Going CAS at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends and happy Wednesday!  Today starts a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog and this time we would like to see your CAS (or “clean and simple”) creations!  I hope you will hop on over to see the inspiration from the team and consider joining in the fun with us!

Here’s the DT creation that I’ve made for it:

Sometimes I feel that CAS can actually be even more difficult than regular cards and I struggle with thinking I’ve added too much or it doesn’t look right.  I think it’s more of me over-thinking something, though!

It was my son’s birthday yesterday and I thought this would be a great opportunity to make a card for him.  He’s a postal carrier, so I thought this cute owl from the Lawn Fawn Special Delivery would work great for this.  I started with the LF Stitched Cloud Backdrop and the LF Stitched Rectangle Frames dies to create the main focal panel.  I lightly blended some blue ink in a circle before adding the Copic colored postal owl popped up with foam.

Over some red cardstock, I white heat embossed the sentiment.  (I don’t remember which LF stamp set it came from)  I  die cut it with a banner die and popped it up over the cloud panel.  I also had an extra die cut heart lying on my table, so I thought it would be great to add with the owl.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  Hope you’ve enjoyed my CAS card and have been inspired to join us this month with your take on the challenge too!

Challenges:

  1. Country View – Birthday card for a man
  2. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  3. 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional: CAS
  4. Lawn Fawnatics – All things birthday
  5. Sunday Stamps – SSC304 sketchSSC304

*Vicki*27 Comments

Challenge Up Your Life with a RAINBOW!🌈

Hello friends!  I don’t know about you, but I’m so happy to see the month of May starting!  That means the flowers will be coming out along with the warmer weather!  It’s also a great time of the year to see a rainbow perhaps?!

#147_regenbogen_CUYL

Today I’m super excited to be joining the “Challenge Up Your Life” challenge blog as a guest designer!  I had previously won a Top 3 and a future guest design spot from a past challenge I had entered, so I’ll be joining them as a guest for April, May and June challenges!  Today their new monthly challenge for May is “RAINBOW“.  Hope you can share your lovely creations with us this month!  (Check out the challenge blog for details and inspiration!)

Here’s my guest design creation for this month’s challenge:

Nothing better than to look up into the sky and see a rainbow!  What’s also fun is to be able to create your own and especially on a card to send to someone to brighten their day!  I’ve used a previous card kit from Taylored Expressions that contained these products:  Make a Rainbow Stencils, Over the Rainbow clear stamp set, Rainbow Cloud Duo dies, and Over the Rainbow Sentiments clear stamp set to create this card.  I ink blended the different colors through the rainbow stencil and stamped the orange dots over the rainbow as well as a few hearts in light blue ink. The sentiment was also stamped with black ink over top of the rainbow.  I then die cut the one cloud twice from white cardstock and ink blended some light blue around the edges of it and popped it up with foam tape at the ends of the rainbow.

Then the card front panel was ran through the die machine using the Taylored Expressions Diagonal Stitch Rectangle dies (Which actually doesn’t cut anything out, but creates the lines.)  I layered it onto a piece of black to make the rainbow pop a bit more and then attached it to an A2 sized top folding TE Pineapple card base.  I also topped it off with a couple of TE Bits & Pieces-Full of Heart sequins. 

I knew the minute I went to create for this challenge that my zippered pouch from Taylored Expressions that has the “A Rainbow of Possibilities” sticker over it was what I was going to grab!  All of my rainbow things are in it!  Makes it easy to grab when you know everything is in there!

I hope you’ll stop over at the challenge blog and join with us to share your rainbow too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card or been inspired!  Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Sweet Stampin’ – Rainbows & Rainy Days
  2. Arty Divas – Anything Goes
  3. Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes
  4. Krafty Chicks – All Occasions (encouragement)
  5. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes

*Vicki*23 Comments

One Layer Challenge and More Riley Fun!

Hello friends!  Hope you’re having a great week so far!  I have a few cards to share with you today that I’ve made over the weekend having some fun.

Vicki-InkyStamper-FebCAS

I love the cute little grin this goat has! This goat along with all of the images used are from the same stamp set by Inky Stamper. This month, the Inky Stamper FB group challenged us to create a ONE-LAYER only card…not even ribbon/twine, etc could be used! I haven’t made one of these CAS or one-layer cards for quite some time, but I enjoyed the play with it.

So I’ve used masking paper to create this by stamping the goat over masking paper, stamping the goat over the front of the card and then placing the cut out masked goat to cover him up.  I then die cut a circle over another piece of masking paper and placed the left over piece on top of my card where I masked my goat image.  All that was left was the circle opening and this is where I ink blended the opening with distress inks.  I also stamped the small line of grass with green ink.

I took off the circle mask along with the goat mask.  I colored up the goat with Copic markers and then I stamped the triangle image from the same stamp set along with the sentiment.  I then added 3 black gems and colored the inside triangles with a glitter brush pen.  I also used my corner chomper to round the two bottom corners.

This last weekend there was another OOAK event and there was another fun card kit from Riley and Co.  I didn’t attend the entire event, but joined in to see what the new release was about while I was making my cards from the kit.  I’m pretty sure that there are no more of these kits left as they sold out of the first batch and had to make more.

The critters are so fun to color and I really loved these papers from the kit as they have me anxiously awaiting Spring to get here!  I’m bundled up, drinking hot liquids and trying to stay warm, but nothing beats a warm Spring day!😁

To get a better look at each one of these cards up close along with what’s going on for the insides, check out the gallery below.  If you’re directly on my blog website, you can click on each photo below to enlarge it:

The cat’s bugged out eyeballs is too funny! I’ve used foam tape to pop up his sign.
To continue with the cat sentiment on the outside, here’s what the inside part says! LOL
It may be hard to tell in the photo, but the sentiment is a window. Check out next photo to see the complete sentiment.
Full sentiment for giraffe card…here you can window.
This card opens along the side edge…check out next photo to see inside…
I sort of messed this one up as I should’ve placed the outward fold back a little more as the card doesn’t completely open and I didn’t have room for the sentiment…so this was changed later.

Just wanted to share my recent makes as I’m still trying to work at finishing up some Valentine cards along with getting going on the wedding invites.  Sure enjoy seeing the wonderful inspiration from everyone and hope that you’re all staying safe and warm friends!  Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges (Top Goat card ONLY):

  1. Challenge Up Your Life – Triangles
  2. Happy Little Stampers CAS – “Inky”
  3. CAS on Friday – Male
  4. Krafty Chicks – Stamp Act
  5. Just Add Ink – Minimalist 

*Vicki*25 Comments

Floral Watercolor Foiled Hello

Hello friends!

Here’s what I made for today:

Vicki-BMhop-Aug28ATG

I’ve been wanting to do some coloring… so I got out several of my Aqua Pigments and Watercolor Brushes and went to town with one of these floral panels!  What I love about these card panels is not only are they all gorgeous, but I love that the lines on the images are a bit raised as if embossed which helps with the watercolor process.

Vicki-BMhop-Aug28-panels

As you can see, I’ve only used half of my card panel cut diagonally on my card.  So after coloring up the panel, I thought it was a nice way to cut the panel in half and then still have another panel left over to create another card with later!    So there’s a tip for extended more life out of your card panels!

Vicki-BMhop-Aug28-ATG-close

Here’s a closer view of my watercolor and the pretty shimmer from the Aqua Pigments!  So as you can see, I also did some foiling!  I wasn’t sure if these panels would foil correctly or not, but as you can see only a portion of the image foiled.  I was fine with that as it still adds a pretty sparkle to my card.

I did take the “hello” die and cut that from cardstock and then added some glue over it with the Deco Foil adhesive pen and then foiled over it in my laminator with some Deco Foil Rose Gold Transfer Sheets.  Love the look of the foiling and how it turned out!

Vicki-BMhop-Aug28ATG-flat

For my card, I attached the watercolor cut panel over a piece of black cardstock that I also cut diagonally with the panel and then attached it over a piece of very heavyweight white cardstock.  Then I attached my foil die cut sentiment across the card and added some Acrylic Bubbles randomly over the card. I finished it with some Nuvo Dew Drop accents as well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today!  I appreciate you stopping by!

Challenges for my card:

  1.  Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Clean and Simple
  2. Allsorts – Feminine
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP1934 Anything Goes

*Vicki*22 Comments

Food and Drink at Cute Card Thursday!

Hello friends!  It’s time for a new Cute Card Thursday challenge!  This one may have a tendency to make you a little hungry as we are asking for your “Food and/or Drink” creations to add to the challenge gallery this week!  We really look forward to seeing what you come up with for it!

Here’s my take on the challenge:

Vicki-CCT552-NachoBday

LOL!  I can’t help but giggle at these silly puns and especially with the smiling faces on the food images too! 🙂  I just had to grab the Simon Says Stamp “I Chews You” card kit and I couldn’t wait to have a play with it!  Everything that I’ve used on my card including the paper all come from this card kit.

There were some pre-scored card bases, so I used one of those for my card base, then I took a strip of the colored stripes paper and a thin strip of the gold glitter paper included in the kit and glued it on at the bottom with the glue included in the kit.

I then stamped the images and colored them with my Copic markers.  I put the “salsa bowl” at the bottom so it looks like it’s setting on top of the colored stripes.  I added the speech bubble with the punny sentiment inside of it too.  I then added the sequins from the kit and then filled the centers with some Nuvo Crystal Drops for the centers.

Vicki-CCT552-NachoBday1

Here you can see a closer look at the coloring of the images.  I’ve also added some shimmer with a Spectrum Noir Clear Glitter Brush Pen over the “salsa” images.  I know that it shows it as “guacamole”, but I’m more of a “salsa” person myself and decided to go for that instead.  Hubby is not a guac fan either, but we love to eat Mexican food! 🙂

Thanks for joining me today!. What’s on your menu?!

Challenges:

  1.  Moving Along With the Times – For a Man
  2. Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes
  3. CASology – Menu
  4. Addicted to Stamps and More – Clean and Simple
  5. Watercooler Wednesday (WWC192) – Marsha’s Masculine Anything Goes

*Vicki*36 Comments

A Clean & Simple Cute Card

Hello again friends!  It’s Thursday and time for another Cute Card Thursday challenge!  Woot!  This week’s challenge is a Clean and Simple or CAS style theme!  I hope you can play along with us and share your CAS creations too!  We can’t wait to see what you come up with!  Here’s the card that I’ve made:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I have used our sponsor’s image for this week from Kinda Cute called Girl and Balloons digital stamp.  I wanted to use some soft colors for the balloons and I have used my Copic markers to color in the image.

I have also taken some distress ink and a cloud stencil to create the cloudy background behind her.  I’ve also added a stamped sentiment from my stash.  I cut the image panel down to size so that it fit inside the black stitched and scallop rectangle die cut and mounted it over top.  I used some foam tape and mounted this entire piece onto a white A2 sized top folding card base.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

In this photo you can better see the details with the Spectrum Noir Glitter brush pen as well as the hightlights I’ve made with a white gel pen in her cheeks and balloons.  I had fun coloring this cute image!  Hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

Please be sure to stop by the Cute Card Thursday challenge blog to see the challenge details, find inspiration from the rest of the team and to add your link to the challenge this week!  Hope to see your creation there!  Thanks for stopping in and see you again tomorrow!

challenges for this card:

  1.  Addicted to CAS – Girl Power
  2. Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes
  3. Daring Cardmakers – What a Wonderful World (inspired by the “I see skies of blue and clouds of white” lyric) – this song always inspires me to look on the brighter side of the world…great challenge, thank you!
  4. The House That Stamps Built (J2718) – Anything Goes

*Vicki*28 Comments