to CAS challenge as well!

Thanks for stopping by.  Our CAS(E) This Sketch design team has got some amazing cards for you to see so be sure to check them out.  We love to see you in the gallery!

Stamps:  Everyday Mini Sentimens (Whimsy Stamps)
Paper:  Ivory (Flourishes); Crushed Curry, Garden Green, Early Espresso (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Blueprints 13 die, Sunflower die (My Favorite Things); Stitched Leaves die (My Creative Time); washi tape, brads

Freshly Made Sketches 256!

I'm back with a Christmas card for the latest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week Jen Timko is our hostess and she gave us a big ol' banner that was just screaming for me to use some patterned paper!  That lead me to this really old Christmas DSP I have in my stash and I found an interesting corner of one piece to use as my banner.

I die cut the sentiment out of some champagne glimmer paper and twirled some gold cord behind the poinsettia.  Unfortunately all that sparkle doesn't really show up, despite my stellar photography skills!  There's an "anything goes" challenge this week at Christmas Card Challenges and at Retro Rubber we are to use lace, ribbon, or twine.  The gold cord is my twine and I have had it for years.  It's the first metallic cord that Stampin' Up! introduced many years ago and, lucky me, I have it in gold, silver, and copper.  They are the kinds of supplies in my stash that I'll never get rid of!

Our Freshly Made Sketches design team has really made some beautiful cards this week so be sure to check them out.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Champagne Glimmer, Deck the Halls DSP (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Jumbo Fishtail Banner STAX (My Favorite Things); Blooming Poinsettia die (Memory Box); Hand Lettered Holiday die (WPlus9); gold cord (Stampin' Up!)

colourQ 361!

The weather has taken a turn for fall here so the palette this week at colourQ was perfect for my mood!

I really liked how the big "H" on the inspiration photo was a bright blue color (against all those neutrals) so I really wanted to create something along the same lines.  So for my card I used everything but the blue and orange to create the background.  I then die cut the sentiment in Tempting Turquoise, a couple of the leaves in Tangerine Tango, layered them on and I was done!  I got a lot of help from the sketch at Sunday Stamps!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you've got time to play along with us at colourQ this week.  Our design team has made some beautiful cards to inspire you so be sure to check them out.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  French Foliage, Gorgeous Grunge (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Early Espresso (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Thanks die (Simon Says Stamp); Feuilles Tropicales die (Simply Graphic); Stitched Leaves die (Lawn Fawn)

CAS(E) This Sketch 191!

Time for a new sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch!  If you like wonky layers you are going to love this one!

I used this sketch as an opportunity to make my first Halloween card of the season.  The off-kilter squares were a good way to use the colors from the Cupcake Inspiration Challenge (although I added some gray as a background because this just didn't look right on a white background).  

That skull image is from an old Stampin' Up! set and it's one of my favorite Halloween images.  It's appropriately scary and cool looking all at the same time!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to join us in the CAS(E) This Sketch gallery this week.  The design team has cooked up some amazing inspiration for you so be sure to check the challenge out!

Supplies

Stamps:  From the Crypt, Bite Me (Stampin' Up!)

Paper:  Basic Gray, Basic Black, Elegant Eggplant, Pumpkin Pie (Stampin' Up!); Pinefeather (Papertrey Ink)

Ink:  Jet Black (Altenew)

Freshly Made Sketches 255!

Wednesday again!  Seems like just yesterday it was time for a new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches and here we are again.  This time around Amy is our hostess and I love her sketch.  It's got a classic look that you will go back to time and time again, I'm sure.  Let's get to it.

I went quite literal with the layout of the sketch and used that big layer to highlight a pretty sunflower - one of my favorite images for late summer and early fall.  I embossed the background using an impression plate from Papertrey Ink and I think I finally found the correct sandwich to get a good impression.  I dug out my Sizzix Crease Pad and used that as the bottom layer of my sandwich (instead of a cutting plate) and what a difference it made in the quality of the impression.  I seldom used those PTI plates because I was never happy with how they looked, but now that I've cracked the code I'll try and use them more often!  The challenge this week at The Paper Players is a taste of fall so I'll be entering this card over there as well!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to stop by Freshly Made Sketches if you haven't already done so.  Our design team has made some cards that will surely inspire to you to play along with us.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Much Appreciated (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Crushed Curry (Stampin' Up!); Naturals White (Neenah)
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangle die, Sunflower die, Layered Leaves die (My Favorite Things); Guide Lines Grid impression plate (Papertrey Ink); Fall Assortment sprinkles (Doodlebug Designs)

colourQ 360!

I am on vacation this week from work and other than cleaning out the refrigerator I have no real plans.  I guess you can call this the ultimate relaxing stay-cation!  I have tentative plans to add crafting to my daily routine but I don't want to talk about it too much in case I jinx myself and it doesn't happen.  I usually spend a big chunk of my Sundays making all of my cards for the week but because I'm on vacation I didn't have to do that so this past Sunday I took my time and made just one!  Ooh-la-la!  The extra time allowed me to really think about my design and make a card that was a little more complicated than I usually do.

All of this is my lead up to the shaker card that I made using the new palette at colourQ.  I made a shaker because 1) I got a cool new stamp that is tailor made for shakers; 2) I have some cool sequins mixes that have names like Autumn Harvest and Festive Fall which fit perfectly with the colors of the challenge; 3)  shakers are way cool; and 4) the challenge this week at Can You Case It is, you guessed it, shakers.

Lessons learned on this card is to cut the circle from the cardstock first then stamp that bokeh burst image around the hole.  I did the opposite, and it was difficult to line up my circle die with the stamped image since it's done upside down.  If you look closely you'll see that it's off a bit.  It probably won't be all that noticeable to whoever receives this card, but I know it's not quite right!  I'm sure you can relate!!

Thanks for stopping by and wish me luck cleaning out the fridge.  I am sure I'll find some expired salad dressing in there somewhere!

And don't forget to pop on by colourQ and check out our latest challenge.  There's loads of inspiration to be found there and I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Bokeh Burst Round (The Ton)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Soft Suede, Hello Honey (SU)
Ink:  Soft Suede, Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie (SU)
Accessories:  Blueprints 13 die (My Favorite Things); Thanks Script die (Mama Elephant); Autumn Harvest sequins (Pretty Pink Posh); Festive Fall Mix sequins (Neat & Tangled)

Tag You're It 56!

Finally we have made it to Friday!  I don't like to wish my life away, but man, it feels good when Friday finally gets here!  I will finish this work week with a new challenge from Tag You're It where our featured designer is the super talented Taheerah Atchia.  She's got a great design for us that is super easy to dress up or down!

I spent quite a bit of time last weekend doing some stamp-shop browsing and found a lot of shiny gold and glimmery gold things with Christmas themes that I really loved.  So I had gold and Christmas on my mind when I finally sat down to make my tag for this challenge.  The subtle dotted background on Taheera's inspiration became gold embossed snowflakes on my tag and the big sentiment was a no-brainer for me:  a happy holiday sentiment that I cut out three times for dimension and went over with some gold Wink of Stella for a bit of sparkle!  There's a clean and simple challenge going on at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge so I'll be entering this over there as well.

Happy Friday to all of you and thanks so much for stopping by to visit.  I hope you have some time to play along with us at Tag You're It.  Our design team has made some beautiful tags so be sure to check them out!

Supplies
Paper:  Black (Simon Says Stamp); White (Spectrum Noir)
Accessories:  Traditional Tags STAX, Pierced Traditional Tags STAX (My Favorite Things); Falling Snow stencil (Simon Says Stamp); Hand Lettered Holiday die (WPlus9); metallic gold embossing paste (Wendy Vecchi); satin ribbon (Ellen Hutson); gold Wink of Stella pen; black crochet thread

CAS(E) This Sketch 190!

There's a new sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch today!  For some reason I completely forgot to write my blog post ahead of time like I usually do so I'm squeaking this one in before I head off to work this morning!

There's a one layer challenge to use our favorite flower at Less is More so I went to an oldie but goodie stamp set and colored just the poppies and not the stems.  I stamped the sentiment around them and voilà!

Short and sweet today.  Gotta run!  But thanks for stopping by and I hope you check out the beautiful cards made by my CAS(E) This Sketch teamies.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Poppy Field (Rubbernecker Stamps); Hand Lettered Thanks (WPlus9)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir)
Ink:  Forsty Pink, Grapevine (Altenew); Smokey Shadow (Papertrey Ink)

Freshly Made Sketches 254!

Hello Wednesday!  It's time for a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.  This week our hostess is our resident queen of layers Narelle!  I always get a big kick out of her sketches because they appear so simple.  Everyone knows that she loves to layer it on and every week she shows me how to take a simple layout and kick it up a notch or two with layers, color, and texture.

The color challenge at The Paper Players got me thinking of fall, even though the weather around here has been anything but fall-like.  I grabbed some leafy dies and cut out some leaves in the colors of the challenge and arranged them to resemble the circle in the sketch.  I even broke out some washi tape I've had for ages that is a dead-ringer for Cajun Craze and used it for one of the vertical layers.  The challenge this week at Retro Rubber is "anything goes" so I'm adding this over there as well.  At Retro Rubber they challenge us to use stamps that are older than one year on our projects.  I was pretty sure that I had the stamps that I used for a while but I was curious about how long I've had them so I checked back on my blog and I first used the slash border image in October of 2013 and the hashtag sentiment (LOVE this set) in April of 2014.  I love it when I can take some oldies but goodies from my stash and show them some love!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have some time to check out our latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches!  We'd love to have you play along with us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Hashtags (Tim Holtz); Slash Border (Impression Obsession)
Paper:  Ivory (Flourishes); Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz (SU)
Ink:  Early Espresso, Crushed Curry (SU)
Accessories:  Blueprints 21 die (My Favorite Things); Feuilles Asymétriques die, Petit Assortment d'automne die (Simply Graphic); Festive Fall sequins (Neat & Tangled); washi tape

colourQ 359, Tag You're It, Altenew Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop

Today is a very special day in blogland!  On Tuesdays I show you a card that I've made using the latest palette at colourQ.  Well today I'm doing that plus I'm joining in with the Altenew Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop which is a way for Altenew to celebrate all the inspiration that is to be found with the many card-making challenges we all know and love (and some you may not have heard of before).

I am fortunate to also be a member of the Tag You're It design team, which is also participating in the Altenew blog hop, so my project today is a blend of both challenges.

I went way back into the Tag You're It vault and opted to base my tag on challenge #22.  I didn't replicate the fruit, but using my favorite Altenew butterfly stamp and a companion sentiment set set I did replicate the layered tags, the layout of the images, and the "thank you" sentiment.

I don't know about you, but I rarely (ok, never) make a card (or a tag) without first starting with the inspiration found at a challenge website.  I love the idea of taking particular colors or a layout and turning it into something special that I only first saw in my mind's eye.  Sometimes I don't want to play along with these challenges because I can't wrap my mind around what is expected of me, but since that is what a challenge is all about I persevere and try my best to come up with something that makes me smile.  This is especially gratifying when I see a project  of mine turn up on Pinterest pinned by someone who also likes what I made!  Woo Hoo!  I know you like that too!

For me this is the power of a challenge website:  making us think outside of our comfort zone and use some colors, or follow a sketch, use a technique, or a different medium than we usually do.  And thanks to Altenew for celebrating that with all of us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Painted Butterflies, Painted Greetings (Altenew)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Soft Sky, Primrose Petasl (SU)
Ink:  Sea Glass (Avery Elle); Soft Sky (SU); Jet Black (Altenew)
Accessories:  Painted Butterflies die (Altenew); Tag Die Layers (My Creative Time); Soft Sky ribbon (SU); washi tape, seam binding ribbon; Winter Wonderland sequins (Neat & Tangled)

CAS(E) This Sketch 189!

Today I've got another Christmas card to show off with a little help from Leigh's design at CAS(E) This Sketch along with the colors at Merry Monday.

I really wanted to take the circle element on the sketch and use a snowflake.  And the idea of a gold snowflake against a black background seemed like a good choice.  The only problem I faced was that the Merry Monday challenge also wanted white and I didn't want to spoil the drama of the black and gold.  What to do.  What to do.  Vellum to the rescue!  I embossed the sentiment in gold on a vellum layer and put it right across the center of the snowflake.  It's quite pretty in real life and, of course, I had a hard time getting all that prettiness across with my meager photography skills but it doesn't look half bad here!

The gals at CAS(E) This Sketch have made some beautiful cards with this sketch so be sure to check them out.  I hope you can join us in the gallery this week!

Supplies
Stamps:  Jingle All the Way (Technique Tuesday)
Paper:  Black (Simon Says Stamp); Gold Foil (SU); Vellum (Papertey Ink)
Ink:  Versamark
Accessories:  Eliza Snowflake die (Simon Says Stamp); gold embossing powder

Freshly Made Sketches 253!

Hello, hello!  It's Wednesday so that means it's time for a new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week Jennifer Brum is our hostess and I just love her sketch.  It's got some great shapes and there's lots of room for interpretation.

It occurred to me when I sat down to make my card that I hadn't made one with a butterfly on it in a long time.  So despite the colors at Cupcake Inspiration telling me to do Christmas again I ignored that voice and opted for a winged fellow instead.  Plus I don't want anyone thinking this is the all-Christmas-all-the-time channel!  (Although if you pop by tomorrow you'll see another Christmas card, she said sheepishly).  My butterfly is a popped up double layer of minty card stock, which I stamped first with a mesh background, and a vellum overlay.  It's my favorite butterfly to do because it looks like it just landed on the front of the card!   Can't you just see the wings fluttering?

Thanks for stopping by today!  The gals at Freshly Made Sketches have made some beautiful card this week so be sure to pop on by there and check them out.  I hope you can join us in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Mesh (Darkroom Door)
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Poppy Parade (SU); Mint Julep, Vellum (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Mint Julep (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Banner Trio die (WPlus9); Bubbles stencil (Tim Holtz); translucent embossing paste (Dreamweaver); enamel dots (My Mind's Eye)

colourQ 358!

It's back to work for me today after a long weekend.  I was so happy to have an extra day off work and the storm f/k/a Hurricane Hermine even managed to stall off the coast long enough to give us some decent weather.  But since it's Tuesday that means there's another new challenge up at colourQ.  These colors always put me in mind of a more masculine card so I tried to keep the frills to a minimum!

The sentiment is swirly (not so frilly) so I think this could safely be delivered to a man or boy.  The banners in the sketch at Sunday Stamps were perfect to layer in the two blues and I managed to find some old So Saffron patterned paper in my stash that wasn't so busy that the sentiment could be stamped right on it.

I meant to add some enamel dots to this to jazz up some of that blank space, but I completely forgot until I sat down to write this post!  Easy enough to add some later, luckily!

Hop on over to colourQ and see what the design team has got up to with these colors.  I've seen their projects and they are pretty awesome!  I hope you can join us in the gallery!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  You're Super (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  So Saffron, Night of Navy, Cool Caribbean, Poppy Parade, Sweet Pea DSP (SU)
Ink:  Poppy Parade (SU)
Accessories:  Blueprints 20 die (My Favorite Things); Banner Bundle die (Verve); Seriously die (Lil' Inker Designs)

CAS(E) This Sketch 188

Happy Thursday!  I am one day closer to a long weekend and I am really looking forward to it.  But before that happens we've got a new challenge for you at CAS(E) This Sketch.  This week our design comes to you from Sam Simpson.

The color challenge at CAS-ual Fridays is an old favorite of mine:  black, white, and a pop of color.  More often or not when I see a challenge like this the color I choose is something bright - like Daffodil Delight.  I kept the rectangle layer simple - just some splatters and an outline floral image.  Enamel dots take the place of the three little flags.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have time to join us at CAS(E) This Sketch this week.  Our amazing design team has made some beautiful cards to inspire you!

Supplies
Stamps:  Truth Is (CAS-ual Fridays Stamps); Gorgeous Grunge (SU)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Basic Black, Daffodil Delight (SU)
Ink:  Daffodil Delight (SU); Jet Black (Altenew)
Accessories:  Thanks Script die (Mama Elephant); Enamel Dew Drops (Freckled Fawn)