Happy Friday!

Hello friends! Happy Friday! Feels like its been a LONG week but I ended it with some crafty time so all is good.

First up is a card inspired by this week's ColourQ challenge. These colors are happy and bright so a birthday card was in order.

I used a Tim Holtz flower stencil and placed it on an angle on white cardstock and sponged the various ink colors onto the flower areas. I cut it off and added it to an Aqua Mist card base. Finishing touch was one of the  Everyday Happiness dies and sentiment. So bright and cheerful and perfect for my aunt's birthday. 

I've also been watching the videos in the Heat Wave online class this week. So many great projects but I'm finding the tips each teacher gives in the videos are so valuable. 

This first card was inspired by Kristina Werner's Basics video for an partially embossed one layer card. I used my favorite go-to PTI Snowflake Flurries set to form a sunburst border in Aqua Mist, Dark Chocolate, and Hawaiian Shores. I embossed in gold some smaller and partial sunbursts as well as the sentiment. Love the look of regular inked images with the gold embossing. Forgot all about this design trick until I saw Kristina's video and sample project (which I can't seem to link here) which is so gorgeous and CAS. 

And since I'm on an embossing roll, I made another card inspired by Kathy Racoosin's embossed resist lesson and Laurie Willison's PTI release gorgeous project below. 

Unfortunately I've been using a few sympathy cards lately so I made another one to add to my stash. 

I didn't have the Outline stamp set she used so I heat embossed the frame from PTI Fillable Frames Additions 2 in white on watercolor paper. I wanted them to overlap a little for a more organic look to the background. I feel like purples are appropriate for sympathy cards so I added water to smears of Royal Velvet, Winter Wisteria, and Amethyst Allure on my craft mat and painted over the embossed watercolor paper. I added a layer butterfly to the center like Laurie's pineapple but didn't have a small diecut sentiment to use so I stamped it in one of the frames and added rainstones in a diagonal from the sentiment to butterfly and up - kinda like Laurie did. But in hindsight it might have looked better if the sentiment and rainstones were in the same direction as the paintstrokes. Didn't really think of it until now. Oh well. 

OK, that's it for me. I've got to pack as I am headed out for the weekend to meet up with my sister and her family at an amusement park. Hope you have a great weekend and stay cool. Thanks for popping in. 

CASology #201 - SUNSHINE

Happy Tuesday friends!  

First things first, let me say WOW! and THANKS! to all the comments left on my blog for CASology's 200th anniversary celebration. Thanks for visiting and I hope you found some inspiration here on my blog and come back to visit! 

So for the winner of my blog candy.......

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

37

Timestamp: 2016-06-06 20:09:04 UTC

 

....is Marilyn! Congrats!

Marilyn, I'll try to get in touch with you via your blog but if you see this, please leave me your address in the comments. I'll delete it off as soon as I receive it.

So now onto this week's challenge. Its June and the heat has finally arrived in NJ. Along with the heat comes an appropriate cue word for the CASology challenge this week - SUNSHINE.

There are so many design options for this word.

For my card this week, I used one of my favorite sets, PTI Snowflake Flurries to stamp a row of suns images along the bottom. I love this set because the images are supposed to be snowflakes but they are so versatile I've used them for so many different things, most often suns. Suns stamped in PTI Bright Buttercup, Harvest Gold, Lemon Tart, and Summer Sunrise. I kept the card CAS by keeping the sentiment and images on the bottom half of the card. Sentiment from Mama Elephant. 

Check out what the rest of design team came up with - you are sure to be inspired! 

Ardyth Percy-Robb

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

Sponsor this week: Rubber Dance Art Stamps
and Guest Designer:  Diana

So hope you are inspired to create something related to SUNSHINE. Can't wait to see what you've come up with in the gallery! 

Thanks for popping in! 

PTI November 2015 Blog Hop

Its the 25th so its PTI Blog Hop day...but also means its exactly one month before Christmas! Yikes! 

The challenge photo for this month's Blog Hop is one of my favorites ever...it has my FAVORITE color combo (Simply Chartreuse, Hawaiian Shores, and Tropical Teal) and combines it with silver and white, and grey it seems which I am JUST seeing now for the first time. 

I was so inspired by this photo that I made four cards! First card uses Snowflake Flurries in the pretty color combo. I split the panel with the Sentiment Splits die and added in a sentiment from that set. 

Next two cards use the bold graphic stamp from Enclosed:Star. Same design, just different sentiment placement. I stamped it in the three colors and added a strip of silver card stock along the bottom to anchor the pyramids. I heat embossed the sentiment along the top of the pyramids. 

Hard to see the strip of silver along the bottom - better in this photo. Looks way cooler in person. 

This second one has the sentiment on the black banner. Lighting is a little dark...

 Think I like the one with the sentiment directly on the panel better.

Last one has a lot more color! I heat embossed butterflies from Life Is Beautiful in white along a panel and then sponged on Simple Chartreuse, Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores, and Tropical Teal to cover it giving it sort of an ombre look. I was trying to channel Laura Bassen's love of bold color with this one. 

Sentiment is heat embossed on white banner and I placed a white thread nest underneath. First time making a thread nest. 

Well that's it for me today. Thanks for visiting. Can't wait to see what everyone has made. 

And if you are celebrating tomorrow...Happy Thanksgiving!