Feel better with lilies

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and time for a therapeutic dose of Tic Tac Toe inspiration! Betty has created a lovely board this week:

I've chosen the bottom line - Watercolor/ Bright Colors/Floral and have made a card for someone who is a bit under the weather.

 

I stamped one of the lilies from Uniko's Pure Florals Lily onto a thick card base and watercoloured it with diluted inks. When it was dry I added detail with coloured pencils. 

The flower was masked while I positioned the Trellis Background from Funky Fossil and inked into it with blue ink. To finish, I stamped a sentiment from MFT and added a sprinkling of sequins.

 

Okay, so now it's your turn! Which row, column or diagonal will you choose this week? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site to check out the wonderful samples my teamies have made to inspire you. When you're ready to share your own creation, you'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post. Looking forward to seeing what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge; also Stamping Sensations where the theme is Summer Flowers.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Apologies for the late news - early readers will have seen a blank space here. There are those that would tell you that is an accurate representation of what goes on in my head but I would insist that is just slander!! The truth is that I have been in a bit of a social frenzy this week; that's a bit like a shark feeding frenzy but with less sharks and more cakes!

Sending hugs,

Bringing flowers as a guest

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I am delighted to be guesting with Retro Rubber Challenge today after winning challenge 183 with THIS card. This time the challenge is a sketch - and of course the requirement is to use some of your older stamps - choose ones that are over a year old and do let us know when they were released! Here's the sketch:

Isn't it inspiring?! I have an old Stampin' Up stamp set (Painted Petals, released in 2015 I think) that I love and still use quite often; I thought it would be perfect for this sketch!

 

Taking a white card panel, I stenciled pale yellow ink into a trellis stencil to create the rectangle shape. There are dots and stripes images in the stamp set which were perfect for recreating the two horizzzontals.

 

The trellis is quite subtle but you can see it more clearly on the photo above. The cluster of the flowers and leaves was stamped on scrap card and fussy cut. I added detail with coloured pencils before attaching the flowers to the background. 

 

To finish the card, I chose a pretty flowing script from another older set, Altenew's Birthday Greetings (released 2015) and stamped it between two of the stripes. I attached the card panel to a card base using dimensional strips and added a sprinkling of coordinating sequins too for that feminine touch!

Okay so now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Retro Rubber challenge site where the design team has some beautiful samples to inspire you. When you're ready to share your own creation, you can use the Linky Tool which you'll find at the bottom of the post. Don't forget to use stamps older than a year - and have fun!!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at We Love Stamping where the theme is Anything Stamped with the option of Hot Sunny Colours; I'm also joining in with Laurie's Green Thumb challenge at The Paper Players; and Allsorts where Ellie has chosen the theme of Flora and/or Fauna.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I love the summer days for walking. When Eva has friends we tend to walk out in the countryside but when she and I are on our own, we tend to walk in the local parks because it is her great joy to greet people and other dogs. One of our parks has created great areas of wildflower meadow to attract bees and butterflies and other pollinators and they always make me marvel.

 

Here's Mrs Floof, poised to have a romp through the poppies!

Sending hugs,

A twofer for a diamond fella!

Hello, crafting friends!

After a tricky few days of nothing going right in the Craft Square Metre, I finally produced a card that didn't get thrown in the bin!

CARD ONE

It's a masculine card which nods both to the season, with its pastel colours, and to the game of golf, with its Pringle sweater-esque motif. You won't believe how long this took to make... 

... BUT, I'm pleased to say that  I rescued quite a lot of the duds so this is a very 'use up the leftovers' kind of card :) The panel was cut from a ruined card base that I'd been trying to stencil diamonds on with pencils. The pencil didn't show through so I was able to trim it out with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and stamp and heat emboss the plain side with a sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Greetings.

I had tried to make a pattern of diamonds with my Funky Fossil Trellis Background stencil but I couldn't get my pattern to work at all so there was quite a lot of waste! In the end, I used scissors to cut out some of the pencilled, stencilled diamonds and glued three of them beneath the sentiment. Then I used a diamond die from the Spellbinder Optical Illusion Geo dies and cut some more diamonds from snippets of designer paper which I positioned over the top of the larger plain diamonds.

CARD TWO

I had just managed to make the Less is More deadline when I realised it was one layer week. Anyone else ever done that I wonder... lol! Well, inspiration suddenly hit again so I made another card which took a lot less time.

I remembered an ancient SU builder wheel with an argyle pattern on it, which I'd unmounted. I used neutral ink to stamp that directly onto a card base, off the edge, and coloured the little diamonds with coloured pencils.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted's Simply Said. I stamped it partially over the top using Stazon ink, keeping all the stamping within a one inch strip. There! Job done!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking Card One up with The Snippets Playground, after rescuing all those snippets; and Dawn's Occasions challenge at Watercooler Wednesday. I'm linking Card yTwo up with Less is More's One Layer Diamonds challenge and AAA Cards' One Inch Strip challenge - that strip was carefully measured!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

My crafting is done in my living room and I have made the biggest mess I have ever made, with trimmers, die cutting machines, stamps, colouring materials and off cuts of paper strewn about everywhere. If there's any relaxing going to be happening in there this evening I had better get it cleared up rather than hanging about here chatting!

Sending hugs,

Happy yellow lilies

Hello crafting friends!

Welcome to a brand new challenge at Addicted to CAS! Joy is hosting the challenge for the next two weeks and has chosen Flower as her theme word.

It's always fun to get out the flowers isn't it?! I've chosen these pretties from Clearly Besotted's Perfect Lilies, a bargain I recently bought from the company's amazing sale section.

I stamped them in a pale yellow ink then held Funky Fossil's Trellis Background stencil over it and sponged blue ink roughly round the outside. The flowers were coloured using coloured pencils and the card finished with a sentiment from Altenew's Birthday Greetings.

And now it's your turn! There's heaps of inspiration from my teamies over at the Addicted to CAS blog.  Check it out and you can also link your creation up there using the Linky Tool. I can't wait to see the gallery fill up with beautiful CAS floral creations!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where Anything Goes; and Stamplorations Stencil challenge where Anything Goes; I've not used the lily stamp before so I'll share this card at the NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's so much lighter now and it's showing up all those dusty corners! I think this weekend is going to have to be the start of my spring cleaning!

Sending hugs,

A pretty celebration

Hello, crafting friends!

I was delighted to be invited to be Guest Star Stamper at The Color Throwdown this week - and when I saw the colours I was double delighted!

Aren't they dreamy? Even without the photo, these are definitely wedding colours to me. 

I started the card by cutting down a card panel with one of Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside Border dies. Holding the Trellis Background stencil by Funky Fossil over one half, I inked into it with versamark ink and heat embossed with gold. The two pieces of the panel were then put back together and trimmed to size with a Stitched Rectangle die by Heffy Doodle.

To decorate the background, I stamped some pretty flowers from Clearly Besotted's On Your Day, coloured them with alcohol markers and fussy cut them. They were arranged with some die cut leaves from Mama Elephant's Botanic Envelope die set. I added a tiny glimpse of sparkly gold under my flowers and glued everything in place.

The finishing touch was a never-before-uysed sentiment die that I picked up for pennies in a sale at The Range.

What do you think of the colours? Do they excite you as much as they did me? The samples from The Color Throwdown team have me drooling every week! Check out their inspiration at the challenge blog and you can link up your card there too.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at CAS Mix Up Challenge where Nancy's theme is Stencil Heat Embossing; I'm also sharing it at the NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff) Challenge too, where I'm showcasing that Congratulations die.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

When I married (all those years ago!) I wore off-white velvet, trimmed with gold braiding, and carried a bouquet of yellow roses and autumnal foliage. I tended to wear autumnal colours in those days - golds, browns, oranges, and olive greens. 

Then, autumnal colours - Now, sugared almond colours

Interestingly, almost 30 years later, I tend to wear a very different palette of colours. My daughter has told me I dress like a sugared almond - but in a good way, she added hastily!

How about you? Have your colours changed?

Sending hugs,

Try something new today!

Hello, crafting friends!

A few years ago, one of the large supermarkets ran an advertising campaign encouraging shoppers to 'Try something new today'. I do think stepping outside our comfort zones is good for us sometimes, even if all  we learn is that we'd rather go back to our familiar way of doing things! If you're a regular here, you'll know that CAS is my usual style, but today I went a bit off piste and created a card that seems very unlike me!

What do you think? I started, as I quite often do, by masking the edges of a card base and blending some ink through a stencil (Trellis by Funky Fossil) but then major die cutting happened! I tend to use dies to trim a card panel or create a small embellishment but in this card, the die cuts are the main event! Scary huh?!

I've used the Geo Floral Frame dies by Sissix, cutting two of the irregular shaped frames from gold card stock and attaching them to my stencilled background. The large 'birthday' from Avery Elle's Big Birthday fit beautifully in the frame and I added a little blocky 'wishes' from Simply said Blocks by Uniko. The flowers and leaves were cut out of white card stock  and I used alcohol markers to colour them. I wanted some smaller flowers to balance things out so I cut some using a small punch. The larger flowers were embellished with gold sequins.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

I can't remember ever being chosen as Queen of Clean at Freshly Made Sketches so I'm delighted this card got me the crown!!

CHALLENGES

I used Jen's layout from Freshly Made Sketches; and the completely out-of-my-comfort-zone colour palette from Cupcake Inspirations (Maroon/Teal/Gold); I had to  play along with Laurie's fun tic tac toe at The Paper Players (not only die cut/red/stencil but also stencil//markers/blue!); I'm also joining in with Die Cut Divas where the theme is Frame.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The snow melting last week was followed by more heavy rain, and the river has burst its banks yet again. When our local football team opens its doors again, it looks as if the players will be embracing Aqua Football!

Where's the ref? He's in a canoe!!

Sending hugs,