CTC #271 - Week 1 - New Catalogue Cover

Welcome to another week at CASEing the Catty Sunday Blog Hop, where utilise the projects within the current Stampin' Up! catalogue to inspire our own projects each week. We also invite you to join with us in the challenge each week by using this inspiration in your own creations and uploading a photo to our Facebook page.

This week we are taking our inspiration from the front cover of the new annual catalogue. Because we can't show images of the inside of the catalogue until it goes live in just a few days on 3 June, we are going to feature the cover of this amazing catalogue.

I love how simple these cards are, a couple of ink colours and coordinating (or contrasting) cardstock and you can make some really pretty projects.  All of these cards on the cover use just one stamp set, Lovely You, which has 11 sentiments and 7 leaf and floral images!  I knew it was going to be my first purchase from this catalogue!

I have actually CASE'd two of the cards from the cover, the ones in this image. I did decide to change up the colours a little as I wanted to show off the new In-Colours and use a little of my new DSP!

This actually the second card I made for this challenge.  I have fallen in love with the colour combination of Petal Pink and Misty Moonlight and I have to give the credit for this to the designers of the Flowers For Every Season DSP.  For the main image I stamped the simple flower from Lovely You in Petal Pink and then used one of my Watercolour Pencils and Blender Pen to add a little blue to the petals of the flower, finishing it off with an In-Colour Enamel Dot. I finsihed off the card with a few mini pearls and Misty Moonlight Ribbon.

My next card also uses the Flowers for Every Season DSP pack!  Where are the flowers you might ask? Well the reverse side of a number of the sheets has simple small patterns in most of the in-colours.  I say most because the Magenta Madness wasn't included for some reason.  Not to be put off by this I decided to feature it in the base of my card, my main sentiment panel and more of the cute Enamel Dots. 

The sentiment is punched using the new Lovely Labels Punch which lets you punch six different sized labels. You simply start with a strip either 1", 3/4" or 1/2" in width and pop it in the punch to create a decorative end. The great thing about this punch is that the different widths layer perfectly with each other. I have some tips on using it below. 

I also made a layer using this colour to coordinate with the other DSP strips.  Here's how:

I used this tiny little stamp from So Sentimental to stamp with white craft ink onto the Magenta Madness strip.  I think it worked pretty well don't you?

Now for my punching tip: If you are anything like me you like to get the length of a banner even on each side of the sentiment, and I have found label punches can make this a little tricky. I finally worked out a way to make myself a template to make this process fool-proof.  I have added the immage above as a quick guide. Here are some more detailed instructions:

1. Label punches allow you to slide a piece of cardstock into the opening that is much bigger than the punch.  This cuts both images out of one piece of cardstock. Do this and then keep the off-cut for step 2.
2. Take the little off-cut and adhere to the main piece of cardstock. I used some thin Washi tape to do this. Just make sure the two pieces of cardstock are just butted up against each other, and not overlapping.  As you can see you can attach the pieces on each end and in the middle.
3. Once secured you can then stamp your sentiment and slide the strip in between the two pieces of cardstock of your template.   This helps in two ways, firstly it lets you choose which shape loods better with your sentiment, and secondly it lets you decide exactly where you want the punch to cut.  Once in position just mark with a pencil where your strip of cardstock needs to be trimmed (along the flat edge of your template). Trim it off and punch your image.
4. Do the same with the other end of the sentiment and you will have a perfectly spaced sentiment with very minimal effort.  

I hope this helps you get more out of any of your label punches as this will work with any of the "end" punches.  I have stored my template in with my Lovely You stamp set as I know it coordinates with this punch.

  

I hope you are inspired to join in the challenge this week, just use the samples from the cover of the 2020-2021 Annual Catalogue to inspire your creativity, then post a picture of your project to the CTC Facebook page.  Don't have a catalogue yet? Contact me to get your copy, or check back here after 3 June for a link to the pdf version.

  

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

Happy Stamping
Monique