CAS(E) This Sketch: Age is Just a Number..

Hey,

I decided that I had to do a second post today, because the minute I saw the sketch for CAS(E) This Sketch, I knew I had to play along!

I used the long edge of the card for my version of the sketch, so my card would be landscape, as the stamp I wanted to use is rather long.

The number stamp us by Hero Arts w/Studio Calico from their 'Please Note' set and I only bought it because I had to have this number stamp, however the rest of it has been used!

I coloured my stamp using Copic markers in rainbow order - it's SO pretty, I don't know how I'm going to part with it..

I added a sentiment from the Concord & 9th 'Happy Day' set. To match the sketch, I stamped another '3' on some yellow cardstock and fussy cut it and popped it up. However, you can't really tell I did that in my main photo (sigh) so here is a close-up for you.

I also added a few enamel dots in coordinating colours as a final touch.

I love this super quick and easy make, I love sketches, so inspirational.

Cx

CAS(e) This Sketch: Cheers...

Hey,

So I was really happy to have made the favourite's list over at CAS(e) This Sketch last week.

I was going to play along with this week's sketch anyway, but then the sketch featured a hexagon (swoon).

For some reason I LOVE hexagon's, I have no idea why, I just do.

So I broke out my fave Spellbinders nesting hexagon die set and went to work :)

I had an idea, as the 'Cheers' die by Winnie & Walter, was sitting on my desk. So I die-cut two hexagons in black and purple cardstock and die-cut the cheers out of a scrap of Lawn Fawn plaid paper.

I bought the Waffle Flower 'Currently Drinking' set on a whim 2 years ago, as I thought it would be handy and honestly it is one of the most used things in my craftroom.

I used x3 of the stamps from the set to create a little background on my purple hexagon.

I affixed the black one to the card blank and popped up the purple one and the cheers.

To finish it off I added some adhesive green pearls.

Fun card, suitable I think for both men and women.

Cx

CAS(e) This Sketch: Happy Birthday..

Hey,

It's been a while since I played along with CAS(e) this Sketch.

This week's sketch immediately sparked an idea -

I had the Simon Says Stamp 'Brush Stroke Messages' set out on my desk and I thought one of the brushstrokes would work really well.

I stamped the smallest brush stroke in x5 colours of Dew Drop ink - these and Altenew are my fave inks.

I masked off part of one of the sentiments from the set to stamp 'birthday' and then added the Happy die-cut - the die is also by Simon Says Stamp.

Super quick and easy card to make.

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch: You're so fancy...

Hey,

Happy Saturday.

As I am back in the boot and on crutches, my ability to get around NYC is limited. Giving me ample time to play with a challenge or two..

I liked the current sketch over at CAS(E)ThisSketch -

I thought it would work perfectly with a sticker from a new Project Life pack that I just bought and a Unicorn. Because.. is there anything fancier than a Unicorn?

Super simple card to make and I love how pretty it is.

The Unicorn is by Ellen Hutson and is from the 'Unicorns & Rainbows' set. I coloured and die-cut the Unicorn and popped it up with foam tape, so it would sit at the same height as the sticker.

Fun right?!

Cx

CAS(E) this sketch: Sparkle!..

Hey,

Happy Sunday to you!

Hope you are having a nice weekend.

I am very happy as we got bonus football yesterday.

Having been away from my desk for over 10 days, I thought it would be nice to play along with a challenge or two to ease me back in.

I loved the sketch over at CAS(E) this sketch -

It immediately sparked an idea.

As you know JT and I do a Black Friday $20 challenge.. well many years later we are over the $20 tag and spend whatever we want (within reason) but we still add some 'rules' this year it was stars, stripes, fancy brand and florals.

JT bought me this awesome set by Sizzix and I thought it would be perfect for this sketch.

I started by die-cutting the white panel using a stitched rectangle die and then I added strips of glittery washi tape. I stamped the stars from the set using Dew Drop Galaxy Gold ink (my fave gold ink) and then I added a little stitched border - from an ancient Bo Bunny set.

Sadly, the top left stars haven't photographed that well...but that is always the downside of gold ink!

I stamped the main sentiment from the set onto black card using embossing ink and then dusted gold Pearl Ex over it (my new obsession) and then die-cut it out, using the die that comes with the set.

I LOVE IT!!! It was such a random thought it my head that actually came out perfectly. Yay!

Cx

CAS(E) this Sketch - Colour Pop Birthday..

Hey,

Happy Friday!!

Hubby and I are leaving for Vegas tonight - WHOOP!! And then we are off all of next week, partly in Vegas and partly at home celebrating Thanksgiving.

I loved the sketch over at CAS(E) this Sketch this week -

So before the NFL last night I had a quick play with it,

The minute I saw the sketch I knew I wanted to use the Avery Elle 'Brushed' set to create the two 'stripes'. I stamped all three brushstrokes from the set in navy blue ink.

I embossed the non-stamped part using a new Becky Higgins folder and then I die-cut the whole panel using a stitched rectangle die.

I found a random square of navy polka dot paper, so die-cut a circle from it and because I wanted the sentiment to pop, I die-cut it in red.  The rest of the sentiment is by MFT from their 'Label Maker Love' set.

A super quick and easy card, love, love, love this sketch and how my card came out.

Have a great weekend, bar a couple of scheduled posts, you probably won't hear from me until after Thanksgiving!

Cx

CAS(E) this sketch...Birthday Tweetings..

Hey,

Happy Friday!

I have to say I am pretty glad this work week is over..it has been HARD!!

Now that the nerve in my neck is slowly getting back to normal (big thanks to Dr Fanto and my amazing trainer Wendell), I thought I'd play along with a challenge for the first time in ages.

CAS(E) This Sketch is a fave of mine and I love the versatility of this week's sketch -

I was really inspired by the sketch and decided to use my newest MFT set 'Mod Birds' alongside a super old doily stamp by Bo Bunny.

I love the Mod Birds set, the stamps are so pretty. He looks lovely mounted over the blue doily.

I added a simple sentiment by Reverse Confetti and a little bit of bling and BOOM! finished card.

Have a great weekend. I'll be doing some friend stuff, some gym stuff, some desk time, packing for Vegas and watching NFL with Hubby.

Cx

CAS(E) this Sketch: Oceans of Fun...

Hey,

Happy Monday to you...

I am obviously super excitable this week, as it is my birthday on Friday and I LOVE birthdays, especially ones that fall on a Friday. I'm going to be 45 and to be honest I'm a bit in shock, where did the last like 20 years go?!

Anyway, last Friday night I had a little playdate with myself as I wanted to play with some of the NBUS I have recently acquired.

I am a big fan of CAS(E) This Sketch and this week's sketch is to die for..

So much possibility.

I decided to create blended masked stripes. I used Distress Oxides (from top to bottom - Tumbled Glass, Broken China and Faded Jeans). I love to mask off stripes, they are so easy and you get such a great look.

I chose the blue tones, because I wanted to use my new Jillibean Soup/Hampton Arts 'Whale Done' set. I have been wanting this set for ages and I finally saw it on sale at my fave Etsy shop. I LOVE the Jellyfish so pretty..can't wait to heat emboss him.

I stamped him over the stripes and added a sentiment from the set.

I think this is going to get used as a birthday card and I might even crank out a few more!!

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch 285: Have a Monster Birthday...

Hey,

Happy Sunday.

Because of my epic night out on Friday yesterday was a bit of a nothing day!

Today I am back at my desk, but still a teeny bit slow.

I needed inspiration and went looking for a challenge and I liked the sketch over at CAS(E) this sketch this week -

Nice and straightforward for my slow brain today.

I decided to break out a set of stitched rounded rectangle dies for the shapes - I don't use these as much as I used to, as I lost the most useful size of the die between my desk and the expedit and trust me that is WAY too much work to recover that..

I stamped the Monster from the Neat & Tangled 'Little Monster' set onto white card and die-cut it out. I decided I didn't want to hide him completely and so used vellum for the central panel.

I heat embossed half of the sentiment onto the vellum panel (by Snarky Stamps).

I love the giant 'monster' word stamp and die from the set - I totally overuse it..

I am super pleased at how my card came out and I LOL when I showed it to my Hubby he said 'obviously the first thing you make is a Monster card..'

My love of Monsters is renowned..

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch: Kinda Gross..

Hey,

So BIG day in my house / family today. My Godson Ben arrives for a 5 day visit - he is 16 and this was our 16th birthday gift to him. It's a big deal, first long haul flight (ALONE) and first time in the US..I am taking a half day today to get him from the airport and then we have 2 days off together and then we fly back to London on Monday.

The CAS(E) this Sketch, sketch is super fun this week. So easy, you could make a bejillion versions of it.

I decided it was time to break out the hilarious 'Kinda Gross' stamp by Impression Obsession..

I added heart stamps by Clearly Besotted and coloured them using spectrum noir sparkle pens.

See! Simple..

I love this card, I was totally cracking myself up as I was making it, which will amuse JT no doubt..as I am always laughing at my own jokes!

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch: Girl Boss...

Hey,

So I have had this Girl Boss stamp set sitting on my desk forever..

And I haven't really known what to do with it..until I saw this week's CAS(E) This Sketch -

I thought some of the elements would work really well here and I feel vindicated as I LOVE my final card..

It was one of those super quick makes, I put the shoe, tote, sunnies onto stamp blocks and broke out my fave black ink for using with blocks (Stampin' Up's Basic Black) and stamped away.

I left a little space for the 'Girl Boss', which I decided worked best in purple.

Affix the white panel to the purple card blank and voila! finished card.

So happy with this and the fact that I finally used this stamp set. It also makes the perfect leaving card for my boss!

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch: A little extra puff...

Hey,

When I saw the latest CAS(E) This Sketch over the weekend, I instantly had an idea.

I thought it would be fun to use the Puffer Fish and sentiment from my newest Avery Elle set 'Sea-prise'.

Instead of using the teeny tiny fish stamp that came with the set, I decided to play off of the sentiment and create a 'sea' of candles. The candle stamp is by Newton's Nook

I'm super pleased with the end result, it fits the CAS brief and it's also a lot of fun and I love how the candles do look like a 'sea'.

Love it when a plan works!

Cx

Double Challenge: You are so Awesome...

Hey,

Happy Monday.

I was lucky enough to get an honourable mention for two of my cards over at CAS(E) This Sketch and The Paper Players.

How awesome is that?

I was going to play along with both challenges anyway and then JT's card inspired me by combining them.

This week The Paper Players have a colour challenge for us -

And here is the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch -

I needed to make a leaving card for a friend and colleague and thought this would be a great way to nail that project!

I rotated the sketch, as I thought it would work better for the idea I had in mind. I've had the Neat & Tangled 'Awesome' set on my desk all weekend, I've been itching to use it!

I pulled out papers from my stash that matched the colours for Paper Players, I thought I'd use a spotty piece for a bit of interest.

The awesome die matches the set from Neat & Tangled and I totally over use it!

I love the simple, bright and cheerful end result and I think the (rather picky) recipient will love it too.

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch: Miss that face...

Hey,

It's going to be a challenge fueled week for me!!

As I was away over the weekend, I made up for lost time on Sunday and got my challenge ON!!!

Today I am playing along with CAS(E) This Sketch -

I really like the simplicity of the sketch.. so many possibilities.

I pulled out a couple of super old sets to use - the stitching is by Bo Bunny and the loopy border is by American Crafts. Both are from 2013. I decided to break up the 3 lines with the cute kitty from the Impression Obsession 'Planner Pals' set.

I wanted to send this card to a friend and that is how I ended up choosing my sentiment, this is a firm fave by Hero Arts.

Question is do I have 4 lines and not 3, as per the sketch?..maybe...

Cx

CAS(E) this sketch: You are my favourite person..

Hey,

Happy Easter to you and welcome to April.

I loved the current sketch over at CAS(E) this Sketch.

I thought it would be fun to break out a new to me set by Mama Elephant (Sticky Notes), that I bought second hand.

First I stamped the background using my fave Penny Black 'Dots in Space' stamp.

I die-cut the panel using a SSS stitched rectangle die and also die-cut a blue panel too. Then I used a MFT chevron die to cut away part of the blue panel, leaving me with the nice zig zag you can see, but with the same stitching as the white panel.

I stamped the 'notecard' from the Mama Elephant set and added the 'Just a Note' sentiment also from the set. The rest of the sentiment is by Pink Fresh Studio (So Sweet).

I added a blue panel behind the notecard and drew some lines on it, to match the notecard.

I am hoping that my card is not too busy and does count as CAS..but no matter, I love it and it's already in an envelope on it's way to a friend.

Cx

Playdate challenge Flamingo's....

Hey,

Happy Monday,

So JT and I had a fun Skype playdate yesterday and she said she was intrigued by the sketch over at CAS(E) this sketch -

I loved the sketch, but I was concerned about the matching up..so after closer inspection of the DT cards, I came up with a way to cheat ;)

I also had an idea that struck me as either genius or plain weird..involving Flamingo's.

I stamped the Lawn Fawn Flamingo's onto a white piece of watercolour cardstock, but I had marked where I was planning on die-cutting the rectangle (cheat), so I knew how to stamp the Flamingo's and which ones to colour (distress ink in Picked Raspberry and aquabrush).

I die-cut the main panel and then the centre rectangle, affixed the main panel to the card blank and then using pop-dots added the centre rectangle - super clever cheat, will be using again.

The sentiment makes no sense to anyone else but my friend and her posse who live in California..

Weird, pink and wonderful..I think all playdates should involve Flamingo's.

Cx

Make 5..Umichka Challenge..Card Five..the final one.

Hey,

Happy Monday

Sadly, this is the final card for the 'Make 5 CASometry Challenge' over at Anna / Umichka's blog.

You have to use the same stamp set for each of your cards and keep the cards CAS. You can see my previous cards here, here, here and here - phew!

The rules for the final card are slightly different..

You still have to use your chosen stamp set, but you have to CASE a card on this Pinterest board - very cool idea.

I chose this card by Lindsay at Occasional Crafting as my case -

I really love the simplicity of it and thought my set would work well here..

To refresh your memories, this is the stamp set I am working with -

It's from the October 2015 SSS stamp kit.

I used the big heart, the thanks sentiment and the little hearts for my card.

The polaroid frame die is by Kaisercraft and I used it with a piece of scrap American Crafts paper. I affixed the frame to my card blank and placed the large heart into position, so I could stamp the little hearts in the right places.

The sequins are by Lucy Abrams..love her sequins..

I loved making this card, so sweet and always fun to use sequins.

I have kept all of the cards and will be giving them to someone as a little gift at the end of the challenge.

This was such a fun thing to do, helping me to stretch a stamp set and reminding myself that I don't need millions of things (even though I want them) to make pretty things..

It's also a perfect fit for this week's CAS(E) this sketch..perfect..as it's already a CASE..lol..

Cx

CAS(E) This Sketch #177...

Hey,

So just like JT, I was intrigued by this week's CAS(E) This Sketch -

I really love JT's version of it, so fun and bright.

I didn't initially love the stamp set in the latest SSS cardkit, but when I saw this sketch I had an aha moment :)

I used two of the stamps from the set for the leafy border and coloured the leaves using Shabby Shutters distress ink and an aquabrush. I stamped and die-cut a new flower set I found in my fave cheap art/bookstore in London and coloured that using Fossilized Amber and Squeezed Lemonade distress inks and an aquabrush.

I heat embossed the sentiment to make it stand out more and used random stamps and bling to add a bit of interest around the leaves.

Again a great sketch that I had a lot of fun with and also made me like something I was a bit meh about.

Cx

CASE this Sketch...Cheeky Monkey...

Hey,

I am in London, hanging with my family.

I saw this weeks great sketch over at CASE this Sketch #176....

Seriously I couldn't resist.

It also seemed like the perfect time to break out the Monkey stamp named after me...

Ha ha, I don't think the designers at Waffle Flower know me, so this is all a co-incidence, but there is never anything named after me and spelt correctly, so I am pleased.

I coloured my namesake using Promarkers and fussy cut her out. The spotty paper, pink paper and white paper for the sentiment are all scraps.

The friend die is by Mama Elephant and I thought it worked perfectly here.

A really simple make, that I really like, again another keeper sketch from the CTS team.

Cx

Case This Sketch....You are the sweetest..

Hey,

Super excited today, this afternoon I am off to do a Dina Wakely class..whoop whoop

I saw the Case This Sketch on someone's blog earlier this week and thought it was made for me..

I had the first set of 'Apple of my eye' stamps by Clearly Besotted, but I recently realised that they do a die for the apples and there is version 2 of the set...

So out came my wallet LOL.

I used a mixture of apples from the sets, I die-cut the apple shape first and then stamped, I find this works better for me with smallish things.

I mounted the centre apple with some foam tape and stamped the sentiment from the first set in two places (it is one long sentiment stamp).

Obviously I couldn't resist adding a little bit of bling :)

I loved the sketch so much I made another one -

I used Kaisercraft tape pieces stamps, Happy is by Simon Says Stamp, Birthday is by Crate Paper and the blue enamel dots are by Papermania.

I think this sketch and I are going to be best friends.

Cx