Stampin' Up! Australia - Color Coach Card #56 - Stampin' Up! Longfellows

Baked Brown Sugar #1

#ColorCoachJourney 

Hi

I had such a lovely time exploring the last lot of In Colors that I thought I would jump onto Baked Brown Sugar and the other In Colors while I was at this end of the Color Coach. The colour combo for Baked Brown Sugar is Bermuda Bay and Crisp Cantaloupe. 

CASE Study have THE cutest card to inspire this week. I just love it! Less is More are also challenging their follows to use water colouring in a clean & simple style.

The CASE Study card features an adorable little dachshund so it prompted me to revisit a vintage Stampin' Up! set called "Longfellows". This card is one of the reasons that I will never part with Hostess sets....they are so rare, but often they are some of the cutest stamp sets you will ever see. The balloons are from "Pedal Presents" another vintage hostess set. 

Moral to story....

1. acquire all the SU Hostess sets!

2. Never part with them!

Here's my card:

Hope you like my card! It is going to a friend who LOVES dachshunds who also happens to be a mum-to-be!

Cheers

Alison x

Materials used:

Stamps - Longfellows, Pedal Presents, Itty Bitty Sentiments

Ink - Stazon, Bermuda Bay, Crisp Cantaloupe, Baked Brown Sugar

Cardstock - Watercolour paper, Very Vanilla, Baked Brown Sugar

Tools - Big Shot, Itty Bitty Framelits, Stampin' Trimmer, Fast Fuse (NEW!)

Stampin' Up! Australia - Color Coach Card #55 - Stampin' Up! I Like You

Raspberry Ripple #2

#ColorCoachJourney 

Hi

It took about 3 different cards to realise this colour combination of Raspberry Ripple, Pink Pirouette and Old Olive! Seriously man! Pink & green shouldn't be this hard! LOL

Anyway, CASE Study came to my rescue....when I saw Pamela's wonderful card, I knew exactly what I wanted to try. I'm also submitting this for consideration as a Guest Designer at CASE Study.....love that challenge! 

This is a new stamp set called "I Like You" - it contains some beautiful folk-art inspired line art flower stamps....which are perfect for colouring with the new SU Blendabilities and I have seen a few cards on the internet that use it in this way....I wanted to use it in a different way though....and use the traditional blender pen way of colouring. 

I stamped the flowers in Raspberry Ripple using a post-it note as a mask to leave a centre panel for my sentiment. I used my blender pens to pick up Pink Pirouette and Raspberry Ripple to colour in the petals. Old Olive was used for the leaves. 

The 'Just Because' sentiment is from A Dozen Thoughts. 

Hope you like my card!

Cheers

Alison xx

Materials used:

Stamps - I Like You, A Dozen Thoughts

Ink - Raspberry Ripple, Old Olive, Pink Pirouette

Cardstock - Whisper White

Tools - Stampin' Trimmer, Stampin' Dimensionals, Post-it Notes, Stamp-a-majig (essential!)

CASE Study Design Team

Marina Mist Card #2

Hi

Here's a card from my my Color Coach Journey. This card uses Marina Mist, Old Olive and Real Red. 

I have used the sketch from Retrosketches this week to help me. There were lots of cool angles in their sketch and I haven't done a card that uses layered angles before. 

I am also entering this card into the CASE Study Design Team call. I haven't been on a Design Team for a while, and I do really miss the regular challenge to create something unusual and inspiring. CASE Study always have UNBELIEVABLE muses to inspire the team and participants.  

My personal muse is Catherine Pooler - she has such a fun and artistic style and is always pushing the boundaries of her creativity. She is never unafraid to try new things and I think that is the key to developing as a card designer. I am always in awe of the things that she does with paper, stamps and ink! 

She has shared a few angled cards on Stampnation, but I think this one on her blog  is my favourite. There's also a photo below my card :)

I was inspired by her gradient sponging, angles, and gold sequins. So cool! 

I got the effect on my card by sponging Marina Mist, Real Red and Old Olive onto a piece of Whisper White. The overlap of Real Red & Marina Mist produces a lovely purple colour and the overlap of Old Olive and Marina Mist gives a gorgeous deep teal.    
I hope you dig my card! :)

Cheers
Alison xx

Stampin' Up! Australia - Stampin' Up! Delightful Dozen Valentine Card - Color Coach Card #30

Wisteria Wonder Card #3.1 and #3.2

Hi

This colour coach combination had me stumped a little bit until I realised that Wisteria Wonder, Pink Pirouette and Cherry Cobbler are perfect Valentine companions!

I was inspired by the muse at CASE Study #174 this week so I did a little bit of 'emboss resist' on this card with some splotches...plus I wanted to have a go at the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week which is to create an 'angled' card. 

Now I know that this isn't true to the sketch, but trust me when I tell you that I TRIED to make it work, but no matter what sort of banner I put across the panel, it just didn't work....I think my sponged texture wanted to be left bare. So I just left it. So it doesn't really fit the sketch criteria, but you see where I was trying to go with it at least. :)

I embossed my sentiment onto white card stock with white embossing powder and then sponged Wisteria Wonder, Pink Pirouette and Cherry Cobbler ink onto my card and blended them together as much as I could....I also did a bit of splotchy-work with the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set and I did some 'faux bleaching' which is just dropping water from an aqua painter onto my card to give the washed out bleached dots.

I like how this card turned out....it has a bit of a tie-dye/intergalactic supernova look to it.....it is quite cool in real life. :)

Here's the proof that I had other stuff to put on my card.....lots of hearts...couldn't make them work so I made an entirely new card a made a graphic 'heart' flower with them. The stem is some off-cuts from my sponged angled piece. It is without a sentiment as I think it is striking enough without one. :)

Hope you like them. :)

Cheers

Alison xx

Materials used:

Card #1

Stamp - Delightful Dozen

Ink - Wisteria Wonder, Cherry Cobbler, Pink Pirouette, Versamark

Cardstock - Whisper White

Tools - White Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Stampin' Trimmer, Multipurpose Liquid Glue, Sponges

Card #2

Stamps - none

Ink - Wisteria Wonder, Cherry Cobbler, Pink Pirouette

Cardstock - Whisper White textured, Wisteria Wonder (scrap piece...it has a bit of scoring & embossing on it if you look closely), Cherry Cobbler, Pink Pirouette

Accessories - Jewel Rhinestone

Tools - Big Shot, Hearts A Flutter Framelit (for big heart), Small Heart Punch (for medium heart), Owl Builder Punch (for mini heart), Multipurpose Liquid Glue 

Stampin' Up! Australia - Stampin' Up Thinlits Thank You Card - Case Study #173

Hi

Do you like this card!?

I was completely inspired by the Case Study inspiration this week from Donna Mikasa (see her card below). I loved the cascading letters and the colours in her card. 

When I was thinking about my card design, I wanted to show that watercolours don't have to look conventional and "pretty"....I wanted to give them a graphic twist so they jumped off the card in a bold kinda way. :)

I did washes of colour onto watercolour paper using similar colours so they blended well. Then I used the 'thx' thinlit from the Stampin' Up! Circles Thinlit Dies to cut the sentiments. 

I flicked ink using my aqua painter to make my splattered background....I love a bit of splatter....it is SO satisfying to do!! 

I hope you like my card....it's a bit different. :)

Cheers

Alison xx

Materials used:

Stamps - none! 

Ink - lots.....okay....here are the pairings...Wisteria Wonder/Elegant Eggplant, Bermuda Bay/Coastal Cabana, Old Olive/Pear Pizzazz, Daffodil Delight/Crushed Curry, Tangerine Tango/Pumpkin Pie, Regal Rose/Melon Mambo

Cardstock - Very Vanilla, Watercolour paper

Accessories - none

Tools - Big Shot, Circle Card Thinlits Die, Stampin' Trimmer, Multipurpose Liquid Glue, Aquapainter. 

Stampin' Up! Australia - Stampin' Up! Petal Parade Sale-a-bration 2014

Hi 

Here's a bit of an unconventional Valentine's Day card....but appropriate if you give cards to your Mum or your daughter for the occasion. 

I was inspired by the image at Case Study this week plus the sketch from Pals Paper Arts has been on my mind ever since I saw it! 

I have used a BRAND NEW stamp set that will be available during Sale-a-bration from 28 January to  31 March. The stamp set is Petal Parade and you can get it for FREE with any order of $90.

If you would like me to send you a free Sale-a-bration catalogue, just email me and I will pop one in the mail. It's a great time of year to score new and free Stampin' Up! product!. 

Notes/confessions on this card...

I initially wanted to make this card more 'folk art' like the image, but my CAS style just wouldn't go there.....I used the little flower flourish from 'Best of Shelli' to give it some folk edge and the scallop of the heart framelit also echoes the doilies in the background. My card was also only meant to be a white panel on a white base with my masked feature, but my masked vertical feature was slightly crooked so, to 'fool' the eye, I cropped it down a bit and mounted it onto a Real Red panel as a slanted piece....it's all the rage right now so why not!!? :)

Cheers

Alison xx

Stamps - Petal Parade (SAB 2014), Best of Shelli

Ink - Real Red, Daffodil Delight, Midnight Muse, Gumball Green

Cardstock - Whisper White, Real Red

Accessories - none

Tools - Big Shot, Expressions Thinlits (love sentiment), Hearts a Flutter Framelits, post-it notes (for my mask), SNAIL, Two Way glue pen

Stampin' Up! Australia - You Are My Sunshine Stamp

Hi

Recently on StampNation, there was a challenge called "Outside My Window"....well I live in Brisbane, Australia and at the moment there is crazy amounts of daily thunderstorm activity and last night there was even a tornado in the next town over. Thunderstorms are commonplace in tropical Brisbane, but tornados are not. 

This photo wasn't exactly "outside my window" but it was taken by a storm-watcher not far from my place last week....look at that amazing storm cell structure!!!

So I set about trying to create a card inspired by this photo.

The other day, I caught a post from CASE Study and realised that I had never entered one of their challenges.....mainly due to a lack of confidence as their CASE Study muses are always SO talented. This week's challenge was no exception, but I took the FB post as a bit of a "sign", got up the courage, and thought about how this card below 'spoke' to me....well, it was the chevrons of course...but also the partially obscured flower features. It is very modern & cool. 

...and so my card was born....the fluffy white clouds against a sunshine-y sky.....with the chevron and  flower references....and a sentiment that promises love despite whatever struggles may appear before us. :)

Hope you all like it! Please comment if you do. :)

Materials used:

Stamp - Sunshine (single clear stamp), Positively Chevrons

Ink - Basic Grey, Stazon

Cardstock - Whisper White, Basic Grey, Summer Starfruit, Silver Glimmer Paper (on button). 

Accessories - Summer Starfruit button & die-cut doily (from a kit that's now retired)

Tools - Big Shot, Cloudy Day Embossing Folder, Edgelits Adorning Accents, Glue Dots, Paper Snips, Stampin' Trimmer, Boho Blossoms Punch, SNAIL.