CASEing the Catty - #CTC149 Year of Cheer

Wowee, you guys are in for a treat this week. The Year of Cheer brings us lots of reason to celebrate and adds a touch of elegance - I think you'll agree...

My project's been inspired from the bottom picture on page 36.  

Not having that embossing folder, I've switched that for one of the Foil Snowflakes, they come in a pack of 24, 12 each of gold and silver. I've also steered away from the copper focus and gone just with silver against white, an old favourite for a special card. I've used a circle of Silver Foil, with a circle of Year of Cheer Specialty DSP, and taken the greeting from Butterfly Basics and embossed it with Silver Embossing Powder before cutting with the Stitched Shapes framelit. Layered behind that is the Silver Mini Sequin Trim, and I've popped the greeting up with dimensionals. I've also used the Year of Cheer Specialty Washi tape at the top and bottom of my card. This is an A4 sheet cut lengthways, so it opens up rather than out. Yet again, I fell into the - "remember how hard that is to photograph situation" when using Silver, so I hope you can see past the bad photography to the shine.

Here's the embossing from a different angle - yum!

I obviously had too much time on my hands this week, and remembered seeing the idea of sponging the reverse side of the snowflake. Thought I'd have a go with Lemon Lime Twist and give some suggestions for things you don't have. No washi? Try using DSP (Fresh Florals DSP stack in this case). No Specialty DSP? - how about embossing a piece of cardstock with the Layered Leaves 3D TIEF. And in place of the mini sequin trim, silver 1/8" ribbon.  I finished off with the Metallics Sequin assortment, love how they come in different sizes - greeting from Best Birds.

Up next is Judy, after you've been round the hop, hope you feel inclined to add your project by using the link over on the right hand side

CASEing the Catty - #CTC142 Love & Sympathy

This week we have a Guest Designer - Welcome Nicole. The section we are Caseing is Love and Sympathy pages 86-101.  

Hi if you've just hopped over from Petas page. Today I chose the bottom card on the image from page 101:

Using Daisy Delight for the flower, Thoughts & Prayers for the Greeting and Best Birds for the background. I went with Smokey Slate for the base card and Crushed Curry for the background stamping and the flowers with Wild Wasabi leaves. With the colouring I tried to be slap dash as in the cased picture, I liked the blank areas of colour.  See below for a close up.

I smooshed the Night of Navy onto a non-porous surface and added a little embossing paste, then used this to texture the middle of my flowers.  When dry I dabbed a little more colour over the top and used Rich Razzleberry around the edge - (my colouring was inspired by this flower, Osteospermum):

The close up shows the texture better hopefully. The shine on the petals is by stamping the daisy in Versamark and then Crushed Curry before clear heat embossing (see here for more on this tip). This meant I would have more control over the white space I wanted but it made colouring around the centre a bit of a challenge... 

Enough from me - time to pop over and see what Megan has been up to...

CASEing the Catty - #CTC138 Holidays

Hello again. Welcome if you've just come from Jackie Noble's blog. Today I'm CASEing the layout of a card I've had my eye on for a while and think I could case it over and over.  You will find it on page 114:

Much as Holiday is the theme, I've switched it for a Birthday card. My elements are a little different - washi tape was replaced with strips of paper from the Colour Theory DSP, as well as edging for the greeting, the diecut word and strip became a branch. My circles are slightly smaller than this card, and I think next time I would maybe make the main picture a touch bigger. For that I used Shimmery White cardstock and added Lemon Lime twist ink with my aqua brush and played around til I got the depth of colour I wanted. I used Chocolate Chip ink for the bird (although it was freshly re-inked so I admit it does look a bit more like Early Espresso). The background effect from Best Birds has been copper embossed onto vellum for the right hand circle. The left circle has speckles copper embossed onto Lemon Lime Twist cardstock from Touches of Texture. Wood Textures DSP stack for the remaining circle with the greeting and flowers also from Best Birds. Copper ribbon replaces the burlap threads above and Metallic Enamel Shapes to finish.

Thanks for stopping by and now you must go check out what the lovely Kelly Kent has been up to.

Wedding Theme - International Blog Highlight

Kylie Bertucci has put together another International Blog Highlight where global entries are accepted and then voted on with the Top 10 featuring in a Blog Hop.  The theme this time round was Wedding and my take was to use just two colours - White and Silver.

I used Whisper White to make a 6" square base. The Silver Foil sheet was cut to 5 3/4" square and the top layer of Whisper White is 5 1/2" square.  There were a few things going on to get this card together. Firstly the heat embossing. I softened the birds by silver embossing on Vellum and die cutting. The leaves were heat embossed directly onto the top layer of the card, then gently dry embossed (lifting both tabs on Big Shot platform) with the Brick Wall TIEF. The greeting was embossed on a piece of scrap and cut to fit using the Layering Squares dies, matched with the silver foil for the scalloped mat. A strip of Silver Foil was punched with the soon to be retired Confetti Hearts Border punch and adhered to the bottom of the top layer. Silver 1/8" ribbon was added to the top and bottom of the punched strip as well as tails for the greeting.  Finished off with a couple of the little 'punch poo' hearts. Stamped images are all from Best Birds.

What I didn't account for, was how difficult it is to get a decent photo with silver foil!! I apologise for the quality but hope you get the idea.  Like what you see?...

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR ME #26

If you are interested - I have kept the inside simple and along the same elegant lines.  I replicated the mat to give the card some structure and balance, and then just popped on a couple of little Silver Foil flowers die cut from the Bloomin' Heart Thinlits.

Significant Age Birthday Card

Sitting there chatting with my husband and mentioned the next day being his Mother's birthday, when he dropped in "and she's 75"! My panic-meter went off and I knew the birthday card I had thought I would use wasn't going to cut the mustard. I got up yesterday morning and decided to grab out the challenge colours from Colour INKspiration #CI05 (Blushing Bride, Soft Sky and Sahara Sand), and as she has a little bird, I also grabbed the Best Birds stamp set and told myself that was it - not to go getting any other ideas!

And here is the card I came up.  I took a piece of Whisper White card stock, slapped my 3 challenge ink pads directly onto the cardstock and then spritzed until the harsh edges started to soften and the colour moved. I had to speed up the drying with the heat gun. Next I diecut 75 from the Large Numbers framelits, and one of the Birds and Blooms thinlits for the main image.  The card is 6x6" and the base is Blushing Bride, then a mat of Sahara Sand with Soft Sky as the top layer. To soften the top layer, I stamped with Sahara Sand images from the Best Birds.  The mesh in the middle was stamped off to give more depth to the edge images. Leaves were stamped in Sahara Sand onto same colour cardstock and diecut, along with a circle frame from Stitched Shapes framelits.  I then cut flowers from scraps of the coloured piece of Whisper White, Soft Sky and Blushing Bride using the Bloomin' Heart thinlits. Finished with pearls, linen thread bow and Wink of Stella, although it didn't show up in the photo - which I apologise for, the day turned a bit hectic and my distraction meant a rushed picture before it was given away.

I used the new Reverse Words from the Sale-a-bration set for the inside in Soft Sky, and the greeting from Best Birds, along with another little Birds & Blooms image in Soft Sky...

Bumblees Galore

You know I love them! Bumblees! When the Global Design Project #GDP076 chose to case Kylie Bertucci this week, I had an idea of what I'd like to do, but didn't have a chance to sit and do it until now.

I die cut bumblebees from Basic Black with the Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits, then adhered them to body size pieces of Crushed Curry. I recreated the same Basic Black discard with Delightful Dijon and embossed with the Hexagons Dynamic TIEF.  This was adhered to a slightly wider piece of Whisper White and the bumblebees were placed in position. The greeting is from Best Birds and I used the Stitched Shapes framelits to diecut, you just need to shift it for a 2nd cut to create the rectangle shape.  Keep reading after the first photo to see what else I did - told you I hate to waste!

I already had the Basic Black scrap which the bumblees had been cut from, and adhered it to a piece of Whisper White.  I then used the bumblebee image from Dragonfly Dreams to fill in the gaps before colouring with the new Watercolor Pencils. Thanks to Paula Dobson, for the colouring idea - loved how you shaded yours and it does make them appear more fluffy, making them pop!  

I like them both, but can't decide which I like best!  

But wait there's more... Remember the Sunburst birthday cards from my last post? I showed how I had stamped before I diecut the butterfly.  Check out what I did with the 'waste' piece of card:

I was happy to use a few pieces on this card that would likely have been in the bin.  Hope it leaves you feeling inspired to have a play with your scraps too.  

Happy New Year

Goodness me, doesn't time fly!  Happy to New Year to anyone who has not given up on me due to my lack of blogging.  Being away from home does have its downsides, along with the fun stuff!

Today I wish to share with you the card I made for my lovely Mum.  Her birthday was last month and I chose to make a shaker card.  I liked the colours I had used for the last birthday card and stuck with them, Pink Pirouette for the base, matted with Sahara Sand.  The dragonflies were cut from the Blushing Bride Glimmer paper and stuck over the window. As you can see, I'm making the most of the Stitched Shapes Framelits as well. The greeting stamped with Sahara Sand is from Best Birds.

Wishing you all the best for 2017!

For The Birds

This bundle definitely jumped out of the catalogue when I first saw it! (the stamps are called Best Birds, and the matching thinlits are Birds & Blooms). As I hadn't posted for a while I thought it was time to get cracking. I chose Crushed Curry, Crumb Cake and Strawberry Slush for my colouring and stamped the bird itself in Tip Top Taupe.  These were also my choices of cardstock along with Whisper White. The branches were Old Olive stamped with Tip Top Taupe.  I actually stamped the bird and blossoms first and then added the die cut branches - I cut around the tail and lifted it over my branch to make it look more realistic. Thanks for stopping by...