It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. Today we have Valerie's final sketch challenge: 

Feel free to flip or rotate the sketch when making your card. I thought this was a great sketch and perfect to enable me to play along with a few other challenges too: the ladies over at Just Add Ink have a 'Choose 2' challenge this week, at Less is More the theme is 'friendship' and since over at CAS on Friday the theme is Christmas, I am playing there too! So - to my card:

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

Masked Merriest Moments - I decided to properly rise to the challenge over at Just Add Ink this week and would use not just two but all three of their options! For my foliage and masking, I used the Merriest Moments stamp set - one of my all-time Christmas festive favourites. I used a circle framelit to cut a circle of masking paper, then stamped a selection of festive foliage around the edge, masking the individual pieces too to create a sense of depth and dimension. Once the masking paper was removed, I stamped my sentiment in the clear circle in the centre and used a thin (retired) gold hoop embellishment to outline the edge of my masked circle, then added some diecut red berries and a poinsettia to the front of the hoop - I like the subtle depth that this gives and pop of additional colour amongst the greens of the foliage:

Words of Friendship - My festive friendship sentiment comes from the 'Christmas To Remember' stamp set - a set of sayings perfect for this time of year. I used another two to add detail to the inside of my card, along with a little more festive foliage decoration:

Simple as that! I wish in hindsight I'd taken step by step photos of the construction process for this card, because whilst easy to explain contained a fair number of steps to achieve the desired effect. I really like the finished card though and I know that when one of my oldest, dear friends who I don't see often, but is always in my thoughts, receives this card she will love it too!

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:

CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER CLING STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£22.00)	MERRIEST MOMENTS PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£21.00)	MERRIEST FRAMES HYBRID EMBOSSING FOLDER (£37.00)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	CHERRY COBBLER CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.50)	REAL RED CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.50)
GARDEN GREEN CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.50)	SHADED SPRUCE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.50)	EVENING EVERGREEN CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.50)

It's been bitterly cold all day today here in the UK and both of the James Juniors have braved the outdoors to play hockey for their respective teams (a 2-1 win and a 0-0 draw respectively) but instead of braving the freeze to watch today I decided to hibernate and make a few cards!

I couldn't resist the colour palette over at Color Throwdown so decided to create another pair of cards using the masked spotlight technique that I shared with you earlier this week - you can read that post by clicking here if you missed it. I had some lovely comments on those cards and they were a 'Fab Four' pick over at the Fab Friday challenge so I used the same 'Beautifully Braided' stamp set, but this time heat embossed in gold and used a layered circle framelit to create my spotlight. I first did an experiment on So Saffron coloured cardstock to see what it would look like with a coloured background. Here is the first card on a Night of Navy base:

And the second on a Night of Navy base with a Bermuda Bay mat:

Here is the pair together:

I quite like the effect, but the inks are not as vibrant as they are on a white base. I made a second pair that are exactly the same design, but on a Whisper White base so that you can see what I mean - here's the first one:

And the second one on a Bermuda Bay card base:

I love the brightness of the colours on this pair. I added a few of the Holiday Rhinestones or gold sequins to each card for a little subtle added bling to finish my cards. In hindsight, I should have sponged a narrower central section of Bermuda Bay so that the circle elements had a little more of all three colours on them, but that aside I really love this colour combo with the gold on a white base. Here they are together:

So what do you think - do you have a favourite pair? Leave me a comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts. 

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 evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project for our new challenge this week over at The Paper Players. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Layering Circles Dies (£33.00)	Beautifully Braided Photopolymer Stamp Set (English) (£16.00)	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock (£7.75)	Versamark Pad (£8.75)	Embossing Buddy (£5.50)
Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder (£5.50)	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Bermuda Bay A4 Cardstock (£8.25)
Night Of Navy A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Holiday Rhinestone Basic Jewels (£5.50)

Today I'm squeezing in a card for the current colour challenge over at Fab Friday:

I have a little story behind today's card and although I ended up with two cards for my efforts it's not where I started out at all. I'll come to my story shortly but firstly here's the first of today's cards:

And so to my story! Are you sitting comfortably? Here's the low-down on today's card:

A Colour Conundrum - I often find colours more of a challenge as a starting point for a card and a combo either speaks to me or it doesn't. The minute I saw these colours, I immediately thought how great they would look with the 'Best Dressed' stamp set on a clean and simple card with lots of white space. That is, until I saw the fabulous card that my blog friend the talented Windy Ellard created using this set in these colours for this very challenge (you can see Windy's card in the FabFriday gallery and link to it on her blog directly here). I just adore this card and whilst the one I created looked nothing like it, I loved Windy's card so much mine looked mediocre in comparison. So, I went back to the drawing board!

Spotlight on Beautifully Braided - I used the 'Beautifully Braided' stamp set and co-ordinating Braided Border Punch in my monthly technique stamp class that I held earlier this week and I promised the ladies that attended that I would create lots of other samples for my blog that would give them further ideas on how they could use their bundle in other ways. I'm also on a mission to use colours other than green with it - we are in universal agreement that we dislike the very green-based samples in the Stampin' Up! Spring-Summer catalogue where this bundle debuts (sorry Stampin' Up!) I thought the flower stem in the stamp set would be perfect for the spotlight technique, where you highlight a portion of the image and either colour it or leave it uncoloured on the spotlighted portion of the image. Here I've heat embossed the image in black and then created an inner and outer element that I have diecut with the Stitched Rectangle Dies so that I could use both elements on two separate cards - a spotlight and reverse spotlight, if you will.

Masked Spotlight - We focused on the spotlight technique in class using another card which I will share another day, but for today's cards I took that one step further and once I'd heat embossed my image on the layer that I was going to use either as my top layer frame or inner section, I carefully masked the heat embossed image with a post-it note cut to the image exactly and then used my sponge brayers to create a graduated background comprising the 3 challenge colours. When the post-it is removed, you are left with a completely white image surrounded by a beautifully sponged panel of colour. Here is the second of my cards that shows the central rectangle piece:

I mounted each of my cards on different coloured card bases - here's a photo of them together:

So what do you think? Do you like one more than the other? These cards did take a while to create, but I love them both. And they are completely different to Windy's :-).

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 for our new challenge over at As You See It. Until then, I'm off to turn my attention to the dreaded tax returns (I can't put it off any longer!) Happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Beautifully Braided Photopolymer Stamp Set (English) (£16.00)	Stitched Rectangle Dies (£33.00)	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock (£7.75)	Poppy Parade Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Rococo Rose Classic Stampin’ Pad (£7.00)
Highland Heather Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Highland Heather A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Poppy Parade A4 Cardstock (£8.25)	Black Stampin' Emboss Powder (£5.50)	Embossing Buddy (£5.50)
Versamark Pad (£8.75)	Rhinestone Basic Jewels (£4.75)

The James Juniors are back to school today following the half term break and I am here with a nice early post for you! Today I'm sharing a card that combines a few challenges: the current challenge over at Less Is More where it is one layer with the focus on sentiment and the current CASology challenge. My card also fits the photo inspiration at Fusion:

It's something of a happy accident that I am combining each of these in today's card - it just so happened that I had an idea that works for all three - and I have two cards for you! I decided to create a couple of pet sympathy cards; first up, a dog one:

I also created one for a cat lover too that is exactly the same design, just mirrored:

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

Sorry For Your Loss - I recently spotted this card on Pinterest and loved the clean lines created by the fun punch art idea and monochromatic colour scheme. It inspired me to think about using a similar idea to create a one-layer card using the same 'Sorry For Everything' stamp set - such a great set where you need a sentiment to take centre stage and useful for lots of different circumstances, including the loss of a furry friend. 

Cats And Dogs - I used a retired Sweet and Sassy Framelit heart, along with a punched cat and dog respectively, to create a mask through which I could sponge my heart. By using a different colour to the sentiment, which I stamped in black, it gives the illusion of another layer and whilst I didn't use the punches directly on my card, the silhouette created by the negative space makes my furbabies easily identifiable. 

Crossing The Rainbow Bridge - My colourful heart whilst perfect for the Fusion rainbow photo was actually inspired by a blog post a couple of week's ago by my Paper Players teamie and committed dog lover Ann Schach. As any of you who follow my blog will know, I am relatively new to the idea of pets having never had one as a child. Ann made this card for a friend of hers that was going through a tough time and she mentioned one of the things her friend was having to deal with was the loss of a pet, which she described as having 'crossed over the Rainbow Bridge'. I thought this was a lovely idea and so tried to incorporate the idea of a rainbow by sponging one into my masked heart, with a little purple heart to accent each pet. I really love the effect - what do you think? I also carried the rainbow theme onto the inside of my card with a set of rainbow footprints around my sentiment, that is courtesy of the new 'Happy Tails' stamp set:

A fitting sentiment for this kind of card I think and the rainbow colours are really uplifting. So two cards inspired by others in lots of ways, yet unique to me. Do check out the respective challenges for lots more inspiration.

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:

Sorry For Everything Clear-Mount Stamp Set (£19.00)	Dog Builder Punch (£17.00)	Cat Punch (£17.00)	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)
Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Granny Apple Green Stampin' Pad (£7.00)	Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pad (£7.00)

It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of my good friend LeAnne to host our challenge this week and she has a fun clean-and-simple theme for you to play along with:

For my card this week I wanted to use my 'From Land To Sea' stamp set. I bought this set for the turtle - I love turtles! - but to date have only used the lighthouse stamp, so this week's challenge gave me the opportunity to change that. The ladies over at Less is More have a one layer challenge with the theme 'At Sea' so I'm linking my card with them too, along with the challenge over at Just Add Ink where the theme is 'masking'. I've a new product 'sneak peek' for you today as well! Without further ado, here is my card:

This isn't the first card I made for this week's challenge: I remembered 'wild animal' but forgot 'clean and simple' on my original card, so I will share that one with you later. As far as this card goes though, I just love it! Here's the low-down on how I created my card:

Sea-faring Turtle - Turtles are the one species of sea creature that has always captivated me. I have spent many hours BC (before children!) scuba diving in the warm waters of the Caribbean and nothing ever thrilled me more than to come across a turtle in its natural habitat. They really are so graceful and fascinating to observe. I stamped my turtle in Archival Black ink, once directly onto my extra-thick Whisper White card base, and again onto a post-it note. I cut the second one out and used it as a mask to cover the one on my card base, whilst I sponged in the sea behind. 

Swirly Scribbles Stencil - Secondly, the 'sneak peek'! I made a stencil with the wavy die in the new Swirly Scribbles Thinlits set from the forthcoming new annual catalogue by cutting one and then placing across a masked rectangle behind my turtle. With my turtle masked, I sponged through the stencil with Pool Party, Bermuda Bay and Island Indigo inks to create the seascape and then removed both the stencil and turtle mask and coloured my turtle with inks and a blender pen.

A Teeny Tiny Sentiment - To finish my card, I added a sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set. This stamp set has a great variety of sentiments for each and every occasion that are suitably small and work perfectly with this layout. I chose my sentiment with the recipient of my card in mind; we haven't had a diving holiday with our good friends Cathy and Andy in such a long time, so this card is perfect to send to them to remind them that one day we will all dive together again!

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. 

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

I look forward to seeing your wild animal CAS creations this week. We have double basketball today: training this morning them both James Juniors are playing at a tournament this afternoon - on opposing teams! One is playing for school and the other for club, so that should be interesting!!

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

From Land To Sea Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Teeny Tiny Sentiments Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad	Whisper White A4 Thick Cardstock	Sponge Daubers
Pool Party Classic Stampin' Pad	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad	Island Indigo Classic Stampin' Pad	Delightful Dijion Classic Stampin' Pad	Cajun Craze Classic Stampin' Pad
Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad	Early Espresso Classic Stampin' Pad	Sahara Sand Classic Stampin' Pad	Blender Pens