It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. This is the final challenge this month and YoonYoung is ending her hostess duties in style with this great sketch for us: 

Feel free to flip or rotate the sketch when making your card. I combined today's card with my entries for the current challenges over at Addicted to CAS where the codeword is 'snowflake' and the lovely ladies over at The Alphabet Challenge Blog where Melanie has chosen 'W is for Winter'. The recent storms we've had here in the UK with wind, sleet and rain definitely had me thinking about the weather and although we have yet to get a proper snowfall here so far this winter I decided YoonYoung's sketch would be the perfect opportunity to add one to my card - take a look:

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

Following on from my experiment of using dies as stencils last week (you can see my first example of this in last week's post here), I decided to have another go at this technique. YoonYoung's sketch made me think of a window and I was inspired by the beautiful stencilled snowflakes on Jaydee's ATCAS card, so I took the snowflake die from the now retired giving Gifts Dies from last season and created a stencil by cutting the twice and then masking a central column using some washi tape to create my four quadrants (you can see my mask on the photo further down this post). 

I then used a combination of Balmy Blue and Pacific Point inks with my blending brushes to add ink to my card, concentrating the darker colour across the diagonal and fading to the outer corners. Similarly inspired by Vicky's beautiful stencilled snowflake creation over at ATCAS where she used a contrasting bright orange for her sentiment, I decided to use bright pink and used a simple sentiment from the retired 'Sparkly Seasons' set for a pop of contrasting colour:

I also added some iridescent rhinestones to the centre of some of the snowflakes for a touch of subtle sparkle - I love the way they take on a slightly pink hue to compliment the sentiment too.

I didn't add a sentiment to the inside of my card as I haven't decided whether to use it as a Christmas card or just send as a festive winter notecard and write a note inside. 

The James Juniors have been wishing for snow since the wintry weather arrived in October; anything for a day off school, or so they thought. Rebecca was most perplexed when we received a letter home from school recently stating that the plan should we be subject to inclement weather from this point onwards would no longer involve a day off; instead all learning would simply move online. Covid clearly has a lot to answer for - it would seem that improved use of technologies is not always welcome, for the pupils at least!! 

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

IRIDESCENT RHINESTONES BASIC JEWELS (£7.00)

BLENDING BRUSHES (£11.25)

MAGENTA MADNESS CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)

BALMY BLUE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)

PACIFIC POINT CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)

BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)

This week I've managed to combine both my card for the new challenge over at Festive Friday and my design team card for our new challenge over at As you See It and also used the idea I had brewing for my entry  over at AAA Cards too:

The challenge that we are celebrating this week at Festive Friday is 'New Year's Day' which is on 1st January and at As You See it we are ending the year on a timely speed stamping challenge with the theme of 'snowflakes'. Remember at Festive Friday you do not need to actually celebrate the occasion; your goal is to simply use three or more items from the inspiration list on your project. I don't usually send cards to celebrate New Year; this week I used sparkle, rhinestones and diecuts from the FF inspo list and this is what I came up with:

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

Giving Gifts Of Snowflakes - If you read Wednesday's blog post (if you didn't, you can see it here) you will recognise the snowflake border on my card. This was actually the first card in this pair that I made - clever positioning of these dies makes it easier to create this fun snowflake border detail. In keeping with the clean and simple feel of my card, I added a simple sentiment from the 'Snowflake Wishes' stamp set in Night of Navy and positioned it in the centre of my panel. I also had time for some quick stamping on the inside of my card too:

Blue Ombre Sparkle - I am having something of a love affair with the Night of Navy blue ombre glimmer paper at the moment - I could do with a whole pack of this colour on its own! I think it works really well when balanced against lots of white for a touch of festive sparkle, especially when paired with snowflakes (you can see another example of that here) so I couldn't resist using it for the inset panel behind my snowflakes. Check out the sparkle:

The Need For Speed - This card was super quick to put together: I finished at 6 minutes and 5 seconds and was feeling pretty pleased with my self in meeting my AYSI brief. It was at this point that I realised that having used diecuts and sparkle, I only needed one more thing from the Festive Friday inspo list and I would meet both briefs and save myself even more time, so I spent another 20 seconds adding some blue faceted gems (aka blue rhinestones!) to my snowflake centres and managed at 6 minutes 25 seconds to meet the AYSI speed brief using three things from the FF inspo list whilst still meeting the AAA Cards CAS brief, and with the option of snow too! Just 6 products, 3 challenges and less that 10 minutes - I'd say that's a result at this super-busy time of year!

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 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

We all need to save a little time at this time of year, so I hope you are inspired to create something speedy today - or maybe even get a head start on your New Year cards too!

For more inspiration, be sure to visit the rest of the  Festive Friday Challenge Design team:

Ann Schach
Beth McCullough
Sharon Hashimoto Burkert
Melanie Hungerford
Helen Jennings
Stephanie Lanzalotto
Melva Peters
Jaydee
Diane Evans
Joanne James

And here's a summary of the As You See It challenge rules:

• Create any card, scrapbooking page, 3D project or packaging project that fits the challenge.
• Please include the challenge graphic and link back to the challenge in your blog post. Turn off word verification so we can leave you lots of lovely comments. Make sure you link the post not the whole blog to the Linky. Use #AYSIXXX when uploading to a public gallery.
• If you’re unsure about ‘the rules’, check the details under the Challenge Guidelines tab on the As You See It Challenge homepage.
• In a speed stamping challenge, please time yourself and say in your post how long your card took to complete. 

Enjoy your day; I am interrupting my usual day of Friday chores with a coffee with a friend I haven't seen in a super long time and my pre-Christmas haircut, so it's all happening here!! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

SNOWFLAKE WISHES PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£24.00)

OMBRE 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) SPECIALTY PAPER (£9.25)

BLUE ADHESIVE-BACKED GEMS (£7.50)

BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)

NIGHT OF NAVY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)

Happy Wednesday everyone! First things first - remember today is FREE SHIPPING at Stampin' Up! so the perfect time to pick up those last few Christmas gifts! You have until 11pm this evening UK time, so don't delay!

Now onto today's card, which was inspired by the current sketch over at Just Add Ink and is also perfect for the festive rainbow challenge over at - where else but The Rainbow Challenge:

I can't resist a good sketch and this one gave me the perfect opportunity to go all-out with a clean and simple yet unconventionally coloured Christmas card - take a look:

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

Giving Gifts Dies - I used the snowflake die in the Giving Gifts Die set to create my negative aperture border on today's card by cutting one end, then turning the die through 180 degrees and lining up the edges then cutting a second time, to give the single snowflake border panel. This is a great way to use this die on something other than a tag - it's always handy to be able to extend the use of an item. Unfortunately since I wrote today's post the dies are now no longer available in the UK; the lists are changing daily though and there are some things where stock of retiring items is still on route to the warehouse, so if you like them keep checking back.

Wonderful Snowflakes - I balanced my snowflake border with one of the Wonderful Snowflakes pre-diecut pieces that I trimmed to mirror the shape of the sketch element and added a simple 'Let It Snow' sentiment to tie both elements together. I used the snippet of snowflake I cut off to decorate the inside of my card:

Rainbow Ombre - My unconventional colour scheme today is taken from the rainbow ombre glimmer paper I used beneath the negative space of my snowflake border. I picked out the Bermuda Bay for my card base; I love the way the deep turquoise highlights the iridescent shine of the diecut snowflake and white embossed sentiment. I also picked out some of the white iridescent faceted gems from the From My Heart Faceted Gems pot to highlight the centres of the snowflakes in my border and used a (retired) sparkly blue one to centre my white snowflake.

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 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

WONDERFUL SNOWFLAKES (£5.50)	BERMUDA BAY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	RAINBOW GLIMMER PAPER (£5.50)	SNOWMAN SEASON PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (£17.00)	BASICS EMBOSSING POWDERS (£17.00)	VERSAMARK PAD (£8.75)
FROM MY HEART FACETED GEMS (£5.50)

It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. I am your host for the month of November and as we near the end of the month this will be my last challenge as hostess. There are 5 Tuesdays in November so we are ending the month with the double: one of our previous sketches and a retired colour combination. For my final challenge I chose the following:  

Feel free to flip or rotate the sketch. 

For my card today I did turn the sketch through 180 degrees and used one of the Giving Gifts Dies featuring Santa and his reindeer as my focal point along with the Tailor Made Tags Dies to create a tag for my card - take a look:

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

I found some starry retired designer series paper in Delightful Dijon to use for my panel and it seemed more appropriate to have this running across the top rather than the bottom. I then cut my layered tag out of the remaining colours. I added a tiny diecut bow and rhinestone, along with a small sentiment from the retired ‘Itty Bitty Christmas’ stamp set stamped in Midnight Muse to complete my card:

I chose these colours because I thought they could be used for festive or non-festive cards and could also be substituted with similar current colours if you didn't have them.  To that end, and since I love these tag dies, I  decided to create a slight stepped up version of the same card that uses similar colours and current product. This time I also followed my sketch to the letter! I used a Very Vanilla base and added a panel of Simply Elegant Specialty Designer Series Paper, then added a ribbon bow using gold-trimmed Cherry Cobbler ribbon, along with my layered tag, along with a gold foil moon and stars and allowing more depth to the tag itself. 

You can see the layering of the tag more clearly in the picture below: 

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 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

As a reminder, for our colour challenges, you must use all of the stated challenge colours. You may also use neutral colours; however, the challenge colours should be the most noticeable ones featured on your card. We use Stampin' Up! color names for reference, but you are welcome to use any other companies' products as long as you match the challenge colours as closely as possible.

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

GIVING GIFTS DIES (£29.00)	TAILOR MADE TAGS DIES (£20.00)	CHERRY COBBLER & GOLD 1/2'' (1.3 CM) METALLIC RIBBON (£7.50)	SIMPLY ELEGANT 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) SPECIALTY DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (£14.00)	VERY VANILLA A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)	CHERRY COBBLER A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)
NIGHT OF NAVY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	NIGHT OF NAVY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	GOLD FOIL SHEETS (£4.75)

It's Thursday and time for a new challenge over at TicTacToe! It's the turn of Team X to host this week and I am the featured designer this week. This is the fun board that we are playing along with: 

I decided to go across the middle of the grid with leaves/thanks/shades of brown for a clean and simple card. I used the layout and layering idea from the CASE The Designer challenge over at Global Design Project and the colours over at Color Throwdown that are perfect for Autumn. I will also be linking up over at Addicted to CAS, having finally managed to create something suitably clean and simple befitting their Autumn codeword - take a look:

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

Beauty Of Tomorrow - I love the large sentiment in the 'Beauty of Tomorrow' stamp set which sums up the changing seasons and advent of autumn beautifully I think so I had to feature this on the front of my card. Since this doesn't directly have anything to do with my middle square of 'thanks', I added one of my favourite stamps from the 'Well Defined' set to the inside of my card:

I love the idea of sending a card to someone thanking them for being part of my world, rather than as a show of gratitude for something someone did and this sentiment is so perfect for that.

Giving Gifts Autumn Leaves - I created a cascade of falling autumn leaves that I diecut from a piece of cardstock onto which I blended a selection of oranges and browns (see below) using the leaf die in the Giving Gifts Dies set. One of my blogging friends, the lovely Kim Singdahlsen of Joyful Creations with Kim, has made some fabulous cards with the dies in this set and was a total enabler when it cam to me puchasing these dies - I could resist no longer!  I particularly love the diecut detail on each leaf; I glued each of them on one half only, so that they could be gently folded upwards to add to the sensation of falling leaves - slightly easier to see on the angled photo below:

A Surprise Find - Finally, to add a little extra autumn-inspired detail to my card, I added some Grey Granite ink using a blending brush and an old stencil I found in my stash with a large knit pattern and faded it out from opposing corners. I am seeing some wonderful stencilling in the blogosphere lately, none more so than from my fellow Paper Player designer and CAS supremo the lovely Jaydee of Stampin! With Jaydee. She has a beautiful fine-knit stencil from The Greetery that she has been using lots lately and when I found this in my stash I thought it would be a good stencil to create a similar look and feel. This was also a good way to incorporate the soft, warm grey tones of the Color Throwdown palette. 

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. 

This is one of those cards that for all its simplicity seemed to take forever; it took a truck load of inspiration to get me there, but I must say I love the result and ended up making a few of these to send out to friends.

A tictactoe board offers so many creative possibilities - how does this week's board inspire you? Why not have a go? We would love to see you in the gallery and who knows - you might be selected for Designer's Choice and be eligible to be a guest designer on a future challenge. 

Enjoy your day; I do not know where this week has disappeared! I am still busy harvesting produce and I made another batch of raspberry jam yesterday. Today is oddly warm for this time of year, but still rather grey and it certainly doesn't feel like the return of summer that the weather forecasters promised! I'll be back soon with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

BEAUTY OF TOMORROW CLING STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£20.00)	GIVING GIFTS DIES (£29.00)	WELL DEFINED CLING STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£20.00)	BLENDING BRUSHES (£11.25)	VERY VANILLA A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)
EARLY ESPRESSO CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	CAJUN CRAZE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	PUMPKIN PIE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	CINNAMON CIDER CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	GRAY GRANITE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)