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

Blue Flowers

I love it when I have time to get a couple of challenges done in a weekend, I also got to have a stamping get together with another demo friend of mine and have another card to show you from that session - we always do far more chatting than creating lol. This time I am combining Create with Connie and Mary colour challenge with Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

Now I don't always think flowers when I think "blue", in fact there is a fun family story about blue flowers that I'll share at the end of this post.  I was particularly inspired by Margaret's creation and decided to do my own blue flower using You've Got This. All the stamps on this card are from that set.  I thought the Smokey Slate background was a little dark after I stamped it so added a layer of vellum over the top, securing it with Glue Dots and Washi Tape.

Now for the family story.  The night my husband and I went out for dinner with my parents to celebrate our engagement, we were talking about what colour the bridesmaid dresses would be.  My husband said he would like them to be blue, to which I responded "there aren't any blue flowers" so they couldn't match the dresses.  At that point my husband laughs and says "then what are those" pointing to a wall of flowers through the resteraunt window behind me.  Now here the story splits into two versions, his is that the wall was indeed covered in blue flowers. My version is that the lighting outside was making them look blue when they were really a purple colour.

To this day, more than 25 years later, my mum still sends me magazine clippings of blue flowers, and my husband also still brings it up whenever he can!  

Happy Stamping
Monique

Ombre Wings

I haven't joined in with Friday Mashup for quite a while, and when I saw this one I had a flash of inspiration, maybe it was my daughter talking about doing her ombre lipstick, or playing with my new stamps, but the two came together for this creation.

I used You've Got This background stamp colouring it with Wisteria Wonder, Perfect Plum, Rich Razzleberry and Blackberry Bliss Stampin Write Markers.  I used sponge daubers to smudge the areas where the colour joined.  I am not sure if you can see it but I added some loops of the gorgeous Metallic Gold Thread behind the butterfly to add just a flash of sparkle.

I added some gold sequins for my cluster embelishments.  I also added a little butterfly on the inside of the card from the beautiful Watercolor Wings stamp set, incorporating the various colours from the front of the card.  I sponged the Butterfly on the front to also give it an ombre look.

Happy Stamping
Monique

ESAD Sneak Peek Blog Hop

Time for another ESAD Blog Hop, this time to provide a sneak peek for the new Stampin' Up! Catalogue that goes live on 2nd June.  As a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator I get to see and purchase new product before it is available for general purchase.

For the blog hop I chose to use the lovely You've Got This, a beautiful flower image, three sentiments and a really cool background stamp.  I wanted to have the focus of the card the beautiful water coloured flower, so I have left a sentiment off this card. To really make this pop I stamped and embossed the flower image on water colour paper using Versamark and gold embossing powder.  I chose Watermelon Wonder and Hello Honey to colour the flower, I just love water-colouring and I forgot how much fun it is until I went visiting another stamping friend  a couple of weeks ago.

I also stamped the background using embossing powder and fussy cut the flower, raising it on Dimensionals.  I am so happy with the way this card turned out.

Now it is time to hop on over and see what Courtney has created, and keep hopping around each blog until you get back to where you started from.

Happy Stamping
Monique

You've Got This Butterfly

This cute and simple sketch from CASE this Sketch took my eye and gave me the chance to use another stamp set from my 2015-16 Stampin' Up! Catalogue pre-order.

For this card I used some of the beautiful new In-Colours, Watermelon Wonder, Mint Macaron, and Cucumber Crush.  I started by taking some water colour paper and wetting it with my Aqua Pen then dripping re-inkers onto it and letting them spread and bleed together.  I then cut it out with the Butterfly Framelits.  The background and sentiment are stamped using the new stamp set "You've Got This" which, in addition to this background stamp, has a lovely flower and three sentiments.

Happy Stamping
Monique