CASology #186 DISTRESS

It's Tuesday again and it's time for a new CASology challenge - DISTRESS. 

For my take on DISTRESS, I decided to use distress inks which is my favorite thing to play with these days. It can be hard to keep distress inks clean and simple so I confined my design to one side of the card to preserve white space. I blended Tim Holtz distress inks in Mustard Seed and Wild Honey on half of the Clear Scraps Spiral stencil to create a sun. Color is darker toward the middle of the sun. Sentiment is from Hero Arts. 

There are so many ways to take DISTRESS and I can't wait to see what you guys do with it! There's a prize from our sponsor Lawn Fawn this week.

And be sure to check out what the fabulous DT members have created this week:

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Deidre Payne
Hannelie Bester
Hazel Hodgkins
Jacquie Southas
Jen Wills
Joyce Mehrberg
Judy Marino
Kymona Tracey
Melissa Chipperfield
Tracey McNeely

Guest Designer:  Annie

Have a great week!

CAS(E) This Sketch #160

Happy Monday! Popping in with a quick card inspired by the CAS(E) This Sketch challenge this week. For my card, I used some pretty patterned paper from the Pink Paislee Pen Pals collection. LOVE the rows of hand drawn envelopes. I stamped a sentiment from PTI Special Delivery Sentiments in a coordinating blue.

Be back tomorrow with a new card for CASology! Thanks for stopping by! 

Creating Like Crazy Instead Of....

Hello friends -

Good news is that I've been busy creating a lot lately. Bad news is that its keeping me from working on what I really need to be doing - TAXES! UGH. The evil procrastination monster strikes again!

But on to fun stuff! My first card was inspired by the Muse challenge this week where the fabulous Tracey is the inspiration. I wanted to make something light and airy so I went back to my tried and true PTI Circle Scribbles set. I stamped in the same colors and general placement of her flowers. In place of sequins, I stamped smaller scribbles in gold (like Tracey's embossing).

Tracey's gorgeous card - 

Next card is for the fun ColourQ challenge this week - 

I used the PTI diagonal stripes coverplate to create my black and white background. This is so easy to use when you adhere the card stock to a double sided adhesive sheet first. Easy peasy to place down on the card base using the coverplate as a guide. I die cut the Hip Hip Hooray from the Phrase Play line in Hawaiian Shores. The stripes look even better in real life. 

Next up is my card for the PTI Make It Monday this week which challenges us to customize our patterned paper. I definitely wanted to try this because I have SO MUCH patterned paper that I never use. I have a few of the PTI patterned paper packs but I NEVER use the big polka dot paper. Lizzie's idea to stamp randomly on the paper is brilliant.  It took me a while to find a good image that I liked and was the right size but I ended up loving this little flower from the Cup of Cheer set. 

Patterned paper is the from the soft stone collection. I stamped flowers in Enchanted Evening, Melon Berry, Aqua Mist, and Sweet Blush. Sentiment and die from Sentiment Splits. 

Last card for today is for the February One-Layer Simplicity challenge - FRIENDS. 

Sentiment is from PTI Choose Joy, flower from Flower Fusion, and "grounding" lines from Ombre Stripes. 

Whew, that's it for now. I'm really gonna stop crafting now and eat the frog. REALLY! :)

Have a great weekend! Thanks for popping in!

CASology #185: EGG

It's Tuesday so that means a new CASology cue card. This week its EGG.

Wish I could say that this card came easy. But that's why this is called a challenge right? 

I didn't have any stamps of eggs of any kind but so I went with chicks. Which came first - the chicken or the egg?  LOL. 

I used an old AMuse wooden stamp of three little dancing chicks. I had gotten rid of many of my wooden stamps but kept a few cute AMuse image like this one. I stamped the chickens on bottom corner of white yardstick which I cut into a partial egg shape with Pretty Pink Posh Stitched borders. I stamped an oval in Soft Stone underneath the chicks to ground them and colored them in with Copics. I cut a second panel out of a dark blue/turquoise Bazzill card stock with the same stitched border die and added them both to a light blue AMuse card base. Took some playing around before I got the angles right and I love how it turned out! 

 Check out the rest of the Design Team's "EGGcellent" creations....Can't wait to see how you guys interpret our cue word this week. Who knows you may win the prize from our sponsor STAMPlorations. 

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Deidre Payne

Hannelie Bester

Hazel Hodgkins

Jacquie Southas

Jen Wills

Joyce Mehrberg

Judy Marino

Kymona Tracey

Melissa Chipperfield

Tracey McNeely

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

Fortune Teller Card

So I let my girls loose in my craft area to make a card for the Color Fortune Teller challenge.  I armed them with a binder of PTI sketches and set them free. 

I shared Sierra's card in THIS previous post and wanted to share Sydney's:

Her color fortune teller colors were Spring Rain, Aqua Mist, and Blueberry Sky. Tough colors to create with but since they were monochromatic she wanted to do an overlapping stamp design. She used small medallions from the old PTI set Guide Lines. She picked out the sentiment and die cut the banner herself. They had a blast and since they cleaned up EVERYTHING they used, I might just let them play around with my stuff again! 

Here's Sydney and I on New Years - 

Thanks for looking! 

PTI Anniversary Part 2

Cold weekend here in NJ! Popping in quick to share a couple of cards.

First card I made for the PTI Anniversary Sampler Square challenge. To make this easier, I used my favorite colors for my 9 different techniques. The whole idea was intimidating quite honestly but it was a lot of fun and reminded me of some of the techniques to use.

Closeups of the squares:

Bottom row (L to R): Stamping & Perfect Pearls, Heat embossing and ink blending, stamping white then color

Middle row (L to R): Texture kissing, heat embossing in color, dry embossing

Top row (L to R): Die cut, tone on tone stamping, water coloring over heat embossed image

While I was working on my squares, my daughters were making cards of their own using the Color Pop Fortune Teller. How fun was that! They absolutely couldn't resist playing along. And I was kinda scared to let them loose with all my craft supplies but they had a blast. Once they picked out their colors, they flipped through my binder of PTI card sketches to get them inspired and off they went searching through my stamp sets and dies.

This card was made by my daughter Sierra -

She selected Royal Velvet, Summer Sunrise, and Melon Berry with the Fortune Teller. She used Snowflake Flurries and the Swoosh die to make her card. Pretty cute right! So proud of her. 

Stay warm. Check out my post HERE featuring my daughter Sydney's card. 

Thanks for popping in. 

ColourQ, CAS(E), & Create With Us

Hi friends - 

Checking in with two colorful cards today. 

First one was inspired by one of Lizzie Jones' PTI release cards this month for the Create Along With Us challenge.  Her card featured colorful fun Peep-like bunnies. 

My card features a colorful row of ice cream cones from PTI Sweet As Can Be using the same colors Lizzie used. I split the panel and stamped the sentiment in the space. I used a Jennifer McGuire trick of using fun foam to lift the panel off the card base instead of strips of foam tape. I used fun foam in orange to compliment one of the ice cream cones. You may see the orange peeking out in the photo. Looks kinda whimsical in real life. 

Second card is inspired by both the ColourQ and CAS(E) This Sketch challenges this week. I blended the three different pinkish shades using a Dylusions Dyan Reaveley Stencil. Wet Paint sentiment is heat embossed in gold. 

Temps dropping in NJ this weekend! :( Stay warm! Thanks for popping in! 

Three for Tuesday

Hi friends! Lots of fun stuff going on with Papertrey's anniversary bash this week. 

My first card is for the clothing inspiration challenge from Day 2. I'm currently searching for a gown for a formal event I'm attending in a couple of months. Pinterest and online stores are a rabbit hole that's hard to climb out of. I was inspired to make a card by this dress from a favorite designer of mine - Monique Lhuillier. Of course, none of her dresses are within my budget but they are wonderful to look at! 

I used Stitches and Swirls in Hawaiian shores on Harvest Gold card stock to mimic the design of the dress. A few enamel dots topped it off. 

Second card here is for the Day 3 Grab and Craft challenge. Challenge was to make a card using items grabbed in 5 minutes. Surprising 5 minutes is long enough to be more methodically about what I picked. I grabbed my favorite go-to inks - Simply Chartreuse, Raspberry Fizz, Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores, Harvest Gold in black. I picked a stamp set from my NBUS bin - the SAF 2014 Joy set - as well as a a scrap piece of black paper and an Aqua Mist half sheet. 

Last card to share today is inspired by this week's CAS(E) This Sketch challenge. 

I used birthday candles for the 3 strips along with a large sentiment collage from PTI In The Bag. I also scattered some stars along the bottom of the cluster to coordinate the stars in the sentiment. 

That's it for me today. Now off to work on crunching some numbers for taxes....ugh. Hope you are having a great week. Thanks for stopping by!