Project 433: A blue/circle/animal tic tac toe challenge

I love following along with The Paper Players as their challenges are always fun and accessible. This week they have a Tic Tac Toe and I thought it would be a great way to play along.

I chose the bottom row: Blue Animal Circle

I heat embossed my hummingbird stamp, and then die cut it and layered it over a blue stitched die. The background is watercolored using Salty Ocean and Blueprint Sketch Distress Inks. I added a few enamel dots and a little thank you stamp to complete it. I love the simplicity of it, it's a simple but pretty card. It's the first card from my playdate with Claire, she really helped with the inspiration.

Project 432: super CAS challenge

I saw a number of challenges that I thought would combine for a fun CAS card.

I took the colours from Color Throwdown, the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and the challenge of 'no stamps, only dies' from CAS-UAL Fridays to come up with my entry.

I masked a stripe diagonally down the page and used Mustard Seed and Picked Raspberry Distress Inks to blend the stripe. The sentiment is die cut from Stamping Up set and I added pearl accents for texture. I am really pleased with the blending and mask result, I may even make a few more of these as a set.. ..

Project 431: A sunset surfer anniversary card

A colleague remembered her 5 year anniversary a bit late in the day - specifically it was 6:15 on a Wednesday for her anniversary on Thursday!

She was in a fast-paced brainstorm, listing things about their relationship and dates and we were trying to come up with gift ideas. She mentioned their first date was surfing and involved tequila shots on the beach and I thought: that would make a great card.

I started by paper cutting a surfer and surf board in black paper, then cut out my shot glasses and limes. I added glitter glue to represent the tequila and added white gel pen to the limes. I watercolored using Distress Inks to get the sunset and beach motif. The sentiment is die cut using white stock and I split it over the background and kraft card blank.

My colleague was really tickled by it so I'm pleased it worked out.

Project 430: A piñata sketch and color challenge

Claire recently bought me this fantastic little piñata set from Lawn Fawn and I was saving it for a birthday card for a colleague who I knew would appreciate it. 

Because the image and sentiment are relatively small I wanted to look at some sketches where things would be concentrated in one area so it wouldn't look too distant. I found a great one in CAS(E) This Sketch and then by magic the colors at Color Throwdown this week were a perfect complement to what I wanted to do:

I started with a stamp of the image and then colored it with ProMarkers and die cut it with the matching dies. I used foam tape to pop it out and then die cut stitched squares in white and turquoise to get the central panel. I used Enamel Accents to add confetti around the 'Smash!' part of the sentiment and large enamel dots to frame the central panel. The background paper is American Crafts and I have been saving it for a special occasion - I've loved the pattern and color and decided it was finally time to use it. That's what it's therefore after all! 

Really happy with how it came out, may have used slightly brighter ProMarkers if I were to do it again but all things considered I think it was a good inaugural card for the new set.

Project 429: A fun little rainbow challenge

I saw the rainbow challenge at Retro Rubber this week and I really wanted to play along:

I love rainbows - if colors follow the right sequence I'm over the moon and I find myself wanting to edit colors in patterns I find if they're close but not quite in the right order.

I decided to get out a set of hot air balloon stamps that I have had for about 3-4 years now, my mom gave them to me and I've always loved how perfect they are to take on color through almost any means. I heat embossed them in white then used an aqua brush and a range of Distress Inks to create the rainbow pattern.

For the background I used a cloud stencil with Broken China Distress Ink and then topped it all off with a sticker sentiment from Tim Holtz that I cut in half to fit the space. It's a really cheerful card and I'm really thrilled with out it came out, I think I may even turn it into a set as it was pretty easy!

Project 428: A little gnome Sketch Saturday card

This week at Sketch Saturday we have great sponsor in The Digi Stamp Boutique and I was really charmed by the sets available. This little gnome set was too much fun to play with this week's sketch:

I decided to flip the sketch horizontally and on the left I repeated the toadstool multiple times and colored it using ProMarkers. On the right I colored the gnome on the flowerpot and added a grass die in dark green to give it a bit of dimension. I heat embossed the sentiment from Stampin' UP in white so it would stand out against the blue card. The little gems accents complete the sketch. 

Please play along by Friday next week! 

Project 427: Another Masculine Thank You

I mentioned a few posts ago I was working on some masculine thank you cards. I liked the sketch at Always Playing With Paper and decided to make this a bit of fun: 

I used the pickle set Claire gave me and heat embossed it in black. I used Mown Lawn Distress Ink as a watercolor to add accents to the pickles and just a tiny touch of white gel pen. I used some really fun arrow paper clips in place of the banner tags and decided a bit of hardware would be perfect. Fun and simple but I'm really happy with it.

Project 426: Two takes on a sketch challenge

I saw the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and thought it would be fun to try some different ideas:

The headline is a very CAS version. I inverted the sketch and used a Tim Holtz stencil to create a sunburst at the top. For the two panels, I used Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and used alternative brush strokes to create the effect of differrent sections. I added some little sentiments from the Tim Holtz Ranger collection and I know just the friend to send it send it to.

This is an alternative version that is a bit less CAS but I do love it more. I used the color inspiration from Color Throwdown as i thought they'd be perfect for my sister's 30th birthday card.

This looks simple but was in fact a labor intensive card. I heat embossed each panel. The green panel has a houndstooth embossing folder and added numbers from a new freebie from Creative Stamping magazine. The panel on the right has dots from a Stampin' Up set and I did an ombre effect using Victorian Velvet and Picked Raspberry Distress Inks. Iadded a little pink balloon with baker string. The bottom panel has a sentiment from another magazine but I can't remember which. I added some Avery Elle stencilled hearts to make it look a bit less plain.

All in all I am really pleased with both of these and can't wait to get them off to their recipients.

Project 425: A masculine thank you

I have a few special thank you cards to send and I needed them to be masculine. 

The combination of the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and CAS on Sunday were perfect challenges for what I needed:

I used watercolor paper and heat embossed a tree in black. I used Mustard Seed Distress Ink to paint the background. The sentiment is an ancient one that I heat embossed as well to make it stand out. I was happy sticking with the primary color brief, it was just the inspiration I needed. 

Project: Sketch Saturday 8 July

Hello and happy Saturday!

This week's Sketch Saturday challenge is a lot of fun

And we are sponsored by the excellent collection of digis Drawn with Character. 

I went with the PB&J image and it went so well with this layout. I coloured the image using ProMarkers and then die cut the square. I decided to keep the colors brown and purple to go with the image, so I embossed a tan piece of card using a triangle folder from Sizzix and and then die cut the background into a square. I separated the sentiment from the image so I could turn it into a tag - I made it quite a bit bigger than the sketch because I wanted it to have more prominence. I was able to use a little brown and pink bow I had in my stash, how perfect is that?

Definitely check out the challenge, be sure to get in your entry before Friday!

Project 424: A big dill card

I had a couple of minutes to craft tonight and I thought I would knock up a quick and funny card using these AWESOME pickle stamps Claire gave me.

As an inaugural card, I kept it really simple. I die cut squares in green and black, and then colored the pickle with ProMarkers and die cut it using the matching dies. I added a tiny hint of white gel pen. Super simple, but I'm in love.

Project: Wedding, Engagement and Anniversary at MAWTT

I loved the theme this week so much that I decided to do a card for each of our category options at Moving Along with the Times this week.

The wedding card headliner was really fun, we have a wedding coming up and I wanted to make something colourful and different for them. The sentiments were from a magazine, I think Quick Cards and I embossed them in white powder and then blended over it using Mustard Seed and Peacock Feather distress ink. I used an Avery Elle stencil in Blueprint Sketch to stand out.

For the next two cards I decided to play with a Moroccan tile background stamp. I used a few different blues to get depth and then spritzed it with water. I covered the full background and then did two versions, all featuring the same sentiment stamp set as the headline. The Anniversary card features these great little felt birds I have had forever, I thought they were weird and kitsch and perfect for an anniversary card. The cake die is a bit fiddly so I only popped out the bigger spaces, not the little dots as they are so fiddly. Very simple but full of character. I like it, can't wait to see what everyone else makes!

Project 423: A hen-do collage

I got asked to print photos to contribute to a friend's bachelorette party/hen do book and it occurred to me that I have so few printed photos this was going to be really hard! I scanned all of my social media accounts and decided there was only one good recent photo of us but, as a friend of 12 years, I couldn't go with just one little image so I decided to supplement the only way I know how: with crafting!

I made my dies do most of the heavy lifting, and added detailing in enamel accents to the dart board and the college crest (that's our Oxford college where we met). She lives in Hong Kong (thus the dragon) and lived in Italy (thus the flag) and loves to travel. The bottle is more symbolic of how we pass our time - lots of casual drinking!

And this is the one image I did decide to print, which I jazzed up with some stickers from Tim Holtz's Ranger range. I was pretty happy with the result, it definitely stands out amid all the other photos!