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

CTC #137 - Artistic Expression

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop.  A bit of a cold and busy week for me, but I don't think that is going to change on either front for a while!

This week the team are being inspired by the Artistic Expression section of the Annual Catalogue, you can find this section on pages 132 - 181. This is another big section of the catalogue so there are lots and lots of projects to inspire you.

For me the choice was easy this week because I have been looking forward to this challenge ever since I first saw the catalogue.  Do you have projects that just leap off the page at you? For me the image above from page 143 did just that, I was enchanted by it and knew I wanted to re-create it.

Instead of a gift bag I decided to make a card instead.  I love the different browns achieved and by using Early Espresso, Soft Suede, and Crumb Cake with a combination of stamping off and building up colour with sponging. While I loved the card I didn't realise how much detail there was in it or how many different layers and textures.

I wanted to show you some of the detail up close in this picture, I did a bit of fussy cutting, scrunching and roughing up of the cardstock on some layers, building them up with Dimensionals and adding pearls for a special touch.  Sometimes doing an almost direct CASE can be a quick and easy way to achieve the outcome. This is not one of those cards, although I really enjoyed the challenge of recreating it on a card. 

  

I hope we are inspiring you to join in the challenge this week, just take inspiration from one (or more) of the projects in the Artistic Expression section of the catalogue and add a picture of you project to the CTC Facebook Page.

  

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


Happy Stamping
Monique

CI #13 - Orchid Inspiration

Welcome to another Colour INKspiration Challenge, where we are taking inspiration from the colours in the beautiful orchid picture below.

The colours are:

• Sweet Sugarplum
• Wild Wasabi
• Lemon Lime Twist
• Fresh Fig

 

If you are a regular visitor to my blog you will be starting to realise that I am going through what might be called my "Paste Phase"!  I am loving the new Embossing Paste and finding all sorts of things to do with it.  On this card I coloured the paste using Wild Wasabi and Lemon Lime Twist and applied them using the brick mask so that the two colours have an overlapped section to get a nice blend.  I then sprinkled some lovely Gold Glitter over parts of the embossing paste, doing it heavier in some sections and barely at all in others. 

The Daisy was stamped with Fresh Fig and sponged with Sweet Sugarplum, with one of the new Gold Faceted Gems in the centre.  The "stem" is from the Flourish set of thinlits cut from Wild Wasabi and given some extra depth and shading by sponging on extra Wild Wasabi. 

Not only do I love the Embossing Paste but the masks are great for a simple but effective way to decorate the inside of the card as well, here I have sponged both greens inside the card getting lighter in colour and pressure the further away from the corner I got.

  

I hope you join us in this challenge, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere the fun summery colours will help shake off any winter blues!  Just add a picture of your project to the CI Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over to see what the talented Rochelle has created for the challenge.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #136 - Thanks

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, this week we are happy to be joined by some lovely new Crew members so please make them welcome by leaving a message on their blog page.

We are taking inspiration this week from the "Thanks" section of the catalogue, pages 126 - 131. While this is a fairly small section it has lots of great projects to be inspired by.

I took my inspiration from page 126, the cute little gift bag in the top right of the image. I think this one caught my eye because of all the sheets in the Delightful Daisy DSP this one is one that appeals to me least, although it might be because Calypso Coral isn't on my favourite colours list!  I did really like the layout and the cute little wildflowers which I think have been a bit under-represented in projects made with this stamp set.

As you can see I made a card rather than a bag, I also switched up the ribbon and added some mini sequins for some added bling.  I really should use Calypso Coral more often because it is a pretty colour!

Taking the design from the tag on the front of the card I used the same stamps to decorate the inside, adding a feature line from Butterfly Basics. I sometimes forget about all of the types of images that are in many of our stamp sets. maybe I will stamp them all onto a single sheet for reference!
 

  

 I hope we are inspiring you to join in with the team this week, if so just use any of the projects from pages 126 - 131 to inspire you and add a picture of your project to the CTC Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over to see what has inspired the very talented Krissy this week.

Happy Stamping
Monique

ESAD Blog Hop - Annual Catalogue Favourites

 

Welcome to another ESAD Favourites Blog Hop, were we have each chosen our favourite product (or products) from the new Annual Catalogue. Now I have to say this was hard, because it is so very hard to choose a favourite, but after lots of thought and a little indecision (because I love so many of the products) I landed on the new amazing new Embossing Paste, with its coordinating Palette Knives and Pattern Party Decorative Masks. While not an actual bundle, I do think of these products as a bundle because they all work together.

For my first project I have sneaked in two of my other favourite products, the Eastern Palace Framelits and the great DSP in the catalogue: Delightful Daisy, and Bundle of Love. The background from Delightful Daisy DSP reminded me of snowflakes gently falling, and the pretty gold strip from Bundle of Love reminded me a bit of a Christmas garland. I love that Stampin' Up! products are so versatile, none of these were designed for Christmas but work really well together.  

To make the ornaments I used the framelits to cut the desired pieces from cardstock.  I then used this as the mask for the Embossing Paste, it really opens up your creative opportunities.  After pulling the masks away I sprinkled the still wet paste with Gold Stampin' Glitter, and allowed them to dry before cutting with the appropriate sized circle punch. The glitter adheres to the Embossing Paste and gives the finished ornaments a lovely raised feature. I decorated the inside of the card with a strip of the gold patterned DSP to match the front.

My next card also uses the wonderful Embossing Paste with a technique I literally thought up and did for the first time on this card!  I have also sneaked in another favourite the Colourful Seasons Bundle. Let me share this new technique with you, and some of the thought process that went into it.  I wanted to have a multicoloured but blended background without having to mix up paste with color before application.  I was initially thinking about just sponging the dried embossing paste to add colour, but then this came to me:

Leaving the mask in place I dropped different coloured re-inkers onto the still wet paste. Some of it ran a little and I wasn't really sure if it was going to work at this stage.

I then used a paint brush to drag the colour across the paste, trying to keep to the areas that had paste, but some went onto the plain card stock as well.  Still not sure at this stage whether it was going to work!  It wasn't until I pulled it away that I realised how cool the look was - I was too excited to actually make the card to take a picture of it, but I used this very first trial one on my card. 

A final techique for the decorative masks is to use them as a mask for sponging. Here I chose two colours that coordinated with the front of the card to add some colour, sponging both Crushed Curry and Cajun Craze over each other.  I used Washi Tape to mask the mask so that there was a clean border without ink.

Here is the finished inside of the card which leaves heaps of room for the message, it is so easy to use this technique to add some interst to the inside of a card or even deocarte a matching envelope.

  

I hope you have had the opportunity to play with the new Embossing Paste, and that I have shown you a new idea or two.  Time to hop on over to see what Courtenay's favourite product is!

Happy Stamping
Monique