CTC 347: CASE A Mini Catalogue Bundle

 Hi!

Hello, and welcome back to my blog for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. Do you enjoy CASEing projects from the catalogues? Then we are the Challenge for you!

This week we are asking you to CASE your favourite Mini Catalogue Bundle. Hmm, that's tricky to narrow down!! I ended up choosing this card, made with the Sweet Stockings bundle.

Somehow, my card ended up looking nothing like the original!!

I had big plans to stamp three of the cocktails from Nothing's Better Than on the largest of the tags, but they didn't quite fit. I decided to go with one cocktail on each of the second largest tags - which are from the Tailor Made Tags Dies.

I used Polished Pink as my feature colour. The word 'Cocktails' was cropped from a piece of PP card with some Foam Adhesive Sheet attached to the back for a lovely bit of dimension for the card. The DSP is from the Expressions In Ink pack.

I couldn't resist adding another pink cocktail to the inside, with a sentiment from Sweet Ice Cream.

That's all from me for tonight. We'd love to know which bundle from the Mini Catalogue is your favourite. Just CASE a card made using it and post a photo in our Facebook group before next Sunday evening. It's that easy!

Before you go, though, please do finish our Blog Hop. The next stop along with way is my good friend, Judy May. You won't want to miss her gorgeous card!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 583: Just Add A Sketch

Hi! 

Hooray for Friday! It's been a long week in my household, as Hudson has been home sick with a cold. During the week Alex also got sick, so I'm pretty much expecting that all of us will come down with the bug. Not fun when the warmer, summery weather is just starting! The upside of staying home and cancelling appointments is more crafting time. Yay!

This week Kim has designed this fun Sketch for our Just Add Ink challenge. I do love a good sketch, and I knew the exact stamp set from my stash that would be perfect for the layout. It's called A Fox's Life, from the Colorado Craft Company.

Isn't it gorgeous???? If the artwork seems a little familiar, the artist, Anita Jeram, is also the illustrator of the Guess How Much I Love You books.

I stamped the image twice on watercolour paper, and then used the coordinating A Fox's Life Dies to crop one version. The other I watercoloured roughly as the background, starting with the moon. The rest of the sky uses Night Of Navy ink, I just faded out the colour as I got closer to the moon. A bit of Shimmer Paint flicked over to top to give the illusion of stars finished off the front.

You can see that I popped up the cropped section of the scene over the top of the background. I carefully coloured around the edge of the die cut, as I did not want a white halo surrounding the popped up section. This way it still gives dimension, but looks more natural.

I stamped the same image in Balmy Blue ink on the inside of my card. The inside sentiment is from Timeless Tulips, as the font is a pretty close match to the one used in the Fox's Life stamp set. A very happy coincidence!

That's all from me for tonight, but your job is just beginning! After you've checked out all the Design Team cards, you can get creating on your card. Once you've finished, just link it up over on the Just Add Ink blog. You must link it there to be in the running.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Merry Merlot

 Hi!

Hello, and thanks for joining the Colour Creations Blog Hop once again. This week is our third-last hop for the year, before we pick up again in January. We are featuring Merry Merlot this week, a rich burgundy colour. It's not one I use a lot, probably because my high school uniforms were burgundy. Do you have a bias against your school colours? I've heard that it's quite common!

I googled a little bit for inspiration, and found a Forever Fern card by Debra Burgin, of Heartfelt Inkspiration. I liked how she's stamped the one image all over her background, so that's where I started. I found the colour a bit too strong, so I decided to tone it down with a layer of vellum. Both layers were die cut with the largest Stitched Rectangles Die and adhered to my card front.

I played with the Stitched Rectangles again to create the frame for my card. To keep them in place, I glued both to a slightly smaller piece of Whisper White cardstock. This also helps to prevent the popped-up panel from sagging, so double win!

I've used the off-cut from the front of the card to frame my writing panel on the inside. It's good to repurpose a piece that would usually get thrown away.

In hind sight, this card probably would have worked better as a Sympathy card, but I think it's still fine as a birthday card. What do you think? 

That's all from me for tonight, but please do continue your way around our blog hop. The next cab off the rank is my lovely friend, Rachel Palmieri. She's certain to have a ripper of a card for your viewing delight!

If you run into trouble with missing or broken links, please jump on over to Catherine Proctor's blog. She's the super-organised and super-wonderful host of the Colour Creations Hops.

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas: Week 22

 Hi!

Well, here we are at the twenty-second, and final, Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop for 2021. I hope that you've managed to join us for most, or even all, of the hops. It's been a fabulous round with plenty of Christmas inspiration each week. I'm a little sad that this is the last one for 2021, but at the same time I'm glad to have one less commitment as we move into December.

As always, I have used a Sheetload Of Cards template for my cards this week. It's from November 2021, however I have simplified it a bit by removing one layer. The red strip was divided by another layer, but I felt that my card was busy enough that another layer would be a bit OTT. The template showed a loop of twine/thread under the sentiment banner, but I chose to use one of the Wonderful Snowflakes instead.

The DSP I have used is my favourite Heartwarming Hugs, and my two favourite sheets of paper. I will miss this paper when it goes. The sentiments are from Words Of Cheer.

Here's my group of cards, ready to add to my stash. Speaking of which, I was asked last week where I'm up to with that. Here's a look!

The cards on the left and the back half of the right are all my Sheetload cards - there's 84 in total, as for one week of the Hops I ran out of time and only made a single card. The front half of the right box has 19 cards, so a grand total of 103. I have four half-finished cards on my desk that may end up finished, or perhaps they will wait for next year's stash. Either way I'm set, except for the writing and addressing part!

For one last time in 2021, please do continue your way around our Hop by jumping on over to Caroline Manwaring's blog. 

Before you go, I want to take the opportunity to say thanks to all the ladies who have hopped along with Sharon, Rachel and I as we organised this year's series of the Heart Of Christmas Blog Hops. It's been wonderful to see everyone's gorgeous cards, and read the supportive comments that everyone has left along the way. And thank you, also, to those of you that have hopped along with us every week. I hope you've found plenty of inspiration.

I am the lucky last Host for this year's Hops, so please pop back here if you run into any issues. The full list of Hoppers is as follows:

Caroline Manwaring

Kathryn Mangelsdorf

Kate Morgan

Theresa Gerrard

Catherine Proctor

Christine Blain

Claire Daly

Michele Taylor

Rosa Leyden

Rachel Woollard

Ros Davidson

Sharon Davern

Andrea Sargent

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC 346: CASE With A Christmas Twist

 Hi!

Welcome back for another week of the CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. It's a great way to finish the weekend, don't you think?

This week we are asking you to choose any non-Christmas card (from either catalogue) and give it a Christmas Twist. Hmm, thinking cap on!!

I ended up going for this turtle cutie, from the Punch Bundle section of the Annual catalogue. I've recently purchased the Penguin Place bundle, and I thought it would be perfect for the Christmas Twist part of the challenge.

As you can see, I pretty much kept everything the same on my card, just swapping the penguin for the turtle. Of course, my penguin has the reindeer antler headband to provide the Christmas Twist.

The Polished Pink banner is a piece of the Hostess DSP pack, Pattern Party. I simply used a Blending Brush to apply the Polished Pink ink.

I couldn't resist adding the second penguin to the inside of my card. Isn't he having a grand time, sliding around in the snow?

We'd love for you to join us by creating a card for our challenge. Just make a suitable card and upload it to our Facebook group. No blog necessary! We'd love to see where your imagination takes you.

I'm the final stop on this week's Blog Hop, but if you started somewhere in the middle, just keep going until you get back to where you started. The first blog tonight is our Christmas elf, Rebecca. She's got a stunner for you to see!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 582: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Hooray for Friday and the start of a new Just Add Ink Challenge. Rachael has found this fabulous Christmassy photo for our Inspiration Challenge this week.

What catches your eye in the photo? The colours, the theme, perhaps one of the elements? For me it was the stockings hanging from the mantle. I don't have much current stuff that includes Christmas stockings, so I reached for my retired Tag Buffet Project Kit and the stocking element it included.

It was a lot bigger than I remembered! I started by using a Blending Brush to apply some Pool Party ink to the card base, under where I wanted the stocking to sit. I then randomly stamped the little 'merry' stamp from Christmas To Remember all over the sponged area.

The tag was popped up over this, with the sentiment also popped up. A sweet bow, using metallic twine from the same kit, was the finishing touch.

I used a little more of the twine on the inside, just to finish off the stocking here. It was fussy cut from the Sweet Stockings DSP and glued over some more brushed ink. I didn't notice until. took the photos that I'd forgotten to stamp another sentiment on the inside - I will fix this before sending it out.

Please pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find the rest of this week's Design Team cards. It's been interesting to see what inspires them from the photo - there are lots of things to grab your attention and spark your creativity. You can also link up your card for our challenge once you've finished it. I can't wait to see what you make.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Melon Mambo

 Hi!

Hello, and welcome back to a new Colour Creations Blog Hop. It's Melon Mambo's turn! I used to think that it was a bright pink, but some of the new pink additions to the colour range are way brighter, so now I'm thinking it's more of a darkish pink. Either way, it's often my go-to pink, as I'm not a big fan of pale or super-bright pinks.

Tonight's card was inspired by one I saw on the SU Facebook page this week. Their card used the Artistic Dies, and used the Playful Alphabet Dies to say 'hello', but otherwise I pretty much CASEd the card exactly. I loved the white on white look with the bold pop of colour for the sentiment.

I used my Biggest Wish stamp set to add the 'birthday' part of the sentiment. I popped it up with Mini Dimensionals, after using the Foam Adhesive Sheets behind the Alpha die cuts.

I decided to go with a pop of pink no the inside. I used the same dies as the front of the card - Many Layered Blossoms - and some Adhesive Sheet to make sticking it down a breeze.

That's all from me for tonight, but please do continue your way around our Blog Hop until you get back to where you started. The next blogger is my wonderful friend from across the newly opened SA-Vic border, Theresa Gerrard.

Keeping us well and truly organised this week again is another wonderful friend, Catherine Proctor. Pop on over to her blog if you run into any problems. She has a full list of hoppers at the end of her post, and you should be able t pick up your trail there.

Bye for now,

Tina