Winter Snowflake

It is quite warm in Vancouver today as I write this post so it seems very strange to be thinking about snowflakes!  But that is the July challenge for CAS Christmas.  Bonnie is hosting it and I think she chose it because it's much hotter where she lives so maybe the thought of snow helps to keep her cool!

I enjoyed making my card but did not enjoy photographing it - I had to try several times to deal with the shimmery cream cs and the pearlescent embossing paste.  Here's the best I could do:

I used a really old Dreamweaver snowflake stencil that I haven't touched in years.  I taped it down on white cs and used the Dreamweaver Pearlescent paste through it.  I had some creamy shimmer cs that matches it really well so die cut the two sentiments and created the card base from it.

When the paste was dry, I trimmed it with a stitched square die, then played around with the placement of the two sentiments for ages - having "winter" on the top and "snow" on the bottom makes more sense linguistically, but just didn't look right stylistically!  I finally glued them on and popped the panel up on fun foam on the card base.

Here's a close-up to show you the lovely sparkle of the Pearlescent paste and the shimmer of the cardstock - so happy I had something that matched so well!

Please come and join us with your clean and simple cards featuring a snowflake or two (or more).  There's lots of inspiration over at CAS Christmas from the rest of the Design Team and July's Guest Designer, Jane (Onions and Paper).

Supplies:

Paper - white cs, cream shimmer cs

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - Dreamweaver snowflake stencil, Dreamweaver Pearlescent paste, Simon Says Stamp "snow" and "winter" dies, Lil Inker stitched square die, fun foam

Blueberry Bouquet

Special Event

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARNELL!!

Please join us in celebrating Darnell's Birthday!!

One more part to this special event.
The team has made special cards for Darnell's birthday,
along with our Guest Designer Leslie,
and several Featured Designers (friends from the retreat).

During our retreat, Darnell (Dolly to us) was up early one morning
and decided she wanted some frozen blueberries.
Somehow she spilled almost the whole, Costco-sized bag of
blueberries all over the floor.

Bonnie snapped these pictures.

See the swipe of blueberries on the right photo??  We couldn't find a broom so we grabbed
a large piece of card stock to pick up the berries.  As they thawed, the blueberry juice
"smooshed" on the cardstock in a lovely design that looked perfect for card making.

Well, without Dolly knowing, we kept that piece of blueberry smoosh and cut it up.
Each Designer has used one piece in making Dolly's birthday cards. :)

The theme for this month is "Bouquet of Flowers".  Please make sure that your card depicts a bouquet of flowers - a single branch or stem does not count as a bouquet, nor does a flower garden.  It can be just a bouquet or it can be in a vase.


Here's what I created with my piece of blueberry smooshed cs:

I used my Inktense watercolour pencils to colour the image. They give me more control for the fine lines of the bouquet's wrapping paper and also to keep some texture on the cat's fur.  I added a simple vertical sentiment and popped the panel up on fun foam.

You have until July 24th to enter a card featuring a bouquet - please be sure it is a bouquet and not just an image of flowers.  There's lots more inspiration over at CAS Watercolour - the cards made by the Design Team and by our talented Guest Designer, Leslie (Running with Scissors).

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black cat, Rosie's Roadshow sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper - white cs, including the piece with some blueberry stain on it

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - Inktense watercolour pencils, fun foam

Glitter, Sparkle, and Snow

I've got a card today for two challenges.

Christmas Kickstart : "Glitter, Sparkle, or Shine".

Jingle Belles : "Snow".

Here's my card:

I took two snowflake background stamps and stamped one on each half of my cs.

I die cut the musical phrase and the two word dies out of silver glitter cs and again out of white cs so that I could layer them for more dimension. And I popped up the whole panel on fun foam.

The glitter cs is far more sparkly in real life than in the photo

Supplies:

Stamps - Impression Obsession snowflake background stamps

Ink - Distress Tumbled Glass

Paper - white cs, silver glitter cs

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - Simon Says Stamp Jingle Snowflake, Winter, and Snow dies, fun foam

Reindeer and Christmas Leaves

I've been entertaining two of my sisters who came to visit this month from back east so not much time for creating or blogging.  But finally a chance to catch up with some challenges.

Sparkles Christmas Challenge is "Include a Reindeer".

I inked up the trees with brown Distress ink and the shadows on the ground with grey, inking up and stamping in my MISTI until I got a good impression. I then cleaned the stamp (while it was still in the MISTI), reinked it with Versamark, stamped over the coloured stamping, and heat embossed in clear. That way I had a resist for my background sponging. I used various yellow and blue Distress inks to sponge the sky.

I added a die cut reindeer and sentiment.


Christmas Cards All Year Round wants to see "Christmas garlands, leaves, or flowers".

I stamped and heat embossed in silver, added a small part of a longer sentiment, mounted on a silver card base, and embellished the berries with silver gemstones.  A perfect CAS card for making multiples if one was so inclined!

Supplies for the 1st card:

Stamps - Penny Black woods

Ink - Versamark, various Distress inks

Paper - brown, cream, and mixed media cs

Size - 6x4.25"

Accessories - Dee's Distinctively reindeer, Tattered Lace sentiment die, clear embossing powder

Supplies for the 2nd card:

Stamps - Penny Black A Berry Branch, part of a SU sentimen

Ink - ColorBox silver

Paper - white and silver cs

Size - A2

Accessories - silver embossing powder, silver gemstones

Little Cardinals

Combining two challenges with today's card:  the CAS Mix Up "Ombre" challenge and the ABC Christmas "L is for Little" challenge.   I have a blue ombre background and some very little cardinals on my card.

I masked off a rectangle on my watercolour paper and used various blue watercolour paints to make an ombre background.

I am in the midst of reorganizing my craft room and couldn't find my brown cs for die cutting the branches so watercoloured a scrap of w/c paper in brown (and also in red) and die cut the branches and birds. I die cut the birds twice and glued them together to raise them up off the branches more.

I trimmed the panel and popped it up on fun foam on a kraft card base.

The requirements of CAS Mix Up are:

My sentiment is stamped, I have the ombre background, and for my choice, I have die cutting and watercolouring.

Supplies:

Stamps - Rubber Soul sentiment

Ink - Recollections Chestnut

Paper - watercolour paper, kraft cs

Size - A2

Accessories - watercolour paints, Memory Box branch and tiny cardinals dies, clear embossing powder, fun foam

The Snowbaby's Gift

Reminder time for CAS Christmas!  And the theme this month is "Gifts".

I went with a sweet little snowman - more like a snowbaby, with too big a toque for its little head, sitting in the snow, wondering what the package is!

Stamped, watercoloured, trimmed into a square, bordered with an offset red square to balance with the red gift.  I used gold watercolour paint for the gift's ribbon and went over it with Wink of Stella for more sparkle.  And added Stickles to the snowy ground and Fun Flock to the pompom and brim of the toque.

Please head over to CAS Christmas to check out more cards featuring gifts - by the Design Team and this month's talented Guest designer, Leslie (Running with Scissors).  You have until June 24th to link up.  Please keep your cards clean and simple, and be sure to include the theme of gifts.

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, cream and red cs

Size - 5" square

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Wink of Stella, Stickles, Fun Flock