CI #12 - Dragonfly Dreams

 

Welcome to another Colour INKspiration Challenge, I hope you have been enjoying our creations and getting inspired to join in.  We had an amazing response to the last challenge so make sure you pop on over to the Facebook page to see the amazing entries.

The inspiration image for this challenge is filled with so many beautiful colours, so for this challenge you need to just use four or more of the colours:

• Whisper White
• Night of Navy
• Elegant Eggplant
• Cherry Cobbler
• Flirty Flamingo
• Dapper Denim
• Smokey Slate 
• Peek-a-boo Peach

To help me make a decision I lay out the ink pads for each colour and played around with them until I found a combo I thought I could work with.  It turned out that I swapped a couple around as the card came together but it was a great place to start.

I started with the dragonfly, sponging both Flirty Flamingo and Peek-a-boo Peach randomly onto Shimmery White card stock and then stamping with Memento Black Ink.  I have been really enjoying playing with the Wood Textures DSP Stack and had a few pieces lying around which inspired the background, I added the little "nails" with a Soft Suede Marker. 

Once I had the wood planks in place I went searching for a sentiment that would fit onto one of the planks, and found this lovely one in the Colourful Seasons stamp set.  The placement of the dragonfly was easy once the sentiment was in place, but I decided it needed something extra so I added the metallic thread, using gold and copper together.  Layering the Night of Navy background onto a Smokey Slate card base gave me my 4 colours!  I think it works as the dragonfly really pops agains the light and dark background.

  

I hope you are inspired to play along with this challenge, just upload a picture of your project to the CI Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over to see what Rachel has been inspired to create with these amazing colours.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #133 - Love and Sympathy

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, 

This week we are taking our inspiration from the Love and Sympathy section of the Annual Catalouge, pages 86 - 101.

I took my inspiration from the card on the bottom left of the above image from page 101 of the catalogue.  I think it was the fact that I have been thinking about getting the Birthday Blooms stamp set because I love the big blossom image and was surprised to see the image from You've got this gives a similar effect when cut off the stem!

I did want my card to be brighter than the original and and thought that the beautiful papers in the Wood Textures DSP Stack would be perfect.  I used two of the sheets and layered them onto a Very Vanilla Thick Cardstock base.

I wanted to show you a close up so you could seek a bit better how I used Copper Metallic Thread to coordinate with the Copper Embossing Powder on the flowers. I coloured them with Watercolour Pencils and a Blender Pen, although unlike the original I decided to add some Daffodil Delight to the Melon Mambo on the petals and Old Olive on the leaves. I also used Shimmery White cardstock for the flowers to give them a little bit of a lift. I also added some of new Glitter Enamel Dots, and even though they are from the Berry Burst dots the lovely ombre options in each colour allow them to be coordinated with other colours. 

  

I hope that we have inspired you to join us in the Love and Sympathy challenge this week, it is really simple, just take inspiration from any of the projects in this section of the catalogue and use it to create your own project, then add a picture of it to the CTC Facebook page.

  

Time to head on over and see what Rebecca has been inspired to create this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CI #11 - Distressed Daisy

Welcome to another Colour INKspiration Challenge.

I love the inspiration picture for this challenge, it reminds me of lazy days, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, and sharing yummy macarons with friends.  Isn't it great how a single image can evoke so many things?  The beautiful colours this week are: Early Espresso, Marina Mist and Soft Suede.

Having just received my bundle of Daisy products I wanted to make a card featuring them, although I wasn't sure how a blue daisy would go!  I stamped in Marina Mist and then sponged a little with the soft suede to take away the starkness of the Very Vanilla.  The sentiment is also from the same stamp set and coordinates so well with the other sentiment that I popped into the inside panel.

Here you can see the inside of the card with the lovely sentiment. As well as that stunning main daisy the stamp set has three two-step stamps featuring stems and flowers. I thought this little grass like one would work nicely inside the card and fit the simplistic feel of the project. 

For the background I sponged Merina Mist at the top of the Very Vanilla panel and Early Espresso at the bottom then used Soft Suede to fill in the space between them.  Having had a lot of fun with my Aqua Painter recently I decided to see what sort of effect splattering the background then gently patting the water with a tissue to remove it.  I love this look, I think it really helps to distress the card while keeping neat lines.  I like how the splatters over the Espresso have left a reddish mark.  I finished the card off with a Metal Rimmed Pearl and some LOVELY new Very Vanilla baker's twine. It is somehow softer or more loosely woven than the Whisper White.

  

I hope you are inspired by all the creations of the Design Team using this wonderful colour combo. If you are just upload a picture of your project to the Colour INKspiration Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over and see what the very talented Kelly has created.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #132 - Birthday Balloons

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop. What a fun week this is as we take our inspiration from the Birthday section of the Annual Catalogue, pages 68 - 85. If you are a frequent visitor of my blog you will know that I LOVE birthdays, whether they be mine or someone else's. 

I took my inspiration from the above image that you can find on page 84 of the catalogue. There are a few things that drew me to this card, I love the balloons and have been itching to use my new Balloon Punch, one of the other things is the different mediums and textures, and my idea to add even more texture!

I kept almost 100% to the original layout, but made a card instead of a gift bag. I used the small stamp from Eastern Palace stamp set for the main Berry Burst banner, and Happy Birthday Georgeous for the balloons and sentiment. I love the font used in the bigger sentiments in this set, a lovely mix of straight letters, with just the touch of flourish.

I added some of the balloons to the inside of the card, stamping straight onto the insert and using a Post-It note to mask them to give some depth.

The other change I made was to add the texture using the wonderful new Embossing Paste which arrived at my front door on Friday afternoon.  Let me just say that I LOVE this new product in the SU range almost as much as I love birthdays!  It allowed me to add not only a 3D feel to the clouds, but more so that I "roughed up" the finish to add even more texture.

  

We have an opening on the design team so are looking for some new crew members, if you would like to join the team just enter into our challenges in June and let us know that you would like to be considered.  We are looking for demonstrators from the South Pacific Region to make it a little easier on scheduling and checking on posts.  If you would just like to play along that's fine too, just upload a picture of your creation to the CTC Facebook Page. 

  

Time to hop on over and see what the lovely and talented Jackie has been inspired to create.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC # 131 - Everyday Occasions

Welcome to this week's CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, it is an exciting week for us as we take our first look at the new Annual Catalogue, the Everyday Occasions section from pages 18-67. 

I chose this lovely image as the inspiration for my project this week, it leaped out at me the first time I looked at the catalogue so I was excited to try and re-create it.  Because I loved the original so much I didn't change much with it at all.

I bought this bundle from the previous catalogue and haven't used it as much as I had planned, so it was a great opportunity to use both the stamps and framelits.  I chose Garden Green as my card base as I wanted it a little bit lighter than the original.  I have to be honest this card took me some time to complete as I played with techniques to get the look I was after, but I am super happy with it.

One of the techniques I used to give this card a more aged feel was to over heat the embossing powder on the flowers, it sort of mottles it. I did the same with some of the gold embossing on the leaves and the sprinkling of gold on the stamped flower on the base of the card..

 Here you can see a close up of the areas that I have over heated. 

The other technique I wanted to try was embossing using water, yes you read that right embossing with water!  Since the lovely Gold Wink of Stella has retired I needed to find a way to get lovely gold splatters on the base of a card. I took some photos of this process which you can see after the link to the next blog in the hop.

  

If you would like to join us, just create a project taking any inspiration from the Everyday Occasions section of the Annual Catalogue and then add a picture of your project to the CTC Facebook Page.

Now for the quick tutorial on water embossing.

Firstly I used my Aqua Painter to splatter some water onto the card base.

Keeping the card stock horizontal so the water wouldn't run I piled on heaps of embossing powder and let it sit there for about 10-20 seconds. This allows the embossing powder to "stick" to the cardstock. 

Then gently shake of the embossing powder and use your heat tool to activate the embossing powder as normal. I did try heating from the underside of the cardstock but worked out that this wasn't necessary as the powder doesn't blow off.

Here you can see the final result, a lovely splattering of gold!

  

Time to hop on over to Simone's blog to see what she was inspired by this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique