Primarily speaking...Color My Heart Dare #43

Here's my happy little card for this week's Color Dare, using some bold primary colours:

CRANBERRY

HONEY

OUTDOOR DENIM

Those happen to be the colours of CTMH's paper pack Tommy which has some neat nautical images. I used one piece of the Tommy paper for my "sky" and Outdoor Denim for my "sea." Some border dies and Paper Smooches' Wicked Nauticool stamp set completed the tool kit.

 CTMH's card stock has a white core, so the white is revealed when you sand the paper. This is what I did to get some "white-caps" on the edge of my "waves." The different layers are foam-taped on top of each other to give the effect of a choppy sea. 

I stamped the life preserver on kraft paper and added some shading with markers. The little gull is also coloured with markers. The speech bubble was cut with the Cricut Artiste cartridge.

I used the maritime signal flags to decorate the inside of the card.

I gave this thank-you card to a co-worker earlier this week, who helped me out with some French translation (I can speak the language but writing in it is a whole 'nother matter...She came to my aid!)

I'm heading out to the East Coast this weekend to open up our cottage, so this wavy scene was also most appropriate.

*****

Sail on over to the Color My Heart blog to see some other great ideas with our primary colours. You have one week to post your project. If you don't have CTMH colours its okay, just sub in similar colours. But remember, just those colours PLUS neutrals (black, white, grey, browns and kraft) are ship-shape for our colour challenges.

Happy sailing!

Caroline

Supplies:

Card stock in White Daisy, Outdoor Denim and kraft

Tommy paper pack

Inks in White Daisy, Cranberry, Outdoor Denim, Honey and Cocoa

Copic markers

Hemp twine

Foam tape

The MAD 10-Min Craft Dash strikes again...

The urge to craft in RIDICULOUS time (Woot if you're a fan of "Space Balls") struck again. The color palette at the 10-minute craft dash this time was particularly appealing:

Soft shades of sand, sea-foam green and coral. I subbed in the CTMH colours Cashmere, Lagoon, Smoothie and Desert Sand. I also had some washi tape that was JUST the right colour.
Here's my desk before the timer started:

I have a bunch of flower shapes pre-cut with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, and I store them with the coordinating stamp set. So that was a bit of a time-saver. I also had my card base and piece of kraft paper pre-cut. A rainbow of Liquid Pearls had just been delivered to my door this week, and I knew I wanted to use some of those.

As you can see above, I JUST made it again this time. The kicker was applying all those dots and dashes of Liquid Pearls--you HAVE to take your time or it just all globs together.
Here's the final product:

The greeting comes from Paper Smooches Good Gab. A very versatile stamp set. They released a new one this month that is a scream! called Slang Gang. I hope to play with that one again, soon.

Anyway, off to link up to Paulina's blog.  Its quite inspiring to see what other crafters can accomplish in just 10 minutes!

Happy Crafting,
Caroline

Supplies Used:
CTMH inks in Desert Sand, Cashmere, Lagoon and Smoothie
Colonial White card stock and kraft paper
Washi tape
Girls Rock stamp set (CTMH C1538)
Good Gab (Paper Smooches)
Ranger Liquid Pearls in Rouge, Flamingo and Platinum Pearl

In The Pink! Color My Heart Dare #42

Color My Heart has a pretty pack of pinks for you to play with this week:

BLUSH

COTTON CANDY &

HOLLYHOCK

I've been meaning to try out a technique I first saw by Kristina Werner, for Simon Says Stamp. She heat-embossed an outline floral image on vellum, then coloured it from the back side, with alcohol markers.  Here's her card:

So soft and pretty! (I LOVE the strip of lace and the gold-embossed mesh, too.).

 I saw another example just last week, on Dawn Griffith's blog, where the image was embossed in white:

Another great look. I thought the CTMH Love Blooms (C1511) stamp set would work really well for this effect.  I embossed the image in VersaMark ink, and used White Daisy embossing powder to heat-set it. I didn't have alcohol markers in all the requisite colours, so I inked a couple of the flowers with shades of BLUSH and a couple with HOLLYHOCK and COTTON CANDY, using the older dye-based CTMH markers. I have to say, the alcohol ones work better for blending and they don't saturate the vellum so it doesn't wrinkle. The dye-based markers do lend more of a water-color look, however.

Here's my version:  I used the COTTON CANDY print from the Chantilly paper pack, and embossed some White Daisy card stock with a Sizzix folder.  Those yummy die-cut flourishes are by Paper Smooches. The sentiment is also from Paper Smooches, from their set Good Gab stamp set.  Pink Glitter Gems finish the inside of the flowers (Z1807).

The translucency of the vellum allows you to see through to the images and colours below.

Here's a look at the inside:

I had a bloom and a flourish left over, so decided to add them, too.

So, are you feeling "in the PINK?" Head on over to Color My Heart to see the lovely pink creations by the other Design Team members. You have until Thursday, May 16th to link up YOUR pink project. Please join us! We love to see your work ;)

Happy Crafting, 

Caroline

Fly...

My baby turned 18 today.

Seriously, where did that time go?

I can still picture him at one year old--a tow-headed cherub with big blue eyes, eyelashes to-die-for, and a perpetual smile. Here he is today:

The boys have been playing a new video-game recently, Bio-Shock-3, which has a real Steam-Punk look--a floating city, circa 1920, powered by steam with lots of mechanical stuff. So here's his card:

All products from Paper Wishes Steam-Punk line--see link HERE. Except the cute cloud stamp (silver-embossed) from the Chantilly Workshop-on-the-go, by Close to My Heart. 

Love that silver linen paper, and the 3D papier tole balloon. My son will be joining the Canadian military for engineering school this summer, so all the gears and metal seemed just right.

Here's a shot of "my three sons," at the celebratory dinner:

Proud (but also sad and excited) mama tonight!

Fueled with Caffeine and Cocoa! Color My Heart #41

Color My Heart has a most delicious challenge for you this week. 

Use TWO shades of brown, and ONE OTHER COLOUR of your choice (plus white if you so desire). The browns are

SADDLE (a nice mocha) 

and COCOA (a deep, dark brown).

Fellow DT member Becca made a scrumptious cup-cake, HERE, which led me to thoughts of a nice café latte...

For the feature colour, I used TANGERINE, from the new Dream Pop paper pack, available this month at Close To My Heart. There are six fabulous patterned papers and six gorgeous food-inspired solid colours, with fun glossy embossed patterns.

The coffee stamp set and dies are  from The Stamps of Life; see the full set HERE.

I paper-pieced the cup, lid and sleeve. The sleeve, cut from Saddle, was also run through a chevron embossing folder to give the look of corrugated kraft paper. I used Sunset ink, a close match to Tangerine, and some coordinating baker's twine.

This was so much fun to piece together that I made a couple of other examples. My card-making group will be creating their own versions of these, later this week.

Here's a closer look at the MINT:

and STRAWBERRY examples:

So! break out your browns and join in the fun at Color My Heart! You have until midnight next Thursday May 9th to link up your creation.  Close to My Heart colors are not necessary--use close colours from your stash. What do these browns make you think of?

Have a great week!

Caroline

CTMH Supplies Used:

Saddle, Cocoa, White Daisy card-stock; Dream Pop colours: Tangerine, Strawberry and Mint.

Inks: Cocoa, Sunset, Lagoon.

Other Supplies:

Embossing folder, Sizzix

Twine from the Twinery in Mandarin, Caribbean and Cappucino

Coffee4two stamp set and dies from The Stamps of Life.

Spectrum Noir markers

Smile!... for the 10-minute Craft Dash #16

Got brave again this week--time for another go at the 10-Minute Craft Dash!

Here's this week's challenge colours:

I was checking out the results at CAS(E) this Sketch! and saw THIS cute card by Donna Mikasa.

Colouring those cute little wood veneer camera shapes seemed like a great idea. Here's the ones I purchased from Simon Says Stamp:

I just swiped them across ink pads in the challenge colours, using GYPSY, COTTON CANDY and LAGOON. They picked up the colour perfectly.

The stamp set used for the film-strip and sentiment is from Close to My Heart, C1440, Take a Picture.

• Lesson learned from this attempt: be careful layering stamped images when you want to heat-emboss, and you have limited time to permit complete drying. Despite blotting the black images and using my embossing buddy, some of the embossing powder stuck to the filmstrip and I wasted precious seconds carefully sweeping it off with a fine tip paintbrush.

I was pleased with how this turned out, and even managed to stamp on the inside:

(isn't that "CLICK" the cutest thing? could go back and colour the letters with alcohol markers...)

AND, more importantly, did it all within the specified time, look:

Woo-HOO!

Final look at the finished card:

(love the addition of the PINK gems as flash-bulbs).

So, off to link up to the 10-Minute Craft Dash.

Just one problem.

Can you see it?  In my rush to get the darned thing done, I chose the WRONG SHADE OF GREEN.  It really should be more like THIS.

• Lesson Learned #2: Refer to crafting directions and specifics VERY CAREFULLY before starting the timer...

Oh well, there's always something!

Hope your crafting brings you satisfaction this week,

Most sincerely,

Caroline

Fluttering By for a CAS(E) of Fusion!

I had a little free time this week to play along with a couple of challenges, CAS(E) this Sketch! #24:

and the inspiration photo from Fusion Card Challenge #3:  love all those black & white flourishes.

I thought I'd try and use up some of my washi tape for some bold stripes, and the zig-zag line on the sketch seemed to call for hand embroidery.

I started out embossing the card base with one of Lil'Inker Designs' Stitched Mats. Some of the flourishes from the Paper Smooches stamp set "Flap Happy" were used to guide the stitched flight path of the butterfly. The solid back-side of the butterfly stamp was used to colour in the die-cut butterfly, then I turned the stamp right-side up to stamp the outline.  The butterfly is attached to the card only along its spine.

This was a super-quick card to make--even the stitching was easy with the holes pre-punched.

Happy crafting,
Caroline

Supplies used:
Washi tape: Close to My Heart, American Crafts, other.
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black and Cotton Candy (CTMH)
Paper Smooches' Flap Happy  stamp set and Butterfly #1 die.
Lil'Inker Designs' Stitched Mats-Rectangles
DMC embroidery floss
Piercing tools Z1114 (CTMH)