Project 98: A CAS challenge

After my more ambitious challenges this weekend I decided to do a really CAS design with the CAS-ual Friday blog, using Green, Aqua and Orange as the only colors.

I have these great aqua cards from a rare find in my local little craft shop. I kept it super simple using green washi strips that Claire sent me. Big orange and green flower, aqua stamp and I'd say we're there!

This next card isn't in the challenge as it only uses aqua but I was playing around with a really big  embossing folder I bought in the Sizzix sale a while back and got the brayer out and I really liked the texture in it. The stamp doesn't quite come out here but it's an isolated part of a Love stamp that Claire sent me that features all different little greetings. I just isolated the LOVE bit and then added it to this inked-up layout. I was trying to make it look a bit messy and, well, mission accomplished I guess!

Project 97: Retro sketch challenge

Claire is always entering Retro Sketches and I thought it was an interesting layout this week so I gave it a go.

I have been playing with this boho chic paper set I got from a "grab bag" at Craft Superstore. I thougth the patterns would work well in this layout.

I added a grey border as my cutting wasn't as straight as I wanted it to be - nothing a bit of adjustment can't fix! I added teh candies to the corners to tie in the blue-green accent on some of the papers.

For the greeting I used a label die and simple stamped greeting. I stayed true to the sketch with three small gems and the flower embellishment.

My last layer uses a mini heart scallop punch Claire sent me - in the same set as the star punch on this card. Loving these at the moment. One more challenge from the weekend!

Project 96: Sweet Stampin' Mojo Challenge

This summer I've been trying to combine challenges to really push my creative flexibility. I think this is because Claire is no longer able to pop over for a playdate to inspire and challenge me. I also had a bit of time on my hands this summer. But we won't dwell on that now. I thought I'd also take the chance to use some of my new treats from a bumper pack from Claire.

I went on Mojo and really liked the simplicity of the challenge and thought it would go perfectly with the Sweet Stampin travel challenge. The output is a card for my friend Han, who loves her holidays and adventures.

I patterned the paper with hibsicus, plane and aviator stamps using a dark teal ink so that the paper looked water marked.

I stamped a tag outline and filled it with a camera stamp on a darker grey paper (same dark grey as the star punched border - a treat from Claire). I used grey chevron washi tape (also from Claire) before adding a greeting in the corner. I didn't put the glitter dots in the corner, breaking the sketch just a bit.

This one isn't in the mojo challenge but I had a second chance with the Sweet Stampin' challenge. I liked the blue and grey color scheme so I made a card using my bicycle stamp and die-cut set (which I put AGES AGO and still haven't used as I had stamped/cut so many from Claire's set before she left for NYC). I used a new silver tag from Claire's latest package o'fun and added some grey string and brads to make it a bit trendy. The headline card was more traditional "bon voyage" but this one is much more of a day-to-day journey. Love them both. 

I have another few challenges I'm entering this week so look at my main page for a few more of this weekend's outputs.

Project 95: Sexy leaving card

This week is my intern's last week at my company. She has a very distinct style, very blonde and pink, and she loves bling. So what would be more perfect than a sexy KennyK card?

I used Honey Sparks and made her, what else, blonde and pink. I glittered her glasses for a bit of sparkle and topped off the flower with bling and a sequin for a double effect. I wanted to keep the layout simple so I just used two geometric pink sticky ribbons at the bottom and tied up a tag with black and white string. The tags are from a new craft kit from Claire, which I will write a bigger post on later this week.

I was excited to find two new coloring challenges this week and my pink lady worked for both themes.

Sweet Stampin' Challenge had a bold and beautiful theme that required a stamp or digi image. There was a lot of pink inspiration from the DT entries and Honey is a pretty bold feature stamp!

Second was Color Me Creative marker challenge, which had an "Anything Goes" challenge so long as you used alcohol-based markers. I can confirm all markers used here are ProMarkers:

Outfit: Rose Pink and Pastel Pink

Skin: Blush

Hair: Canary and Gold 

Glasses and boots: Cool Grey 3

Always nice to find new challenge blogs! 

I have to write a long post about all the great stuff Claire sent me to cheer me up - die cuts, cards, crab cookie cutter...it's a bag of fun and makes me miss hanging out with her. Luckily the distance means that we have an excuse to buy each other all kinds of random stuff (while expanding our own collections)... 

Hoping you all have a good week!

Project 94: Clean and Simple button challenge

Claire pointed out a challenge featuring buttons over on Clean and Simple Challenges and as I have a bit of time (and a need to keep my hands busy and mind distracted) I thought I would enter as I LOVE buttons.

I used it as an opportunity to use my new owl stamps and the result is the headline card. I debated making it a more complicated layout but that goes against the ethos of the clean and simple challenge.

I used a square cream card as white looked too harsh. I used buttons for the eyes, as close to matching as I could get and then flower red buttons on the branch. I find those a bit hard to work with usually as they are a bit twee but was happy with the result here.

I stamped everything directly on the card - haven't done that in ages, felt brave doing it with all 4 stamps!

I really like the way it came out and I kept it greeting free so I have it for any occassion. Buttons and owls, what's not to love?

Project 93: Stamping like mad double challenge

This week we had some sad news and it's really made me retreat into the craft world to be distracted. It's really been therapeutic though I'm not sure I'm quite ready to face the real world and work again. To really put my mind to work, I decided to double up challenges again.

I liked the inspiration at Designed to Color and I had a second opportunity to enter the Kenny K Steampunk challenge so I used the combination to create the headline card, a birthday card for my friend. We often joke that we'd be better suited for Victorian times so I thought the steampunk vibe would be perfect for him.

I used Captain Locke from KennyK as the feature. I used Chronology paper for the cogs and then patterned my own paper for the green die-cut on the left using two different key stamps. I textured the flower with two different green inks and cut out a cog for the center. I used green glitter drop decals for the top right corner. Candies felt a bit out of place.

I thought I'd show a few more of the stamping bonanza output here as it is the result of an epic session but only the top headline card is in the challenge. 

 

I used the same color inspiration for a baby card for my colleague who just celebrated the 12-week-scan of their first baby. They don't know if it is a boy or a girl so I thought the yellow, green and grey worked well. He's a cool graphic designer so I used bold papers and simple layout that I thought he'd appreciate. I cut the baby-grow free-hand and then stamped the greeting. I got the idea from Pinterest and then used a card magazine for the layout idea. 

 

 

Changing things up a bit, I got a great set of stamps with Get Stamping magazine. All three of the stamps on this card are from the summer adventure theme. I used my old friend the Latte stack for the papers and added the chevron paper to keep it modern. I added glitter to the images to make it a bit more blingy.

 

 Back to Kenny K for the last two. This card is for my brother in law. I colored the Wise Guy stamp to look like my BIL and found a paper (also Latte stack) that worked perfectly. I used brad-style candies along the bottom to give it a bit of hardware.

 

I won this mermaid stamp from a challenge I entered with Ginger Gem and this is her first outing for me. I made her purple and blue and colored the gradient to give her depth. The purple paper is ancient (I think Claire gave it to me 2 years ago) and I thought it had an ethereal, under-water feel. I stamped hibsicus flowers on the blue card using the travel stamps I mentioned above. I topped her off with a lot of glitter glue and some punched and pressed flowers with purple bling.

I'm grateful I have crafting as a distracting and coping mechanism; I don't hope for bad news again but at least the output is fairly productive!