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

CTC #83 - Thanks

Time for another CASEing the Catty Blog Hop, and this week we are taking inspiration from the Thanks section of the catalogue (pages 38-43).  I chose the green card on the top left of page 43, and changed up the colours and sentiment.

I have fallen in love with the Floral Boutique DSP and changed the colour scheme of the card so I could use it here.  I chose a sentiment from the lovely Flourishing Phrases stamp set, and added it to a layer of vellum with Copper Embossing Powder. 

One of the lovely things about this stamp set is that the sentiments can be used alone or paired up as I have done on this card with this beautiful sentiment on the inside. As this is a sympathy card and I wanted to keep the inside clean and simple, I didn't add any additional stamping to the inside. 

  

We would love you to join in the challenge this week, simply make a project taking inspiration from the Thanks section of the catalogue and link it up to the main blog page here. We chose a top pick from the whole month so don't worry that it is on the birthday challenge page. We are also looking for a few more team members so if you would like to join us just join in this month.

  

Time to hop on over to Jackie's blog and see which project she was inspired by.

Product List

Flourishing Phrases Clear-Mount Stamp Set [141534] $64.00	Floral Boutique Designer Series Paper [141663] $19.25	Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock [106577] $14.00	Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549] $15.75	Copper Stampin' Emboss Powder [141636] $8.75
White Vellum A4 Card Stock [106584] $11.50	Versamark Pad [102283] $15.00

Happy Stamping

Monique

CTC 36 - Love and Sympathy

This week the CASE-ing The Catty team are focusing on the "Love and Sympathy" section of the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue on pages 19-30.  There are some really beautiful samples in this section, I chose the thank you card featured on page 20 as the inspiration for my card.

I kept the layout almost identical to the one in the catalogue, but changed up the colours to give it a more somber feel. I also wanted to have a bit more of a play with the new 2015-17 In-Colours and used Tip Top Taupe, Watermelon Wonder and Mint Macaron, adding in Early Espresso as a coordinating neutral.  Instead of a thank you, I decided to change the sentiment to fit with the theme and used a lovely sympathy sentiment from Petite Pairs, the second half of which I stamped on the inside of the card along with one of the other smaller images from Flowering Flourishes 

If you want to play along just take inspiration from the Love and Sympathy section of the catalogue, upload a link to your blog to the main CASE-ing the Catty page and we will add it in for you.

Now you are off to hop on over to see what the talented Alison has created.

Happy Stamping
Monique

Bitter Sweet

My post today is a bit bitter sweet.  Sweet because I think my mojo might have come back, I saw the Mojo Monday sketch challenge this week and immediately had a plan of what I wanted to do.  The bitter part comes because of the reason for making this card, I found out today that one of my colleagues lost her grandmother last weekend.

Butterflies are so lovely to use on a card, to me they symbolise freedom and beauty, but also change and growth, and so I wanted to use them as the feature for the card.  I hunted through my retired DSP and found a sheet of Newsprint with a butterfly print and it was just perfect.  I love using vellum when I do butterflies, and because I wanted a fairly simple design without lots of busy colour or stamping it seemed the right thing to make the butterfly layer from.  What you can't see in the photo very easily is that I stamped and punched a fourth butterfly and have adhered it over the centre one, so that one lifts off the page.  The sentiment from Sweet Essentials was just right also, a obvious sympathy sentiment didn't seem right somehow.

Happy Stamping

I'm Back!

It was pointed out to me recently that I haven't posted here since the end of August!  Boy how time flies.  I do have a couple of reasons, life gets really busy this time of year for me ...  

• On 31st August we celebrated our 22nd Wedding anniversary.
• 1st September was Father's day on 1st September. 
• 12th September our beautiful daughter turned 18, and we had a wonderful visit from my mother to help her celebrate.
• 21st my husband Gavin celebrated his birthday!
• We finished the month off last weekend with a (relatively) quiet 18th sleepover celebration for 10 of my daughter's friends - I think they got to sleep at about 6am!

I do have a couple of projects to share with you from over this time but firstly I want to share two cards that I made for a friend earlier in the year, someone close to her had passed away and she wanted to send some cards a little while after to members of the family to let them know they were still in her thoughts (isn't that an thoughtful idea!).

I wanted to make cards that had the feel of sympathy without actually being sympathy if you know what I mean.  I am pretty sure I CASEd this from someone but I can't give credit as it was some time ago! I just love the softness of the ribbon and butterflies, I used the Petite Pairs with the second part of the sentiment stamped on the inside of the card.

This second one I wanted to do with a more mature feel to it, it reminds me of a picture on an old fashioned wall with embossing and wallpaper!  I was happy with both of these, as was my friend.  

I promise to post more regularly from now on, at least until life gets crazy busy again :)

Happy Stamping

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