CTC 322: Birthdays Section

 Hi!

It's time once again for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. Usually I say that it's a nice way to end the weekend, but that's not the case this weekend. It's a long weekend, so we still have one more day to enjoy. Yay!

This week we are asking you to CASE the Birthday section of the Annual Catalogue, from pages 60 to 67. There's plenty to grab your attention there, but I couldn't go past this card.

I liked that the front was copped to allow the inside of the card to be seen from the front. I also liked the gradient of colour on the main panel on the front. While I was pondering on how to incorporate these two features into a new card, I also spotted the Butterfly Brilliance card on page 158. Bingo!

Instead of stamping with the key colours, I used DSP and the Brilliant Wings Dies. The DSP colours are Daffodil Delight, Polished Pink and Pool Party, with a card base of Just Jade.

The Whisper White panel over the top was cropped using the open butterfly die, and then each individual butterfly was cropped from the piece that popped out. The detailed butterflies are slightly smaller than the open butterflies, so it isn't too difficult to do this. I then just adhered them back into the appropriate opening.

The sentiments I used are from the Sweet As A Peach stamp set. I really love the fonts!

That's all from me for tonight, but your job is just starting! We'd love to see which card from the Birthday section you will choose to CASE. Make your card, snap a photo and upload it to our Facebook group before next Sunday evening. Easy!

Before you dash off, please do continue on with our Blog Hop. Next up is the lovely Julia, who has turned a funny card into a sweet tag. You won't want to miss it!

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 558: Just Add A Sketch

 Hi!

I feel like I say this every week, but hooray for Friday! It's been another super-busy week and I am looking forward to the long weekend. My two youngest kids have pupil-free days (of course not on the same day!), so it's an extra long weekend for them.

How awesome is this sketch that Kim designed for our challenge this week? All those delicious layers! I decided to have a lot of fun with the layers, by making my background DSP carry across all of the layers on the card.

The DSP is from WaffleFlower, and is called JJ's Rainbows. It's so happy and cheerful! I held my breath and carefully cropped the paper using a Stitched Rectangles Die and a Layering Circles Die. I had to be so careful to cut the rectangle straight - I was so nervous! Each layer is matted in Basic Black and popped up using Dimensionals, aligning the stripes with the layer below.

The sentiment is from Uniquely Creative, using their coordinating Sweet Sentiments stamps and dies. I found some old Pool Party embossing powder in my stash, and was pleasantly surprised when it still worked. I had planned to use white, but thought I'd give this a go when I found it while reaching for my white powder.

The inside uses more of the Sweet Sentiments stamps. It's a 'builder' set, so you can mix and match the stamps to create your own sentiment. I thought the 'magical' bit suited the rainbow on the front. They are a little magical, after all!

That's all from me for now, it's rather cold here, so I'm off to snuggle up somewhere with a good book and a cuppa! Please do pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find the rest of this week's Design team cards. You can also link up your card for our challenge. I can't wait to see what you make!

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: Balmy Blue

 Hi!

It's Colour Creations Blog Hop time again! This week it's Balmy Blue's turn. I'm very much a 'blue' girl, and this is probably the shade of blue that I reach for most often when I'm crafting. Today's card was made for my niece, who turns 15 this week. She and her mum (my sister) taught me and my other sister how to do macrame over Zoom last year, and so when I thought of a card for her, I wanted to include some macrame on it.

LOL, yes, that was handmade, using a bamboo skewer and some retired Thick Very Vanilla Baker's Twine. My fingers aren't nimble enough to use standard Baker's Twine! The Balmy Blue DSP is from the You're A Peach DSP pack. I popped it up over the Thick Very Vanilla base so that I could attach the macrame piece to the card. I first adhered the DSP to a piece of Balmy Blue cardstock to give it enough strength.

The sentiment is from the Sweet As A Peach stamp set, cropped with a Suit & Tie Die.

Like all good macrame crafters, nothing gets wasted, so the offcuts from the front piece were used to make a feather for the inside. It's going to be a thick card to send, but it's for someone special, so that's OK.

That's all from me for now, but please do continue on with the Blog Hop. Next up is my lovely friend, Di, who grows the most delicious apples and makes the most wonderful cards.

Bye for now,

Tina

In the event that a link is broken, here is the full list of tonight's participants:

Michele Taylor
Rachel Palmieri
Kate Morgan
Catherine Proctor
Caroline Manwaring
Sharon Davern
Christine Blain
Tina Gillespie <- you are here
Diane Furniss
Ros Davidson
Theresa Gerrard
Rachel Woollard
Rosa Leyden
Fiona Bell Ryan
Vicki Boucher

CTC 321: Mini Project, Masculine Twist

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop. It's a fun challenge this week. Actually, all our challenges are fun (I think!) but this one was extra fun for me.

We are tasking you to find a project in the Mini Catalogue and give it a masculine twist. I like to really challenge myself, so I decided to look for a very feminine card to twist.

Smoochy, lipstick lips are super feminine, right?

My first thought was to replace the lips with a bow tie, and the rest of the card was built around that! The bow tie, from Handsomely Suited, was coloured with my Night Of Navy Blends and then cropped with the matching Suit & Tie Dies. My sentiment is from Sweet Strawberry, and I've just noticed that it has a mix of fonts, just like the catalogue card I am CASEing.

The DSP is from the In Good Taste pack, which carried over from the previous Annual Catalogue. I layered it on a discarded piece of Whisper White that had beens tamped with the Birch stamp and cropped with a Stitched Rectangles Die. I had made it for a different card and didn't end up using it, but it worked perfectly on this card. I tied a reef knot in my twine, instead of the bow on the original card.

My DSP offcut from the front of the card and a tie were the perfect additions to the inside of the card.

That's all from me for tonight, but your job is just beginning! We'd love to see how you turn a non-masculine card into a masculine card. All you need to do is make the card and post a photo in our Facebook group.

Don't race off too quickly, though! You will want to finish our blog hop first! Please pop on over to Peta's blog, where she has a stunner of a card made using a popular stamp set for masculine cards.

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI 557: Just Add Inspiration

 Hi!

Thanks for joining me for the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week it's an Inspiration challenge, and the photo was found by Rachael. 

I struggled a bit with this, as the wreath and mantle decorations made me think of Christmas, but there is literally nothing to do with Christmas in the photo. I zoomed into the photo and looked all around, and finally spied the coffee mug sitting off to the side. Bingo!

My coffee mug is from a Three Room Studio stamp set, called One More Chapter. I coloured it with my Soft Succulent Blends and popped it up on my circle. I cropped the circle with my Stitched Shapes Dies, and lightly sponged on some Soft Succulent ink before I removed the cardstock from the die.

My backgrounds are a nod to the different textures and colours in the photo. The main background is the Birch stamp set, in stamped off Sahara Sand, and the strip of wood grain paper is the Natural Touch Speicalty Paper that was a special a couple of months ago.

I used the mug again on the inside, uncoloured this time. The sentiments on the card are from Sweet As A Peach. I really love the font of these sentiments.

That's all from me for tonight, but please do head on over to the Just Add Ink blog, where you'll find the rest of this week's Design Team cards. You can also enter your card in our challenge when you decide what inspires you in the photo - the layout, the colours, the textures? Something else? It's entirely your interpretation!

Bye for now,

Tina

Colour Creations: 2021-22 In Colours

 Hi!

Hooray!! Time for a new year of Colour Creations! To get our timeline back in whack, we are starting with all five of the new In Colours. Have you seen them yet? Picked a favourite? Hmm, I'm still deciding! Because of that, I bucked my own system of the past year of Colour Creations and made a card that used all five colours.

I started by creating my colourful panel. I used the stitched rectangle die from the Ornate Layers Dies to crop the Whisper White, Soft Succulent, Pale Papaya, Polished Pink and Fresh Freesia cardstock. I adhered these to a piece of copy paper so that I could crop the whole lot with a Stitched Rectangle Die. Copy paper ensures that it's not too thick for the die or Big Shot to cope with.

The stamping was done to match the colours on the main panel. Have you discovered the Biggest Wish stamp set yet? It's such an awesome set! I coloured a few Rhinestones with my Dark Evening Evergreen Blend and then popped the whole lot onto an Evening Evergreen card base that I'd stamped with the little crosses from Biggest Wish. I was so enamoured with the words in the set that I hadn't even noticed the crosses until I saw them used on other card!

For my inside, I simply used the offcuts from the front of the card! I cropped another Stitched Rectangle to sit inside the border piece. Too easy!

That's all from me for tonight. You've probably noticed by now that we've switched back to a traditional Blog Hop format for this year's Colour Creations. Next in the round is my lovely friend, Christine. You won't want to miss her gorgeous card, nor anyone else's! Just keep cruising around the blogs until you get back to where you started. If you find a broken link, you can click on the links below to get back to where you were.

Bye for now,

Tina

Kate Morgan

Sharon Davern

Vicki Boucher

Caroline Manwaring

Tina Gillespie <<you are here

Christine Blain

Rachel Woollard

Theresa Gerrard

Rachel Palmeri

Michelle Taylor

Diane Furniss

Andrea Sargent

Ros Davidson

Cathy Proctor

CTC 320: All Occasions Section

 Hi!

Wow, how has Sunday evening rolled around again so quickly? It's been a super busy week for me, so no wonder it flew by! My favourite way to end the week is with the CASEing The Catty Sunday Challenge Blog Hop, so let's get started!

This week we are asking you to CASE the All Occasions section of the new Annual Catalogue. There's 49 pages, so plenty of inspiring projects to choose from. This cutie caught my eye.

I don't have any baby stamps, as most people in my life are beyond that for now. I did, however, love the Stitched Rectangles that sit behind each of the three images, so this formed the basis of my card.

I received the Bloom Where You're Planted DSP last week, and thought that the plant images would be the perfect substitute for the babies. To suit the design, this meant having three vertical rectangles to frame the plants.

I wanted the background DSP to be very neutral, so I chose this Grey Granite piece. My uncle owns a cane furniture business, and he used to give the fabric scraps from the seating cushions to my Nana. She'd make all kinds of things with them, and this paper reminds me of the fabric, and her. She was always busy making something!

On the inside I used one of the plant images that was on the side of the DSP sheet, so partially cut off. This is perfectly OK to use, just adhere it over the side of your card so the cropped bit looks intentional!

That's all from me for tonight, but please come and join in with our challenge. Just make a suitable card and upload it to our Facebook group. It really is that easy!

For now, though, please do continue on with our Blog Hop. Next up is my lovely friend, Rachel. She's had a lot of fun playing with a stamp set that may very soon make the jump from my 'maybe' list to my 'must-have' list. I've loved seeing her recent creations using it, and I'm sure you will too.

Bye for now,

Tina