Merry Christmas

I have been away for a short break in West Wales and had a lovely time... we were really fortunate with the weather and the scenery was fabulous, but I'm always glad to get home again. On our return I was eager to get a card made but had no inspiration, so I looked for a challenge to enter!

The challenge at CAS Christmas is Decorations.

My first thought was to do something with baubles, but I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for that, so I thought I would do a wreath instead. I have made a wreath to decorate our front door at Christmastime, but not for a year or so. This one has Christmas Roses in it (Hellebores) at least they look like them to me!

After I had cut the pieces  (Craft & You Dies), I coloured them with 3 shades of green alcohol inks and a little Blending Solution. I merely flapped them up and down into a puddle of colour on my craft mat!

The sentiment was a freebie from a mag, which I heat embossed in gold onto a torn strip of vellum.

At Time Out   it's Word inspiration

 

Sending Prayers

 

This is another card for the challenge at CAS Mix Up

After I had coloured the vellum by dropping on various colours, plus a little Ranger mixative, I allowed it to dry before die cutting. I couldn't decide whether the butterflies would look best with the vellum as the filigree layer or the under layer, in the end I decided to use both versions on the same card. My friend, who is a priest, said that sadly she needed some bereavement cards. I thought that this sentiment would be fine for either illness or bereavement.

The background panel is dry embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and the butterflies are from Simon Says Stamp.

Today I have been working on some 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration invitations and I've developed a real crick in my neck, I could do with a massage!

With Love

I just love how I really am challenged to either try new, or revisit old techniques for the challenges at CAS Mix UP!

My fingers now are a rather unpleasant shade of algae! A mix of the blues and greens I used for this card. In fact this is not my first attempt at this challenge today, there were quite a few abortive tries with a few ideas, none of which was particularly successful. The bin has had a generous donation or two! Anyway there's not a lot to show for the technique here but I dropped some small amounts of  alcohol inks and  some surgical spirit (rubbing alcohol) onto some vellum and just swished it around a little until it dried, which took just a moment or two. From this paper I cut the bases of the butterflies, plus some in plain white card. I also cut out the filigree sections from the white card and stacked the three together with the vellum in the middle.

I cut two pennants, shortening one slightly and stamping the sentiment on the other. It really is simplicity itself, but I kinda like it that way!

The butterfly dies are from Memory Box, they're part of a set of three.

 

Thanks

Here is a card made from a simple sketch from CASe This Sketch .

It was made with scraps from my 'come in  handy' drawers. I am dreadful  at throwing things away (you should see our garage... but then you probably wouldn't want to!)

The die is by Alexandra Renke and the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp. I added tiny pearls where the die had small holes, to give the impression of a little sheen.

To get the vellum to fold neatly around the front panel, so that it could be adhered on  the reverse, I dry embossed it with the die which I used to cut the panel. I could then fold it on the emboss lines and it fitted perfectly.

 

More vellum

I have to say that the CAS Challenges managed by Loll and Bonnie, certainly do just that... challenge! However there is so much inspiration together with links to videos to help with new techniques that it really is a terrific place to have fun!

This is another attempt for their watercolour challenge, which is to use watercolour on vellum.

In the first card I entered, I coloured on the back of the vellum, this time I coloured on the front.

This is from an old wood mounted stamp from Magenta. It had been sitting in a drawer for quite some time and when I first stamped it, part of the image was missing,  I guess it had got a little squashed. So to be able to double or triple stamp in order to ensure I got a good image, I decided to take it off the block to use in my MISTI. After a few seconds in the microwave it came off easily and in the MISTI worked beautifully. I embossed it in gold and coloured using the little box of paints which I bought for the art class on my last cruise.

CAS Watercolour Challenge 

I think the sentiment is from Clearly Besotted. It was quite a game trying to find stitched dies to cut out the sentiment. Having done the white piece of card, I wanted a really slim surround in the black card. With a little trial and error and a bit of jiggling to reduce the size of the second die cut, I managed to get the effect I wanted.

Birthday flower

I love this pretty flower stamp and die set from Simon Says Stamp. 

I stamped the flower onto vellum and clear embossed it in silver before die cuting and colouring on the back using alcohol markers. I added a few tiny gems to the centre of the flower and attached a couple of vellum leaf sprays behind it.

The background stencilling was made from  a Memory Box die which I cut from vellum and then used as a stencil. I sprinkled a few grains of red and white Brushos over the stencil and then spritzed with water before dabbing dry with a paper towel.

A few additional gems and a silver embossed sentiment from SSS completed the card.

Just Us Girls  - Birthday

CAS on Friday - Use Vellum

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge  - Anything Goes

Inkspirational - Use Your Stash

I've had this grey card used for the base for years. It was purchased from a Papermill shop many years ago and all the shops have long since closed down, I'm still slowly working my way through boxes of coloured card!
The flower challenge - Anything goes

Macintosh Window

Here is another technique for Faux Stained glass. I'm not sure if this is a recognised technique but I thought that I would try  and see if it worked. 

I stamped my Chocolate Baroque circle stamp onto vellum using Versafine ink and clear embossed it. Then I inked all over the image once more with Versamark and clear embossed that. (To give the effect of glass hopefully.)

The next stage was to use my waterbased markers from SU to colour the back of the image. I used a couple of shades of green, pink and pale blue for this. It took me a while to go through my stash to find a birthday greeting which was in a suitable font to tie in with the image. I found this among a set from Happy Little Stampers. I think is works well.

I made the front panel for the card using stitched dies from SSS and MFT. The rectangle panel was made with a square die extended a little to fit my card base.

I popped the panel onto dimensional pads to allow a little light to get behind the window.

It's for the  Challenges at CAS Mix Up and CAS Watercolour

                   

Just Us Girls - birthday

Now to get Sunday lunch started!

New to me

Today I came across a challenge blog which is new to me. It's called Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge... quite a mouthful, but there's a great sketch this week!

The flowers from SSS were stamped onto vellum and clear embossed. I then coloured them on the reverse with alcohol markers. I die-cut them adding plain white die-cuts behind them, finishing with a few tiny gems in the centres and attaching them to the card with glue dots.

The sentiment is from Just Rite Stamps, die cut with a Framelit rectangle, shortened just a tad to fit the sentiment exactly. The embossed strip was added from a scrap left on my craft table.

I'll be having lunch with a friend on Wednesday and she wanted some of my cards... sadly she needed some sympathy cards too!

Another new to me blog which I just spotted is Crazy for CAS!

Their challenge this time is Fall in Love

Here is the inspiration picture, I hope my card fits the bill.

I used Rubbernecker stamps inked with varying colour Distress Inks, applied using my MISTI. For the sentiment I simply inked a piece of card with various colours of inks and then die-cut the sentiment which is  from Creative Dies.The  background which I used to echo the inspiration photo was embossed with a Stampin' Up folder.
It's also for the challenge at Addicted to CAS where the challenge is Foliage

Coloured vellum

It took me a while to decide what technique to use for my  CAS  DT card incorporating vellum at Happy Little Stampers this time. Finally I decided to use die cuts with some heat embossing and colouring on the reverse.

The stamps are from SSS embossed in silver and coloured with alcohol markers on the reverse of the images. As I wanted to use a dark background I cut out the flowers from plain white card to pop behind the vellum. The foliage is simply cut from vellum and mounted behind the flowers. The sentiment was a freebie from a magazine, also embossed in silver. I added a little clear Wink of Stella on the front of the flowers to add a little glam!

Our winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop! Check out all the details HERE.

IF YOU USE STAMPS BY HAPPY LITTLE STAMPERS AND YOU ARE OUR RANDOM WINNER, YOUR PRIZE WILL BE DOUBLED

Vellum or acetate

The challenge at Less is More this week is to use Vellum or Acetate.

Vellum is a really versatile medium and here I used it in a slightly different way from anything I have done before. 

I began by embossing a small sheet with a stencil and then dropped a variety of autumnal shades of alcohol ink and a little blending solution before allowing it to dry. I then cut some leaves from this and arranged them into a wreath shape and adding a layered die-cut sentiment from Stamplorations.

I attached them by spraying the reverse of the shapes with Spray and Stick, but I'm not too sure if they will remain secure... time will tell!

Die cut leaves are from Impression Obsession.

This one uses a little acetate to create the transparent part of this shaker card.

The die cuts are from Papertrey Ink and Cuttlebug.

Since photographing this I have moved the @ sign down a little... it irritated me that it wasn't quite in the right place... in fact I've also moved the Kim to the right and the 4 closer to the zero... maybe I should take another pic!

Here is another which I just made today at the request of a friend. 

It's for the daughter of a friend of hers who has just been awarded the OBE.
I began by printing an image of the medal on my laser printer and then foiling it in gold. So as to make the effect a little more subtle, I used a layer of vellum over this, to which I attached the sentiment. I used three different fonts for the die cuts and accentuated the OBE by using a larger set of dies and cutting them from gold card.
The dies used were from Memory Box (congrats and Mel) Avery Elle (celebrate) and Craft essentials Creative dies (OBE) The stars were a freebie from a magazine.

HLS Embossing on vellum

At the CAS department of HLS this month the challenge is to emboss on vellum.

Here I did a little dry and heat embossing.

I cut an aperture in the card front and placed a piece of vellum behind it which has been embossed using a stencil made from acetate, cut with my Silhouette  Portrait. Behind this I placed a piece of mulberry paper to add a little interest and colour.

The butterfly, from Dies for all occasions, was cut from white card (base layer) and vellum (filigree top layer). The vellum was then heat embossed using WOW St Lucia Surf embossing glitter.

The sentiment, cut from Craft Essentials Creative Dies, was similarly embossed.

It's really taking me a while to get back into the groove of card making since my amazing trip to California... I'll get there soon I'm sure!

This challenge is sponsored by

Tutorials:

Embossing Vellum with Stylus by Keenan Kreations (8:55)
Embossing Stamped Images on Vellum by Jennifer McGuire (3:27)
Would also like to include videos (but couldn't find good ones so far):
Dry embossing on vellum
Heat embossing on vellum
Wet (pastes) embossing on vellum

Pink

I love these flowers from Simon Says Stamp. I stamped these on vellum and embossed with white EP then coloured from the back with alcohol ink pens.The front was then twinkled with a little Wink of Stella and the pearls added. The embossed band is from a Sizzix border EF.

I printed the sentiment from the computer.

It's for CASology's pink challenge!

Love these flowers

Today has been one of those days when I intended much but achieved little!

I did finally manage a card for the Color Throwdown challenge, having 'misplaced' the die-cut flowers for quite some time... it's the story of my life... things just disappear!

I stamped the flowers onto vellum and embossed in white, then coloured from the back with alcohol markers,

The dry embossing is from Crafters Companion  and the sentiment from SSS and Tattered Lace. I mounted each flower onto another paper die-cut so that the navy from the mounting sheet didn't show through the flowers.

It's also for Addicted to Stamps - Anything Goes

One thing we did succeed in doing was to book a cruise for next year... so that was exciting!

Holly, holly

This was a bit of an experiment. I began with a Penny Black Holly stencil which I used to add embossing paste to some designer paper. When it was dry I added another sprig of holly, die-cut in vellum using my Penny Black Holly die. The embossing paste matches the vellum really well, so it's difficult to tell which is which in this picture.

It was finished with some pearls for the berries and a little tag for the sentiment.

Penny Black at Allsorts - Anything Goes