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CAS Colours & Sketches #400!

Dec 082020

Hello hello! At CAS Colours & Sketches, we’re celebrating our challenge blog’s 400th challenge this week! To thank our challenge participants for helping us to reach this milestone, we’re offering up a prize from Uniko to one lucky player in this week’s challenge. You won’t want to miss out on this event! All the details are at the challenge site.

We’re also getting into the holiday spirit by asking our challenge participants to choose any CC&S challenge from 2020 and turn it into a seasonal card. I ended up using the mirror image of sketch challenge #381. To get the variegated lighter shade of green for the leaves on the wreath, I inked up the stamp and then pressed a paper towel against the ink, to lift some of the ink off the stamp. Then I stamped onto the cardstock.

We’d 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 14, 2020. We hope you’ll continue to join in our challenges. Thank you to our fantastic sponsor for this week, Uniko!

I’m joining in the challenges at AAA Cards and The Paper Players with today’s card, too!

All supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up:
Stamps: Wondrous Wreath, Short & Sweet
Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler, Thick Whisper White
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Cherry Cobbler
Other: Wonderful Wreath Framelits dies

CAS Colours & Sketches #399

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Dec 012020

Wow! It’s the first day of December! It’s also Tuesday, which means it’s challenge introduction day at CAS Colours & Sketches. We’re starting off the month with a color challenge that’s a lighter nod to the traditional Christmas colors of red and green, with a dash of metallic silver.

I knew I wanted to use my favorite Christmas tree image, so then I had to figure out a layout for my card. The current challenge at CAS(E) this Sketch! looked like it would work. I did stretch the height of the focal panel and background panel a little to accommodate my tree image and the sentiment. I used a combination of silver brads and pink enamel dots to decorate the tree. The subtle houndstooth patterned paper was a great match to the challenge pink. I realize it doesn’t show in the photo, but the card base is linen textured cardstock. The shiny silver strip made getting a good picture more challenging than I expected, but in the end, I think it all turned out all right.

The CC&S team would 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, December 7. Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Season of Joy (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Solar White, Solar White Classic Linen (Neenah); silver foil (SU); patterned paper from Holly Jolly Christmas 6″ x 6″ paper pad (Echo Park)
Ink: Mint Macaron (SU)
Other: enamel dots (SU); star brad (The Paper Studio); mini brads (Recollections)

CAS Colours & Sketches #394

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Oct 272020

Hello there! After a break for a couple weeks, I’m back at it again with this week’s sketch challenge from CAS Colours & Sketches. This is a nice little sketch that can be interpreted in various ways, since any shape can be used for the nine background shapes – so you could use nine stars, nine diamonds, nine leaves, or nine of whatever other shape you like. I’m looking forward to seeing what our challenge participants do with it!

Once I figured out what I wanted to do for my card, it came together pretty easily and quickly. I decided to use hearts for my shape. I cut them from red textured cardstock (which, unfortunately, looks kind of orange in my photo, and it’s hard to see the texture). I cut the word “love” from black cardstock three times and stacked the die cuts together for some dimension. The stitched rectangle die adds a little extra interest to the kraft panel.

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, November 2. Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Real Red Core’dinations (Stampin’ Up)
Other: Hearts, Scripty Love, Stitched Rectangle dies (Lawn Fawn)

CAS Colours & Sketches #391

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Oct 062020

Hello there! This week’s challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches features some bright, cheery colors.

For today’s card, I originally was thinking I’d probably do something with abstract flowers. As I was browsing through my folder of white cardstock, I found this piece that had already been cut with a scalloped die. Then my thought wheels started turning in a different direction. I decided instead to make the sentiment the focus of the card, using a combination of alphabet stamps and sentiment stamps. The open outline letters allowed me to color them in an ombre manner with the challenge colors. I chose to use the middle tone of the challenge trio for the card base.

And there you have it. What ideas do you have for these colors? We’d love to see you share your CAS styled card with them at the CC&S site! You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. time Monday, October 12 to link your card at the challenge site. Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Happy Happy Happy, Quinn’s ABCs (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Pure Luxury White (Gina K. Designs); Melon Mambo (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: markers (Copic); Edgelits Large Scallop die (SU)

CAS Colours & Sketches #388

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Sep 152020

Hello there! 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 that should start helping you think about autumn. Of course, if you live in the southern hemisphere, you’re probably thinking about spring about now, so we hope you’ll show us a springtime way to use them. As always, if you don’t own the exact colors named in the graphic, just use whatever product you have that closely matches them.

I wasn’t in the mood for coloring an image, so I opted to use some dies to create a little scene on my card. The challenge colors made it pretty easy to decide which to use for the tree trunk, the leaves, and a couple of cardinals. After I die cut the bare tree, I laid it on the card front to figure out where I wanted to position it. I didn’t want to fiddle with cutting and gluing a bunch of leaves, so I used a gel stick in a color that seemed to match the challenge yellow and blended it out to add some color for the “leaves”. I cut the male cardinal from cherry cardstock and the female cardinal from the same brown as the tree, adding a little cherry ink to her to make her look more realistic. Offsetting the card front on the mat and the card base allows a little extra color to show. I think the cardinal pair and the sentiment I picked will make this a decent enough anniversary card to give to my husband next month.

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, September 21. Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamp: Picture Perfect (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Baked Brown Sugar, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla (SU)
Ink: Cherry Cobbler (SU)
Other: Winter Trees dies (Penny Black); gel stick (Faber Castell)

CAS Colours & Sketches #387

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Sep 082020

Hello! Today starts sketch challenge week at CAS Colours & Sketches and YoonYoung has drawn up a very nice clean and simple one for us!

When I first saw the sketch, I thought it would make a good opportunity to use some designer paper. I have a huge variety of papers to choose from, so to narrow it down, I took a look at some of my other favorite challenge blogs and saw that The Paper Players is having a theme challenge to create masculine birthday cards. I picked an argyle print from, I must admit, one of my very oldest packs of designer paper. I knew this pattern would allow for a sentiment to still be easily read. The difficult thing about using this pattern is making sure to line it up so that it’s centered on the card front, but after some careful measuring, I think I’ve accomplished that. I also took the liberty of turning the sketch 180° so that the wider rectangular portion is at the top of the card, and I let the sentiment straddle the line dividing the two parts of the sketch.

So, there you have it! 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, September 14. 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: Barely Banana, Spring Flowers designer paper (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Chocolate Chip (SU)

CAS Colours & Sketches #385

3 Responses »

Aug 252020

Well hi there! It’s sketch week again at CAS Colours & Sketches. I think this one can be interpreted in multiple ways, and I’m looking forward to seeing how our challenge participants use it!

I decided to rotate the sketch 90° to the left and have the banner element go horizontally across my card. I chose my trusty scripty “hello” die for the focal point of my banner, and gave it a rainbow striped background that I created by blending gel sticks on shimmery white paper. Since the middle rainbow stripe was yellow, I picked that color for the main card panel.

I hope you’ll go see what the rest of the CC&S design team and our August guest designer have done with this sketch. Then make a card of your own and share it with us by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, August 31. Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: none
Cardstock: Basic Black, Yoyo Yellow (Stampin’ Up); Cryogen White (Curious Metallic)
Ink: none
Other: Simply Said Hello die (Avery Elle); gel sticks (Faber Castell)

CAS Colours & Sketches #383

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Aug 112020

Hello there! We have a sketch challenge opening up today at CAS Colours & Sketches.

I took a bit of liberty with the sketch by flipping it mirror image and by changing the shapes from octagons to hexagons and enlarging one of them. I originally planned to use die-cut hexagons but for some reason that didn’t seem CAS enough to me. So I used the cardstock from which I’d cut them as stencils and brushed ink into place on the main card panel. I glued the die-cut snowflakes over the stenciled hexagons. The larger snowflake was die-cut twice and stacked for a little more dimension. I wasn’t sure what sentiment I wanted to use so I decided to just leave one off. I might add one later, but really there’s no reason the card *needs* one. The card still seemed a little plain, so I went digging through my embellishments and found a half-pearl in just the right color and size to adorn the largest snowflake.

Supplies:
Stamps: none
Cardstock: Soft Sky (Stampin’ Up); Curious White (Cryogen)
Ink: Soft Sky (SU)
Other: Stitched Snowflakes dies (Lawn Fawn); hexagon Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders); half pearl (Basic Grey)

CAS Colours & Sketches #382

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Aug 042020

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

When I first saw that several of my fellow design team members had used flowers on their cards for this challenge, I tried thinking of other ways to use the colors. But I just couldn’t get flowers out of my head, especially after seeing that the current challenge at Less is More calls for using flowers. So I decided to combine that theme challenge with the “along the edge” layout challenge at AAA Cards and our CC&S colors. I chose one of my older Stampin’ Up sets for the flower image. It’s actually a two-part stamp where the blossoms and foliage are two separate stamps, which makes it easy to use multiple colors for the image. Confession time – for a long time I thought this image was of a gladiolus, and just a couple of years ago I realized it’s probably supposed to be a hollyhock. Ooops. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen real hollyhocks, but my mom had gladioli in her flower border, so I guess my mind tricked me into thinking it was what I was familiar with. Anyway… I used very narrow strips of cardstock in two of the challenge colors along the edge of the card to give it a little extra color, and stamped the sentiment in the same color as the card base. I don’t have any actual Terracotta Tile cardstock or ink, so I used what I had that seemed like the closest match. And here’s the final product:

How will you use these colors? Be sure to check out the CC&S blog to see what the rest of the design team and our August guest designer have made. Once you’ve made your own card, be sure to link it at the challenge post by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, August 10. We’d love to have you join us! Thanks for stopping by today.

All supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up.
Stamps: Spring Garden, Trendy Trees
Cardstock: Garden Green, Cajun Craze, Blushing Bride, Whisper White
Ink: Garden Green, Blushing Bride
Other: Really Rust marker

CAS Colours & Sketches #377

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Jun 302020

Hello hello! It’s Timeless Tuesday at CAS Colours and Sketches, where we have a double challenge for you! This week we’d like you to create a card using the provided color palette and sketch.

I’m the challenge host this week. I have to confess that one reason I chose these colors was because they are based on an old pack of designer paper that I do like, but haven’t managed to completely use yet. Another reason is that I thought that even though these are retired Stampin’ Up colors, there are current colors that are quite similar to these and can be substituted easily.

I actually started out thinking I’d use a floral patterned paper for my card, but I ended up changing my mind at the last minute. I turned the sketch on its side for my card. The sentiment is made of three stamps put together – “happy”, “birthday”, and “to you”. I used markers to color in the stripes on the “happy”. The sentiment is popped up from the background with dimensional adhesive. I decided on the green for the card base to help keep the card more gender neutral, since I don’t know yet who its recipient is going to be.

Be sure to go see what the rest of the CC&S Design Team has made for this challenge! Then create a card of your own and share it with us via the linky tool on the CC&S site. You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, July 6 to link your card. We hope you’ll join in the fun and creativity! Thanks for stopping by today.

All supplies except the stamps are from Stampin’ Up.
Stamps: Happy Happy Happy (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Certainly Celery, striped paper from Petal Patch designer series paper
Ink: Close to Cocoa
Other: Certainly Celery, Blush Blossom, and Bashful Blue markers, dimensionals

CAS Colours & Sketches #376

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Jun 232020

Hello! Today starts sketch challenge week at CAS Colours & Sketches and YoonYoung has drawn up a very nice clean and simple one for us!

When I first saw the sketch, I pictured an opportunity to weave strips of cardstock or patterned paper for the horizontal and vertical blocks. I’ve tried weaving cardstock strips in the past and knew that the thickness of cardstock can be hard to manipulate sometimes. So when it came to actually sitting down and making today’s card, time and patience wore me down to using just two strips of designer paper for each block to accomplish the woven look. A white card base seemed to contrast too starkly with the designer papers, so I chose cardstock that complemented the colors in the patterns. I’ve flipped the sketch mirror image just to give a little variety in the design team’s cards for the sketch.

Be sure to check out the terrific cards the rest of the CC&S Design Team have made. Then make your own card following the sketch and share it with us at the CC&S site. You have until 6:00 p.m. Monday, June 29 to link your card. We’d love to have you join in the fun and creativity! Thanks for stopping by today.

All supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up unless otherwise noted:
Stamp: Cake & Candles (Avery Elle)
Cardstock: River Rock, scraps from Porcelain Prints designer series paper
Ink: Blue Bayou

CAS Colours & Sketches #374

3 Responses »

Jun 092020

Hi! It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for a new challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. This week we have a sketch challenge for you.

I’ve turned the sketch on its side and used die-cut balloons for the circular shapes. The balloon on the right has a couple of scrap cardstock shims behind it to give it a little dimension. The sentiment panel is attached with dimensional adhesive to give it some definition from the card base. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the card base is linen textured.

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, June 15. Be sure to check out what the other design team members have made, too! Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Happy Everything (Stampin’ Up); Happy Happy Happy (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Solar White Linen, Solar White (Neenah); Basic Black, scraps from Watercolor Wonder designer series paper (SU)
Ink: Crushed Curry (SU)
Other: Party Balloons dies (Lawn Fawn)

CAS Colours & Sketches #373

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Jun 022020

Well hello there! We’re starting a new month of challenges at CAS Colours & Sketches today, and with it, the design team is doing something a little bit different. Instead of having one team member being the hostess for the entire month, we have five team members each hosting one challenge this month, and the other four members will each host a challenge in July.

As always, the challenge for the first week of the month is a color challenge. I’ll admit it took me a little while to settle on what kind of design to use with these week’s colors. In the end I figured one can pretty much never go wrong with florals. The green in the challenge combo worked perfectly for the stems and leaves, and the light aqua made some pretty blossoms. The kraft cardstock is a nice neutral to ground the elements together. In retrospect I probably should have had the stems extend off the base of the card so they’re not “floating” so much, but it’s too late now – the card is in the mail to its recipient already!

This card works into the top row of the current Tic-Tac-Toe challenge at The Paper Players. OK, maybe it’s not THE most girly card, but it’s definitely more feminine than masculine! I’m also going to use this card to join in the celebration at AAA Cards. Happy 6th birthday to their challenge!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you’ll make a card with these challenge colors and share it with us at CC&S. You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. time Monday, June 8 to link your card at the challenge site.

Supplies:
Stamps: Painted Petals (Stampin’ Up); Birthday Greetings (Gina K. Designs)
Cardstock: Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla (SU)
Ink: Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz, Crumb Cake (SU)

CAS Colours & Sketches #369

1 Response »

May 052020

Hello! This week’s color challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches is a little different, but I hope you’ll give it a try!

I’ll admit the colors had me stumped for a good while. That was probably at least partly because I don’t own any of these actual colors, so I knew I’d have to figure out which colors I do own that are closest to the challenge colors. Finally I thought I’d try to use them as a background for a large sentiment. I found an old background block stamp and inked it up, using the lavender color toward the middle of the block, with the reddish-brown color surrounding it, and then the dark teal just on the edges of the stamp. Then I held the stamp under the mist from a water bottle before stamping it onto white cardstock. When I picked the stamp up off the cardstock, I learned that over the years, the edges of the stamp have curved in just enough that they barely made an impression on the cardstock. Ooops. But I decided to go along with it anyway. I die cut the word “happy” from the coordinating teal cardstock, attached it to the card front, and stamped the word “birthday” below it. It still seemed a little too blah so I used a stitched rectangle die to trim the excess cardstock from around the image, and then matted that with the teal cardstock before attaching it to a white card base.

It’s not one of my favorite cards. It doesn’t have as much white space as I think a clean and simple card should have. But it isn’t really a “bad” card. I may try going back to the proverbial drawing board and give these colors another go with some different idea.

How will you use these colors? Be sure to check out the CC&S blog to see what the rest of the design team and our May guest designer have made. Once you’ve made your own card, be sure to link it at the challenge post by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, May 11. We’d love to have you join us! Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies:
Stamps: So Much to Say (Lawn Fawn); Large Straight-Edge Rectangle (Hero Arts)
Cardstock: Solar White (Neenah); Not Quite Navy (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Not Quite Navy, Dusty Durango, Almost Amethyst (SU)
Other: Simply Said Happy die (Avery Elle); Stitched Rectangle die (Lawn Fawn)

CAS Colours & Sketches #368

2 Responses »

Apr 282020

It’s the last Tuesday in April, which means it’s the last week for a while that I’ll be hosting the challenges at CAS Colours & Sketches. I’ve enjoyed seeing what our challenge participants have done with the ideas I came up with for our April challenges. This week there’s a sketch to follow.

I’ve turned the sketch clockwise on its side to create a vertically formatted card. I chose designer paper with flowers that coordinated pretty well with the stamp image I wanted to use, and picked a few scraps of solid color cardstock that went with the colors in the designer paper. After I stamped the image on the solid green cardstock, I decided I’d add a little textural interest by attaching a Prima flower over the petals of the stamped flower. I didn’t have a Prima in the right shade of red, so I colored an ivory one with Copic markers. Then that looked too bold by itself, so I added a smaller ivory one on top of it, and secured the two in place with a tiny brad. I used dimensional adhesive to attach the stamped panel to the card. When I had the card all assembled, I felt there wasn’t quite enough visual definition between the stamped panel and the designer paper, but I knew that trying to take it apart to add a mat to the stamped panel would destroy it. Instead, I carefully used a dark brown marker in the same color as the inked image to edge the stamped panel. That tiny bit of brown helped a lot more than I expected, and allowed me to call the card finished.

Supplies:
Stamp: For a Friend (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Pure Luxury Ivory (Gina K. Designs); Riding Hood Red and Pistachio Pudding (SU); scrap from Phoebe 6″ x 6″ paper pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: Early Espresso (SU)
Other: flowers (Prima); brad (Recollections); markers (Copic); dimensionals and Early Espresso marker (SU)

Older Entries Newer Entries

CAS Colours & Sketches #400!

CAS Colours & Sketches #399

CAS Colours & Sketches #394

CAS Colours & Sketches #391

CAS Colours & Sketches #388

CAS Colours & Sketches #387

CAS Colours & Sketches #385

CAS Colours & Sketches #383

CAS Colours & Sketches #382

CAS Colours & Sketches #377

CAS Colours & Sketches #376

CAS Colours & Sketches #374

CAS Colours & Sketches #373

CAS Colours & Sketches #369

CAS Colours & Sketches #368

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Really great links

Really great shopping

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