Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous LeAnne to host this week and she has my favourite, a sketch challenge for us to work with:

Not only that, it's our 700th challenge too - what a milestone! I looked at this week's sketch and was tempted to go big on layers with those circles, but instead decided to try out a clean and simple idea that I had after browsing Pinterest a while ago that I wanted to try with the 'Layers of Beauty' stamp set. I thought the soft palette of pinks and greens over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog would be perfect for it, so I grabbed my stencils as it's stencil week over at Just Us Girls and set to work. Take a look at what I came up with:

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

You may well have expected me to use the co-ordinating stencils since my card features the large outline image in the 'Layers of Beauty' stamp set, but you would be wrong; whilst I would absolutely recommend you buy the co-ordinating dies and stencils with this stamp set, there are so many ways the stamp can be used without them too. On today's card I used some circle stencils instead that I made by using some circle dies in various sizes to cut circles out of acetate sheets, and then positioned them over the large roses and lightly blended a combination of Lemon Lime Twist, Pretty In Pink and Flirty Flamingo through them directly onto my cardbase to highlight areas of the stamped image. I stencilled each in turn and allowed each circle to overlap slightly to give further depth of colour: 

I added a white-on-black heat embossed sentiment from the same set and popped this up on dimensionals, with a sprinkle of in-colour shimmer gems to complete my design. Using circle stencils is a fun way to spotlight an image on a clean and simple card. Finally, I'm also linking today's card up at CAS on Friday where their theme is 'circles' 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 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; the youngest of the James Juniors is off with friends to watch the test match cricket at Edgbaston today, so the house will be a quiet one - I'm hoping there will be time for crafting! Probably some Olympics viewing too. I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

LAYERS OF BEAUTY PHOTOPOLYMER STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (19.00)	BLENDING BRUSHES (14.00)	2024–2026 IN COLOR™ SHIMMER GEMS (8.00)	PRETTY IN PINK CLASSIC STAMPIN PAD (8.50)	FLIRTY FLAMINGO CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)	LEMON LIME TWIST CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (8.50)
TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (7.50)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (10.50)	BASIC BLACK A4 CARDSTOCK (10.75)	VERSAMARK PAD (9.00)	BASICS WOW! EMBOSSING POWDER (20.00)

It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. This week Jeanne has a colour challenge for us: 

I like all of these colours, yet for some reason I really struggled to create my card. Then the more I tinkered, the more my card strayed from the 'clean and simple'. Check out my card and I'll walk you through my creative process:

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

A Spotlight on Dandy Garden - I thought these colours would be perfect for florals, so decided to use the single large grassy wildflower image from the Dandy Garden stamp set. I decided to use the spotlight technique to highlight a small area of the florals with the challenge colours, with some no-line watercolouring on a rectangle of watercolour paper, stamping the main image tone-on-tone on a panel of Old Olive.  

A Balance of Colour - I decided to use a Crushed Curry cardbase instead of white, with a panel of Old Olive; this base was run through my Subtle Embossing Folder to add some texture and create a seamless panel. I also added a border detail of Melon Mambo, for another touch of colour. Whilst I don't always use white as a base for a clean and simple card, the all important 'white space' is usually a single colour - my earlier card here is a good example of that. In hindsight, I think using all three colours of cardstock was probably too much and perhaps just using Old Olive without highlighting the flowers with an alternative base colour would have been a better idea. 

It's In The Details - There are a number of small details that in themselves I love - the subtle embossed texture of the base, the Melon Mambo border detail, the tone-on-tone twine bow and the heat-embossed fussy cut sentiment. Again, on reflection all of these things together may be why my card feels less 'clean and simple' than it otherwise would be. So a lesson learned for me this week and hopefully as you're reading this a lesson in clean and simple cardmaking for you too! All that said, I still like this card and it's already been sent to someone who will hopefully love it too ;-)

The visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference is to follow. 

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; we woke up this morning to find that we have no broadband at Casa James and on investigation that it's unlikely to be fixed until the end of the week. Not ideal, when everyone is working at home due to lockdown and both James Juniors are having to follow a distance learning programme. We are managing so far, but seriously rationing access to the internet, much to the dismay of the teenagers!! Wish me luck!!!All being well, I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

DRAGONFLY GARDEN CLING STAMP SET (£21.00)	RECTANGLE STITCHED DIES (£33.00)	WATER PAINTERS (£11.25)	FLUID 100 WATERCOLOR PAPER (£8.25)	MELON MAMBO A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)
MELON MAMBO CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	CRUSHED CURRY A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	CRUSHED CURRY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	OLD OLIVE A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	OLD OLIVE CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)
SAHARA SAND CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	BASIC BLACK A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	VERSAMARK PAD (£8.75)	WHITE STAMPIN’ EMBOSS POWDER (£5.50)	ORNATE BORDERS DIES (£32.00)

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)