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:
The Paper Players Design Team
Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:
1. Create a new paper project
2. Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission.
3. Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL.
4. Have FUN!
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: