CTC #270 Week 1: CASE Your Favourite Retiring Die Or Punch

Hi!

Oh, wow, it's been such a lovely, sunny weekend here in Adelaide, that I actually found it hard to sit down and craft! We've been a bit cooped up with wet weather lately, so yesterday we took the kids to walk along the boardwalk at the beach, and today we walked and biked through our local reserve. Glorious!

This fortnight's CASEing The Catty Sunday Blog Hop Challenge is to CASE your favourite retiring die or punch. As I was so time poor, I reached for a die that does a lot of the work for you, the Thank You Die. I think this die will find a permanent home in my collection, as it's a great die.

I also reached for some DSP that doesn't need much else to look pretty - the Peaceful Poppies DSP. I will miss this paper, I haven't used it nearly enough. Sigh, do you ever save stuff for 'special' and then never actually use it? Every day is special, so I should just chop it!

This piece of DSP was already cropped in the bag, saving a little more time for me! LOL. It's a little smaller than I'd usually use on a card front, so I matted it with Basic Black. I then had a dilemma - do I use White Dimensionals, or Black, to pop it up on my Whisper White card base? My Facebook followers mostly said Black, but I ended up using White, just in case the Black would show through the WW card base.

The hero of the card is the gorgeous Glimmer Black die cut. I realised after that the Black Glimmer is retired, but you could also use the Black Foil (which is about to retire). To give the die cut dimension, I cropped three in plain Basic Black card and then glued all 4 layers together before adhering it to the card base. A few black sequins from the coordinating Peaceful Poppies Sequins finished off the front of the card.

I had another little scrap of the front DSP in the pack, so I used it for the inside. No inside sentiment so that I could have plenty of room to write a message of gratitude.

To enter our challenges you just need to make a suitable card and upload it to the wall in our Facebook group. No blog or fancy photography is necessary, but of course you can have all that if you like!

You're nearly at the end of the Hop if you began at the start. If not, just keep going until you get back to where you started. The next stop is the lovely Rose, who has used a gorgeous Stitched Die set that I will miss a lot!

Bye for now,

Tina

CTC #267 Week 1: Flowers Of The Ornate Garden Suite

Hi!

Hello! Happy Easter! I hope you had a lovely day. I actually got a nice little sleep in, as the teenagers weren't up at the crack of dawn to see what the Easter Bunny brought them. I spent the rest of the day sewing a quilt top for my oldest son, Alex. He's 17 tomorrow, so I'm on a deadline. I might just make it!

Anyway, you're probably here for the CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. This week we are taking our inspiration from the flowers in the new, early release suit, Ornate Garden. There are stamped flowers, die cut flowers, or flowers in the DSP. I decided that I would make a card that uses a different DSP, but a technique that you could use with the Ornate Garden DSP.

I haven't played much with the Peaceful Poppies DSP for a while. I chose the sheet that had a heap of poppies, berries and leaves that were perfect for fussy cutting. I cut a bunch for the front of my card. When looking for a vase to put them in, I couldn't go past the milk jug from Country Home. I stamped it on a scrap of Whisper White and then coloured it with my Smokey Slate Stampin' Blends.

I popped up the jug on another piece of Whisper White that I'd cropped with the largest Stitched So Sweetly Die. I then arranged the flowers and foliage, adhering some flat and popping some up.

I also fussy cut some extra bits and pieces to use on the inside of my card. I like the way that the leaves and berries curve in both directions, so cutting them for an arrangement like this was easy.

I hope my card inspires you to fussy cut some flowers from the Ornate Garden DSP and see what you can make with them. When you're done, you can upload your card into our Facebook group. I'd love to see what you do!

For now though, it's time to continue on your way around the Blog Hop. Next up is the fabulous Siobhan, with her gorgeous floral card.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #487: Just Add A Sketch

Hi!

Hello, and welcome to the final Just Add Ink challenge of 2019! This will be a non-competitive challenge, running through until the start of January. So what have we got for you? A sketch challenge, designed by the wonderful  Jackie!

I've been looking forward to this sketch for a while now - I think it's fabulous, and great for a wide range of themes. I toyed for a while with doing a dinosaur card, but in the end I reached for my new Poppy Moments Dies.

The poppy dies have three layers - the solid base, the outline and the centre. I cut the base in Vellum, the outline in Poppy Parade and the centre in Basic Black. I like the translucent look of the vellum - a little more interesting than stark white in this case! I accidentally got the circle elements of the sketch the wrong way around. Ooops! That's what I love about a sketch though - it's open to interpretation, as long as you can still see the original in the card.

I couldn't resist adding the little scallop border piece onto the card, from the new Painted Labels Dies. It's so sweet, but in Basic Black it's a little dramatic too! I think I will be using it lots. The sentiment is from a new Sale-A-Bration set, Happy Birthday To You. I added a couple of leaves to the card, cut from vellum and Mossy Meadow cardstock.

I used another leaf and the smaller poppy on the inside. The large poppy is beautiful, but a little big for the inside! The sentiment is also from Happy Birthday To You. I love the scripty font!

Thanks for joining me for another year of Just Add Ink challenges. I love being a part of the JAI team, and I look forward to more crafty fun with them in 2020. I hope you can join in our challenges, we love seeing what everyone makes for them.

That's all for me on my blog for 2019. I'll be back in early 2020 after a short break with my family. Have a wonderful Christmas and a fabulous New Year. I hope Santa brings you some new crafty goodies to play with!

Bye for now,

Tina