CAS(E) This Sketch 219

Hello!

We have an Uber-CAS sketch for you all this week at CAS(E) This Sketch! I love these ultra CAS challenges so much! I've made a(n almost) one-layer card using a very simple colour combination of mostly black and white with a tiny pop of yellow. Scrumptious!

I used Stampin' Up! Garden Friends stamps. The sentiment is also SU! but I forget the set name.

How are you inspired by this great sketch? I hope you decide to play along with us this week!

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

CAS(E) This Sketch 176

Hello!

Well, the weather finally turned here in Brisbane and I am celebrating! Winter is here! Well, it's sort of cool Autumny weather, but I'll call it Winter in relief that Summer is finally over after about 9 months of too much heat! I love Winter in Brisbane. I wish it was longer. We get cool mornings - where I am it drops below 10 degrees (sometimes briefly below zero) - and warmer days - between 15 and 20 degrees. And blue skies! It's awesome!

I'm here to share my card for CAS(E) This Sketch. I'm celebrating this beautiful weather with flowers! My roses are all confused at the long-lasting heat and have just had another bloom, haha!

I used SU! Garden Friends stamps.

I hope you are all having a good week and that you're inspired to join in the fun!

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

Fusion - Everything's Owl Right

Hello!

We have a new Fusion Card Challenge starting and the inspiration brings us bright primary colours and a very CAS diagonal design. My diagonal stamping almost takes up the whole card, but you get the idea!

I used SU! Garden Friends and Avery Elle sentiment.

Isn't this the cutest inspiration photo? I was wishing I had some owls to work with!

Thanks for visiting!

I hope you are inspired to join us in the fun!

Michelle
xxx

PDCC#113 - Baby Congratulations

Hello!

The Play Date Cafe Challenge this week has the most beautiful sea glass colours as the inspiration. I think these colours rival yellow as my absolute favourite.  Unfortunately, I don't have sea glass colours in my ink supplies, a major oversight that I MUST take care of.

This is the colour story:

Yum, don't you think? I am pretty sure I have that top left photo torn out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine, for future reference for paint colours somewhere in my home. :-)

I have gone for a "blue" theme and hope it fits well enough.  One of our cousins has just had a baby boy within the past 24 hours, and this card will be winging its way to him very soon.

My card:

I absolutely adore this card, totally. The frog is one of my favourite images from Jane's Doodles' Garden Friends set. The dies are PTI. The embossing folder is Sizzix, I inked it up before embossing to get the blue stripes. The sentiments are from PTI - Inside and Out: Baby. I coloured the frog using my Inktense pencils.

I hope you like him.

Michelle
xxx

Baby girl card for CTD#160

For my For Your Inspiration post, please scroll down, or click HERE

Hello!

It is a stunningly beautiful day here today, and I am on holidays! Yippee!  

Yesterday I spent the day with a couple of stamping friends, and got a lot of chatting accomplished, but not a lot of stamping, LOL.  I did stamp out some friendship jars, so hopefully I'll do something with those elements soon.  

Today I actually did some housework BEFORE starting stamping. Yes, floors and bathrooms are sparkling, a load of washing is swinging in the breeze, and I even emptied and reloaded the dishwasher.  The kids played around taking photos. I haven't looked at the photos yet, I'm a bit scared of what they might have come up with...

This card was supposed to be an entry into the Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge, but when I got to the point of making my circle, I realised I gave back my borrowed circle cutters yesterday. . . oh well.  

It is also supposed to be an entry into Color Throwdown #160, and despite one very obvious flaw, I am still going to enter it, and I am going to ask you all to pretend that the white is Very Vanilla *wink*.  These are the colours:

I'll probably have to make another card, because I truly LOVE this colour combo, I just forgot that I was supposed to be using vanilla and got all excited and carried away with how nicely my card was turning out.

This is my card:

Mmm, that looks a bit out of focus. . . let's try another one:

I really like how this turned out.  I hand-folded that ribbon and stuck it down with lots of sticky strip. I like it. I think I'll do that more. I paper-pieced the little birds, they're so sweet.

What I used:

Stamps: Jane's Doodles Garden Friends, PTI Inside and Out: Babies (sentiment)

Card: SU! Pretty in Pink, Whisper White
Ink: Chocolate Chip

Paper: SU! retired DSPs with Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie

Ribbon: Regal Rose grosgrain

So, what do you think?

Oh, I wanted to say thank-you to everyone who has been nice enough to leave me comments recently. I have made an effort to get back to visit everyone, I hope I didn't miss anyone.  It took me a while because I got distracted by all the beautiful blogs that I ended up visiting. Isn't it always the way?

Michelle

xxx

Last minute entries. . .

Hello!

When I saw the Color Throwdown colours this week, I immediately knew I wanted to use them. BUT, I had a 4th birthday party to organise and NO time over the last week to do much card making. I also have Fathers Day coming next week-end, so had to find a little time to help my eldest daughter make a card for her Daddy. My card for him is yet to be created, eek. I also need to get a card sent off to my own Dad. It most definitely won't make it to him in time (he lives a long way away) but at least I made it before the day. . .

On Sunday evening, we sat down to make some cards. The big girl and I had chosen the colour scheme, we had chosen the papers and card stock, we had chosen the images, but the layout was eluding me.  We finally got the first card made, but I was still struggling. So last night I went looking for a sketch to use, because my own inspiration was sadly lacking. I found Dawny's Sketch at Simon Says Stamp, and I liked it.

So my card uses, Color Throwdown #156, which is these lovely colours:

and Simon Says Stamp, Dawny's sketch:

And my card looks like this:

 I used:
Stamps - Garden Friends by Jane's Doodles
Card - Crumb Cake, Perfect Plum, Barely Banana
Patterned Paper - So Saffron pattern from Washington Apple
Ink: Perfect Plum, Crumb Cake, Barely Banana, Memento Tuxedo Black
Googly eyes came from my stash

My daughter's card is this one:

It took us ages to come up with this design. My girls take after their Mummy a little with their perfectionism, sigh!  She wasn't happy with her colouring, but I think she did a great job. She's 8 (going on 18).

I hope you like the cards. You can see that my love affair with Garden Friends has not yet ended. It is such a lovely set of images, and the stamps work SO WELL. I'm really enjoying them.

What do you think?

Michelle
xxx

Yellow flower for CTD 154

Hello,

I have a couple of cards to share with you today.

One is an entry into Color Throwdown #154.  The colours this week are lovely:

Here is my card, a nice CAS flower:

This flower was a bit tricky. I'm sure there is an easier way to create it than the way I did it, sigh!

What I used (all SU):
Card: Old Olive, Daffodil Delight
Paper: Basic Grey patterns, So Saffron (not sure which DSP these are)
Ink: Old Olive

The other card is another birthday card, using Garden Friends, and my hoppy friend from yesterday.  Not a response to a challenge,  I am just enjoying this stamp set. :-)

This froggy is so cute! I used Inktense pencils - Apple Green (ground), Fern (frog & leaves), Cadmium Yellow, Bright Blue, and Hot Red. I only have 6 pencils, LOL, I'll have to expand my collection. . .   The cardstock is Whisper White and Old Olive. The patterned paper is "Chirpy" from Happy Go Lucky by Pebbles.

We have an afternoon thunder storm happening today. Very weird. We get these in Summer, all the time, but rarely in Winter. At this time of year we usually have the westerly winds bringing cold, dusty wind to us, but not today. Today it is pretending to be Summer (without the heat).

Michelle
xxx

Hoppy Birthday!

Hello,

My little girl is off to a 5th birthday party today.  I had an idea brewing for this card for a couple of weeks.  When I described it to my daughter, she said, "No, that doesn't sound very good". When I showed her the card she said, "Well, it isn't very good. He'll play with it, that's what little kids do with cards that aren't very good."  So I added a flower, and she said, "Yes, now it's perfect!" LOL  My little girl cracks me up.

I used Garden Green designer paper lily pads (made from ovals with a notch cut out), Not Quite Navy pond, Bashful Blue card matte as sky, pale Green grass, whisper white clouds (build a cupcake punch), I coloured the froggy with Inktense Apple Green and SU Garden Green spots. The flower is Cameo Coral and Real Red punched with a flower punch. The stamp set is Garden Friends by Jane's Doodles.

I LOVE it, what do you think?

Michelle
xxx

CAS-ual Fridays #13 and Tuesday Trigger

Hello!

Well today I bring you more of Jane's Doodles stamps, using the Garden Friends set today. So many cute images, it is hard to decide where to start!  By the way, Jane is giving away a free digi-stamp at the moment, a gorgeous ice-cream cone, so go and take a look. :-)

The challenges I'm responding to with this card are CAS-ual Fridays and Tuesday Trigger.

For CAS-ual Fridays we are challenged to use a 4 x 9 card, but to not fill up all that space and to keep it CAS:

At first I thought 4 x 9 would be impossible, that is one BIG card. But, then I started thinking about it, and I got all excited. 4 x 9 is a great format! Give it a go yourself and see if you like it too.

The Tuesday Trigger is this lovely photo (Squares to Cherish):

My grandma used to make these crochet rugs. One of her last ever ones made was made for me, and I still have it.  Just recently my aunt also made me a more modern knitted one, which I certainly do cherish. When someone takes all that time and thought to make something so beautiful, you feel the love, and the love keeps on coming every time you look at it and use it.

So when I look at this photo, the inspiration is the crochet squares and the colours. I was looking through Pinterest recently and I found a tip to use twine around a wooden block to stamp, so I thought I'd give this a go to get that "fabric" feel.

Here is my card:

I had troubles editing this photo, the white was either too bright (overexposed) or too dull. I hope you get the idea anyway. I paper-pieced the birds and stamped the two little "quilts" using my improvised stamps. Here are my stamps:

Here is a close up of the card:

Colours used: Pale Plum, Sage Shadow, Bashful Blue, Basic Black

So what do you think? I love these little birdies.

Michelle
xxx