Bucking the Trend

Yes, it is me - honestly!  My cards are usually quite CAS.  Sometimes ultra-CAS, especially when I only use half a sketch!  And quite a few of you are in the midst of online CAS lessons (and producing some fabulous results), which I think I might go for next time.

But deep inside of me, there's this mixed media person (I won't use the word artist) screaming to get out.  Not loud enough, until now.  I love mixed media creations but don't do them because, well, what do you do with them afterwards?  I've already got too much "stuff", and I don't like making things for the sake of making them if they're not useful afterwards (nowhere to put them).  But if it's on a card, I can give it or sell it (easier than giving/selling an item that doesn't have a use).

The inspiration for doing this card came from this month's Craft Stamper Magazine, which has a feature by Chris Dark, new to their design team.  That's her card on the front cover.  

So I thought I'd use her technique of layering diecuts from watercolour paper onto a watercolour paper background to make a card for this week's MUSE, the inspiration card for which is from Suzanne Dahlberg.

I used the pink, red and green colour scheme, the two flower types, the xoxo and the middle panel.  The base card has a two-tone red/green sheen to it.  You can see the difference in the two large photos. Lots of gesso and acrylic paint in various shades, including gold.  I had a blast making it, and pushing myself to add "more" instead of stopping at "less".

Here are a couple of close-ups so you can see the texture.

I'm also entering this into Simon Says Anything Goes.  Almost everything went into this!

So is it just a flash in the pan or will there be more of this?  I think there'll be more, but not on a regular basis, as most of the challenges I enter are CAS!

Must Pay More Attention

Ok.  I'm not big into pink.  I'm not big into hearts.  And I'm obviously not big into paying attention.  The challenge at Addicted to CAS is hearts.  Tick.

The challenge at ColourQ is pinks and brown.  Tick.

And here's the sketch at Addicted to Stamps and More:

Except that as I was making the card I was referring to the thumbnail on my blog reader rather than the full post, and this is what I saw:

I just thought it was an ultra-CAS sketch...

The guidance is: "You may flip or rotate the sketch and even replace the shapes. Please create with the sketch in mind." 

Out of sight, out of mind.  Bit of a shock when I came to do the post.

The heart was in my stash from a while ago. I'd made several out of a sheet of grungepaper covered in Fired Brick distress ink, then embossed through the Cuttlebug, then the raised area smeared with Versamark and heat embossed with clear powder, then cut out the heart shape freehand.

Sentiment from Paper Smooches.

Spring Birthday

I'm joining in the fun at a new challenge, Muse (which closes in a few hours!)

Here are the simple rules:

• Use what you have in your stash, don't purchase anything new for your Muse cards.
• Explain your interpretation of the Muse inspiration card in your post and link back to Muse. 
• Provide supportive comments to at least 3 of your fellow member’s submissions. 
• Vote for one of your fellow member's submissions that you find inspiring.

And here's the inspiration card, provided this week by Amy Kolling.

I took my inspiration from the yellow flower and the black sentiment.

The challenge at CAS-ual Fridays is to use markers.

CFC87: Use markers in your Clean And Simple Creation
Remember... a little can go a loooong way!
You can color an image, or an element, or get creative and show us some fun techniques!

I used Tombow markers to colour the flower stamp then added doodling around the images, so that I could enter it into One Layer Wednesday, hosted this week by Karen from Snippets, to use doodling in your one layer card.

Doodled Up- add doodling to your card!

You can see from these two close-ups where I've started doodling, and the finished panel.

It's a sketch challenge at Less is More this week, with conditions:

It's simplicity itself, so to add a little constraint, we ask that the card stays in this orientation ie that the band remains in the horizontal plane, in the lower part of the card and that it takes up no more than 1/3rd of the height of the cardbase.

I stamped the sentiment then added some doodled lines to define the panel.  Oh, and a bit of Stickles for the flower centres.

Flower: Hero Arts 657776

Sentiment: Hero Arts CL646

Retro Cheers

Ok, so the challenge at CASology this week is DRINK:

The colour scheme comes from this week's Play Date Cafe:

And this week's challenge at Simon Says is paper piecing.

The bottle is stamped directly onto the white card, pieced with green paper, then pieced again with white for the label.

All stamps are from Woodware FRCL008 Cheers.  There's a little bit of Stickles added to the bubbles.  The large glass on the left is mine ;)

The snow is coming down sideways at the moment, with worse to come later :0

Let Love Soar

The inspiration for this card came from the Runway Inspired Challenge:

I love the sheer floatiness of the dress and thought it would be good to create some spotted vellum butterflies.  And I was quite taken with the panelled wall in the background so I scored a panel to add to the base card.  Which means I can link it to Addicted to CAS, whose code word is:

And their big sister, Addicted to Stamps and More, is having a CAS party this week.

And at Hero Arts, this month's challenge is try something new.  Well I don't think I've ever die-cut vellum before.

Hero Arts F4136 Assorted Dot Border, sentiment from CL646 Happy Birthday.  Butterfly die-cuts from Clearly Besotted.

Graffiti Birthday

I'd already made a card for Dynamic Duos but this one ended up with a red and black colour scheme so in it goes.

This week's Simon Says challenge is USE WASHI TAPE.

There's just one strip of washi tape on the card - the red stripe.  Everything else is stamps from Urban Life and Urban Beats, both by Sam Poole for Creative Expressions.  I like these two sets of stamps, as they're ideal for teenage/young male birthdays.

Shoes and Friends

My blog friend Ardyth, at a loss for something to do after organising anniversary cards for Darnell, and wedding photos from everybody, has come up with a challenge in honour of her first blogaversary.  Take the first card you ever posted on your blog, flickr, splitcoasters, wherever, and CASE it.

Here's the card from my first post:

For my CASE version I stamped the image without the sentiment, coloured the ruffle skirt red, keeping the colouring patchy to complement the scribbly image, then trimmed and mounted the piece onto black card, and added a different sentiment.

So, roll back to your first card, CASE it and link up on Ardyth's sidebar.

Fittingly, the theme at Less is More this week is FRIENDS.

The challenge at A Blog Named Hero is to use an old stamp to create a new project.

And the challenge at Dynamic Duos is to use red and black (with an optional valentine theme).

90434 Girlfriends from Stamps Happen
3853F Too Many... from Penny Black

Keep Warm

Very appropriate for today! We've been clearing a couple of inches of snow which wasn't due until later today, and we're still on for more.  So nice warm drinks are definitely in order.

The cue word at CASology is blue.

The challenge at One Layer Wednesday, hosted this week by Heather, is Keep Warm.  Just check out that jumper card she made - and I bet she knits as well!

The challenge at CAS-ual Fridays is to make a tall/long card.

CFC86: Create a CAS card that has one long side and one short side.

3 x 6, 4 x 8, etc. No standard A2s for this week.

The image stamp is another of my sale bargains (75p), from Inkadinkado, and the sentiment is from Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler.

What Happens When You Don't Exercise

AFTER

Here's a picture of me at the gym the other day.  Just joking.  I don't do gym.  But I do need all the preservatives I can get.

The challenge at Less is More this week is to make a one layer card on the theme of sport or exercise.  Image and sentiment are both from Stampassions (long discontinued, I think).

BEFORE

Yesterday, we were posting anniversary cards to Darnell and Mister, and we should have also been posting our own wedding pictures onto Ardyth's blog.  Conveniently, mine were tucked away in the attic, but in the spirit of sharing, I decided to dig them out.  Ardyth's tip of taking a digital photo of your wedding pictures works a treat, especially if they're stuck into an old-fashioned wedding album, as mine are.

So here's a before picture from 23 May 1975.  I haven't looked through the album for years and years, so it was lovely to leaf through the pictures.  Except the one where the photographer must have been having a sly joke.  A group shot of the two of us, flanked by our parents, ranging from 6'4" (my dad) down to about 5'2" (his dad), ordered coincidentally in decreasing height.  You'll not be seeing that one!

Happy Anniversary Darnell & Mister

And Whoosh, it's Anniversary time!

The blogvine has been busy, and surreptitious emails have been flying around the world, so that we could get together and wish our dear blogfriend Darnell and Mister Hunk Kevin a very happy 43rd wedding anniversary.

Darnell has been sharing photos of herself and Mister in their younger married days (they didn't look old enough to be married!), and Ardyth had a little ruse going with Darnell that they would set up a wedding photo post.  Well, that's what Darnell thought.  In the meantime, Ardyth sent word out for followers and friends of Darnell to post an anniversary card.  If we didn't manage to contact you, please don't feel left out, it's just that not everybody's email address is public and, of course, we couldn't go public on this.  But please join in the fun and link up at Ardyth's blog.

If you're not a follower of Darnell, you're missing a treat as she regales us with her exploits in her own special way (and special language!).  She has us crying and laughing, usually in the same post. Husbands and other family members wonder why we start to sniffle while we're on our computers or tablets, then suddenly snort (I misspelled that as snot - but quite often that's the case too) with laughter.  And today's post is no exception.  Have a look at Mister's shirt.

So, Darnell and Kevin, Happy 43rd Anniversary!  Enjoy your day.  No, SERIOUSLY, enjoy your day!  And I'll raise a glass to you both.  It's only half past twelve here, but it's five o'clock somewhere!

Conveniently, I haven't got a scanned wedding photo.  After I've raised a glass or two I may scan one  ;)

Butterflies

I forgot to link one of my cards to Simon Says challenge of Black, White and a splash of colour.  So I made another card (any excuse).

I used the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

The butterflies are from Clearly Besotted, with the newly released matching dies, and the curly wurly sentiment is from Stampin Up.

Yellow Rose

This is the same rose stamp that I used in this post.

When I first got it (in my post-Christmas bargain trolley-dash) I coloured directly onto the stamp with markers, because it's a solid image.  I tried several colour combos, the first of which was two shades of pale yellow.  But they didn't stand out enough, so I moved on to peaches, pinks and reds.  But I didn't want to throw away the yellow version until I'd had a think about it.  So I thunk, and decided that I would draw a fine outline around it to highlight the areas.  But that didn't look too good, so I kept on with the pen, over-scribbling the original lines I'd drawn.  I quite like how it's ended up.

As a reminder, here's what it looks like (in the various colour combos, and complete with spritzed droplets) when using the direct to stamp technique.

So I shall be looking at all of my solid image stamps in a different light now.  Try it.

Anyway, I'm entering the yellow version into a new (for me) challenge, Addicted to Stamps and More (with a name like that, I should have been in from Day One).  The theme is NATURE.

Stamps are Penny Black 2815K The Look of Love, sentiment is from 30-105 Gratitude.
The fineliner I used was a Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.05.

Birthday Pink and Blue

The colour scheme at this week's Dynamic Duos is Melon Mambo and Island Indigo.

I thought I'd give this bargain stamp (yes, another one - I told you I got lots.  At £1.50 it just jumped into my basket) the same treatment as the last Penny Black girl by just highlighting rather than solid colour.

Stamps are Penny Black 4163L La Soiree and 3682C Birthday Girl.

A Splash of Pink

So. This time I've followed the instructions and created a card using black, white and a splash of only one colour for this week's Less is More challenge:

BLACK and WHITE 

with a touch or a splash, a hint or suggestion, a dab or a  patch of 

a colour of your choice!

Image is M407 Wendy from Rubber Romance.  Sentiment is from Hero Arts CL646.

Winter Sky

This week's CASology cue word is winter.  I've not seen a wintry sunset for a while, because we've been under dark grey cloud for most of the winter, and we're starting to develop webbed feet.  Conversely, our kids (29 and 26 but they're still my kids), who both live in Melbourne, are in the middle of the country's worst heatwave for years.  Fortunately they're in the city, away from the worst danger.  I'm hoping the weather returns to normal when we visit in a few weeks.

The colour scheme at The Play Date Cafe is

Champagne...Sky Blue...Tangerine

Birthday Rosebush

Another bargain stamp :)

The challenge at ColourQ is to choose from one of the previous colour challenges that the design team have selected.

I went for this one chosen by Jen.

I was also going to enter it into Less Is More which is Black, White and a splash of colour, till I re-read the instructions.  It's a splash of one colour, so in the words of Arnie, I'll be back.

Penny Black 4164K A Rose, 3682C Birthday Girl