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.

International Project Highlights Kicks Off

Welcome to our International Project Highlights Visual Blog Hop using current Stampin' Up!® Products. What a great selection of projects for you to be inspired by!  Hop around and visit all of our blogs to see a close up of our projects. Check out the gallery below, this will be on every blog that you click on so you will never be lost.

What a busy month October has been.  Following on from World Cardmaking Day, I was again inspired by Kylie Bertucci, who has created the first of what will hopefully be a monthly Visual Blog Hop.

My card today had me reach for the Remarkable You stamp set and Copper embossing powder.  I used Very Vanilla cardstock, but have mounted it all onto an Early Espresso base to give it a bit more strength.  The centre panel has been matted onto Copper Foil and raised using Stampin' Dimensionals. Images were watercoloured using Sweet Sugarplum, Rich Razzleberry and Garden Green. I have combined Copper metallic thread with Linen thread to wrap and tie a bow, and the greeting is from Rose Wonder.

Please excuse the quality of the next photo, but I wanted to show how the copper and the embossing jump out of the card which the above image doesn't capture.

Thanks for visiting my blog today, there are so many amazing ideas along the way. We know that you will love our gallery of projects made from Stampin' Up!® Demonstrators around the world!

Thoughtful Branches and Watercolour

As you may have noticed, I am making the most of the short time I can share this bundle (Thoughtful Branches) with you but hoping like crazy it will make a comeback in a future catalogue!  I know I've tried to encourage you before to play with your toys and keep trying until you master a technique, but when I try to do the same, I struggle with not using it. I had some non-SU watercolour paper (not a great quality by any means) and thought I could sacrifice that rather than my 'good' stuff. But I liked the look and these are the results.

The first card I wish to show you was an idea shared by Sara Douglass, Stampin' Up! CEO. The background is masked off at the edge, and then washed with 3 different colours and left to dry. I then veered off from using the leaves she had and added the tree you can see here. I unravelled the thick Cucumber Crush baker's twine and added it to the card, tying it with a single strand. The greeting is from Confetti Celebration.  I used my Wink of Stella brush and picked up Daffodil Delight to colour in the words, Then I wanted more bling so I added a few sequins and Wink of Stella to the leaves - see close up.  And it made it to the mailbox yesterday.

For the next card, it was the same watercolour paper, and this time I just lay a stamp pad on it (Tangelo Twist), the ink was very intense and I initially thought that was going to be a big fail.  However I spritzed it with water and left it to dry.  It was fun watching the colour come apart and spread.  I spritzed again and was happy with the how it toned down yet still enough variety to provide interest.  I cut it out with the Beautiful Branches die and was pleased with the result. I cut a stalk out of the same paper and used the Cucumber Crush ink pad then spritzed as before. Once I had my flower sorted, I knew I wanted to pop it into a vase - so out with the Jar of Love and my new copper embossing powder.  I love how the copper melted so smoothly on the vellum I used for the jar.  I used a marker to colour the back of the vellum for my water.  The head of the flower had dimensions in the centre of it and then I used multipurpose adhesive around the edge - gives a more real look to the hydrangea idea. I picked a Touches of Texture image and embossed that twice at the bottom of the Very Vanilla card and ran the top through the Petal Burst TIEF.  I added a copper embossed banner and a greeting which I brought the Cucumber Crush back into.  I also added some copper metallic thread - see the close up.  A lengthy post but lots of detail to try and explain.