Today I'm sharing a couple of extra Easter cards that I made for a few current challenges, using one of my favourite retired Easter sets, Easter Promise, using two different colouring techniques. The first one is for the current TicTacToe Challenge (I went across the middle row with pastel colours/CAS/flowers) and is my second entry over at Addicted to CAS where the code word is 'Bloom:

My first card is coloured with my Stampin' Blends - take a look:

 I coloured my crocus with my Stampin' Blends, sticking to pale purples with a tiny pop of orange for the stamen. I stamped and fussy cut the sentiment and added a trio of irridescent gems - don't you just love how they pick up the colour of whatever they're next to?  

My second card uses the colours over at Sunday Stamps and since it's another card featuring spring flowers, I'm sharing over at AAA Cards:

For this card I stamped the crocus image onto watercolour paper and used my inks and aqua painter, along with my watercolour pencils for highlights, to colour:

I used all of the colours on the Sunday Stamps palette (if you look closely there is the faintest wash of pink around my blooms which add a hint of Spring warmth) and diecut my finished image and added to a Lemon Lolly card base, with some coordinating enamel dots for a pop of added colour:

On this card I stamped my sentiment in brown and I think it suits the yellow tones much better. Both the insides and envelopes were stamped for a finishing touch of co-ordination. Both of these cards are off in the post already - the Easter weekend is almost upon us!

I hope you like my trip back down memory lane with one of my favourite retired Easter sets.

Enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's my turn to host this week and as it's the fifth Sunday of the month we have a tic-tac-toe challenge for you to work with:

I'm getting used to the idea of a tic-tac-toe board; my starting point tends to be as many options as possible, so I ended up with 3 lines complete: central row - diecut, spring, birthday, and far right column - DSP, birthday, flowers and lastly the diagonal pink, spring, DSP - talk about over-achiever! I used Amy's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches for my layout (great layout, Amy!) and decided to use one of my favourite new florals for a new purpose - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Crocuses Are Not Just For Easter - I love the 'Easter Promise' stamp set and the crocus stamps. They are perfect for spring and I decided that they would make a pretty birthday card too. I chose my favourite pink, Melon Mambo, for today's card - did you know that you can actually get pink crocuses? I didn't, but Google showed me some so as my kids so often say, well it must therefore be true! I coloured and fussy cut a couple of the bunches for the front of my card, then added the row to the inside for a little extra detail:

Label Me Bold - I used the Happy Birthday from 'Label Me Bold' on today's card; plain block sentiments are perfect for something simple where the florals are the main focus. 

Pretty In Pink Watercolour - I decided to use a rough watercolour to colour my crocuses. I stamped them in Stazon on watercolour paper and then added loose colour in layers, deliberately not keeping inside the lines (which was hard for the perfectionist in me!) and I just love the finished effect:

I added a twine bow and some champagne rhinestones to complete my card. I just LOVE this card - do you ever make a card that totally ticks all of your boxes? This is one of mine!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day; the clocks went forward overnight so we have an hour less today, although in the grand scheme of things at the moment I'm not sure it will matter that much! We spent some time together yesterday completing a fiendishly tricky quiz that Ben has been set by school, so I think this afternoon it might be time to involve the grandparents in our endeavours! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

Easter Promise Cling Stamp Set (English) (£18.00)	Label Me Bold Cling Stamp Set (English) (£16.00)	Champagne Rhinestone Basic Jewels (£5.50)	Stitched Shapes Dies (£28.00)	Subtle 3D Embossing Folder (£9.25)
Brights 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 Cm) Designer Series Paper (£10.75)	Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper (£8.25)	Melon Mambo A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Mango Melody Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)
Granny Apple Green Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Jet Black Stāzon Ink Pad (£9.25)	Whisper White Solid Baker's Twine (£3.25)	Whisper White A4 Cardstock (£9.00)

Today it's Sunday and it's also the first of March - happy St David's Day to all my fellow Welsh men and women! It's time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the wonderful Anne Marie to host this week and she has a theme challenge for you to work with:

 I am in a bit of a clean and simple card making groove of late - and today I have another CAS creation for you. I decided to take this week's sketch over at CAS Colours & Sketches and make another Easter card - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Turn Up The Heat - Do you remember the first time you practised heat embossing? It's one of those techniques that is always a real 'wow' as you turn on your heat gun and see the powder turn into molten metallic magic on your stamped image. It adds such a great shine to projects and a raised edge that makes it easy to colour inside too. If you look at the close up photo below you can see the dimension and shine that it adds:

My top tip for a neat effect and minimal splatter when heat embossing is to always rub your cardstock with an embossing buddy before you stamp your image in Versamark and sprinkle with your embossing powder; this will keep the powder where you want it and not cause it to stick in areas where it isn't required.

Crocus Colours - The colour scheme on today's card is inspired by the most common traditional crocus colours: a warm honey yellow, bright purple and pale yellow. I used a Highland Heather base - I embossed the front using my Subtles Embossing Folder - and coloured my flowers using Highland Heather, Mango Melody and So Saffron Stampin' Blends markers to compliment my gold heat embossing.

Easter Promise - The stamp set I used today is called 'Easter Promise' and has both sentiments and these gorgeous crocus flowers that are perfect for celebrating Easter. I heat embossed the trio of crocus and then used my largest Stitched Circle Die to create a partial diecut around them (that's the 'hat' shape on the sketch!) and I then heat embossed my sentiment and fussy cut it so that I could position it where I wanted it. I also decorated the envelope front and back and the inside of my card and continued with the heat embossing and colouring theme:

For a CAS card it took a little while with all of the heat embossing and colouring, but it was so worth it - this card is so, so pretty! Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Enjoy your day; I will be spending the day at home escaping the winds and rain and hoping to get some quality time in my craft room in between catching up on household chores and making sure the youngest of the James Juniors is prepared for this week's mock Common Entrance examinations - not much then!  I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

Easter Promise Cling Stamp Set (English) (£18.00)	Subtle 3D Embossing Folder (£9.25)	Stitched Shapes Dies (£28.00)	Embossing Buddy (£5.50)	Versamark Pad (£8.75)	Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder (£5.50)
Highland Heather A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Highland Heather Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack (£8.50)	Mango Melody Combo Pack Stampin' Blends (£8.50)	So Saffron Stampin' Blends Combo Pack (£8.50)	Pumpkin Pie Dark Stampin' Blends Marker (£4.25)	Granny Apple Green Dark Stampin' Blends Marker (£4.25)
Whisper White A4 Cardstock (£9.00)	Glitter Enamel Dots (£6.50)