CASEing the Catty - #CTC150 Favourite Big Shot Project

Hello there - thanks for stopping by as we hop through the Design Crew's take of Caseing their Favourite Big Shot Project - Holiday Catalogue.  

As you know that gives a lot of choice, but I ended up near the back of the catalogue - page 51, and the bottom card of the last picture.

I chose the Oh So Eclectic bundle to create with. I think I was drawn to this card after seeing Fresh Fig used by some of the team last week and decided it was time I did too. I used a base of Fresh Fig. I soaked colour into a piece of watercolour paper until I was happy with the intensity, I was a bit impatient and in the end just slapped the ink pad on so it became extremely intense, but I played with it lifting colour out, waiting til it was dry and adding drops of water, that's where I started to get the blue tinge coming through. I still own the colour spritzer that Stampin' Up used to have and used that with the Fresh Fig marker to get the splatters. 

If you look closely you will see there is a leaf image stamped onto the card but you won't find the stamp in the set - because it is actually the die inked up (the one that only embosses the card - doesn't cut it), such a cute image. In the card they have some little crosses cut out, instead I versamarked the crosses image and silver embossed it. Next I cut a foil skeleton flower, and popped Powder Pink under the centre. I stamped Powder Pink cardstock with the smaller flower image in Fresh Fig and after diecutting it lopped off the stalk. Next was the leaves, two were stamped with Lemon Lime Twist, the other plain vellum - all die cut, and then some little foil sprigs. Once my cutting was done I layered it up pretty much as per the CASEd card. Silver Metallic thread behind and I used the white out of the Metallic sequins, but it has a kind of mother of pearl shine to it, so it worked well with my pinks. Image is stamped from Dragonfly Dreams and chopped then raised with dimensionals...

I realise some of you will look at this and just think 'epic fail', especially those of you who prefer 'clean and simple', but every now and then I like a bit of messy play, so quite enjoyed creating it.  Time for you to hop on over to see what Rebecca has been up to... hope you'll feel inclined to join in - click the icon on the left to add your project

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...

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.