PH in VA

Hello!  It’s another Tuesday, which means it’s new challenge day at CAS Colours & Sketches!  This week we have a trio of colors for you to work with.

The colors initially spoke nature and flowers to me, and when I was starting to work on my card yesterday, I noticed that several of my CC&S design teammates had used floral images for their cards.  Then I felt like I wanted to go with something different to add some variety to the mix.  I saw that the AAA Challenge was to create a one layer card with an optional twist of including a polar animal.  Even though one layer cards are not my favorite (because there’s nowhere to hide any mistakes!) I decided I’d try combining the challenges.  Since I don’t own any ink or cardstock in the challenge colors, I knew I’d have to do some coloring with either markers or colored pencils in similar colors.  I hadn’t used this polar bear image for a while, but it’s a great image to color and it fit into the AAA challenge twist.  My original thought was to use all three colors on the scarf, but then I realized the blue would make a nice sky color for the background.  Using colored pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits means no color bleed through to the inside of the card (another reason why I shy away from one layer cards).  The sentiment comes from a different stamp set that I haven’t used in years.  I chose it because it filled out the space on the card better than any of the sentiments in the set with the image.  I rounded the bottom corner for two reasons – to give a little extra visual interest following the curve of the image, and to trim off a corner of the cardstock that had gotten slightly bent.

 

After browsing around some more challenge blogs, I believe this card also works for the current challenges at Less is More and Addicted to CAS.

                                                         

We’d love to see what you can create with this week’s colors! Share your card at the CC&S website by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, January 27.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Cozy Friends (Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps); Year Round Sentiments (Hero Arts)
Cardstock: Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Gamsol); corner rounder punch (EK Success)

As usual for me in January, I start out the year thinking that I’m going to join in more cardmaking challenges throughout the year like I used to, and then something happens that takes the proverbial wind out of my sails.  Oh well.  Anyway, here’s this year’s first attempt at this endeavor.

I’ve combined the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches with the color scheme provided by The Paper Players.  I felt like the tulip followed the lines of the mirror image of the sketch pretty well, and I stamped it using the colors from the color challenge.  Unfortunately, my Poppy Parade ink pad wasn’t as inky as I thought, and that’s the darkest I could get that color ink to work with just one impression from the stamp.  (I needed to get the card in the mail so I didn’t take the time to re-ink the ink pad or do multiple impressions with the stamp.)  It’s not one of my best cards but I really do like the sketch.

 

Thanks for stopping by today! Comments are always welcome and appreciated!

Edited on January 24, 2020 to add:  Thank you to Claire at The Paper Players for choosing my card as “A Cut Above”!  What an awesome surprise!

 

Supplies:
Stamps: Terrific Tulips (Stampin’ Up); Everyday Messages (Stampendous)
Cardstock: Pure Luxury Ivory (Gina K. Designs); Rich Razzleberry (SU)
Ink: Old Olive, Poppy Parade, Rich Razzleberry (SU)
Other: Custom Panels die (Avery Elle)

Hello there!  January seems to be flying by; it’s hard to believe the month is nearly half over!

It’s sketch challenge week at CAS Colours & Sketches, and we have a nice little one for you this time.  The scrap of designer paper I used for one of the rectangular elements determined the color scheme for my card.  This little koala makes me smile every time I use this stamp set!  The hat and present come from a different stamp set.  I stamped them onto a scrap of white cardstock, colored them, fussy cut them, and glued them into place.

What will you do with this sketch?  I hope you’ll try out something and share what you create with us! Link your work to the CAS Colours & Sketches blog by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, January 20.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Party Koala, Party Animal (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler, Season of Style designer series paper (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: markers (Copic)

Hello!  The design team from CAS Colours & Sketches is back from holiday break and ready to begin another year of fun clean and simple challenges!

We’re starting off 2020 with a color scheme for you to consider when designing your card.  I’ve decided to fast-forward to Easter and used that for the theme of my card.  Even though I don’t typically send Easter cards, I know some people do, and I like to send a few to Send a Smile 4 Kids.  I’ve stamped a little scene following the current sketch challenge going on at AAA Cards.  The tulips are stamped directly on the card base.  I stamped the eggs and bunny on scrap pieces of cardstock and fussy cut them.  The eggs are glued directly onto the card base, but the bunny is popped up with dimensional adhesive.  The images were colored with colored pencils blended with Gamsol.  I like that this coloring method doesn’t bleed into the cardstock, so it’s good for coloring directly onto the card base.  I rounded the bottom corners of the card to give the card a little extra interest that ties in with the shape of the eggs.

Be sure to stop by the challenge blog and welcome our newest Design Team members, Julie and Shannon!  Then create your own card using these colors, and link it to the challenge site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, January 13.  We’d love to have you join us!  Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies:
Stamps: Happy Easter (Lawn Fawn); Lucky You (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Gamsol); corner rounder punch (Stampin’ Up)

Hello there!  We’re getting into the holiday spirit at CAS Colours & Sketches this week and closing out the year with a festive challenge.  This week we’d like for you to choose one of our challenges from 2019 and make a seasonal card with it.  You can pick from our color challenges, our sketch challenges, or our double challenges.  Or, if you want to kick things up a notch, you could combine one of our sketch challenges with one of our color challenges and come up with your own double challenge!

The card I’ve made combines two of our recent challenges.  I actually had this idea in mind for sketch challenge #347, but wasn’t able to pull it all together before that challenge went live.  I’ve turned the sketch on its side and used the colors from challenge #350 to create a holiday card.  The glittery gold star didn’t seem like enough gold at first and I was very tempted to add some brads as ornaments on the tree.  But I decided to keep things simple and leave them off.

Which of our CC&S challenges from 2019 will you use?  You can check all of them out on the CAS Colours & Sketches blog using the tabs below our blog header.  Be sure to see what the rest of the design team has made, too!  Then link your card to the challenge site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, December 16.  We’d love to see what you come up with!  Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies:
Stamps: Season of Joy, More Merry Messages (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Solar White (Neenah); Cherry Cobbler (SU)
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Emerald Envy, Chocolate Chip (SU)
Other: diamond nesting die (Dies Direct); gold star brad (Recollections)

CAS Colours & Sketches #350!

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Dec 032019

Hello hello!  At CAS Colours & Sketches, we’re celebrating our challenge blog’s 7th birthday this week with challenge #350!  To thank our challenge participants for helping us to reach this milestone, some of our CC&S Design Team members are offering up prizes from stamp companies Concord & 9th, My Favorite Things, Picket Fence Studios, Unity Stamp Company, and Waffle Flower to five lucky players in this week’s challenge.  You won’t want to miss out on this event!  All the details are at the challenge site.

Our challenge this week features some festive colors.  To be honest, I chose them with the thought that it would be easy for the team and our participants to use them for holiday cards.  If you check out the design team’s cards, you’ll see that’s exactly what happened!  🙂  For my card, I used a die to cut star-shaped ornaments from cardstock in the three challenge colors.  The die I chose created lots of little parts, which made it easy to make multiple cards using the frames from the gold stars and the little pieces of deep red and green to fill in the design.  Some of the pieces were pretty tiny so I opted not to fill those back in.  I think the white left there provides some nice contrast and adds to the clean and simple look.  It doesn’t really show in the photo, but I used shimmery white cardstock for the focal panel and the card base, which gives the card a nice hint of sparkle in real life.  A gold die-cut sentiment finishes off the card.

A big hug of appreciation goes out to all of my CC&S Design Team members and our challenge participants for making our blog such a wonderful gathering place for fun and creativity!  The rest of the team and I would love to see what you can create with this week’s colors, and to have you join in celebrating with us!  Share your card at the CC&S website by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, December 9.  We hope you’ll continue to join in our challenges!  Thanks for stopping by here today.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Shimmery White, Gold Foil, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green (Stampin’ Up)
Dies: Crystal Ornaments (Poppystamps); Word Set 3 – Holiday (Karen Burniston)

Hello, and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American visitors!  As usual on Tuesdays, there’s a new challenge being presented at CAS Colours & Sketches.  This week it’s a sketch challenge.

In my head, I tossed around a few different ideas for the shapes behind the rectangular area, but I kept being drawn to leaves.  I guess I was feeling that I hadn’t made many cards for the fall season.  I picked out three different colors of cardstock that I thought were suitable for fall leaves and die cut three differently shaped leaves from them.  I arranged them onto the card base and glued them into place.  I stamped a simple sentiment on a scrap of the same cardstock I used for the card base and attached that over the leaves with dimensional adhesive.  Even though the card came together pretty quickly and easily, I don’t feel it’s one of my better ones.  I probably should’ve sponged some ink, or made watercolor washes and cut the leaves from them, to give a little more character and depth to the leaves.  Oh well.  It’s definitely not the worst of my cards!

What will you create with this sketch?  Share your work with us at the CAS Colours & Sketches site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, December 2.  Be sure to check out what the other design team members have made, too!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Happy Happy Happy (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Naturals Ivory, Dusty Durango, Marigold Morning, Riding Hood Red (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Dusty Durango (SU)
Other: Stitched Leaves dies (LF); dimensionals (SU)

Wow!  November is flying by and it’s already time for our second color challenge of the month at CAS Colours & Sketches.

It was hard NOT to think of flowers for this week’s color combination.  I toyed with a slightly different idea but wasn’t sure I could pull it off, so I ended up choosing a floral stamp set I hadn’t used in a while.  The layered parts of the flower made it easy to incorporate all the challenge colors.  To get the two shades of green on the stem, I stamped off the solid image once, and used the full-strength ink for the details.  I couldn’t decide on a sentiment so I opted to just not use one.  The card front still seemed a little plain, so I pulled out some ribbon to embellish the card.  I don’t often use ribbon on my cards, but I think I’ve still kept this one simple enough to qualify it as CAS in style.  Even though the ribbon has a different color name than the ink, I thought the two matched well enough to use them together. Having the panel offset to one corner gives the card a little additional visual interest.

I’m going to go ahead and enter this card into the current challenge at AAA Cards, where they are asking for CAS cards with just one image.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you’ll share your own card with the CC&S challenge colors by linking it to the CC&S site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 25.

All supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up:
Stamps: Lotus Blossom
Cardstock: Blushing Bride, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White
Ink: Blushing Bride, Rich Razzleberry, Pear Pizzazz
Other: Certainly Celery satin ribbon

CAS Colours & Sketches #347

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Nov 122019

Hello there!  It’s sketch challenge week at CAS Colours & Sketches.  Normally we don’t mind when our participants take a few liberties with our sketches, so long as the sketch elements can still be easily identified; however, this week we hope that the angular shape is retained in the challenge submissions.

I felt like I wanted to make some sort of little scene in the diamond shape.  I had a few extra backgrounds from when I made my family’s Christmas cards a few years ago, so I decided to use one of them.  I die cut it into the diamond shape and added some shimmery paint “snowflakes”.  (Or maybe they are stars in the sky.  I haven’t decided.)  I die cut a little scene of trees and snowy ground from another piece of cardstock and glued it into place once the shimmery paint had dried.  The card base is made of the same shimmery white cardstock used for all the other card elements.  After stamping a simple sentiment and attaching the diamond panel to the card front, the card was done.

What will you create with this sketch? Share your work with us at the CAS Colours & Sketches site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 18. Be sure to check out what the other design team members have made, too! Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamp: Holiday Baubles (Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps)
Cardstock: Cryogen White (Curious Metallic)
Ink: Pacific Point (Stampin’ Up)
Other: gel sticks (Faber Castell); diamond nesting die (Dies Direct); Wide Open Spaces die (Memory Box); Frost White shimmer ink (Tsukineko)

Hello!  It’s time for a new month of challenges at CAS Colours & SketchesKaren and I are sharing hosting duties during November.  I hope you’ll enjoy the cards the design team and I make, and I hope you’ll join in and make some cards, too.

A new month always gets started off with a color challenge, and I’ve chosen the colors for this week.  I don’t remember exactly what I had in mind when I picked them, but I ended up pulling out a butterfly die to use with them.  The die cuts the curvy line and the butterflies all together, so I put it through my die cutting machine three times, once for each color.  Then I fussy cut the red and yellow butterflies so I could glue them into place over top the lavender one.  The die doesn’t cut wide enough to stretch across an A2 card base, so I also die cut a panel the width of the die.  I wanted to give the focal panel more definition from the card base, so I put a scrap piece of cardstock behind it to act as a shim and raise it up just a bit.  (OK, I’ll admit that by “scrap piece of cardstock” I mean my first attempt at the focal panel, where the sentiment stamp wiggled on me and made the letters look really shaky and yucky.  Ooops.)  After I stamped the sentiment, I added a few tiny pearl embellishments for the butterflies’ bodies, and called the card done.  Very clean and simple!

As always with our color challenges, you may substitute any companies’ products for the Stampin’ Up colors, so long as you match the colors as closely as possible.  I’ve done that myself this week, substituting retired colors of SU cardstock and ink for the heather and mango colors.

I’m going to enter this card into challenge #152 at AAA Cards.  I don’t think the butterflies will qualify for the geometric twist, but I do think the white space on this card is pretty well maximized.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you’ll make a card with these colors and share it with us at CC&S. You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 11 to link your card at the challenge site.

Supplies:
Stamp: So Much to Say (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White, Lavender Lace, Poppy Parade, Marigold Morning (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Lavender Lace (SU)
Other: pearls (SU); Happy Butterfly Sash die (Poppystamps); Stitched Rectangle die (Lawn Fawn)

Hello there!  October has five Tuesdays, so that means it’s Timeless Tuesday double challenge week at CAS Colours & SketchesKaren and I worked together to come up with this week’s challenge – she chose some of Stampin’ Up’s retired colors, and I picked a previous CC&S sketch to use with them.  Although we use Stampin’ Up color names for reference, you may use any companies’ products to make your card, so long as you match the colors closely.  You’re also welcome to turn the sketch on its side or flip it mirror-image.

The colors seemed to suggest “winter” to me, so I pulled out my favorite snowman stamp and colored his hat and scarf using two of the colors.  I added some snowflakes around him in the third color.  I used the matching color cardstocks for the card base and the sketch elements.  I die cut a snowflake from the darker blue cardstock for the circular element and covered it with some Wink of Stella pen to give it sparkle.  When I attached it to the banner element, something about it just didn’t look right to me, so I die cut a smaller snowflake from shimmery white cardstock and attached it on top of the blue one.  That looked better, but I felt it was still missing something, so I topped it off with a rhinestone in the center.  That did the trick!

Be sure to check out what the rest of the CC&S Design Team has made.  Then get your craft on and link your own clean and simple styled card to our challenge post!  You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 4 to share your card with us.  We’d love to see what you can do with our double challenge!  Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies:
Stamps: Be Jolly (Avery Elle); Merry Messages (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Sweet Sugarplum, Bashful Blue, Dapper Denim, Shimmery White (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Bashful Blue (SU)
Other: markers (Copic); Wink of Stella pen (Zig); Stitched Snowflakes dies (Lawn Fawn); rhinestone (SU)

Hello there!  It’s the fourth Tuesday of the month, which means we have a new sketch challenge to present to you today at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I took a little liberty with the sketch by using a scalloped, cloud-like die to cut a curved edge, rather than a smooth curved edge as shown on the sketch.  This played into the images I decided to use for my card.  The angel and the cloud are two separate stamps from the same set.  I stamped the cloud directly onto the white panel.  I stamped the angel onto a scrap of cardstock, colored him, and then fussy cut him.  I added some Wink of Stella pen to his wings to give them some sparkle.  While I waited for that to dry, I cut a couple of shims out of scrap cardstock to put behind the angel, to give him a little bit of dimension over the cloud.  I’m not sure how well that shows in the photo because I was concentrating on trying to capture the shimmer on the wings.

What will you do with this sketch?  I hope you’ll try out something and share what you create with us!  Link your work to the CAS Colours & Sketches blog by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, October 28.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Love from Above (Mama Elephant)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: markers (Copic); Landscape Trio dies (Mama Elephant); Wink of Stella pen (Zig)

Hello there!  It’s time for a new color challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I decided to create a little scene on my card.  For each color, I pressed the ink pad onto an acrylic block and spritzed the ink with water; then I painted a wash of color onto the cardstock (the red, bright blue, and grey were done on scraps; the pale blue was done on a card front).  I stamped the balloons and the elephant onto their respective colors after the washes dried.  When the pale blue was dry, I masked off a small area at the bottom of it and dabbed red and blue ink into the area to create a ground for the elephant.  Then I fussy cut the elephant and balloons, positioned them into place so I knew where to draw in the balloon strings, and then glued everything to the card front.  Finally I attached the card front to a pale blue card base.  I opted not to put a sentiment on the card.  I’ll be donating it to Send a Smile 4 Kids, and I figured without a sentiment, it could be used for a wider variety of occasions.

I kept the current AAA Cards challenge in the back of my head while I was figuring out the layout for my scene.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you’ll join us over at CAS Colours & Sketches with your own take on these colors!  You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, October 21 to link your card at the challenge website.  Also, we’re looking to add some new members to our design team, so if this is something you’re interested in, be sure to add the letters “DT” to your name when you link your card, and play along in next week’s sketch challenge, too!

Supplies:
Stamps: Ellie, Storybook (Avery Elle)
Cardstock: Pool Party (SU); watercolor paper (Artist’s Loft)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Pacific Point, Pool Party, Real Red, Smoky Slate (Stampin’ Up)
Other: multiliner pen (Copic)

CAS Colours & Sketches #342

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Oct 092019

Hello!  After taking off for a couple of weeks, I’m trying to get back in the crafting groove again by combining this week’s CAS Colours & Sketches sketch challenge with last week’s CC&S color challenge.  I’ve turned the sketch on its side.  Otherwise the card is pretty straightforward, so I’ll just skip the chitchat and share the card:

I hope you’ll check out what the rest of the design team and our October guest designer have made with this sketch, and then make a card of your own with it.  You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. time Monday, October 14 to share your card on the challenge site.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Party Koala, Party Animal (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Mint Macaron (Stampin’ Up); Pure Luxury White (Gina K. Designs)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: markers (Copic)

Hello there!  It’s color challenge week again at CAS Colours & Sketches.  I’m looking forward to seeing what our challenge participants create with it!

I have to confess that it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to use these colors.  That’s partly because I don’t own two of them and knew I’d have to make substitutes for them.  Then when it finally got to crunch time, I had about 3 ideas pop up in my head all about the same time.  I decided to go with the one that seemed quickest to make.

My initial thought with the tree was to cut the trunk and branches from the brownish color in the challenge trio, but when I was gathering my cardstock together, I thought it would look too orange-y for tree bark.  I opted to go with a true brown for that instead, and use the challenge color for leaves.  That’s where I ran into another small problem.  When I bought this set of dies, I wasn’t thinking about it being a winter themed set, which meant there were no leaf dies included in it.  However, there are several bird dies in it.  I decided I’d just cut a number of birds in the orangey and yellow challenge colors and trim off the heads and tails and that would look like leaves.  It was kinda fiddly work, but I think it turned out all right, if you overlook the fact that my leaves are nearly the same size as the one bird I cut from the blueish color.  I did have the silly thought that my dreams may now become haunted by decapitated birds…  Let’s just hope not.   Even with the blue bird and the blue sentiment, I felt like there wasn’t quite enough of that color represented on my card, so before I adhered everything down, I splattered a bit of the blueish ink near the top of the card.  I haven’t decided if the splatters are supposed to be raindrops, or just specks of color.

Be sure to check out what the rest of the design team has made.  Then link your own card at the challenge site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, September 23.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: none
Cardstock: Pure Luxury Ivory (Gina K. Designs); Chocolate Chip, Dusty Durango, Island Indigo, So Saffron (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Island Indigo (SU)
Other: Winter Trees dies (Penny Black)

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