Well hello there!  It’s time for a new month of challenges at CAS Colours & Sketches and we have a color challenge for you this week.

Today also happens to be my husband’s birthday.  Although this week’s color combination is rather valentine-ish, I decided to use it for his birthday card.  The only one of the challenge colors that I own in either ink or cardstock is Powder Pink, so I used close matches for the Gray Granite and Lovely Lipstick.  I opted to use Naturals White cardstock for the card base because the tiny flecks in it give more visual interest than plain white or ivory does.  I used Smoky Slate ink for the tree trunk, and I sponged some more of the ink along the bottom edge of the card to give more of a “ground” beneath the tree.  Instead of leaves, I stamped a tiny heart in Powder Pink and in Rose Red.  I prefer to use sentiment stamps that have the entire sentiment on one block, but this time I used a set that has different words that can be put together to make phrases.  So this sentiment actually came from four separate wood-mounted stamps and I used my trusty Stamp-a-ma-jig to line them up.  I still managed to get it a little wonky looking.  Oh well.

I’m entering this card into the current challenges at AAA Cards, The Paper Players, and The Male Room, too.

                               

Of course, just because we had Valentine’s Day in mind at CC&S, it doesn’t mean that you need to create a valentine card in order to participate in our challenge! Let your creativity take you wherever it wants to go. Just be sure to share your card with us at the challenge site before the linky tool closes at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, February 11. We’d love to have you join us! Thanks for stopping by today.

All supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up.
Stamps: Branch Out, Small Sayings, Fundamental Phrases
Cardstock: Naturals White
Ink: Smoky Slate, Rose Red, Powder Pink
Other: sponge

Hello!  Since January has five Tuesdays, that means it’s time for a double challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches!  This week we’re asking our challenge participants to combine the given colors with the given sketch.

I knew I wanted to create a wreath of some sort for the circular element of the sketch.  I have a couple of wreath dies and stamps but I felt they were too large to work proportionately with the sketch.  So after some thought, I decided to use some of my circular dies to create a die-cut wreath shape.  I opted for my dies with large scallops to give the wreath a little fancier look than just plain circles.  I punched flowers in the two purple colors to decorate the wreath and used enamel dots for their centers.  I inked up a tag stamp in the lighter purple and added the darker purple ink around the edges of it before stamping it on ivory cardstock.  I used my tag punch to cut it out and I also punched a tag from the darker purple cardstock.  I used some linen thread to tie the two tags together and attached them to the card with dimensional adhesive.

I’m still not quite liking the wreath.  I’m not sure what my hangup with it is.  Anyway, it’s a decent enough card.

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 card to our challenge post!  You have until 7:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, February 4 to share your card with us.  We’d love to see what you can do with our double challenge!

Supplies:
Stamp: Too Terrific Tags (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Pure Luxury Pure Ivory (Gina K. Designs); Wild Wasabi, Elegant Eggplant, Sweet Sugarplum (SU)
Ink: Elegant Eggplant, Sweet Sugarplum (SU)
Other: Big Scalloped Circles Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders); small tag punch, Spring Bouquet flower punch, Regals candy dots, linen thread, dimensionals (SU); eyelet (source unknown)

Hello there!  It’s time for the first color challenge of the year at CAS Colours & Sketches.  Our January hostess, Jeanne, has picked a really nice color combination and I’m looking forward to seeing what our challenge participants create with it!

Much of my state of Virginia received snow over the weekend, and several people in a Facebook group I’m in have been sharing their photos of cardinals in the wintry weather.  Those photos, along with the color challenge, sparked my idea of what I wanted to create for the challenge.

I cut a card base from blue cardstock (I don’t have Balmy Blue, so I used the closest retired Stampin’ Up color to it that I have).  The triptych tree die fits into the stitched rectangle die I used for the card front, so I was able to simultaneously cut them from a piece of lightly speckled cardstock.  Then I cut the triptych die again from Crumb Cake cardstock for my tree.  I stamped the bird on a scrap of cardstock and used a red marker to draw a crest on its head to make it look like a cardinal.  I decided to use red for the sentiment to bring some more of that color to the card.  I cut a scrap of shimmery white cardstock into a hill shape and attached it to the wrong side of the front panel so that it would show through the bottom triptych square.  Then I adhered the front panel into place on the card and carefully laid the triptych die pieces into place.  I had run the Crumb Cake cardstock through my Xyron machine before I die cut it so I didn’t have to try to fiddle with adding adhesive to the intricate tree branches.  Once that was done, I fussy cut the cardinal and glued him into place.

Be sure to check out the terrific cards the rest of the CC&S Design Team have made. Then make your own card with this color combination and share it with us at the CC&S site. You have until 6:00 p.m. Monday, January 21 to link your card. We’d love to have you join in the fun and creativity! Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up unless otherwise noted:
Stamps: Branch Out, Three Little Words
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Crumb Cake, Naturals White; Cryogen White (Curious Metallic)
Ink: Real Red
Other: Narrow Tree Triptych die (Poppystamps); Stitched Rectangle die (Lawn Fawn)

Hello!  Welcome to the start of a new year of challenges at CAS Colours & Sketches!  We’re back from our holiday break and ready to begin another year of fun clean and simple challenges! Since today is the second Tuesday of the month, we’re starting back up again with a sketch.

Even though the snow we had in December has melted and become just a memory, I couldn’t resist pulling out one of my favorite snowman stamps and using it for today’s card.  Except for the card base, I used only scraps of cardstock for this card!  Yay!  I used shimmery white for all of the white cardstock.  I colored the snowman with Copics and fussy cut him – and cutting around his arms and scarf reminded me why I usually use his matching die when I want to cut him out.  Oh well.  I used a swirly die to cut the swooping horizontal line element of the sketch twice and stacked them for extra dimension.  I debated using kraft cardstock for the base, but felt the white-on-white gave the card a more wintry feel. The sentiment comes from a different stamp set than the snowman.

Be sure to stop by the challenge blog and welcome our newest Design Team members, Holly and YoonYoung!  Then create your own card using this sketch, and link it to the challenge site by 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, January 14.  We’d love to have you join us!  Thanks for stopping by today.

Supplies:
Stamps: Be Jolly (Avery Elle); Warm Penguin (Lizzie Anne Designs for Gourmet Rubber Stamps)
Cardstock: Cryogen White (Curious Metallic); Soft Sky (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: markers (Copic); Swirly Scribbles die, dimensionals (SU)

Hello there!  It’s time for the last CAS Colours & Sketches challenge of 2018, and we’re closing the year out with another seasonal challenge.  This week we’d like for our participants to choose one of our sketch challenges from 2018 and make a festive card with it.

I didn’t reach too far back in the archives in choosing challenge #293 for my card.  I picked this sketch because I had this tree stamped on a piece of cardstock sitting on my desk for I’m not sure how long, and I decided it would fit well into this sketch after I fussy cut it.  Although the tree image is pretty symmetrical, I don’t consider it to be a geometric shape (such as a circle or diamond or square).  I had a scrap piece of designer paper that matched the green ink I’d used, and it also fit well into the sketch with just a little trimming.  I matted it with a scrap of dark rose cardstock since that seemed to match the designer paper better than a true red.  After I attached that to the card base, I added a festive sentiment.  I used dimensional adhesive to attach the tree to the card so it would have more actual and visual separation from the patterned background.  As fate would have it, I also had enamel dots in the rose color so I used them as ornaments to decorate the tree.

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CC&S sketch 302-001

sketch 293

We’d love to have you join in our challenge at CC&S!  Check out the Past Sketch Challenges tab, pick one of the sketches from 2018, and make a holiday card.  You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, December 17 to link your card at the challenge site.  Thanks for visiting today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Season of Joy, Endless Wishes (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Pure Luxury Ivory (Gina K. Designs); Rose Red (SU); scrap from Aspen Frost 6″ x 6″ paper pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: Pear Pizzazz (SU)
Other: enamel dots, dimensionals (SU)

Hello there!  We are getting into the holiday spirit at CAS Colours & Sketches this month!  Our color challenge this week is to take one of our CC&S color combinations from 2018 and make a seasonal card with it.

I decided to revisit challenge #258 since it had a green and a red that seemed Christmassy to me.  I had a brief thought of using the colors for a poinsettia but my plans for a coloring session got interrupted.  So I went back to the proverbial drawing board and figured I could rework a card I made in 2015 with the different color scheme.  The card came together pretty quickly once I got started with this layout.  A couple of small changes that I made for today’s card are that I cut the squares from a scrap of green cardstock, rather than die-cutting them, and I used dimensional adhesive to pop up the ornament over top the squares.

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CC&S color301-001

CC&S color258-001

Since it’s the time of year for holiday themed cards, I’m submitting this card for the current challenges at The Paper Players and Cards in Envy.

Which of our CC&S color combinations from 2018 will you use?  You can check all of them out on the CAS Colours & Sketches blog using the Past Colour Challenges tab.  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 10.  We’d love to see what you come up with!  Thanks for stopping by today.

All supplies for today’s card are from Stampin’ Up unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Delightful Decorations, Christmas Greetings
Cardstock: Berry Burst, Wild Wasabi, Powder Pink
Ink: Berry Burst
Other: rhinestone (Recollections)

Hello hello!  At CAS Colours & Sketches, we’re celebrating our challenge blog’s sixth birthday this week with challenge #300!  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.

I’m the challenge host at CC&S this month, and for this week, I’ve drawn up a sketch that incorporates our birthday celebration.  It features six shapes stretched along one of the long sides of the card.  Any shape can be used, and they can be different sizes, but they must all be the same shape – for instance, six hearts, six balloons, six squares, etc.

My original plan was to make a wintry card with six snowflakes, but after I noticed that a couple of the other design team members were using snowflakes on their cards, I opted to do something different.  My cardstock folders with the colors from last week’s challenge were still on my desk, so I used scraps from them to create little rectangular gift packages with ribbons.  I turned the sketch on its side so I could stack the boxes.  I cut a little gift bow shape from another scrap to decorate the present on the top of the stack.  Even though the colors suggested Christmas, I wanted another birthday card to add to my stockpile for Send a Smile 4 Kids – plus it ties into the CC&S birthday theme.  The card would have looked a little too plain if I’d put the packages directly on the card base, so I adhered them to a panel of textured cardstock, which is attached with a couple of cardstock shims beneath it to give some dimension to the card.

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sketch 300

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

https://uniko.co.uk/blog

Supplies:
Stamp: Birthday Greetings (Gina K. Designs)
Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler, Tranquil Tide, Mint Macaron (Stampin’ Up); Solar White, Solar White Classic Linen (Neenah)
Ink: Cherry Cobbler (SU)

Hello!  It’s the third Tuesday of the month, which means it’s color challenge time again at CAS Colours & Sketches.

The quickly approaching Christmas season was in the back of my mind last month, I think, when I chose the two shades of green with the rich, deep red for this challenge.   Oddly enough, LOL, as the challenge date grew nearer, I was more and more inclined to not make a Christmas or seasonal card with them.  I guess after using green and red for last week’s card, I wanted to show that today’s colors have enough versatility for something different.  The green and red together made me recall a card I’d made about six years ago, so I decided to try to rework it to use this week’s challenge colors.

There are a number of similarities between today’s card and the older one, but there are a lot of differences, too.  I’ve used the same stamps, plus a speech balloon stamp.  I created a slightly larger scene with the little toad, using a grass die to “ground” him on a faux stitched circle, but I used the same hexagon die as a mat for the circle.  I stamped the frog and the heart on cardstock and fussy cut them to make sure their coloring would match the background cardstock pieces.  Today’s card uses the current CAS(E) this Sketch! challenge for the layout.  I opted to give the long border elements of the sketch a faux stitched scalloped edge for a little extra visual interest against the plain white card base.

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CC&S color299-001

Now it’s your turn to create a clean and simple styled card using these colors, and share it with us at the CC&S site!  If you don’t have these exact colors, just use whatever you have that closely resembles them. You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 26 to link your card.  We hope you’ll join us!

Supplies:
Stamps: Critters Ever After, A Birdie Told Me (Lawn Fawn); Unfrogetable (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Tranquil Tide, Mint Macaron, Cherry Cobbler (SU); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: hexagon Nestabilities die (Spellbinders); grassy border, stitched circle, and stitched scalloped border dies (Lawn Fawn)

Hello!  It’s time for a sketch challenge again over at CAS Colours & Sketches.  The focus of this week’s sketch is scallops.  You’re welcome to change the format of the card from portrait to landscape (as I’ve done), or turn the sketch on its side, so long as you retain the scalloped edge stretching across the card and remember to keep your card clean and simple in design.

I chose a holiday theme for my card, sticking with a traditional Christmas color scheme.  I cut the white panel to size and die cut the scallops before heat embossing the word “Christmas” on it in silver.  I really wanted to use white textured cardstock for it, but I didn’t want to risk having stray embossing powder get stuck in the texture and making a real mess.  I finished the sentiment by heat embossing the word “greetings” near the bottom of a green card base.  After I attached the white panel to the card base, I added some red self-adhesive pearls.

CASCAS298

sketch 298

Be sure to check out what the rest of the CC&S Design Team has done with this sketch – they’ve made some amazing cards!  Then give it a try yourself.  You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 19 to link your card at the challenge site.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: All Occasion Sentiments #4 (Uniko)
Cardstock: Emerald Envy (Stampin’ Up); Pure Luxury White (Gina K. Designs)
Ink: silver (ColorBox)
Other: silver embossing powder (Ranger); Berry Red pearls (Queen & Co.)

Hello!  It’s time for a new month of challenges at CAS Colours & Sketches, and for November, I get to be your challenge hostess!  I hope you’ll enjoy the cards the design team and I make this month, and I hope you’ll join in and make some cards, too.

A new month always gets started off with a color challenge.  I chose a trio that I often see in our autumn days of November here in Virginia – a sky blue and the yellow and purplish-red of fallen leaves.  That’s the idea I tried to convey in my card for this challenge.  I stamped the leaves onto a scrap of watercolor paper.  Then I used a damp paintbrush to activate the ink inside the leaves, softening the lines of the veining and giving the leaves a watercolored look.  When it was fully dry, I trimmed the watercolor paper down to the length of the card and the width that I wanted.  After I cut the cardstock base to size, I lay the watercolor panel on it to determine where I wanted to place it, and then scored a line on each side of it just to give a little extra definition to it.  I added the sentiment and attached the panel to the card.  Really, it was a quite easy card to make.

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CC&S color297-001

I’m going to enter this into the “Give Thanks” theme challenge at The Paper Players.

Go check out the other design team members’ cards at the CAS Colours & Sketches blog.  They’ve done an amazing job this week!  Then show us what you’re inspired to create using these colors.  If you don’t have the exact Stampin’ Up colors, that’s all right; simply use whatever you have that matches them closely. You have until 6:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 12 to link your card at the challenge post.  Happy crafting!

Supplies:
Stamps: unnamed leaf stamps (StampCraft); Short & Sweet (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue (SU); The Langton Prestige Extra Smooth Hot Press watercolor paper (Daler-Rowney)
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, So Saffron (SU)
Other: paintbrush and water

Hello there!  October has five Tuesdays, so that means it’s Timeless Tuesday double challenge week at CAS Colours & SketchesKaren and I combined forces for creating this week’s challenge – she chose a previous CC&S sketch to use, and I picked some of Stampin’ Up’s retired colors to use with it.  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.

By the time I got started working on my card, some of the other CC&S design team members had already added theirs to this week’s challenge post.  I noticed they were trending toward a Christmas-y theme so I felt a pull to do something different.  My first instinct was to create a birthday card with balloons in the challenge colors.  While I was looking through my stamp sets, I rediscovered this cute elephant and thought I could have it holding the balloons.  When I started working with the stamps I thought that the size of the images would make the long vertical panel of the card too long, so I decided the elephant would hold pennant banners instead.  I wasn’t in a mood to color, so I stamped the images on cardstock and fussy cut them.  To give the elephant a little texture, I put a piece of gray cardstock through my crimper several times in different directions so that it loosened the fibers, and then carefully pulled it apart to reveal the fuzziness inside.  I stamped the elephant on each of the fuzzy sides of the cardstock so that I could have an “extra” head, which I layered with another piece of cardstock so that I could give the elephant some dimension.  I used the grass for the ribbon and bow element of the sketch.

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double 296

In the end, I think it’s a cute card that I can include in my next shipment to Send a Smile 4 Kids.

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 7:00 p.m. Eastern time Monday, November 5 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: Ellie (Avery Elle)
Cardstock: Midnight Muse, Raspberry Ripple, Gumball Green, Basic Gray (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: grass die (Lawn Fawn)

Hello there!  It’s time for a new color challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.  This week we’re giving a nod to Breast Cancer Awareness Month by using two shades of the pink that’s associated with that cause and pairing them with a neutral brown.

I tossed several different ideas for my card around in my head, but I kept going back to doing something floral.  Finally I settled on this floral vine image.  The vine and the blossoms are two different stamps, which made it easy for me to ink up the three challenge colors.  I thought the script of the sentiment stamp coordinated well with the flowy vine.  Tiny adhesive-backed pearls added to the centers of the flowers give a little extra finesse to the card.

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CC&S color294-001

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 22 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!

All supplies for this card are from Stampin’ Up.
Stamps: Just Vine, Short & Sweet
Cardstock: Soft Suede, Blushing Bride, Berry Burst, Very Vanilla
Ink: Soft Suede, Blushing Bride, Berry Burst
Other: pearls

Hi!  It’s sketch challenge time at CAS Colours & Sketches and this week we have one that gives lots of creative opportunity.

The “non-geometric shape” element of the sketch made me think for a while, pondering what I could use for that.  Finally I narrowed it down to a few of my animal stamps that I hadn’t used for a long time.  I have loads of designer papers and I wanted to use some for the rectangular element.  I found this scrap that had a greyish color that would work for kangaroos, and so I decided to use that stamp and I built the color scheme of my card from there.  I stamped the mama and baby kangaroo image on a scrap piece of white cardstock so I could color it and then fussy cut it.  I stocked up on Soft Sky cardstock before it was retired (it’s one of my all-time favorite colors) so I used that for the card base and matted the scrap of designer paper with green.  I used dimensional adhesive to attach the kangaroos to the card.

CASCAS293

sketch 293

If I’d thought about it before I put the card all together, I would have also stamped a few balloons for the mama kangaroo to hold, to give the card more of a birthday vibe.  Oh well.  It’s still a good card for Send a Smile 4 Kids.

Check out what the rest of the CC&S Design Team and our October guest designer have done with this sketch.  We’d love to see your take on it!  We hope you’ll make a card of your own and share it with us at the CC&S site by 6:00 p.m. Monday, October 15, 2018.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Critters Down Under (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Soft Sky, Old Olive, Fall Flowers designer paper (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: dimensionals (SU); markers (Copic)

Hi there!  It’s time for another challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.  For the month of October, several of the design team members are taking turns as host each week.  Since it’s the first Tuesday, we have a color challenge for you to consider.

I will admit that the colors had me stumped when I first saw them a few weeks ago.  I decided to browse around online to see if any of the current sketch challenges would provide a springboard for ideas.  The one at CAS(E) this Sketch! looked interesting, and after a little more thought I figured I could make clouds for the circular elements of the sketch and add some cute birdies.   I die cut the clouds and a tree branch so the birds could perch upon something.  I sponged a little bit of grey ink on the clouds to give them some definition.  The birdies were stamped on the remnants of the white cardstock from which I’d cut the clouds; after I colored them, I fussy cut them.  I drew the birds’ legs where I wanted them positioned and then glued the branch and the birds in place.  I added a cardstock shim behind both the birds for a little dimension.  Because of the way the birds and the branch are situated, it looked better to flip the sketch and use it in mirror image.  Since the birds fit in where the sketch notes a place for a sentiment, I’ve moved the wording for my card a bit further down.

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CC&S color292-001

 

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, October 8, 2018.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamps: Winter Sparrows (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Coastal Cabana, Early Espresso (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Smoky Slate (SU)
Other: markers (Copic); cloud dies (Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps); sponge

I managed to squeeze in some time today to get a card made for a couple of challenges.  I’ve combined the sketch from The Paper Players with the technique from Shopping Our Stash.

I started by die cutting a heart from white cardstock.  I dripped some pink and red inks onto a piece of acetate and pushed the heart into the puddles for the smooshing technique.  While the ink was drying, I cut a few more hearts so I could stack them all for dimension.  I decided to keep the card base very clean and simple by not embellishing the red cardstock for the top of the sketch, but I used shimmery white cardstock for the card base to give a subtle hint of something special.

PP411

Sweet and simple and pretty quick to make!  Don’t tell my husband, but he’ll be getting this card on our anniversary next week.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  Comments are always welcome and appreciated.

Supplies are from Stampin’ Up unless otherwise noted.
Stamp: Three Little Words
Cardstock: Real Red, Thick Whisper White, Shimmery White
Ink: Real Red
Other: Pink Pirouette, Real Red, Cherry Cobbler reinkers; heart die (Sizzix)

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