Color Cornucopia!--Color My Heart #28

Hello Crafty Friends,
Another challenging dare this week from Color My Heart:  use these SIX colors on your project!

TWILIGHT, JUNIPER, GOLDRUSH, COTTON CANDY, GYPSY, and RUBY

Quite the MOUTHFUL to say, which led to my card: a jar full of Sweet-tarts.

I started with some Stamps of Life products--and let me interject here to say that the "rules" at Color My Heart have changed to permit non-CTMH items. Of course, we'd love you to use and spread the word about CTMH, but as long as you use only the stated colors, or as close as your stash permits, you are good to go! Revenons a nos moutons... a delightful French phrase which means getting back to the subject (or our sheep), the Stamps of Life products were:

the delicious Jar4candy, and the matching dies.

Here I have stamped the jar-lid on cardstock, and the jar itself on a piece of plastic packaging (waste not!) with Staz-on ink. I use washi tape to make sure the die doesn't slip from the image, when cutting.

Then I punched out a bunch of hearts in the challenge colors, and stamped them in coordinating inks with various images from CTMH's "Its Your Day" and "Whoo's Your Valentine?"

Then I had some engineering challenges deciding EXACTLY how to make the card--I had originally thought of making a shaker box, but wasn't sure how to make sure all those colors were visible for photography. So simplified things with a straightforward flat card, "artfully" gluing down the hearts so all could be seen.

That medicine label is a separate stamp, to which your choice of sentiment can be added.
Here's the inside, using extra hearts:

So! Time to search your stash for the challenge colors, and get crafty! You have until Thursday, Feb. 7th to create and upload your card to Color My Heart. Make sure to visit the site and see how the other Design Team members have interpreted this doozy...

Happy Crafting,
Caroline

Products Used:
Card-stock:  Champagne, Chocolate, Kraft, White Daisy, Juniper, Ruby, Gypsy, Cotton Candy, Goldrush, Twilight.
Inks: Black Staz-on, Juniper, Ruby, Gypsy, Cotton Candy, Goldrush, Twilight (Close to My Heart). Black and chocolate pigment inks for distressing.
Markers: Copic W2 and W4 for shadowing.
Punch: Creative Memories small heart punch
Stamps: Jar4Candy (Stamps of Life); Its Your Day, Whoo's Your Valentine (Close to My Heart)
Dies: Jar Die with Lid (Stamps of Life)
Scrap of plastic packaging material

Just "Pear-fect!"--Color My Heart #27

Hello color-challenge fans! How do you like them apples? Or in this case, pears?!

The dare this week at Color My Heart is to use this monochromatic group of gorgeous greens

 SWEET LEAF ,  TOPIARY  and  NEW ENGLAND IVY 

I have to say, this one was stumping me until I remembered a card I had seen on Karen B's blog, the Bald Dragonfly (click HERE), with a series of negative-space shapes. As I was searching through my collection of nesting dies, I found this one my sister sent me, a set of Spellbinders pears. How pear-fect, indeed!

Although I used dies, you could produce the same effect with an electronic cutter, cutting in the same spot, with an increasing dial size.

I spaced the layers with foam tape, and used a new-next-month Close to My Heart stamp set called "Girls Rock" for the psychedelic leaves, and the flower in the center of the pear.

Inside, I used another new stamp set, "Keyboard Uppercase" for the sentiment, and added one of the die-cut pears, dressed up with another floral stamp from "Girls Rock."

Simple but striking!

Check out the other DT members' projects at Color My Heart this week, and get inspired to join this challenge.  We'd love to see what you create!

Happy Crafting,

Caroline

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: in New England Ivy, Topiary, Sweet Leaf and White Daisy

Ink colours: Sweet Leaf, Topiary, Versamark

Super-fine white embossing powder

Spellbinders dies

A Rosy Valentine

One more simple card to show this evening:

I am linking this card up to the Dynamic Duos Color Challenge #35

A breath of spring with yellow and green:

I substituted in the CTMH colours Creme Brulee and Sweet Leaf, and used the stamp-of-the-month,

S1301--Happy Valentine's.

I stamped the image in Memento's Rich Cocoa ink (I believe neutral brown is now ok on the DD challenge) and coloured it with a combination of CTMH alcohol ink and Copic markers in shades of the soft yellow and green. Not your typical Valentine's colours, but pretty none-the-less. A little paper-piercing seemed the right embellishment to this vintage image, along with a flower button and some twine.

Thanks for visiting,

Caroline

The NAME frame...featuring SUPER-CAL!

I saw this UBER-cute idea on on Amy's blog (see original post, HERE) for a name-frame she created for her daughter. She's been making them again recently for some new nieces and nephews. HERE is a link to Jayme's' blog, where Amy first saw the frame idea, which gives some instructions and  measurements.

Anyway! My nephew just turned seven (a SUPER age) and his parents threw a wonderful, super-hero theme party, complete with decorate-your-own capes, shooting villains with silly string, obstacle courses and a hot-lava dance (musical chairs, Gangnam-style!). So a super-hero name-frame seemed just the thing!

I used all kinds of goodies from CTMH's Superhero paper pack, along with some double-stick THICKERs letters, and Martha Stewart glitter.

Great glitter and dimension with the THICKER letters.

He also received a matching birthday card, with a slide-up feature, which I constructed according to instructions on a Paper Wishes webisode on making cards with moveable parts (see the video HERE, and make sure to check the link to the Ribbon Slider Treat Pocket card).

Paper rosette trimmed into a POW! starburst shape

LOVE that Gotham-city sky-line stamp!

For the moveable part, you undo the ribbon at the top, and tug on one end, which pulls up a photo of:  SUPER-Cal!

(I tried to hide his face--sort of unsuccessfully--I know there are photo-editing programs out there that allow you to pixilate--any suggestions welcome!). There was also a secret enclosure on the back of the card, with a nice new PLASTIC Canadian $20 bill.

It all made for one happy superhero and a happy aunt, too.

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Color My Heart "Daring" Challenge #25

Hello Crafty Friends!

Welcome to my first official posting as a member of the 2013 

"Color My Heart" Color Dare Challenge" Design Team.

This week's assignment is to use the two primary colors 

RUBY and INDIAN CORN BLUE.

I created a bunch of thank-you cards, with a "subway art" design. I used stamps from several different sets, mostly from Close to My Heart, and a couple from Paper Smooches.  As we were limited to just the two colours (I added the neutral WHITE DAISY), I did some second-generation stamping and stamp-swiping to add some variety, as you can see here:

I alternated mat-colours, using contrasting Twinery twine to embellish the cards. The stamped panel is popped up over the card base with foam tape.

I had seen a tutorial by Jennifer McGuire, where she gave some tips for mass-produced cards (link to her blog HERE). She did a minimum of stamping by creating a prototype, then using that lay-out to position multiple stamps on one block, so all stamps of one colour were done at the same time.  I tried this with the word-stamps I intended to colour RUBY:

It worked pretty well! The other words were stamped individually, as I was varying the ink intensity, but having those first stamps as landmarks sped up the process.

So, head on over to the Color My Heart Color Dare blog to see the creations by the other DT members, and to link up YOUR project to this week's Dare. 

You have until next Thursday to play along.  AND there are new blog badges for the challenge winners!  

Can't wait to see your take on RUBY and INDIAN CORN BLUE.  

Come have some Colorful fun!

Happy Crafting,
Caroline

Supplies Used:

Card stock in White Daisy, Indian Corn Blue and Ruby
Inks: Indian Corn Blue, Ruby
Twine: Denim and Maraschino, from the Twinery
Foam tape
Stix-to-Anything double-sided tape.

Happy Birthday, Dear Blog...

Here are the colors for this week's Dynamic Duos color challenge:

Holy hot colours for winter, right?

Well, this is my birthday month, so I decided to make a couple of birthday cards. I used the CTMH colours  SMOOTHIE & LAGOON, 

along with BLACK and COLONIAL WHITE.

His and Her Birthday cards!

 A couple of stamp sets are mixed: the cake layers and candles are CTMH D1352 "It's Your Day." So much fun to make that teetering gateau... !!! The cake-stand and greeting are from The Stamps of Life, cake2build and numbers4cake. My mother-in-law used to have a fancy cake- stand, and she would weave a different coloured ribbon through it to suit the occasion. I doodled a bit on the stand to make it look more lacy.

The Smoothie version

The Lagoon version

I am linking these up to Dynamic Duos Challenge #34.  The deadline is Thursday noon, this week, so why not ink up these sunny colours and join in?

*******

On the subject of milestones...

This month also marks the anniversary of the first time I submitted a card to a challenge: see this POST.
It is also the TENTH anniversary of my favorite weekend of the year (apart from vacation!): the "Scrapaholics Anonymous" annual scrap-booking retreat. I'll be joining twelve of my best crafty friends, for four days of cutting, glueing and getting caught up with each others' lives.
Cause for celebration, I think, with a challenge and giveaway!

Here's the deal:

• You will have two weeks to post and link up your project (once I figure out how to use Mr. Linky). Deadline is Friday, January 25th, 2013.
• The assignment is to create something that reflects how you feel about your birthday this year. Maybe its a big one with a big party. Maybe you prefer to down-play it. Maybe you've met some challenges this year. Make a card, lay-out, altered or 3D object.
• The ladies in my scrappin' group will be the judges; winner will be notified by e-mail on January 27th, 2013.
•  The prize package includes some lovely Close-to-My-Heart products: the "Adventure" set of 10 mini pigment ink pads (Z2501), the January 2013 stamp of the month, "Happy Valentine's" (S1301) and a Spring/Summer 2013 Idea Book, full of inspiring artwork (and must-have products, too!).

I hope you'll join in the first-ever "Caroline's Creations Challenge!"

Happy Crafting,
C

Happy 2013!

Hello Crafty Friends, and welcome to a new year of many good things.

Firstly, I LOVE WINTER! We have had a TON of snow here in Ottawa, starting just before Christmas. You have seen this photo, of the view out the study window; here is today's updated version:

Notice the new icicles and extra layers of snow on the patio furniture and currently more snow falling...providing lots of possibilities for winter activities. Although we can't open the sliding door as the screen is frozen!

Last evening my husband and I joined our crazy friends Ron and Fran for an adventure in Gatineau Park, across the river in Quebec. We x-country skied 5 km into the park to a rustic log cabin equipped with wood stove and picnic tables, ate cheese fondue until we were stuffed, and then skied back. All in the DARK! We had head lamps, but its the first time I've skied in about 12 years, so it was a little hairy at times. But such fun! Have I mentioned I love winter?

Secondly:  the new year brings a new challenge for me:  part of the inaugural Design Team for the Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge.  You can see the announcement, and first dare for 2013 HERE. Color My Heart features a new color combination and a lesson on color theory every week. So while you create a project for the challenge, you are also absorbing tips to enhance your paper-crafting.  I'm delighted to be joining such an impressive bunch of crafty gals, and relish the dares to come. I find some of my better creations come about when meeting the constraints of a good challenge.  I hope you will check it out every week!

This week's dare is to use ONLY neutrals! Resist the urge to add color, and explore the possibilities of muted shades.  Here is my project:

For the background, I used a CHAMPAGNE card base, heat-embossed some images from Paper Smooches new set, "Needle Little Love" in white, then used water-color pencils to tint them--such a cool effect! I got the inspiration for that technique from the amazing Jennifer McGuire's blog this week. As a recovered quilting addict, I love this stamp set--cute and funky sewing images and punny greetings.

I used the layout from this week's Retro Sketches challenge #45:

Here is a closer look at my card:

I love the flexibility of acrylic stamps--literally. The stitching line on the focal image is actually a straight line, but I curved it on my block to follow the edges of the die-cut label.

The "merci" is from another Paper Smooches set, "Good Gab." I accidentally cut off the dot over the i but recovered it with the stitched ribbon--good save and appropriate embellishment!

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
Color My Heart #24
RetroSketches #45
Paper Smooches Sparks--Anything Goes.

Here's a list of materials used:
Champagne, White Daisy, Desert Sand and Chocolate card-stock
White daisy and Desert Sand ink
Watercolor pencils, secondary colors set, CTMH 3505 (desert sand, chocolate and saddle/brown bag)
Chocolate Ribbon Rounds, CTMH  Z1127
White super-fine embossing powder, Paper Wishes
Needle Little Love, Good Gab stamp sets, Paper Smooches

Happy week, Happy New Year and happy crafting!

Caroline