CTC #232: Artistic Impressions

Hi!

How are you enjoying your Queen's Birthday Long Weekend? We've had a quiet weekend at home. We all needed the rest and recharge ready for the end of term. I plan to take advantage tomorrow and get a lot of crafting done! In the meantime though, it's time for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. You may have arrived here from Anglea's blog, or you may be starting here. Either way, just keep hopping until you get back to where you started.

This week we are CASEing cards from the Artistic Expressions section of the catalogue. It's a whopping 53 pages worth of inspiration, so you're bound to find something to inspire you! It was a fun section to start this Catalogue's CASE challenges with.

After much flicking and umming and ahhing, I finally settled on the card at the top right of this photo. A lot of the appeal was the sponge brayering - I do love a bit of brayering, as my class ladies know! I don't have any of the Lovely Is The Day bundle, as featured on this card, but that's the point of CASEing - make the card your own! In the end I reached for my Free As A Bird bundle.

I started by brayering Balmy Blue on the top of my cardstock and Granny Apple Green on the bottom, leaving a white section in the middle. As in the catalogue sample, I then splattered some water over the ink to lift bits of the colour. Again, another technique I love to use to add interest to a card.

The branch of birdies was stamped in Memento ink and coloured. I briefly toyed with using my Watercolour Pencils, but the background was quite bold, and so I used Blends instead. The birds are actually quite a bit brighter in real life! I used Flirty Flamingo and Pineapple Punch on the birds, and Soft Suede, Granny Apple Green and Lovely Lipstick on the branch. I just realised I forgot to colour their beaks. Whoops! The birds were fussy cut and popped up over the sentiment panel. I used the offcut of the sentiment panel to create the banner at the top left of the card. You can just see the stitched lines at the bottom of the flag.

I sponged another piece of Whisper White to match the front, and popped it under my inside sentiment panel. I did think later that if I had thought to be clever, I could have sponged a larger piece for the front and then cut out the middle section for the front and used the frame for the inside. Oh well!

Don't forget to join in the fun this week, and every week, on our Facebook group. You can add your card to the page to enter the challenge - no blog necessary!

But before you go, don't forget to finish the hop! Next you're off to my friend Kathryn's blog. She's mosaic-ing this week! (Is that even a word? LOL).

Bye for now,

Tina