CTC #141 - Birthday Turned Christmas

Welcome to anothe rweek at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, a challenge hop that takes inspiration from a different section of one of the Stampin' Up! catalogues each week. The creative team at Stampin' Up! are so talented and fill our catalogues full of great samples which are perfect to use as inspiration for us to create our own projects, whether it be the layout of a card, the colour scheme used, or maybe its the technique used.

This week we are taking our second look at the Birthday section of the Annual Catalogue, pages 68-85. 

I took my inspiration from the top card in the image above from page 80 of the catalogue. I think it is a great way to showcase some of the beautiful Designer Series Paper that Stampin' Up! has to offer. 

It seems I am ready to embrace Christmas, with my order of sneak peek products arriving recently I have been really excited to try them out.  To that end I used some of the new mega-suite Merry Little Christmas, more specifically the new Merry Little Christmas DSP and the Carols of Christmas Bundle of stamps and coordinating framelits. I figure Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, so it really is just sticking to the birthday theme!

I am loving the framelits from this bundle, the trees are just great but I think the little deer is my favourite and you are going to see a whole lot more of it on my Christmas projects this year. 

  

I hope the crew are inspiring you to join in with us this week, if so use one or more of the projects in the Birthday section of the catalogue to create your project, then add a photo of it on the CTC Facebook Page. 

  

Time to hop on over and see what the lovely Elizabeth has been inspired to create this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CI #15 - Oh So Eclectic

Colour INKspiration Design Team is made up of a group of Stampin' Up! Demonstrators from the South Pacific Region. The challenge runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, using an inspiration photograph to choose the colour palette. We would like to welcome a new guest designer for this challenge - Erin Gunson.

I loved this image the moment I saw it, the colours are just beautiful together and it makes me think of an exotic holiday destination! The colours for this challenge are:

• Elegant Eggplant
• Bermuda Bay
• Lemon Lime Twist
• Pool Party

I love playing with a new stamp set, even more so when it is part of a bundle!  This set is not new to Stampin' Up! but is new to me, arriving on my doorstep last Friday. It seemed perfect for this challenge.  I stamped the solid flower image in Elegant Eggplant onto Watercolour paper and then spritzed gently to allow the colour to run slightly.  I think it looks perfect with its mottled tones behind the solid colour cut with one of the framelits.

Bit of a funny story, I had intended for this to be a portrait orientated card, with the geometric cut outs on the right hand side.  But I manged to stick it onto the card upside down!  Rather than trying to un-stick all the Dimensionals I decided to keep the landscape orientation and add the sentiment stamped onto DSP.

Have you ever struggled to get layers to stick well to Burlap Ribbon?  Here you can see my solution - use a staple to affix a circle of cardstock to the ribbon and you have a nice clean flat surface to adhere the flower to.  The added benefit of this is that it is great at holding the ribbon in place. You can see here one of the embossed images from the framelits in the bundle, which you would have seen more of on the finished card if I had stuck it on straight!!!

  

If you would like to join in with this challenge just use these colours on your project and add a picture of your project to the CI Facebook Page. 

  

Time to hop on over to see what the talented Denita has created with this beautiful colour combo.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #140

Welcome to another CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, a challenge in which we take inspiration from sections of the current Stampin' Up! catalogues. The creative team at Stampin' Up! are so talented and the catalogues are full of their ideas and samples. Inspiration can come from the layout of a card or project, a colour scheme or a technique, or be inspired in some other way.

This week we are taking inspiration from the "For Babies and Kids" section, pages 102 - 111 of the Annual Catalogue.

I took my inspiration this week from the cute little card on page 107.

I have used the sketch as inspiration for this Christmas card, I think I was motivated because my new Carols of Christmas bundle arrived on my doorstep on Friday and I was just itching to use it.  Also included was the Merry Little Labels bundle from my pre-order and the sentiment off one of the tag stamps in that set was perfect for this card.   

For the card I used the same framelit on the main panel to make a mask and sponged the stars onto the background. I also used gold, silver and Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper  to add detail to the main panel. The trees are sponged with White Craft Ink to give the impression of show on the branches. 

  

We hope you are being inspired to join in the challenge this week, simply take inspiration from the Babies and Kids section of the catalogue and upload a picture of your project to the CTC Facebook page.

  

Time to hop on over and see what our lovely guest designer Linda has created this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #139 - From Regal to Subtle

Welcome to another CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, a challenge hop that takes inspiration each week from a different section of one of the Stampin' Up! catalogues. The catalogues are jam packed with projects that are a great source of inspiration, whether it is a layout, colour scheme or technique.

This week the Crew are taking inspiration from the Everyday Occasions section of the Annual Catalogue, pages 18 - 67.

I took my inspiration from the very first page of this section of the catalogue, using the card in the image above from page 18 to base my project on this week. 

 I love the simplicity of this layout, but wanted to shake it up a bit and make a more feminine card, switching out the heavy regal colours for a more pastel look.  I used Bundle of Love Specialty DSP instead of the Eastern Palace papers. The sentiment is stamped with two stamps from the Label Me Pretty stamp set, the border embossed in gold and the sentiment stamped in Berry Burst. In keeping with the softer look I used the pretty flowers from the Colorful Seasons stamp set. 

I used a strip of matching DSP to decorate the inside and some of the mini sequins to make the bigger flowers on the front of the card pop.  

  

I hope we are inspiring you to join in the challenge this week, just take inspiration from the Everyday Occasions section of the catalogue, and post a picture of it to the CTC Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over and see what Judy has been inspired to create this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CI #14 - Four Colours, Two Cards

Colour INKspiration Design Team is made up of a group of Stampin' Up! Demonstrators from the South Pacific Region. The challenge runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, using an inspiration photograph to choose the colour palette.  We would also like to welcome guest designer, and stamping buddy of mine Cathy for this challenge. 

Isn't this challenge's inspiration photo simple and stunning in its colour combination? The colours for this challenge are:

• Smokey Slate
• Rich Razzleberry
• Soft Sky,  and
•  Night of Navy  

I was so inspired by this colour combo I made two cards!

My first one I made during my "paste phase" playing around with different techniques for adding colour. I also realised that I hadn't inked up Beautiful You stamp set in a while and thought the image worked well with the clouds. I coloured the dress using Watercolour Pencils, and the umbrella I wanted to have a stronger colour and be slightly raised so stamped in black onto Rich Razzleberry cardstock the fussy cut and adhered using dimensionals. 

Now for a close up of the clouds, while the paste was still wet I dabbed them with my finger to create a rough surface which I hope gives them a more fluffy look.  I removed the mask and let the paste dry before reapplying the mask and using my sponges to add both Soft Sky and Smokey Slate to the clouds.

I hadn't planned on making a second card, but lying in bed I thought that Eastern Palace would be a lovely set to use to make a background.  I used the Happy Birthday Thinlits to cut sentiments from Silver Glimmer paper and Night of Navy cardstock.  I thought this would be a good masculine colour palette but when I showed my hubby he thought it was a bit sparkley! Let me know what you think.

  

 I hope you have been inspired to join in with the challenge, just use the colour combo to create a project and add a photograph to the CI Facebook Page. 

  

Time to hop on over and see what Julia has created for this challenge.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #137 - Holiday

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, this week we are taking a second look at the Holiday section of the catalogue, pates 112 - 125.

Christmas is such a great time of year and I can't believe that we are just 5 months away from the next one!  I think I want to be in denial just a little longer, so I decided to CASE a card but make it not at all Christmassy! 

One of the main reasons that I chose this card as my inspiration is because of the CASEs that other members of the CTC Crew did the last time we were inspired by the Holiday section of the catty.  I think until then I hadn't really noticed this card. 

 As I said before, I am not ready quite yet for Christmas, but I have been playing with my Daffodil Delight suite of products and thought the DSP would work really well for the CASE.  I also used some of the Wood Textures DSP stack. It took me a while to decide on the border pieces from the Flourish Thinlits and the 5/8" Burlap Ribbon, but I think both work so well. I  used the Flourish Thinlit to cut a piece from one of the honey coloured Wood Textures papers. 

  

I hope the team are inspiring you to join in with us this week, it's easy, just take inspiration from any of the projects in the Holiday section and add a photograph of your creation to the CTC Facebook page.

  

Time to keep on hopping to see what the rest of the Crew have created this week, with the next stop being the very talented Simone.

Happy Stamping
Monique