CTC 342: CASE Your Favourite Mini Project

 Hi!

Hello again! It's been about a month since I've been able to play along with the CTC Crew, and I'm so glad to be back! Last time I'd posted Hudson and I were both unwell, and it's taken me this long to get caught up with everything that needed to be caught up with. 

This week we are challenging you to CASE your favourite Mini Catalogue project. There's two months left to enjoy the products in this catalogue, so maybe this blog hop/challenge will help you to discover some new favourites. An old favourite of mine is the Heartwarming Hugs DSP, so this card caught my eye when I was flicking through the catalogue for inspiration.

I love the shimmer paste snowflakes, and the angled sentiment dividing the card is fabulous. I went for a completely different DSP and colour scheme though!

Many years ago, SU released a suite of Christmas products that included Whisper White,Coastal Cabana and Real Red. I've loved that combo for Christmas cards ever since! Today's card is a little different, as the DSP (from Pattern Party Host DSP) is Pool Party. I matched it with Poppy Parade and Silver Foil.

The snowflakes are from the Gingerbread Dies, and the sentiments are from Christmas To Remember. I applied Adhesive Sheet to the back of the Silver Foil before cropping the snowflakes. Way less messy than trying to apply glue after they are cut!

I actually made two of these cards, because the way you cut the DSP on the front suits two cards. I simply cut a card front sized piece of DSP and measured 3.5 inches down from the top left corner and up from the bottom right corner. I then cut from mark to mark. I cut through the DSP and cardstock at the same time so that they would be perfectly matched. It's never too much extra work to create a second card at the same time, and it's a great way to boost your Christmas card stash a little faster. We all need that at this time of year.

As always, you can join in with our challenge by posting a photo of your creation to our Facebook group. It's that easy!

Please continue your way around our blog hop tonight, as there's plenty of gorgeous inspiration to be found. Next up is Peta Stephen, with a beautifully, serene Christmas card.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 578: Just Add A Sketch

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me again for the new Just Add Ink challenge. I had a week off last week, so it's great to be playing again with the Design team.

Narelle designed this sketch for us to use, and I really like it! The circles could be any shape you desire, and after a little pottering in my garden I found some inspiration.

I am not much of a green thumb - I kill a lot of what I try to grow. For some reason, the strawberry plant that I planted last year has made it to this year, and actually looks like it's doing ok! I lost my first ripe strawberry to a millipede, but the second was delicious. And just look at all these berries waiting to ripen. Yum!

Hopefully my strawberries look as yummy as the ones on my card! I stamped them in Real Red and Shaded Spruce and used the coordinating punch to crop them.

The sentiment label is from the Tasteful Labels Dies, and the paper is from the Pattern Party Hostess DSP. I wasn't confident with the choice of DSP, but the more I look at the finished card, the more I like it.

I couldn't resist adding a couple more juicy strawberries to the inside of my card. Now I just have to sit back and wait for my real strawberries to ripen.

We'd love for you to play along with us this week (and every week)! Just jump on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find lots more Design Team inspiration. You can also link up your card to enter the challenge. I can't wait to see what you create!

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Highland Heather

Hi!

Well, aren't we tearing though the colour range? We are already up to Highland Heather, a lovely, soft purple. It's a colour that I really like, but perhaps part of that is because my beautiful mother's name is Heather. I decided to make a whimsical card with the pretty purple.

I started with a cloud template cut from a piece of Window Sheet. I used a long-retired die, but there is a similar cloud die in the Basic Borders Dies. A Blending Brush was used with the template to create the cloudy sky background. I think the whimsy comes from using purple instead of the expected blue.

My Brilliant Wings Dies butterfly is a double layer of Silver Foil and Whisper White card. I only used glue on the body of the butterfly layers, so that the wings could be raised. It adds lovely dimension and movement to the card.

To make the inside complement the front, I added a few more layers of clouds, and a much smaller Silver Foil butterfly. The sentiments are both from Sweet Strawberry, with the one on the front cropped using a Tasteful Labels Die.

Please continue your way around our Blog Hop by jumping on over to Caroline Manwaring's blog. I'm sure she's made a gorgeous card with Highland Heather.

Catherine Proctor is our wonderful host this week, so please go to her blog if you find a missing or broken link.

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 17

 Hi!

Wowee! Week 17 of the Heart Of Christmas Blog Hops already! If my maths is correct, then I have added 68 cards to my stash, just from these hops. I'm very happy with that! Let me show you the latest group of four.

I'm back to using the super-cute Sweet Stockings DSP for my cards this week. The critters in the papers made it a must-have for me. I've paired it with the Christmas To Remember stamp set, and the November 2020 Sheetload Of Cards template.

This Sheetload template was actually designed specifically to use 6x6 inch paper, which I find trickier to use economically on cards. I was very happy to see the template was great for making the DSP stretch a little further. I don't have any Christmassy 6x6 paper, though, so 12x12 it was!

Here's my group of cards all together. I'm glad that a few of them included that happy, goofy dog, which I love so much!

It's time to jump on over to the next blog in our hop, which belongs to my lovely friend, Kate Morgan. I can't wait to see what she's made for tonight's hop!

Our Host for this week's hop is another lovely friend, Sharon Davern. Pop on over to her blog if you run into any difficulties. She's got a list of all participating, and you can pick up the trail again there.

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Grey Granite

 Hi!

Once again it is Wednesday evening, so it's time for the new Colour Creations Blog Hop. This week it's Grey Granite's turn to shine. It's a tricky colour to use as a feature colour, especially when I am trying to stick with a monochromatic theme for my cards for the CC Hops. Before we go on - let me address the name of the colour. I forget that the American spelling is used for it's name - Gray Granite - as I am so used to the Australian spelling that I refer to it as Grey Granite all the time. My apologies to the sticklers, but I am too old to change my ways now!

I decided to keep my card very clean and simple. The gorgeous Stitched Greenery Die does most of the hard with on this card, with a little boost from the White Glittered Organdy Ribbon. It is impossible to see in the photo, as I took it on a gloomy day, but each of the leaves in the background has been 'coloured' with my Wink Of Stella brush. It's beautifully shimmery in real life, but unfortunately unseen by the camera.

I finished the front of the card with a sentiment from Peaceful Moments, cropped with a Tasteful Labels die and popped up over the ribbon.

Another little strip of the Stitched Greenery Die, complete with shimmer, finished off the inside of the card. I always feel like this sentiment is more appropriate for a wedding card, but I prefer to use sentiments from the same stamp set where I can. This is the mosts suitable sentiment in the set for the inside, I think. It will have to do!

That's all from for tonight, but please do pop on over to the very lovely Caroline Manwaring's blog. Her cards are always a delight to see!

As always, the marvellous Catherine Proctor is keeping our group in order, so if you run into any issues, please jump on over to her blog, where you'll find the complete list of all participants.

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 16

 Hi!

Welcome to a new week's Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop. We are up to Week 16 this week, and the inspiration flowing from the other ladies who participate in the Hops has not waned at all. It's been wonderful viewing everyone's cards each week.

But now onto my cards! This week I am using the October 2020 Sheetload Of Cards template. I actually skipped September 2020's, as it was for Slimline cards, and I wasn't in the mood for those. I liked the simplicity of this design, which allows the Red Foil bauble, from the Gingerbread Dies, to shine.

The sentiments I used on my cards are from the Words Of Cheer stamp set, and I have used some Heartwarming Hugs DSP to go with it. I was happy to see that the DSP had carried over from last year's Mini Catalogue, as it uses traditional Christmas colours, but not traditional images and patterns. It's a much more modern looking paper.

As always, here are my four cards. You can see that the baubles are a double layer of the Red Foil, and are finished off with a white Twine bow.

As always, thank you for your company on my blog tonight, but please do jump on over to the next blog. Michele Taylor is next, and she always has something totally gorgeous to see.

Just in case you run into a broken link along the way, pop back here for the list of all participants in tonight's Blog Hop:

Michele Taylor

Kate Morgan

Catherine Proctor

Andrea Sargent

Claire Daly

Rachel Woollard

Theresa Gerrard

Sharon Davern

Rosa Leyden

Caroline Manwaring

Ros Davidson

Christine Blain

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 576: Just Add A Moving Element

 Hi!

Welcome once again to my blog for the start of the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week it's one that Kelly and I dreamed up - to add a moving element to a card.

What do we mean by this? It's simply something that moves on your card. Some examples may be things like a wobbler spring, a spinner or a slider of some sort - if it moves, it counts! I've always been intrigued by the idea of the Theatre or Stage card, so that's what I decided to make.

I used a combination of a few different tutorials to make the base of my card. Most Theatre cards are landscape orientation, but for the idea I had I needed a portrait orientation. I used the wooden and brick papers from the In Good Taste DSP, as I was trying to recreate a magical alleyway that opens at the tap of a special umbrella.

Here is the card with the brick panels opened up to reveal the alleyway behind. The gigantic character is from a Kindred Stamps set, called Masters Of Magic. I coloured him with my Stampin' Blends. He's an earthy character, so I stuck with Mossy Meadow, Old Olive and Soft Suede.

I was reasonably happy with my first attempt at a Theatre card, but I think I'll have another go at it soon. What Moving Element do you think you'll add to your card? Will you use the opportunity to try something new, or revisit an old favourite? I can't wait to see. You can link your card for our challenge over on the Just Add Ink Blog, where you will also find the rest of this week's Design Team cards. We had a lot of fun with this challenge!

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Granny Apple Green

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for this week's Colour Creations Blog Hop. This week we are looking at Granny Apple Green. It's a lovely, happy green from the Brights colour family. I have broken my feature colour only rule for this blog hop, as I wanted to show you a very special card that I made recently for my youngest son Hudson's birthday. He loves Shaun The Sheep, and his favourite episode is called 'Still Life'. When I saw the Counting Sheep stamps and the coordinating Sheep Dies in the recent Sale-A-Bration catalogue, I decided I would recreate the scene below for his card.

In the episode, the farmer wants to do some painting, but when he goes off in search of some more white paint, the sheep have a lot of fun. They recreate some famous artworks, but with a 'sheepish' perspective. The canvas ends up as a riot of colour, so that's the one I chose to create for Hudson's card.

This fold is called a Multi-Tiered Pop Up card, and I thought that the layers and dimension suited my purposes perfectly. After I created the card base from Granny Apple Green card, I used Dimensionals to adhere some Early Espresso die cut fence panels to the card. The sentiment is from Music From The Heart, cropped with an All Dressed Up Die. The die cut clouds and sun were adhered to some strips of Window Sheet before being adhered to the base.

The sheep were stamped with Memento ink and then I coloured the legs and face with my Dark Basic Black Blend. To achieve the look of paint splatters, I stamped the little flower from Blossoms In Bloom in a range of bright colours over the flower, and the square of Whisper White that is the 'canvas'. I then adhered them to the base, some directly to the front or back of each layer, and some with Dimensionals, so that I could get the maximum out of the layering.

I repeated the same ideas on the back, however, looking at the photo, I realise that I forgot to give this sheep some paint splatters. Oh well!! The easel was created by chopping up another die cut fence piece, this time in Crumb Cake. I had a lot of fun making this card, and Hudson seemed to love it - he hooted at it in the way he does when he likes something, and gave it a bog long look. I was happy! 

A very big thanks to my lovely friend Andrea for the loan of the stamps and dies so that I could make this special card. You're now off to he blog to see what gorgeousness she has created for us tonight.

Another lovely friend, Catherine Proctor, is our host for tonight, so pop on over to her blog if you run into trouble with any of the links, or if you'd like to see a full list of tonight's Hoppers.

Bye for now,

Tina

Heart Of Christmas Week 15

 Hi!

Well, hello, and welcome back to this week's Heart Of Christmas Blog Hop. I hope that you've been enjoying all of our Christmassy inspiration each week - it's been a lot of fun hopping with my fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator friends.

This week's cards have jumped back to using the Hostess DSP, Pattern Party. Although the paper isn't Christmassy at all, the patterns and colours are suitable if you like a less-traditional colour scheme or theme for your cards. In this case, I've emphasised the Granny Apple Green and Poppy Parade to make the colour combo a bit more traditional.

The diagonal stripes are a little like a candy cane, don't you think? My kids often get ones that are a rainbow of colour rather than the traditional red and white.

As always, I have made four cards this week, using the August 2020 Sheetload Of Cards template. It really takes the stress out of making the cards - all the planning and measuring has been done for me (except adjusting to non-US sized cards), I just need to cut, stamp and assemble.

It's time to hop on over to the next blog, which belongs to the wonderful Catherine Proctor. I can't wait to see what she's created for tonight's hop.

Our blog hop is hosted this week by my lovely friend, Sharon Davern. If you find a broken link, just pop on over to her blog, where you will find a list of all of tonight's participants. You can pick up your trail there.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 575: Just Add Colour

 Hi!

Are you ready for the end of the working week, and the start of the new Just Add Ink challenge? I certainly am, so let's get into it!

How pretty are these colours that Patrice has put together for us? I never would have thought to put the two new In Colours together, but I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

It's very interesting how the Soft Succulent has toned down the brighter Polished Pink in the striped section of my card. I created this by covering some Whisper White cardstock with Adhesive Sheet, and then applied the strips of coloured card over the top.

I pulled gold into the combo with strips on either side of the striped panel, and also with the plant pot and a few sequins. The sentiments are from a Uniquely Creative set, called Sweet Sentiment Builder. The second half was cropped with a Peach Die.

To match the front of the card, I used a striped strip, cropped from the front piece, to decorate the inside, along with some more stamped images from Plentiful Plants.

Please jump on over to the Just Add Ink blog for the rest of this week's Design team cards using this gorgeous colour combo. You can also link up your card there - I'll be very interested to see what you do with these colours.

Bye for now,

Tina