CI #48 - Beachy Bliss

Before we kick off with the challenge this week, let me take a moment to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and all the best for a peace-filled New Year. 

Welcome to another Colour INKspiration challenge, this one will run for three weeks, so you have time to be inspired by the gorgeous image and the Stampin' Up! colours we have matched to it.

This beautiful image has the colours: Tranquil Tide, Bermuda Bay, Calypso Coral, Blushing Bride and Whisper White. You can also add any of the basic colours and metallics. 

I have to admit, this is another colour combo that had me scratching my head for a while.  Then I realised that it was really just two colours in different shades (from a very simplistic view point) and I knew it would be great to use my new Incredible Like You stamp set coming in the new Occasions Catalogue.

I decided to use the foil edged cards for this card, because I think I had mentally put them in the "Christmas" category, but realised they are going to be great all year round. I just love this new stamp set, it has 2-step stamping with "distinctive" stamped images. I like that the little stems also have two types of flowers you can add, here I have used the little ones similar to the main flower image.  The card was looking a little plain, so I added some gold splatter with my Antique Gold Shimmer Paint flicked at the card front.

  

I hope you are inspired to join in with this challenge, just grab your inks and papers then post a picture of your project to the CI Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over and see what the lovely Simone has created with the colours.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CI #47 - Non-Traditional Christmas

Welcome to another Colour INKspiration challenge, where we take inspiration from the Stampin' Up! colours in a lovely photograph as the basis to our projects. You have probably hopped on over from our Guest Designer Cathy Pinchbeck.

This beautiful image has the colours: Shaded Spruce, Blueberry Bushel, Crumb Cake and Powder Pink.  As usual you can also add any of the basic colours (black, white and vanilla) and metallics.

My project for this challenge took a little bit in the creation, I played around with the idea of using a few different sets then settled on Rooted in Nature with the lovely little tree image.  I started stamping it on Whisper White but that was a bit stark so I grabbed my crumb cake and did some stamping off with the double and single tree stamps. It still didn't look like much so I added some sponging along the "ground" and "sky" with two of the challenge colours. Layering it on a piece of Powder Pink was my sneaky way of adding that colour when I was having a little struggle with it!

  

I hope you are inspired to join in with this challenge, just grab your inks and papers then post a picture of your project to the CI Facebook Page.

  

Time to hop on over and see what the lovely Rachel has created with the colours.

Happy Stamping
Monique

CTC #270 - Anything But A Card

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, where we take a look at one of the sections of a current Stampin' Up! catalogue and use the projects within it to inspire our own creations.

This week we are taking our inspiration from anything but a card from either of the two current catalogues!  Flicking through them both I realised that there are a lot less home decor and 3D items than I remember from previous catalogues, but there are still some great ones to CASE!

I was inspired by this image from page 97 of the Annual Catalogue, I think it caught my eye because I have been thinking about baking for Christmas and I haven't used my Apron of Love stamp set in ages.

I had to feature the Joyous Noel DSP of course, yes I still have some left!  The striped pattern seemed perfect for an apron and I originally used the dies from the coordinating framelits for the pocket, but wasn't sure how to add a sentiment. Then it struck me that one of the tags in the Tags and Tidings stamp would be perfect for a pocket with the sentiment and cute little tree right there on it!  I hand cut and added a layer of white as a border, then popped in some of the cooking tools I'll be using to make my sugar cookies.  I thought I would give them a more realistic look by cutting them from the Woodgrain DSP then adding foil or plain card to them as required.  

  

I hope you are inspired to join in the challenge this week, just use the samples in the All Is Bright section of the catalogue to inspire your creativity, then post a picture of your project to the CTC Facebook page.

  

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

Happy Stamping
Monique

ESAD Holiday Catalogue Blog Hop

Welcome to another ESAD Blog Hop, for this one we are showcasing some quick and easy tags, cards and packaging using the amazing products in the Holiday Catalogue.

I wanted to try and stick with the #simplestamping theme, using just a few products to make some great projects, and I chose the Sincerely Santa stamp set and have used it in a few different ways on my projects. I never seem to have enough tags at Christmas so decided to feature them in my projects today. 

This one came about sort of by accident when I had stamped a card with the main sentiment then as I was having a clumsy day I knocked over another inked stamp and it landed on the edge of my tag!  Devastation right? Instead of throwing away the tag I decided to see what it would look like if I continued the partial stamping around the edge stamping off a couple of times and sort of rocking the stamp so the images were imperfect.  Turns out I loved the effect and decided to make a few more.

Here is part of the set I made, playing around with the colours.  The base of these cards is made from one of the Narrow Note Cards & Envelopes cards cut in half.  I don't yet have a plan for the envelopes but I am sure it is not going to be long before I find a use for them. 

Now these are my favourite tags to make in a hurry.  Here's how to make 10 easy tags from one piece of A4:

• Add a 1/2" strip of DSP or Washi Tape along both long sides of an A4 piece of cardstock
• Cut the A4 down the centre at 10.5cm so each side has the DSP strip.
• Cut each side at 2" (or 5.2cm)
• Punch the end without the DSP using the Tag Topper Punch
• Decorate as desired

For these ones I just stamped in Merry Merlot and Grey Granite then used an aqua painter to add the background squiggle. 

I decided to step up the tags by using coloured cardstock as the base, popping up the sentiment with Dimensionals, to adding some ribbon and twine. These use a few extra products and take just a little bit longer (but not much).

  

Time to hop on over to see what the lovely and talented Jo has created for the challenge.

Happy Stamping
Monique