PCCCS155 -- You'll be Missed

I know I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating:  I love the Timeless Elegance Designer Series paper.  This is one series of paper which I will miss a great deal when it retires.  The lace designs and the floral designs are so incredibly detailed.  At first glance, the lace looks real, as if I've added layers of lace ribbon.  The floral designs are a delight to use as is or, as I've done for this card, coloured with an Aqua Painter, Blender pen or markers.

I've kept the colours extremely subtle.  The result is a real vintage look, which I love.  The Tip Top Taupe lace ribbon perfectly compliments the base cardstock of Tip Top Taupe.  I've kept the colours to a minimum, using the Tip Top Taupe, Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Blushing Bride, Perfect Plum and a touch of So Saffron.  This is the sketch which I've used:

You can find more cards using this sketch at the Paper Craft Crew Challenge site.  I invite you to join us by submitting your own interpretation this week.

WCC29 -- Make a Wish!

It's time for another Watercooler Challenge and this one is all about special folds.  Bev has provided a sampling of special folds as the photo inspiration.  Of course there are many other special folds.  It would take several pages to fit them all into my post.

The card which I chose to create uses the Easel Fold which isn't pictured.  There are several types of Easel Folds but, since I've just come back home from our trip to Alaska, I stuck to the simplest of them which is the straight forward Easel.  

Since I've just been on a cruise, the ship from the Traveler stamp set really appealed to me.  The coast of Alaska is rainy much of the year and so seascapes of aquamarine were common.  Using a wash of Pool Party ink and Lost Lagoon ink, I managed to re-create some of what I saw.  The other colours which I've used are the Memento black ink and the new Watermelon Wonder ink as well.  

I've used a base of Night of Navy and also Whisper White, Watermelon Wonder and Pool Party cardstocks.  For the background of the inside of my card, I've stamped the World Map stamp on a piece of Pool Party cardstock using Lost Lagoon ink.  The sentiment is from the Perfect Pennants stamp set.

I hope you'll check out the cards made by the rest of the Watercooler Artists at the Watercooler Challenge site.  I'd love to see your own special fold linked up for our challenge.  You have until August 7th to do that.

PCCCS154 -- Rainbow!

Still on vacation and taking advantage of modern technology.  It's great to be able to pre-schedule my post like this.  Of course, on the other hand, modern technology also lets me look ahead to the weather in the area to which I'm travelling and I hope that it was wrong.  Apparently Alaska was supposed to be rain, rain, rain, day after day.

My card reflects the hopes I have that the weather people will be totally wrong and that there will be a rainbow bringing us good luck for our trip.  The sketch for this week's Paper Craft Crew Challenge really lent itself well to what I had in mind.

I chose not to use Designer Paper for my background.  Instead, I used the cloud image from the Sprinkles of Life stamp set and covered a piece of Whisper White with the images.  You'll see that the cloud looks somewhat different from others that people have stamped using this set.  The reason for that would be the way I used the stamp.  I mounted it on my acrylic block with the image facing the block.  You can only do this with a Photopolymer stamp.  It won't work with the clear rubber stamps.  Why would I mount my stamp in this manner?  I wanted the stamped image to be more dense than the way it was stamping mounted in the regular manner.  So, on a whim, I tried it the other way around and absolutely loved the results.  I won't have to colour the clouds and they look more like watercolour images because they are soft around the edges.

I chose to use subtle colours such as Whisper White, Sahara Sand and Pool Party.  That way the rainbow just "pops" because of its bright colours.  It works well with the bright sun and bright ribbon as well.

I hope you'll check out the other Design Team cards at the Paper Craft Crew Challenge and, perhaps, join us by linking up your own interpretation of this sketch.

The Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop presents Christmas in July (and other things)

It's so much fun to create something that evokes colder weather when one is melting from the heat.  That was one of the reasons for featuring a Christmas in July project this month.  The other reason?  It's just so much fun!  We've also decided to CASE (copy and share everything) one of the projects illustrated in the new Annual Catalogue.  Considering how many projects are shown on those pages, finding just one project to copy was quite the task.  And, finally, we've decided to create one of our projects featuring a brand new punch.  Fun?  Definitely!  And you'll get to see the results in our posts.

As you will remember, if you've wandered through our blog hops before, our blog hop is presented in a circular fashion.  What does that mean?  Wherever you begin in our blog hop, whether you go forwards or backwards through the participants, eventually you will wind up precisely where you began.  I hope you'll take time to visit all the participatings blogs and, perhaps, leave a short message letting us know  what you've thought of our posts.

If you've been moving forwards through the blog hop, you'll have arrived here from the very talented Jean Fitch's blog.

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My first project is for Christmas in July.  I have several of the Christmas themed stamp sets which carried over into the new Annual Catalogue.  Rather than go the easy route, however, I decided to check out my non-Christmas stamps to see what could be used to create something that would be appropriate for Christmas.  I turned to two of my favourite stamp sets:  Lovely as a Tree which is an old favourite and The Wilderness Awaits which is a new favourite.  The two sets worked beautifully together.  I also decided to use non-traditional colours for my card.  You'll notice that the base is Bermuda Bay.  I combined the Bermuda Bay and Pacific Point in colouring my background sky and love the effect.  The giant moon is Daffodil Delight with hints of Crushed Curry added.  

I stamped the fir tree image from Lovely As a Tree twice at different heights and added some Mossy Meadow to the branches.  Then I added some "snow" by using my Signo white gel pen as I also did for the outcropping of rock on which the elk is standing.  I also added countless stars to the sky with that pen.  My sentiment is from the Wondrous Wreath stamp set (yes, it's in the new catalogue!)

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My second project is all about CASEing the new catalogue.  After changing my mind countless times and slowly eliminating the many little stickers poking from various pages in the new catalogue, I finally decided to create the bag on page 28.  Why?  Several reasons.  I thought it would be fun to have a 3-D project.  I really wanted to create something new with the Gift Bag Punch Board.  And finally, it gave me an excuse to use the gorgeous Timeless Elegance Designer Series Paper again.  I really can't get enough of using it.

p. 28 in the Annual Catalogue

I decided to go a bit bolder and brighter with my colours.  I used the same pattern of Designer Paper but changed out the embossed Basic Black banner with a Gold Foil banner embossed with the same Elegant Dots embossing folder.  I also chose to colour my stamped flowers (from the Timeless Love stamp set) using more vivid colours.  Instead of using the "Happy Anniversary" stamp from the set, I decided to use "Congratulations".  That allowed the bag to be appropriate for so many more occasions.  Overall, however, I stayed true to the original.  I made my bag the same size and even used the same Gold Baker's Twine to tie it closed.  

What do you think?  Which one do you like better?

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My final project is all about the new punches.  I turned to my favourite among them, the Tree Builder punch.  What a versatile punch that one is!  I've enjoyed using it for so many projects.  This time I chose to make a special fold card using the scoops of ice cream to hold it shut.

I used the wonderful new Ronald McDonald House stamp set, Sprinkles of Life, for my card.  It coordinates with the punch and is such fun to use.  It's also extremely versatile.  This is probably my favourite of the Ronald McDonald House stamp sets so far.  The bonus?  For every stamp sold, $3 goes to the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

You can see from the inside view of my card that there is one scoop of ice cream on the left side of the gate fold card.  That's the scoop that hold the card shut.  What an important job for a scoop of ice cream!  The inside of the card is stamped using the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set with Watermelon Wonder ink and Daffodil Delight ink.  The sentiment is stamped on top of that using Memento black ink.

For the front of the card I used some of the script pattern in Tip Top Taupe from the In-Color Designer Series Paper Stack.  I also stamped five scoops of ice cream on a piece of Whisper White and then coloured them using my aqua painter and Watermelon Wonder, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral, Wisteria Wonder and Mint Macaron inks.  The Mint Macaron has chocolate sprinkles stamped on it using, of course, Chocolate Chip ink.  I've also used the Gorgeous Grunge images to create some splatters before assembling the ice cream cone and wobbly scoops using Dimensionals to attach them.

This was such fun to make!  Of course I had a crazy ice-cream craving by the time I finished.

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Well, that's it for my projects.  I hope you enjoyed them as much as I've enjoyed creating them.  If you get a moment, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of them.

Your next stop will be with a very creative member of our group, Gail Allen.  I'm sure you'll be amazed with her wonderful projects.

PCCCS153 -- Happy Anniversary

Don't you love modern technology?  Here I am on a cruise to Alaska and my computer pulls out the scheduled file and posts it for me in my absence.  I absolutely love it!

I also absolutely love the sketch for the Paper Craft Crew Challenge this week.  It gave me a chance to try out one of those gorgeous silver doilies.  I love that the package contains both silver and gold doilies and also two sizes of each.  The way I've used the doily to fit the sketch, I only needed half of one.  At this rate my package will last quite a while.

I decided to make an anniversary card.  If the "Happy Anniversary" is changed out, it could also be an engagement card or a wedding card.  I kept the colour palette neutral.  I really wanted the silver to take centre stage, and not just the silver in the doily.  I also used silver ribbon and cut a silver butterfly as well as a silver Project Life paper clip.  Even the matte for the sentiment is silver foil.  

The beautiful Timeless Elegance Designer Series Paper "picked" my colours for me.  I went along with the Basic Black, Sahara Sand and Very Vanilla contained in the paper.  I added some texture by embossing the Basic Black behind the silver doily using my Elegant Dots embossing folder.  I also added texture to the Sahara Sand Strip by using my Decorative Dots embossing folder.  Both echo the pattern in the printed lace of the designer paper.

If you'd like to see more cards created using this sketch, I invite you to join us at the Paper Craft Crew Challenge.

WCC28 -- Thanks!

I love colour challenges and so I was excited about the new Watercooler Challenge.  Buffy's five-colour challenge, because two of the colours were relatively close shades, presented an additional challenge.  But before I get carried away with all that, let me show you the colours.

I love the colours individually but together they gave me a bit of trouble.  I'll admit that a couple of times I muttered at an invisible Buffy:  "Where's my yellow?"  or  "Green---I need a green!"  But those were the creative "growing pains" that everyone goes through.  I finally decided to keep it very simple and so my card was born.

I began with a base of the new heavy-weight Whisper White which I love.  If you haven't tried it, you're missing out on some great paper.  My next layer is a plain piece of Rose Red and then I added a layer of Whisper White which I had first stamped using Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder and Pool Party and the Work of Art stamp set and then embossed using the new Elegant Dots embossing folder.  You'll have noticed that I used four of the colours quite easily getting to this point.

I had plans for the final colour, too.  I love the look of the Melon Mambo and so had decided to use my Little Letters Thinlets to cut out T H A N K S from the cardstock.  To mount the letters across the arc of colours, I cut strips from the edges of my Dimensionals so that they would be elevated.  It looked great and I was happy with my project.

That's when I ran into the additional challenge which I mentioned at the beginning of my post.  The camera, no matter how much light I used, would not capture the difference between the Rose Red and the Melon Mambo.  I liked the card but, really, could just as easily have used four colours and no-one would have known the difference.  I put my project aside to fret a bit.  

Well, fretting brought me to "take two" in the challenge of using Buffy's colours.  I took a piece of Whisper White, stamped it several times using Melon Mambo ink and the beehive image from the Butterfly Basics stamp set and then, after the ink had fully dried and set, added a watercolour wash in Melon Mambo.  When that had fully dried, I knew the camera would capture the difference easily and so I cut the letters.  To attach them to the already-mounted letters, I brushed on some Crystal Effects and then, for good measure after I had put the new letters in place, covered them with Crystal Effects as well.  

While that dried I played around with the left-over bits of stamped cardstock and my Confetti Stars Border punch.  I took the best of the punched out stars and scattered them on the card.  Finally---finished!  And I was right.  The camera had no problems with the new look of the colours.

So which one do you like better?  Come on over to the Watercooler Challenge and try your hand at the colours.

PCCCS152 -- Friend

It's time for another Paper Craft Crew Challenge  and this week's sketch is lots of fun.

Don't you just love the newsprint and the bit of grunge in those splatters?  I saw the sketch and immediately reached for the great new Awesomely Artistic stamp set.  Along with the new In-Colors, Mint Macaron and Watermelon Delight, and some Bermuda Bay, the card was already making itself in my head.  All I needed to do was follow the little voice inside my head which gave me directions, and voila!  The card was done.  That In-Color Designer Series Paper stack completed the card so perfectly with the script design.

I went a bit astray with the flowers for my card.  Instead of using the ones from the Awesomely Artistic set, I turned to the pretty floral images from the Birthday Blossoms set.  Add in the sideways Woodgrain embossing which looks like ripples in water as well as some pearls and Dazzling Details and I was done.

I've also entered my card in the Inkspirational Challenge because of its grunge splatters.

I've entered my card, as well, in the Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge for making my mark with the watercolouring.

Two challenges -- Hugs & Kisses!

I enjoy the challenges at the Friday Mashup and this one is no different.  I thought the sketch and the mashup both sounded like a lot of fun.

For this challenge, one could either use the sketch or create a project with "3 elements on it".  Or, of course one could mash it up and use both together.  Usually I do the mashup but this time I chose to create a project with "3 elements on it".

The Sunday Stamps Weekly Challenge is also a lot of fun and this week's sketch really appealed to me.  

I knew I could easily use the sketch and add the 3 elements from the other challenge, thus "mashing up" two challenges.  

I chose to use a piece from the wonderful Timeless Elegance Designer Series paper.  The images on this paper are so beautifully drawn that they make one pull out the markers or inks and Aqua Painters, just wanting to colour them in to make them come to life.  Since the piece of Designer paper which I chose is entirely Very Vanilla and Basic Black, it was a matter of deciding what colours the floral images would be to decide which cardstocks I would use.  Since I chose to colour with my Aqua Painter, I used the new Watermelon Wonder ink as well as another In-Color, Mossy Meadow.  My base cardstock, therefore was Mossy Meadow, followed by a layer of Whisper White which I embossed using the new Elegant Dots embossing folder.

For the centre I set a piece of Watermelon Wonder slightly askew and then mounted the coloured image from the Designer Paper which I had first backed with a layer of Mossy Meadow.  The heavy Baker's Twine is Mossy Meadow from this year's Sale-a-bration.  My three elements are the butterflies, two of which I punched out using the Elegant Butterfly Punch and the Bitty Butterfly Punch.  The third one was cut using the Butterflies Thinlits.  I added a few pearls down the centre of each butterfly.

I love the way the card turned out, don't you?  

PCCCS151 -- Rawr!

If you're fluent in "dinosaur", you'll already have figured out that the title of this post means "You're awesome!"  I knew as soon as I saw the No Bones About It stamp set in the new Annual Catalogue that I had to have it.  What a great set to use for boys' birthdays, after all, and I've also got some ideas about those dinosaurs in the background and someone's age in the forefront.  Stay tuned.  (Do you have any old "dinosaurs" among your friends or family?)

I used the new sketch from the Paper Craft Crew Challenge and knew I wanted to use this stamp set.  I also wanted to use a piece from the Go Wild Designer Series Paper stack as the girdle in the centre of the sketch.  That led me to my colour palette.  I decided to use only those colours in that paper stack:  Whisper White, Basic Black and the new Tip Top Taupe.

I wasn't sure what I wanted for my background.  I thought of embossing the Tip Top Taupe but really wasn't satisfied with any of my embossing folders for this project.  And then I thought, why not stamp some of the dinosaur skeletons on the Tip Top Taupe using the Tip Top Taupe ink?  And so I did and the results are even better than I had hoped.

For my feature image which I stamped on Whisper White, I wanted to use both the skeleton and the silhouette.  By first heat embossing the skeleton on the Whisper White using clear embossing powder, I was able to stamp the silhouette over it in Memento black ink.  That, too, turned out better than I had hoped.   I stamped the sentiment on Tip Top Taupe using Memento black ink.

After assembling all my pieces using Fast Fuse and also Dimensionals, I added some twine across the bottom of the Whisper White and also some carefully placed "arrows" which I had cut directly from a piece of the Go Wild Designer paper.  I also cut three hoof prints from another piece of the designer paper to finish of the card.

I invite you to come over to the Paper Craft Crew Challenge to try your hand at creating a card using out new sketch.

I've also entered this card in the Inkspirational Challenge #85 with the word prompt:  WILD.