CTC #126 - Mother's Day Inspiration

Welcome to another CASEing the Catty Challenge, this week we are taking our inspiration from the both catalogues to create a Mother's Day card or project.

I chose this lovely image on page 104 of the Annual Catalogue as my inspiration, taking from it the theme of flowers and the general sketch.

My pre-order of the Eastern Palace Suite arrived this week and the lovely new in-colour inks and cardstock were just sitting on my desk so I decided to use them in my card this week.  I chose stamps from Flourishing Phrases and Perpetual Birthday Calendar for this card, and chose to stamp on a panel on the front of a coloured base rather than a plane white card, I think for the deeper colours it needed a border.  I initially inked up the flower stamp using Sweet Sugarplum then using a sponge dauber added colour to the edges and middle with Fresh Fig (new in-colour).

I cut the leaves from Tranquil Tide and Emerald Envy. I like these leaves as with their thin stems you can manipulate how they lie on the page.  Raising the flower on dimensionals gives the card some depth.  The sentiment is from another stamp set that is retiring, Circle of Spring.  I have stamped the little flower on the inside of the card.

  

I hope you have been inspired to join in the challenge this week, just add a picture of your project to the CASEing the Catty Facebook page.

  

Time to hop on over to see what Rebecca has created this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CI #8 - Neutrals With a Splash of Colour

Welcome to another Colour INKspiration Blog Hop this week is a bit of a more muted colour palette which makes me think of the autumn days we are experiencing here in the southern states of Australia. 

Isn't this a cute picture? The colours are:

• Delightful Dijon
• Tip Top Taupe
• Soft Suede
• Early Espresso
• Very Vanilla

For my card this week I was inspired by the Eastern Palace Bundle which happened to arrive on my door step late on Monday afternoon, I was just itching to play with it and while I was having fun seeing how the framelits all layered together I decided to use the wonderful layers as the basis for my card. I really wish it was easier to photograph the beautiful colours and gold splashes on this card!

I started with a card base of Very Vanilla Thick Cardstock, which is such a wonderful addition to the Stampin' Up! range.  I cut the biggest shape directly from the Early Espresso and then splattered the front with Gold Wink of Stella for some extra texture.

The next layer cut from Soft Suede over Delightful Dijon which I raised up on a double layer of dimensionals to allow a bit more room for the gorgeous gold tassel also from the Eastern Palace Suite. 

Finally I cut the center from Tip Top Taupe layered over Very Vanilla, finishing the centre off with a matching gold sequin.

I think this would be a great card for a graduation, or could easily be made into a masculine birthday with a quick change of sentiment.  

  

Time to hop on over to see what Julia has created with this earthy colour scheme.

I hope you decide to play along this week, just make a project using this week's colours and add a photo to the Colour INKspiration Facebook page. 

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #125 - Favourite Big Shot Project

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty, this week we are taking our inspiration from the Big Shot projects in the Occasions Catalogue.

I just love the Oh So Succulent Bundle and so was really taken by the project in the above image from page 43, I love how this looks like a water lily.

I changed up the colours, using Crumb Cake for the Window Box and Blushing Bride sponged with Rich Razzleberry for the flower. I used the floral image from the stamp set and stamped off twice to get the background for the tag,  I finished the project off by adding some Gold Satin Ribbon and one of the Lace Doilies which I think are just wonderful with one side Very Vanilla and the other Whisper White. 

  

I hope we are inspiring you to join in this week, don't feel like you have to choose a 3D project, or need to own a Big Shot to participate, just take inspiration from one of the Big Shot projects and link a picture of your project to the CTC Facebook Page.

  

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

Happy Stamping
Monique

ESAD - Going ... Going ... Gone Blog Hop

Hi and welcome to another ESAD Blog Hop, while this could be seen as a bit of a sad hop as we say goodbye to some of our favourite retiring items, I like to think of it as a way to celebrate some of our favourite products.

Whether you have come from Ellen's page, or are starting here, just keep hopping from blog to blog by clicking the link at the end of each post until you get back to where you started from.

 I wanted to share a couple of projects with a bundle that I really loved but probably didn't pay enough attention to, the That's The Tag Bundle.  On this card I used one of the framelits to create a stencil and then with the help of some post-it notes to mask off areas of the stencil I coloured each part in using sponge daubers.  The sentiment is also on the retirement list, and comes from the Circle of Spring stamp set; the DSP is from the beautiful Succulent Garden DSP.

You can see here how I have used just a 1cm strip of the DSP to decorate the inside of the card, to mirror the lovely Blushing Bride on the front of the card, I used the brush tip of my Stampin' Write Marker - with a ruler of course!

My second card also uses the same Framelit from bundle, but this time I have added colour using the paper piecing technique, first cutting the whole image out of the centre square, then cutting it again using Basic Black, Watermelon Wonder, Delightful Dijon, Cucumber Crush and Pool Party, and using all the little pieces to colour in the gaps, a bit like a stained glass window. Thankfully the Stitched Shapes Framelit Dies are not retiring and you will keep seeing them in my future projects.

The DSP on this card is one of the pieces from the Serene Scenery DSP Stack, I love the subtle texture it gives to the background without being too over the top.  I am really going to miss this paper too.

You can see in this image how I have again used a strip of the matching DSP and a thin marker line on the inside of the card. I think even this small amount of decorating inside really steps a card up and makes it feel complete.

  

Time to hop on over to see what products Maree is saying farewell to.

Here is a list of all the blog hop participants:

Blog Hop Participants:

1. Lou Kitzelman

2. Kelly Kent

3. Rachael Lewsley

4. Courtenay Heuston

5. Narelle Fasulo

6. Kirrkie Terri

7. Nicole Wilson

8. Carly Middleton

9. Libby Dyson

10. Rebecca Jacovou

11. Rosalie Desmond

12. Megan Lenske

13. Leonie Schroder

14. Kristel Rimmer

15. Tanya Bell

16. Richelle Fletcher

17. Pauline Bennetts

18. Mandy Depiazzi

19. Ellen Woodbridge

20. Monique Fielder   - You are here

21. Maree McIntosh

22. Cathy Pinchbeck

Happy Hopping
Monique

CTC #124 - Hostess Sets

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty, I hope you are enjoying the blog hops as much as we enjoy making projects for them.  This week we are taking our inspiration from the Hostess sets in either the Annual or Occasions Catalogues.

I took my inspiration from two cards featured in the Annual Catalogue on page 199.  I just loved the colours of the card on the right and the general look of the card on the left.  I find off-set/messy things on my card to be quite challenging so wanted to let that be my personal challenge for the week.

I am so happy with how this turned out!  There are some features of the card I want to highlight to you, firstly is the Very Vanilla layer.  Before I stamped my image I took my bone folder and used it to break up the layers of the card stock on the torn edge so that the two layers separated. I helped this along a bit using the end of my snips. Once I had a reasonable amount separated I tore the top layer again to make it just a bit shorter than the bottom one.  I then sponged right around the edge of the piece to age it further.  Then I stamped the flower and fine honeycomb from the Butterfly Basics stamp set and coloured the flower using Watercolour Pencils.

Another feature of the card I wanted to share is the Gold Wink of Stella I splattered on the Crumb Cake layer.  I absolutely love this effect and am so sad that Gold Wink of Stella is retiring.  It is always a bit of a challenge to photograph the sparkle but I think you should be able to see it in this photo.

Finally to decorate the inside of the card, keeping the vintage feel, I used large post-it notes to mask off 1cm at the bottom of the insert then went to town splattering it with Wink of Stella - much more heavily than the front of the card.  Adding a simple Rich Razzleberry line with my Stampin' Write Marker and some additional Crumb Cake sponging gives this the feel of an extra layer or strip of washi tape. Again this hasn't photographed well, but looks lovely and sparkley in person.

  

I hope you are inspired to join in the challenge this week, just create a project from the hostess pages of either catalogue and add a photograph of your creation to the CTC Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over to see what has inspired Kathryn this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #123 - Easter

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty, this week we are taking inspiration from both the current catalogues to create an Easter inspired project.  Take an Easter project as your inspiration, or a non-Easter project and put an Easter twist on it.

I chose this project from page 42 of the Annual Catalogue as I liked the simplicity of it and really wanted to use my Floral Affection embossing folder.

For my creation I made a card using Tip Top Taupe and Sweet Sugar Plum, adding some colour to the embossed floral image as well as to the paper doily. I was so happy with the background of my card last week that I inked up the bubbles from Playful Backgrounds again for this card. Isn't it funny how some stamps sit for ages without seeing ink and then you realise how great they are!  The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Sentiments punched with the Duet Banner punch.

  

 Time to hop on over to Rebecca and see what lovely creation she has made this week.

  

If you would like to join in with us this week, just head on over to the CASEing the Catty Facebook page and upload a picture of your project. 

Happy Stamping

Monique

CTC #122 - Falling in Love

 Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty

I chose the project on the left of the above image as my inspiration, I think it was its simplicity that drew me to it. 

I wanted the banner to stand out a bit more on my card, so chose Sahara Sand as the base of my card. It was a little plain so I added some of the cute bubbles from the Playful Backgrounds stamp set and then some pearls on the banner panel.  

I used a few different stamp sets to create this card. The sentiment is from Oh So Succulent, can you believe it!  I told you I love that stamp set, along with the beautiful succulents it has some really great sentiments. The little pink heart is from Layering Love, and the swirls are from That's the Tag. I actually cut this stamp in half so that I could change the angle of the swirls. It is one of the great things about photo-polymer stamps.

  

I hope the design team have inspired you to join in, if so just add a picture of your creation to the CASEing the Catty Facebook page. Looking for more inspiration? Head on over and check out what the other participants have created.

  

Time to head on over to Bronwyn's blog and see what she has been inspired to create.

Happy Stamping
Monique