I left my Heart in...Atlantic Canada!

Hello crafty friends!

It's an exciting day here in the nation's capital. My first post as a design team member of the new sketch challenge group, Atlantic Hearts!

I'm so pleased to be joining a Canadian challenge blog, plus Michelle and Darla do a great job organizing their team and coming up with stimulating designs.

Here's the inspiration for this week:

The trendy ombre look really appeals to me, and I took this sketch very literally.

I cut a series of graduated shades of red & pink, adhering them together with double-sided tape.

Back side

front side!

Then I played around with a couple of ideas.

For the first card, I did some negative die-ctting, taking the the sentiment out of my ombre panel. Some pink baker's twine and a big button finish that one off.

For card #2, I ran the panel through with an embossing folder, and used the positive die-cut sentiment this time.
This one is embellished with a crocheted flower, tied on with embroidery floss and a sparkle button.

So here's my message to Atlantic Hearts:

for letting me play with you each week!

Now head on over to Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. Monday mornings, you'll find this week's sketch and the rules for playing along. The design team's creations are revealed every Wednesday. This way, you have some time to interpret the sketch in your own way. I'd love to see what you come up with!

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Supplies:

cardstock in Ruby, Hollyhock, Cotton Candy, Blush and White Daisy (all Close to My Heart)

Embossing folder:  Sizzix

Die-cut word "Thanks":  Paper Smooches

Baker's Twine in Strawberry: The Twinery

Button & embroidery floss: my stash

Crochet flower and bling button: Close to My Heart

So flippin' happy...

...it's finally SUMMER!

This quick little card was made to celebrate Lil'Inker Design's Sunny Days challenge.

The inspiration is this photo montage:

I chose to focus on the blue skies, bucket of flip flops and the pin-wheel.

I created the sunshine/pinwheel with a circle of flip-flops in yellow and orange craft foam. The flip flop die works so well with this material--you can really see the signature stitched detail.

They are one of my favorite little die sets--so many ways to combine the elements for fun embellishments!

I glued them to a daisy-shaped flower, using baker's twine from The Twinery for the centre.

The background sky is a rubber stamp from Hero Arts.

Some torn kraft paper forms the beach, with the greeting pieced together from two Lil'Inker stamp sets, Darling Diamonds and Flip-flop Sentiment set.

Bring on those sunny skies! And check back to the Lil'Inker blog for a new release of must-have goodies, later this month.

Happy crafting! Also planting, mowing, cycling and all the other great things summer brings!

Caroline

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

Oh, Christmas Trees...

This past weekend, my husband came across the Christmas letter he wrote last year, but never sent. So he decided that THIS year, he was going to send cards, sans letter. He mowed through my entire collection of hand-made cards in one evening (granted, only about 2 dozen) and was only on the G's.
So I got to work today and made him another 2 dozen. Will likely have to do more! I'm kind of gleeful, as he always thinks the card-thing is not truly crafty ("No-one will have one of your cards 50 years from now, but they would keep a hand-made quilt..."). Now he's into it!

So, with this week's Color My Heart dare in mind:  Sweet Leaf and Twilight,

I created the first card, at the top of the post, with my remaining scrap of Sweetleaf cardstock. I don't know if my fellow CTMH consultants feel the same way, but I am missing the multi-colour paper packs which used to be available. I am not keen to buy 24 sheets of some colours. May have to contact some friends and see if they want to share and split packages...
Anyway, I used a Sizzix die for the pine trees and ran them through an embossing folder, for more definition. They sit on top of a scrap of patterned paper from the "Cruisin'" pack (retired), on a Twilight card base. The "Peace" banner was cut using the Cricut Artiste cartridge, and mounted with foam tape to allow the letters to show better. I replaced part of the "P" with a little twilight "Sparkle."
Then I made multiples of this card:

It uses card-stock from Michael's and Bo-Bunny, a scrap of Avonlea paper, and the sentiment was heat-embossed with gold. That comes from the Lil 'Inker Instant Camera: Christmas Stamp set. I also used a new product from the Twinery, Platinum Shimmer twine, to wrap the tree. Star on top is a Dazzle from Paper Wishes. I added a little gold Stickles to the snow after taking the photo--it looks finished now.

Less that a week to go!
Happy crafting,
Caroline

I HEART you--Dynamic Duos #32

Its a monochromatic theme this week at The Dynamic Duos--A Two-Colour Challenge--#32, featuring  two shades of pink:

Even the names pinks are pretty, don't you think? I used the CTMH versions: Blush and Hollyhock, and a retired stamp set (XXX) to create a card which is cleaner and simpler than is usual for me...

I also used Lil' Inker Designs' stitched mats dies for my focal image and a second smaller one folded in half for the sentiment tag. The sentiment itself is from this month's release at Paper Smooches, "We Connect". I liked the combination of the large X's and O's and the small words. Some Twinery fibre in Blossom and a felt rolled flower made with a Sizzix die. And a little Martha Stewart glitter on the hearts stamped inside the O's... A little glitter, judiciously applied, can be a wonderful thing!

Now, back to Christmas crafting...what are you working on today?
P.S.  The Dynamic Duo deadline is Thursday at noon (Dec. 13th).

Cheers,
Caroline

It's...the Dynamic Duo!

No, not Batman and Robin, this week's colour challenge!  I have not yet played along with this blog--Dynamic Duos--The Two-Color Challenge Blog. Every week, a different color combination is posted, and the challenge is to create something using ONLY the two specified colours. Neutral shades like black, white, vanilla, skin tones and kraft are allowed. Here's the colour-combo for this week:

These are Stampin' up shades, but I used Tulip, a retired CTMH colour and the new shade, Cashmere. I added kraft and white.
I am coming up with gift tag ideas for a workshop in a couple of weeks, and was getting kind of stumped, but this colour combination really revved up the old inspiration.
Here's the official submission to DD#28:

I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the kraft card stock, a Close-to-My-Heart snowflake stamp (Perfect Fit-Holidays B1412, which perfectly fits a 1.25" circle punch), a sentiment from Paper Smooches' set "Christmas Sampler" and maraschino twine from The Twinery.
THAT inspired more Paper Smooches fun, with this card:

The sketch is posted on the Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge blog this week (see the details  HERE).

I used the Christmas Sampler set as well as All Yule Need, which in addition to being a very clever title, does indeed have a plethora (LOVE that word) of seasonal images which can be mixed and matched to your heart's inky content.
And finally, a couple of tags for the workshop:

The shape of these was CASEd from Amy Tsuruta's post for Paper Made Bakery (thank-you, Amy). I've also been following the new release of stamps and dies from Lil' Inker this week. Which reminded about the FABULOUS dimensional "Bow-die" and the cute little "stitched" sentiment tag, which were sitting neglected in a basket on my shelves. So they got dusted off and put to work. The DP from Fancy Pants Designs is a couple of years old (feels GOOD to use up the stash). The zig-zag die is a Sizzix product; the jingle bell punch is by Emagination Crafts. And don't you LOVE the look of that holographic silver ripple paper? Its just card-stock weight, but it seems to have such depth and shine! I found it at Paper Wishes.

So!  Off to link these goodies to:

• Dynamic Duos Challenge #28
• Paper Smooches Sparks: Nov. 12th and
• Lil' Inker's Flickr gallery.

Wishing you JOLLY and CHEERY crafting,

Caroline

More Holiday Cards

How's this for an eye-popping Christmas card?

The idea was to use a non-traditonal background stamp for a holiday-themed card. I can't resist that SWEET little zebra from Paper Smooches "Zoo Crew" set. I set her (?) off with a zebra-skin patterned background stamp from The Stamps of Life, in cranberry ink. The sentiment is from PS's "Christmas Sampler" set.

I cut out the zebra's head using a craft knife so I could fringe her mane and slip a die-cut wreath (Sizzix) around her neck. A little red Stickles, some Pea-pod twine from The Twinery, and you have a black-and-white-and-red-all-over card! Cheery indeed.

I tried another version, too, in non-traditional Xmas colours, but a little softer:

The star/snowflake background stamp is from Paper Smooches "All Yule Need" set. I may switch out that red bow yet, for something with less contrast. Having lots of fun playing!

Happy (holiday) crafting,

Caroline

THANKS! for Holiday Card Workshop

I have been following Online Card Classes' "Holiday Card Workshop" this week.

Lots of great ideas to kick-start your holiday card-making, from batches of simple gift enclosures to embossing techniques, background stamping and more. My goal was to make one card for each day of "class," but I wasn't able to carve out any stamping time until today.

I tried Kristina Werner's embossed background grid on my "Say Thanks" card. I was also hoping to create this in enough time to play along with this week's Color My Heart's challenge  Color Dare #16, which was to use these colours:

A nice, harvest-inspired collection. However, I missed the cut-off--too pokey.

But! at Paper Smooches, Kim Hughes issued a challenge to make a thank-you card for a chance to win a stamp set from this month's release. So if I hustle and get this post ready before midnight, I might be in the running.
I used the "So Grateful" (B1395) stamp set from CTMH for the pumpkin on my card, swiping the stamp down the ink-pad for some interesting texture. Sentiments are from PS sets "Good Gab" and "Alphadots". Maraschino twine from The Twinery. I figured saying "thank-you" in three languages has us covered from Mexico through the Canada!
Check back this weekend for some more creations inspired by HCW.

Happy crafting!

Loving the LOBSTER...TSG173

For the past three months, I have been the very lucky recipient of the new-release stamp sets from There She Goes Clear Stamps (I was the big prize winner at this year's "Mother of All Blog-Hops"). It is a package to drool over every month--so many fun images, clever sentiments and even coordinating dies last month. Jessica Knutsen is a generous lady!  So far, I have definitely NOT done justice to those stamps on my blog. I had the opportunity recently to start to fix THAT situation.

We enjoyed another wonderful family vacation on Prince Edward Island this past August. I brought back gifts of goats-milk soap to my co-workers (it is wonderful stuff--feels so good on your ski--and smells delicious). Lobsters are a big thing on PEI, so I used the smaller lobster image from the Beach Bums stamp set to create gift tags for the bars of soap.
I stamped the little guy in Archival Black ink (CTMH) and used Spectrum Noir and Copic markers to colour in the image. The "for you from" sentiment is from The Stamps of Life penguins4Christmas set. I stamped "PEI" with the small Friendship alphabet from Close to My Heart. The tag was made with an older Sizzix die, "Bread Tags."
Here's a look at the soap all packaged up:

 I just wrapped the bars in tissue paper then secured with some maraschino twine from The Twinery, clipping the bread tag onto the twine.

The whole bunch!

Such a fun little evening's work, and definitely cuter thanks to There She Goes Clear Stamps!

I am entering the gift tags to this week's TSG challenge #173, making a project with a present/gift-giving theme. Perfect, don't you think?

Happy crafting,
Caroline

H2H Challenges--July 9th--Line, Line, Circle, Square!

I was drumming my fingers for a while, thinking about how to complete this week's tricky assignment at Heart2Heart Challenges:

Use TWO lines, ONE circle, and ONE square

Then I saw this stunning entry to last week's challenge, by Amy

You HAVE to see all the pictures of her Patriotic 4th of July wreath--its amazing.  She also includes a great tutorial on how to make the rosettes and dimensional paper stars. Well worth a visit.

Anyway.

That set me to thinking about all the things you can do with pleated paper. I also really like that red-white-and-blue (plus "sky") colour palette found in the "Superhero" paper pack. 

THAT combo made me think about summer nights, 

and that's how the PATIO LANTERN card was born.

• I started with a 12"x1.5" piece of striped paper with the stripe going length-wise. Depending on which orientation you cut the stripes, widthwise (see photo below) or lengthwise, you will get a starburst or circular pattern when you form your rosette. I scored the strip at 1/4" increments. Go see Amy's blog (link above) for instructions on how to make the rosette. That created my circle.

Example of a rosette with the stripes going width-wise

• Then I cut another strip of paper at 1.5"x 6" and pleated it, but glued it to a 1.5" square piece of cardstock, so it remained square--see photo:

• I used a Sizzix "Ribbons" die for the zig-zag hanger (Line #1) and a piece of twine for the second hanger (Line #2). I added a twine bow just for fun.
• The greeting was heat-embossed using Versamark Ink and White Daisy embossing powder. You can create any word ("summer") using clear acrylic alphabet stamps; lining them up, and placing them in just the right place on your project is fool-proof, because they are see-through.

Its really easy to pleat paper, even if you don't have a Score-Pal or Martha Stewart Scoring Board. You can use your Fiskars paper trimmer (Z338), and scoring stylus (Z608). Simply put your paper strip under the trimmer arm, but instead of using the blade, run the scoring stylus down the recessed central track, marking a line on your paper. Move the paper along 1/4" and repeat.

See Page 86 in the CTMH Spring/Summer Idea Book for more ideas, like pleated paper flowers.

Don't forget to visit the H2H blog to enter your project in this week's challenge. Your creation must include SOME (but not 100%) CTMH products.

Happy creating!

Caroline

CTMH Products Used:

SuperHero Paper Pack:  X7152B (available through the end of July)

Colours:  Moonstruck, Cranberry, White Daisy, Sky, Black

Stamps: Express Postage--D1262 (retired)

               Friendship Alphabet Small C1401 (available through the end of July)

Versamark Inkpad: Z891

White Daisy Embossing Powder: Z673

Other Products:

Sizzix "Ribbons" long Sizzlet die

Denim twine from The Twinery

CFC59: Round & Round and SSSC#162

The challenges this week at CAS-ual Fridays and Sweet Sunday Sketches happily overlap a little:

Here's the sketch:

The sponsor at CAS-ual Fridays is The Twinery; the challenge is to use TWO circles on your project.

I saw the following image on The Twinery website, around Father's Day: isn't it AWESOME?!

 I love the whole bacon idea because my sons follow a blog called "Epic Meal-time" where they create monster meals that almost always involve bacon and thousands of calories.  Anyway, I digress. All that to say, that many things inspired this card:

If bacon, why not eggs?  

I managed to include two circles (the plate and the egg yolk) and stuck to the sketch fairly closely, if you allow the fork to replace the flowers.

I punched out a one-inch circle and covered it with "Lemon-drop" twine. I free-hand cut the egg-white, outlined with "Flax" twine, and filled in with a fuzzy white fibre. I think the Twinery ought to include white twine in their inventory... Some "Canteloupe" twine wraps the card.

The fork was cut using "A Cuppa" template from Paper Wishes, from silver paper with some silver Perfect Pearls for added dimension. The DP (plate) is from Paper Wishes' "Soft Nostalgia" paper pack.

"Boing" alphabet stamps from CTMH, stamped in Juniper ink.

Off to visit Mr. Linky...

Happy creating!

Caroline

More {BOOK} Marks

I posted one of these bookmarks earlier today, but ended up playing/making more later on, and thought I'd include the group.  The crab is coloured with my new Spectrum Noir pens from Crafter's Companion (thank-you, Stacy!). I am still getting the hang of the alcohol markers. The bear was coloured with regular markers, and I managed to get him pretty "hairy-looking," so I am going to enter him in the Twin Touch Markers Challenge TTC19, "Getting Hairy," HERE.

All images are from the Chubby Chums stamp set from Paper Smooches. The crab is sitting on some torn pearlescent card-stock from Wasau Papers. The green tulle ribbon is from American Crafts, available at Paper Wishes. Denim twine from The Twinery.The Twinery.

The bear was coloured with CTMH markers, with the new "hair" technique I learned from an on-line tutorial. He is accessorized with some woodgrain washi tape from WeRMemory Keepers (also available from Paper Wishes). Ribbon, the Chocolate & Cocoa collection, from CTMH.

The chick was featured in the post before this one, but a close-up (of his polka-dots) never hurts.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and take a peek!