Welcome to the latest Colour INKspiration Challenge blog hop. You have hopped along from the fabulous Krissy Buck, or perhaps you are starting here with me, Simone Bartrum. Either way, I hope you enjoy the projects we created for your inspiration.

 

 

The CI Crew are sharing projects using Calypso Coral, Dapper Denim, Cherry Cobbler and Always Artichoke. I’m loving these colours although I can’t say I’ve ever used them together before, which of course made it the perfect challenge.

This was our inspiration:

What a fabulously strong and vibrant combo!

I was inspired by both the colours and the picture that was the source of this colour combination, to create this card:

 

 

Home Life bundle

It uses the Home Life stamp set and the coordinating Welcome Home framelits. Seriously, you have GOT to check out this clever bundle. It’s a 3-step stamp set (3 individual stamps combine to create the house image), and one of the framelits cuts out 9 flowers at once! Yes, NINE. No need to fiddle around with tiny dies… this one large dies cuts out that many flowers. That alone is reason enough to get the bundle, if you ask me.

If you would like to see more hints and tips, check out the Home Life Bundle video created by Stampin’ Up! Watch video.

 

 

 

It’s not easy to tell in a still photo, but this card is actually a shaker card. The extra cut out flowers are shaking around loose inside the shaker cavity.

 

 

I love how the little pot and flower stem is included in this set. So cute!

Thanks for stopping by. For more inkspiration, continue on our blog hop to the very talented Jacque Williams from New Zealand. I absolutely love the card she created.

 

Happy stamping,

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

Welcome back to the CASEing the Catty blog hop. This week the crew are looking at the front covers of our Stampin’ Up! catalogues for inspiration, and also the exclusive host sets. What a fun theme!

 

 

Season of Whimsy

I chose the host set on page 3 the current Holiday catalogue, called Season of Whimsy, and in particular that card in the top right corner (see below).

 

Except, I turned it into the cover of a Mini Pizza Box!

 

Stampin’ Blends Alcohol Markers

The ornaments were coloured using the brand new Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers, which will be available to customers from November 1. They are a dream to colour with.

And as you can see, they even colour our adhesive-backed rhinestones and pearls! I’m in heaven.

 

I finished the box with the lovely Cherry Cobbler double-stitched ribbon tied around the box, and finished with a bow at the front.

 

Adding colour to the Mini Pizza Boxes

The boxes come white, but they are sooooo easy to change to any colour at all.

Simply add a few drops of ink refill to a Stampin’ Spritzer filled with Isocol alcohol (I used Old Olive ink), then spray until you get the desired depth of colour. It lightens as it dries, so you might find you need to add a few ‘coats’. Make sure the box is flat (i.e. unassembled) when you spritz it.

My box took a few minutes to be fully covered, and then another 5 minutes or so to completely dry.

 

 

Your turn to CASE the Catty

Will you join in the challenge this week? Click the link below to join our challenge group on Facebook.

 

 

And continue on the blog hop this week by visiting Angela here.

Happy stamping,

 

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Recently I hosted a creative challenge and invited members to share a project using their BIGGEST stamp. As you can imagine, we had a lot of large background stamps, large flowers (Rose Wonder), trees (Lovely as a Tree) and big greetings, resulting in a delightful variety of interpretations.

My contribution to the challenge featured the large background stamp called “Watercolour Wash“.

Watercolour Wash

The large Stampin’ Up! ink pads were the perfect means to apply different shades of blue (Night of Navy, Bermuda Bay and Pool Party) onto the Watercolour Wash stamp. The lines looked a little ‘hard’ but a few wipes with a sponge wedge soon smoothed them out. The sponge also contributed to the mottled effect and a smoother ombre effect which I love.

A similar effect could be achieved by lightly spritzing the inked stamp with water.

The fun Crafting Forever stamp set was still out on my desk from the previous challenge, but I actually thought it wash the perfect fit for this background anyway. The pot of paint brushes were lightly watercoloured with Wink of Stella dipped into ink. Sharp scissors were the order of the day when it came time to fussy cut the image, but I adore how it looks when popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals on the card. Well worth the few minutes of time to snip it all out.

The Night of Navy banner at the back was embellished with a heat embossed sentiment in white, and a strip of thin shimmery washi tape.

What a wonderful rule to live by: Do something creative every day.

Of course there are so many ways to be creative… in cooking, gardening, sewing, painting and of course in stamping and cardmaking. Some of us do a bit of everything! What sort of creative things have you done today? Let me know in the comments below.

Happy stamping,

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

October is here and I have so much to share with you I almost don’t know where to start!

First of all, how about we start with a card.

Crafting Forever

I’m hosting a creative Inspiration Challenge in my team forum and online Customer VIP group this week, which is proving to be a lot of fun. We’re doing one challenge per day in the lead up to World Card Making Day, concluding on the 7th of October. Our first challenge was to find an uninked stamp in our collection and give it some love. I had used the Crafting Forever stamp set a few times (oh, those pens!), however hadn’t managed to stamp the peg spool image. Challenge accepted!

1. How to make the peg spool

• Stamp the image in black ink onto a sheet of wood-patterned paper.
• Fussy cut the image.
• Wrap Basic Black Baker’s Twine around the body of the peg. So cute!

2. How to make the Made With Love stamp with ‘glossy label’

• Use Versamark clear ink to stamp the image on a sheet of wood-pattern paper from the Wood Texture paper stack
• While the Versamark is still wet, sprinkle with clear embossing powder then heat set. Fussy cut.
• Stamp the image again, but this time in black ink.
• Cover the surface with the clear, glossy glue from the Fine Tip Glue pen, ensuring that the Made With Love ‘label’ part of the image is well covered.
• Once it is completely dry, fussy cut out the label part and adhere it to the top of the ‘stamp’ image. It will end up looking like the glossy stickers that we adhere to the wood-mount stamps. Love it!

3. How to make the scissors with silver blades

• Stamp the scissor image in clear Versamark ink on both Whisper White cardstock and silver foil sheet.
• While the ink is still wet, sprinkle with black embossing powder and heat set.
• Colour the handles black on the white sheet, then fussy cut the handles.
• On the silver foil image, fussy cut the scissors. Adhere the black handles over the silver ones.

Do you have an uninked stamp in your collection? Maybe you could dig it out today, then see what you can make with it. Leave a comment below to let me know how you go. xxx

World Card Making Day Specials

I’ve got some SUPER exciting news today. As part of the World Card Making Day celebrations, Stampin’ Up!® are knocking 15% off some of our favourite products for 10 days only. So if your motto is “Crafting forever – housework whenever” too, then this sale will definitely be of interest.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FLYER

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FLYER

Patterned Paper Special

In addition to the WCMD (World Card Making Day) specials, there is a great Buy 3-Get 1 Free patterned paper sale on now too. Open the flyer here.

I go through stacks of patterned paper so couldn’t wait to get my order in. However, if you don’t use a lot you might want to think about splitting a few packs with a friend. You would both get 1 sheet of each double-sided design in the pack, so that could be a fun way to get even more variety.

 

With World Card Making Day coming up on Sunday, I hope you will join me in making a card or two this week. If you’re anything like me, our lives are so busy and often filled with competing interests, but it’s important to take time out for creative pursuits. Most of all, it *means something* to share your creation by writing a sincere message inside the card so make sure you pop it in the post too. I know that’s what I’ll be doing this week.

Happy stamping, 

 

 

It’s time for our Sunday evening blog hop, inspired by the gorgeous projects in the Stampin’ Up! catalogues.

 

This time the CASEing the Catty design team look at pages 28-35 of the Holiday Catalogue, which also includes the fabulous Watercolour Christmas Project Kit on page 33. I’ve made all the cards in the kit (in fact, it was one of our class projects at the Paperific Papercraft Expo recently), and often thought they would make a great layout for an alternative card.

So that’s exactly what I did this week.

I used the layout from this card on page 33…

…flipped it on its side, and turned it into this:

 

 

 

It was fun to create with the Season to Sparkle stamp set.

Basic Grey, Soft Sky and silver was the order of the day, with some extra bling in the form of rhinestones for even more sparkle.

 

For the chandelier I used a combination of stamping and then heat embossing. I can’t remember the last time I did that so it was fun to try it again. Usually I do stamping OR heat embossing – not both in the one image.

I hope you enjoyed my card today! Will you play along in this week’s CASEing the Catty challenge? Join us in the Facebook group here.

Next on the blog hop is my lovely friend Julia Quinn – you can check out her card here.

Happy stamping,

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Our colour palette this week for the Colour INKspiration challenge is a fabulously bright and happy combination, inspired by this fun variation of a garden shed.

 

 

In Stampin’ Up! colours, we’re calling them Pool Party, Lemon Lime Twist, Tempting Turquoise and Flirty Flamingo. You would have to be a brave soul to paint your garden furniture Lemon Lime Twist – but this really works. Love it.

So after pulling out my colours, and studying my stamp sets, I came up with this….

 

 

The stamp set used is called, appropriately, Super Duper. It includes an awesome variety of stamps, but I particularly love the balloons and those fabulous sentiments.

 

Super Duper stamp set

 

 

For this card I stamped the main Super Duper sentiment twice: Once in Lemon Lime Twist and once in Tempting Turquoise. I cut the separate banner elements apart, and reunited them in different colours using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

 

Our colour combo this fortnight called for Flirty Flamingo too, so I tucked a little cardstock banner strip behind the main sentiment, and added a few tiny dots with the tip of a Flirty Flamingo Stampin’ Write Marker.

An effective birthday card for the young or young-at-heart.

Are you enjoying this colour combination?

Continue on around the blog hop to see what else the Colour INKspiration Crew has created. Next is the lovely Jackie Noble from New Zealand.

 

Happy stamping,

 

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave