Zoom Zoom

My submission for this weeks' CASology Challenge #307.

This card was so much fun to make.  I thought only of my youngest grandson while putting it together.  Lawson loves his toy cars and is rarely without a car in one or both hands.   

I ran to the local scrapbook store to cut the ZOOM from clipboard, then painted it with black chalk paint.  The road lines were drawn with Uni-ball Signo white pen.  The cars (Memory Box Auto Parts) were cut three times from each color then glued together to give them some depth and strength.  The wheels are Stampin' Up Candy Dots which I think might be retired.  The card base is 110lb Neenah solar white; with a layer of SU Basic Black cut to fit the top; then the main panel was trimmed down and centered on the base.  Easy and other then the three layers per car, this card came together very quickly.  

Thank you for stopping by.  
Carole

Purple Aqua and Lime ...... Oh Boy!!

The following card is for two challenges, the first challenge is Stamp Ink Paper Challenge #152 which is to use purple, aqua and lime; three wonderful colors on their own or together.  The second challenge is CASology #302 which is to include "Squiggles" on the project.  

This is the 4th or 5th card I tried making for the SIP challenge then last night I decided to go in a different direction.  The Memory Box die used here is called Playful Petal and has been trimmed down in size.  The die is more of a large "C" or wishbone shape so after coloring it I laid it all out and decided it was too busy.  Once it had been trimmed down, I thought this card might also qualify for the CASology challenge; though it might be just a bit on the "not so quick to make " side for a true CAS card.  

Thank you for stopping in.  I'll be away from my craft table for this next week due to an extra heavy work load. I'm in Accounting and it's time to close the books.  We are down two people so it makes for very long and stressful days.  

I have a few cards in the works for other challenges, but I won't be able to completed them in time. 

Carole

Supplies:
Stamps: SSS Friends For Life
Card Stock: Neenah Solar White
Die: Memory Box Playful Petals
Inks/markers: Distress Tumbled Glass, Wilted Violet, Twisted Citron, MFT Hybrid Ink Black

Floral Happy Birthday

This Happy little card is for two challenges:

Fab Friday #137 (sketch) and The Card Concept #93 (floral centerpiece).  

Not much to really tell about this card other than I messed up when stamping the "birthday" and had to trim the left edge down.  Doing that took away what was exposed of the bar that runs from the "Happy". I had to pull one flower off and tried to position the large pink flower so that a bit of the black bar remained.  

For The Card Concept, this entry for Clean and Layered.   

  

Thank you to both design teams for the wonderful inspiration; and thank you for stopping by.

Carole

Supplies:
Stamps: SSS - Artful Flowers; Reverse Confetti - Lots To Say
Card Stock: Neenah Solar White; SU! Basic Black; 90lb watercolor paper
Dies: SSS - Designer Flowers; Memory Box - Lorelai Leaf; PTI Happy set
Additional:  Zig watercolor markers, Stickles, sequins

Love for California Poppies

This is my submission for this weeks CAS(E) This Sketch.

I struggled with this one all week and there are three cards, all completely different, in my trash bin that failed.  Late Monday night I finally worked up this card and tonight I finished it up with some sequins.  

It's a bit hard to see, but in the window there is a scrap of DP that has a diamond pattern on it.  I was thrilled to find it because it was the "piece" that finally made this card, and challenge, come together for me.








Thank you for stopping by.
Carole

Supplies:
Stamps: Altenew - Birthday Greetings
Dies: SSS - Small Folder Banners; Memory Box - Pinpoint Single Frame and Darling Poppies
Card Stock: My Favorite Things - Grout Gray
Additional supplies: Copic markers, Pretty Pink Posh sequins

Happy Mother's Day!!

I asked Darnell if she was still hosting the NBUS Challenge, but she said it had run its course and was now supporting a new challenge called Twofer Challenge. So I headed over to this new challenge and decided to jump in and play along.  Below are my submissions for the May Twofer Challenge.  

The first card is a CASE of a lovely card created by Laurie Schmidlin for Spellbinders.  Her card is here.  

Due to the size of the butterfly and to retain the overall feel of Laurie's card, I made this card size A6 instead of the normal A2.  I added a vellum layer to soften down the background stamping a bit, and went a bit overboard on the sequins.  The butterfly is glitter paper colored with Copics.  

The sympathy card base is a very soft blue/green, however it looks a bit gray on my computer.  The butterfly was colored with Copic markers and the background was stamped using VersaMark and left to dry.  

I hope everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day.  My son is treating me to a nice dinner tonight.  Until then, I think I might take a stab at the current LIM challenge.  

Thank you for stopping by,
Carole

Supplies:  
Stamps - SSS Beautiful Day, Clearly Besotted - Mixed Sentiments, Impression Obsession Sympathy Sentiments; PTI Turning a New Leaf
Dies: Memory Box- Devonshire Butterfly, My Favorite Things - Stitched Ovals  
Card Stock: Neenah Solar White 110lb, Bazzil Sea Breeze

Freshly Made Sketch for a Color Throwdown

This card is for two challenges, Freshly Made Sketches 336 and Color Throwdown 492.

I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.  I was aiming for a more masculine card and this leans that way.  

While the sketch didn't take me but a second to work out, I struggled with the color challenge all week.  Yellow is my least favorite color, and therefore the hardest for me to use.  Because yellow is such a mental block, I try to take on challenges using this color occasionally.  I have to admit, I kept returning to Amy Rohl's sample card for inspiration.  It's simply "Fabulous".

This card is size A6.  Stamps: Clearly Besotted Sunburst and Reverse Confetti Celebrations.  Inks: Altenew Fresh Lemon and Ruby Red (and let me just say these inks are so nice to work with) along with Mama Elephant Moonlight, sentiment is Hero Arts white pigment.  Card stock: SU! Yoyo Yellow and Basic Grey.  The enamel dots are My Minds Eye.  Die by Memory Box.  I think that covers it.  

Thank you for stopping by.  
Carole

CAS Christmas May Challenge

This card is for the CAS Christmas May Challenge.  

Have you ever messed up a card, but didn't actually realize it until you were too far into the process to correct the problem?  That's this card.  

This was supposed to have been a shaker card.  I laid down all the foam tape around the back of the die, sprinkled in the sequins and snowflakes, carefully ripped off all the tape backing, laid the base down on the die/sequins, then picked up the card only to see the acetate still sitting on the table... along with all the sequins!  The acetate was never on the back side of the die, it was on the front.  I just stood there and laughed over the fact that it never registered in my brain that the acetate wasn't under the foam tape.   

So I improvised and this is the result.  

Thankfully I have a lot of snowmen stamps so maybe I can take another go at this challenge this weekend.  

Hope you all have a good evening and/or day.

Thanks for stopping by.
Carole


Glitter paper by Stampin' Up; die and sentiment by Memory Box; felt My Favorite Things; bling on hat is unknown, bling buttons Kaiser Craft; sequins Lucy's. 

PS:  Darnell - If you stop in, I am tapping into all my NBUS like crazy.  Do you still do the NBUS challenge?

One more for the road .....

One more card this week before I head into the month end financial close process. 




The Colour Me! challenge this week included gold, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, black and a neutral.  I made one card already and while cleaning up the leftovers it hit me that I could make a completely different card with all those pieces.  The first card has a black base so instead of loading down this one with a ton of color, I picked one bit from each color and let the frame and sentiment do the rest.

I'm also going to add this card to this weeks Less is More challenge since the theme is anything goes.  With the ton of white space on this card it's a must.  :)

I'm not terribly pleased with the "hello" die cut, it's too cartoonish for the geometric feel of the diamonds.  Too bad it's glued down and not taped, I'd be able to peel it off and use the gum eraser to clean up any stickies, then find a better sentiment.    Oh well.  No bling or sequins on this one but I may revisit this at a later date since I like the layout of the diamonds. 

Have a great week ...
Carole

Shameless CASEing

Two cards in two days .... that has to be a record for me.  LOL

The card below is for the Colour Me!! Challenge which this week I find very challenging.  Color combinations of more than two and a neutral throw me, so recently I have been watching the color challenges and giving it a try.  So far all have been horrible failures but today, with what I would consider the hardest colors to mesh, I finally have a card I like.  Of course I can't take any credit because this card is a shameless CASE of one of Jennifer McGuire's, seen here. 

The key to this type of challenge is the balance of color, which is where I always fail.  In this case I wanted the gold and black to dominate with the Mambo and Daffodil as complements.  The neutral completely threw me, but I finally mixed a bit of Smokey Gray embossing powder in with the white to tone down the sentiment, which at full-on white was too much.  Instead of allowing the entire die to roll across the card, I shifted it so that several of the diamonds fell off the edge.  So that the gold wouldn't completely out do the Mambo and Daffodil, I covered them in a layer of Wink of Stella.  After putting all the pieces down I hightailed it over to Kim Singdahlsen's site to look up the SU!/Copic charts, she has so graciously listed in her sidebar, in order to color in some bling to match.    So the whole thing sparkles with the exception of the black base which IRL really looks nice.   :)  The only issue that I have is that the Wink of Stella changes the color on the card stock just a bit, so the lovely bright Mambo is slightly toned down, but it does sparkle so I guess it's a trade-off. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.
Happy Sunday
Carole

Two Birds, One Card

Over at Less Is More the theme this week is "Anything Goes" in honor of  Chrissie's birthday.  First I'd like to wish Chrissie a Happy Birthday .... but since it's Saturday 9:30pm here and 3:30am Sunday in England, I think maybe it's a belated HB now.  :)

This little card is for LIM and The Card Concept which is a color challenge this week using aqua, white and lime.  I finally broke down and bought some sequins from Lawn Fawn and Verve and the color challenge was a perfect way to finally use them.  I think I went a bit overboard but ehhh ....

I used my current favorite little birds from Mama Elephant with a Memory Box HB die.  The lime is Luscious Lime from SU which retired long, long ago.  I have half a pack left and horde it like crazy; no scrap it too small.  The aqua blue is Bazzil and the birds are colored with Copics.  I put Wink of Stella on the birds and the word "birthday" so this really has a fun shimmer to it. 

Thank you for stopping by ~ Carole


A bit of fun here ....
After deciding what challenges I was going to attempt today and gathering the supplies, I walked over to my craft table and started to shove the last mess to the side so I could start on the card above.  Though I may not always post a card, at least once or twice a week I start a card with the intention of playing along.  Below is the disaster area known as my craft space.  This is my main working area where I keep everything but my cutting machine and dies.  There are easily half a dozen projects in this mess.  Either done, almost done, tossed aside because it was awful or tossed aside because I messed it up. 

The mess in the window seat is overflow from when I couldn't force another square inch of space from the craft table.

So before getting started today I took about an hour (maybe more) to clean my craft room!!!  I put everything away and it felt so nice to work in a clean space without stepping on containers and other junk that had no business being in that area. Ahhhhhhh  .....

 

Reaching for the Mojo.

This little card is for this weeks Less is More Challenge which was to include something shinny. 

Though it's a bit small, the bling is in the center of the flower. I left the senitment off because the lady I made this for likes the option of using cards for various occasions.  This is one of four that will be in the pack, each with a different arrangement of DP and flower color. 

I have a couple more card ideas in mind that I might add to this weeks challenge.  Its great to be back in my craft room again and I'm beginning to feel my Mojo resurface. 

Thank you for stopping by, your comments are much appreciated and help me improve. 



Supplies:
Stamp set: Broght Blossoms (SU!)
Ink: Lucky Limeade; Pool Party
Paper: Misc white; Memory Box Viola DP
Rhinestone is from SU colored with a Sharpie marker. 

Memory Box Dies

Over the last few weeks I have seen a number of crafters using the ornament, snowflakes and Christmas tree dies from Memory Box and everyone seems to agree; gorgeous dies but hard to glue down because the dies are so finely detailed. I've struggled with the ornament and Christmas tree die as well but think I have fixed the problem.

Last week I bought some adhesive sheets to make one of those Holtz 12 Days tags. Once they arrived, it struck me that this might be the solution to the Memory Box dies. I gave it a try last evening and am pleased with the results.

I made three attempts; one using gold foil and one with a metal sheet and one with card stock.

The foil attempt didn't work at all. There wasn't enough strength in the foil/adhesive combination and the diecut didn't make it half way out of the die before tearing. I continued on just to test it and the same problem came up when removing the open cut areas.

The second attempt was card stock. The ornament worked beautifully, the tree was a huge disaster. Personally I don't think that die is deep enough so while it did cut through the card stock, it didn't cut completely though the thin layer of adhesive. When trying to free the open areas, the adhesive wasn't cut all the way through and pulled on the diecut areas. :(






My third attempt was using some thin metal sheets that I had purchased eons ago. This medium worked so well I ended up cutting two from the metal sheet. Once I had the die cut free of all the bits, the adhesive backing made placing the cut very easy. It's a stong bond; both cuts are attached to bases that are covered in embossed iridescent ice and I have tested the bond in several ways and its firm.

To bond the metal and card stock to the adhesive I cut equal sizes of both then starting at one end of the adhesive, I peeled back the edge placed it on the metal/ card stock edge. Using the brayer, I rolled the adhesive along the metal/card stock as I pulled the backing off. This really helped to keep the tape to medium smooth and bubble free. Added bonus, I finally found a use for my brayer!!



I placed the die and metal into the Bigshot; added a folded sheet of computer paper between the metal and the top plate then cut the die. I add the paper because my plates are so old, the cut marks can sometimes transfer to the item being cut. Since metal is very sensitive I knew adding the paper would keep the final cut clean and free of the marks. I took the same steps with the card stock. Once cut, the removal of the open areas was really easy. I think the weight of the metal made it easiest to remove the open areas.



The completed ornament is the first metal try; the one without the bling is the second one and I'll finish it up tonight. Both cuts will be used on Christmas cards. Not sure which direction I'll go with the card stock ornament.



So for anyone that may not have discovered this idea yet, and plan to give it a try, please let me know if you get the tree to work. I'm more than a bit disappointed in that one right now.

Supplies:
The metal sheets were probably purchased at Recollections; so they might be available at Michaels.
The adhesive sheets were purchased Ellen Hutson LLC: Be Creative Tape Sheets by Skoowang
They also carry all the Memory Box dies, DP and stamps.

Ice... Ice... Everywhere

There are perks to being frozen in and it's called card making. I save/reclaim three hours a day by working from home and not trekking into the office; and I've been putting those hours to some fun use.


This lovely card is for my best friends birthday on Saturday. The original design is by Linda Keal who graciously allowed me to case this beauty. Her original Nested Box and cards can be found here. I used Linda's box design as the card. I changed the hearts to a flower and added a bit more SU! News Print DP and added a scalloped card base. I tried to get a shot of the inside, but the following picture was the best I could do.

Thank you Linda for letting me case this gorgeous design.




Supplies:
Stamps: SU! Bliss and retired French Script; Verve Big Wish
Paper: SU! Concord Crush, Very Vanilla, News Print DP
Extras: Imaginisce flower brads; jewelry hemp, Spellbinder dies (flower, base and inside swirl)



This second little card is for yesterdays SCS sketch challenge #318. I bought this lovely little stamp about a month ago planning to use it with Memory Boxes' Gossamer DP. Roxy's sketch was a perfect fit for this stamp and the matching DP. There is really nothing to this card, just some layers and a little water coloring; add a little ribbon and bling and it was done. The added plus was I didn't rip this one apart two and three times trying to "get it right". LOL


Supplies: Stamp and DP: Memory Box
Card Stock and Ink: SU! Razzleberry, Pirouette, Always Artichoke, Kiwi, Celery, Mauve Mist, Whisper white
Extras: Stickles, Kaiser Craft Rhinestones, SU! ribbon