My first day! Clean and Simple Colours and Sketches

Good morning and welcome to my first post as a member of the CAS design team. I hope you will pop over and join us as we have a fun sketch for you this week!

I actually struggled with this one so relied upon my newly discovered Post-It Note masking technique.

I cut an appropriately sized square post-it, stuck it on the card and stamped the Marina Mist flowers. I then cut a slightly smaller square of Whisper White and stamped the larger image before mounting it on the card with dimensionals.

The Flower stamps are from Bordering on Romance and the sentiment is from Perfectly Penned.

I hope you enjoy this weeks challenge and I am looking forward to many more!

Paper Piercing - Stampin' Up!

Today's post is a little more girly. It is an entry for the Less is More, week 108 challenge of Paper Piercing.

I have never tried this before, but Stampin' Up! do make it easier as they have a number of templates available as well as a brilliant piercing mat.

For my card I stamped the flower from Mixed Bunch, in Rose Red on Vellum, I speeded up the drying with my heat gun then added it to the pre pierced card with a dimensional. Topping it off with a Large Pearl.

The sentiment is from Itty Bitty Banners, cut out using my Big Shot and the corresponding Framelit.

In this case Less is Definitely more.

I hope you like it and will share your thoughts by leaving me a comment!

Pxx

Sponging for Fab Friday Challenge

Tuesday already! Had a great time with Blaze, one of my Border Collies, at his obedience class last night! He throws himself into everything so enthusiastically and without a hint of finesse. Bless!

Here is my next tree card as alluded to yesterday. The Fab Friday Challenge is a colour challenge so it is nice sometimes not to be constrained by a Sketch. I have used the Lovely as a Tree set and two techniques. Firstly I stamped the tree at the front, stamped the same image on a post it note, cut it out and masked the tree so I could stamp the other trees. I then used a sponge dauber to add foliage to the trees in the background. I also used a blender pen to add some crumb cake to the trunk of the first tree.

I matted the image on Perfect Plum, on top of Twitterpated DSP in Baja Breeze and the little embellishment is a Wild Wasabi leaf, punched out and matted on a Perfect Plum small Scallop circle.

This card is completely different to my usual offerings so I hope you like it!

Please do leave a comment.

Paula xxx

Hopeful Thoughts from Stampin' Up! PPA153

I hope everyone had a good weekend! It's such a downer going back to work! I vote for a 3 day working week!

Today is another card I created at the weekend. This one is to be entered in the PALS challenge here.

I seem to have a 'thing' going with leaves and trees at the moment, a theme to be repeated tomorrow so remember to pop back then too!

I used the Hopeful Thoughts set for the tree and the sentiment is from Bring on the Cake from the main catalogue. The flower is from the Secret Garden set in the Spring Summer mini and has been cut with the co-ordinating framelits. The colour combo is Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue and So Saffron. I used Designer Series Papers from the Subtles collection.

I accented the flower with some tiny pearls, adding the birds with a Stampin' Write Marker.

Here is the sketch - PPA153

I hope you have enjoyed today's card and look forward to you visiting tomorrow! Don't forget I love reading your comments so please share your thoughts on my work.

Paula xxx

Exciting announcement!

The card I am showing you today was going to be entered in two challenges, Freshly Made and CAS, however I have been invited to join the CAS Design Team so you will find a card a week from me on the Challenge Page to help inspire you all to enter.

I am so excited and honoured and hope I can do the team justice. It is quite a new challenge blog so please pop over and join in and enjoy the challenges we set. It is great fun and has certainly got me thinking outside my comfort zone! CAS Colours and Sketches Blog

So, back to todays card, I used the CAS colour challenge colour scheme of Tangerine Tango, Sahara Sand and Summer Starfruit and the Freshly Made Sketch

I lightly embossed the Very Vanilla with the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder and stamped the leaves from Day of Gratitide on the Sahara Sand card that I had cut with the Apothecary Accents Framelit, stamping the same ink colour gives you a subtle image on the cardstock.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set and is cut out using my Bitty Banners framelits. The colours I have used just as an accent , the larger flower is the 3 elements of the Floral Fusion Sizzlits, the smallest element, repeated at the bottom of the card is a flower from my Itty Bitty Shapes punch set.

I hope you like the card and will pop back tomorrow for my next challenge entry!

Double Challenge Entry

You know how it is... you're snuggled up under the duvet when a burst of creative ideas explode in your head. You can't shake them, but all you want to do is sleep. An hour later you can't resist any further and you 'have' to get up and put the idea down on paper. Or in my case on card!

I had two challenges I wanted to enter and had this explosion of inspiration at 11:15pm, when I should have been asleep for an hour!

The two challenges were (click on the images to visit the challenge pages):

My take on the combined challenges is this. So I managed to incorporate the Cloud option too!

I used the Hearts a Flutter Framelits to make the clouds and used Basic Black to define the edges, and the edges of the circle. The sentiment is from Petite Pairs and the ship is from The Open Sea. I thought the Bakers Twine added a nautical touch too and the little silver button from the Spring/Summer Mini keeps it nice and masculine.

Inside the card I stuck a Top Note roughly stamped with the globe from The Open Sea.

I hope you like it. I was really pleased with my nightime activities and returned to bed around midnight and went out like a light!

I am just relieved I am posting in time to meet the Dynamic Duos deadline of 12 noon PST!

Paula xxx

Less is More Challenge 107

Today I am making two entries into the Less is More challenge for this week. Mainly because I had to try out both of the ideas I had!

If you want to find out more about the challenges you can click on the picture below...

 

The brief was 'Up in the Air'.

So I only have one stamp set with an aircraft, have none of the balloon sets and wondered how I could meet the brief. I momentarily contemplated butterflies but thought I had done enough of those... when I first started using Stampin' Up! products I swore blind I wasn't interested in Stamping I just wanted punches. That soon changed but my love of the punches hasn't.

So I thought I would use two of my favourites for my challenge entries!

The first is the Owl punch.

I also used the Decorative and Curly Label Punches. My trusty Bakers Twine and the sentiment from Teeny Tiny Sentiments.

The owls wings were made from a Scallop Circle punch.

I just love this it is soooo cute!


My second card is made using the Bird punch.

More Bakers Twine and the banner this time was cut using my Big Shot and the great dies from the Summer Catalogue, Hearts a Flutter, it has a corresponding stamp set and can be purchased as a bundle saving 15%! I sponged a little Marina Mist to match the birds and help give the banner definition.

I'm off to take one of the dogs and the cat for their annual boosters. Then I am going to spend the evening chilling! A glass of red calls me!

Paula xxx