CASEing Ms. Maile

After creating my cards for the CASE DT call I found the time to not only play along with this week's challenge but to post it too. This month's CASE Study is none other than the fabulous designer and crafter Ms. Maile Belles. I was first introduced to her through PTI and have been a fan of her style in cards and stamps ever since. I guess you could say that she is one of my blog crushes, lol. One think I really love about her cards is the building of them from a strip of something lovely along one side. You can see an excellent example of it here with this week's inspiration piece:

Love how that one element really pops a CAS card up a notch! I also love the stamp set she used here: PTI's Friends Till the End. This was the first flower card I bought because of the modern feel I got from it. I also really like how it looks with just the centered colored. In fact, for my first try at this challenge I went pretty literal. Just to get the mojo going ya' know. Here is the result of that.

Not my favorite. The flower is too high up and the center of this flower doesn't do anything for me.Even my bow wasn't really doing much for me. I did love the color combo I used though. I had just gotten two more things of washi tape and wanted to play with them. I knew I could do better and had just seen a sketch over at Fusion that would work amazingly with this challenge, so I combined the two. I made this work for me, kwim. I don't do buttons so added some glitter instead.  (something I do love). I also die cut the whole flower out and popped it up so it layered over the three washi tapes I used. The yellow flowery one also was used to line the edge of the base layer. Also added some half pearls that I colored to match my flower. To finish it off I added my sentiment and rounded the corners. Much better and I know a certain mom that will too :)

Spreading some love

I have been a fan of Clear & Simple stamps for awhile now but haven't been able to buy any stamps (although LOTS are on my wish list), but Amber (from Damask Love) has presented us with the opportunity to give a shout out to one of our blog crushes along with a color challenge. I think the idea is brilliant and couldn't wait to play along. Be sure to check out her post with all of the details.

One of my blog crushes is the talented Meredith of A Delightful Waste of Time. I love how she incorporates texture and hand stamped backgrounds into her work. She also hosts an amazing challenge called Festive Fridays (one I still need to create a card for, lol) and it was her latest card for this challenge that inspired my card above. I really like the look of grey with anything so the color choice below with yellows and greys was perfect for me. I went ahead and kept the card more modern and clean and think it turned out great. The background was created with PTI's Pretty Peonies annv set and the sentiment came from WMS's Fancy Phrases. After stamping the background, I embossed it with the linen plate from PTI to give it a touch of texture. With the layers of colored c/s strips adding some bulk I decided to pop up not only the sentiment strip but the flower as well.

I am hoping to play along at least one more time this week so we shall see if it works out :)