CASE-ing the Catty #42 - Everyday

Have you had a good look at the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue's Everyday section??  It is jam packed with projects of all types, so many beautiful things! 

I had a hard time picking one to CASE this week, but after some consideration I chose this one from page 109. I think it is really soft and pretty, but I also wanted to put my own twist on it so changed out some of the stamps and colours.

I have recently purchased two new stamp sets Awesomely Artistic and Endless Birthday Wishes and thought they would go beautifully on my CASE. I changed up the colours to the more rich tones of Blackberry Bliss and Island Indigo, adding just s thin strip of the gold DSP from the neutrals stack.  I kept the medallion from Serene Silhouettes but used a flower instead of the butterfly in the original, adding some gold embossing and some gorgeous Gold Metallic Thread to give it some pop.  Take a close look at the dragonfly:

While the Blackberry Bliss was still wet I added some gold embossing powder, then carefully used a fine paintbrush to remove most of it on the wings, leaving only the edges and some of the body embossed.  This photo doesn't do it justice, it really gives the dragonfly an extra special feel.

Time to hop on over to Katheryn's blog and see what she has been inspired by.  Don't forget that you can join in too if you would like, just add a link to your creation in a comment on the main blog.

Happy Stamping
Monique

Sympathy

Isn't it hard to make a sympathy card?  I always say I am going to have a few on hand for when they are needed, but never seem to make them.  This week one of the ladies I work with lost her mother to cancer, so I wanted to make a card for the team to send to her.  

I took a lot of inspiration from Lee Conry, you can see her original card here.  I added the sentiment from Loving Thoughts by stamping it on Vellum and cutting the ends with the new Mosaic Punch.  To do this thread the strip of vellum or card stock back through the bottom of the punch and line it up with the section you want.  I repeated this process with Basic Black to create the layer.

With the card being square I felt the top right hand needed 'something' so I stamped the small butterfly onto the card and again onto Vellum which I punched out and adhered so the wings would lift slightly.

On the inside I added a folded card to allow for more people to be able to sign the card.  I stamped the same image from the Serene Silhouettes onto the corner to tie it all together.

Addit: Still addINKtive have a "spot that stamp set" challenge with the Serene Silhouettes stamp set, pop over and see the other lovely creations with this set.

Happy Stamping

ESAD Seasonal Blog Hop 2013

Welcome to another Blog Hop brought to you by the talented ladies at ESAD, you might have started at my blog or you might have hopped on over from the talented Jenny at Stampin by the Seat of my Pants. To hop to the next blog just follow the link at the bottom of my post and enjoy the creations featuring items from the latest Seasonal catalogue.

For my creations I wanted to prepare a set of cards using the same basic elements and layout, but with some minor differences, the main feature in all of these cards is the a la carte stamps "Just Thinking" (p 21). I hope you enjoy my creations and are inspired to try some of these techniques yourself.

I love this stamp as it is really quite versatile.  In this card I have stamped onto another product in the new catalogue the white Canvas Creations (p 21), these sheets have a lovely textured surface and are just wonderful with this stamp.  After stamping with Early Espresso I allowed it to dry before colouring the outer textured portion with my Stampin' Write Markers, the canvas surface takes the colour really well.  I have also used the new Borders Scoring Plate (p 26) to create the scallop embossed images.

For the next three cards I have substituted the sentiment in the centre of the stamp with stamps from a range of different Stampin' Up! sets.  For this one I used the lovely flower branch from Elements of Style.  After stamping and colouring the image I then ran it through the Big Shot using the Square Lattice folder which gives it, and the other following images, a tapestry look that fits so beautifully with this stamp.

This card uses the same technique but with the stand of flowers from Just Believe.  I have also added to all of these cards one of the Delicate Doilies (p 5), they are so economical at just $4.95 for a packet of 24! I have used some distressing on both the doily and the base card to give a more aged look, I was very happy with the way this one turned out.  

 For my last card I have used Serene Silhouettes, again cutting the centre piece from Very Vanilla and running through the embossing folder. I have also used the Borders Scoring Plate on the top of this card, however this time I have used the 'valley' of the embossing and highlighted it with small pearls.  On all of the cards you might also have noticed the Flower Trim and added a pearl to the centre of each to give more of a vintage feel to them.  You may have noticed that the flower on the first card was smaller than the rest, this is achieved by using your heat tool on the flower to gently shrink it. Again this Flower Trim is very economical and very versatile as they come on a strip of netting that allows you to either use in a row or individually  the 1.8m of flowers gives you approximately 90 flowers for only $11.95 (p 5), with that many you will be adding them to all your projects!  They are also very easy to colour using markers or re-inkers to match any project. 

I hope you have enjoyed these creations if you don't have a current demonstrator and would like to purchase any of these, or other Stampin' Up! products you can do so through my on-line store by following the link on the top left of this blog.

Now it is time to hop on over to see what lovely creations Narelle has for you at Simply Stampin. Then keep hopping around all of the lovely creations the ESAD ladies have created to showcase the wonderful products in the Seasonal Catalogue.

What is ESAD?
 ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin' Up! demonstrators. We so love what we do and not only do we love to share it with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors, but we share our love for what we do with each other as demonstrators. We run swaps, challenges, tutorials, product know-how, and cyberstamps, and we are always there to help and support each other when it is needed. So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to contact me for an invitation to this wonderful group.

Happy Stamping

Sketch Frenzy Sympathy

I am on fire today! Sketch Frenzy Friday Challenge gave me the inspiration for my next card, I like the simplicity of this sketch and wanted to keep my card as simple as possible.

I again used the Serene Silhouettes stamp set and kept the colours to Whisper White and Basic Gray.  I wasn't going to add the ribbon but it just needed something to give it some lift.  I think this makes a lovely sympathy card, and it is always good to have a couple on hand.

Happy Stamping

Freshly Made Silhouettes - Two Ways

Looking for a sketch to base my next card on I turned to Freshly Made Sketches, I like these as they are nice and clean layouts, without the 'simple' aspect of a lot of Clean and Simple challenges.  

This time around I used my new Serene Silhouettes stamp set, I just love the little birds on the tree and did some fussy cutting after stamping them in Cajun Craze to make them stand out from the branches.  I wanted the card to have a fairly muted look to it so I used my brayer to colour the back ground for the birds and then decided to try and colour the DSP with the brayer also.  I am really happy with how it turned out, achieving the effect I was after.  

Here you can see a picture of the un-brayered DSP beside the piece I coloured with Pool Party.  I think this worked because I was using a fairly pale colour, too dark a colour would just cover the DSP.

Because I brayered a whole 12" strip I had a piece left over so decided to use the same basic sketch but make some changes.  Firstly I made this card landscape instead of portrait. I added some ribbon and a sentiment as well.  The butterflies are stamped with my new Papillon Potpourri stamp set and cut out using the new Elegant Butterfly Punch. If you look closely at the centre butterfly I have stamped on it with the new Illuminate Glimmer Watermark Stampin' Pad - this is a bit like VersaMark but has a distinct glimmer to it, and is so pretty.  It is hard to capture it in the photo.

Happy Stamping