you are strong

 hello stampers!

Today I have a clean, green card. I was inspired by the big Melia tree in our garden which is covered in new bright green leaves at the moment and wanted to capture that dewy greenness (is that a word?). I used this week's challenge at CAS(E) this sketch CTS #402 as inspiration for the design.

I think this design lends itself to many interpretations, but I thought I'd stick fairly closely to the elements. 

  

The Forever Greenery DSP from Stampin' Up! has some lovely papers so I used some as the background and then layered some fussy cut leaves on top to make it like a bouquet. A little shaded spruce card cut into leaves and intermingled gives it some dimension.  I added a few dew drops for that fresh dewy look and finished it off with bright white twine.

Green and white I think is my favourite colour combination - so clean and fresh. I hope you can find the time to spend relaxing in a garden today.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

cardstock: whisper white, shaded spruce

ink: balmy blue, shaded spruce, Altenew Sea Glass

paper: Forever Greenery DSP

stamp: Stampin' Up! Loyal Leaves

make a wish

Hello fellow stampers!

Surprised myself by managing to make a card today after just finishing one yesterday. Obviously my priorities are all straight...

The Paper Players presented a lovely challenge this week Color Challenge PP#521.  Silver, black and white were the colours and wow, do they bring the drama. Love it.

I think this is the last Christmas season card I'll most likely be making this year, given it's only 11 days to Christmas, but I do love any opportunity to use the Dasher stamp. He loves the drama too. 

I decided on a snowy white scene, set off by black night sky and a bright silver moon. Simple and elegant. I did cut a few layers of windswept snowdrifts to add a little interest, but the focus is squarely on Dasher.

A world away from me with our hot summer days at the moment, and I can only dream of snowdrifts and a bright silver moon. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

cardstock: basic black, whisper white

ink: Memento tuxedo black

stamps: Stampin' Up! Dasher, Altenew sentiment strips

be strong

Happy Sunday!

I was hankering for a little card making, having been too busy organising christmassy things the last couple of weeks...ho hum. So this afternoon I snuck off to my favourite room to do some creatin'!

The lovely people at CAS(E) this Sketch #401 had a retro challenge CTS #147 this week and it got me thinking. 

I thought some stencilling would be fun - as well as therapeutic - and ended up stencilling it all.  The flower element I had no problem with as I love to use garden themes and nature in my cards, but the elements at the top didn't really go with the nature theme...or did they? 

Never one to shy away from a challenge (pun intended) I thought I would use negative space for the top element. That way it is there, but not the focus - perfect!

I love the juxtaposition of leaves and geometric shapes. The colour of open sky, but the shapes of conformity. I tried to give a sense of movement both with the leaves gently floating upward, and with the windswept shape of the sky.

The message is simple - in this noisy world of self aggrandisement, my card hopefully serves as a little reminder that you can just be you and I can just be me. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

cardstock: balmy blue, whisper white

stencils: Altenew Foliage, Altenew Colour Block Triangle

ink: Altenew sea glass, balmy blue, soft sea foam, shaded spruce

stamp: Altenew sentiment strips

for you

 I was inspired by the CAS(E) this Sketch #399 challenge design this week as it forced me to think non-symmetrically!  Doesn't sound too hard, eh? I don't think I realised that most of my cards are symmetrical.  I hope that I'm growing as a card designer, so creating more cards like this can only be good for me, right?

So my rambling ideas and thoughts led me at first to be thinking of Santa with the big black belt which would form the horizontal.  But I couldn't flesh out what the white part would be so eventually I decided I wanted to do something a little more... how to describe it... artsy? 

I came up with the idea of a shadow forming the black horizontal then found myself thinking of a full moon, shining in through an open window, casting a shadow from a Christmas present - Christmas is just around the corner after all. The present had to be a big rectangular box, with the shadow elongated out from it.  Quite the challenge to position the moon to achieve this! Now I am no physicist and the shadow angles had me befuddled for quite a while, but after googling how to draw shadows, and working out the shapes formed from a box, I came up with a shadow design I was happy with.  

The box itself is 5 layers of cardstock just slightly offset, to make it appear 3 dimensional, then popped up on foam dimensionals. The moon was stencilled in whisper white ink, then a slightly smaller whisper white cardstock circle glued on top, finished off with lashings of wink of Stella for a little sparkle.

Simple shapes, bold colours, and a clean card, but showing a little montage with more depth than you get from an initial glance. I like that. A little story is lurking there somewhere.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Stampin' Up! supplies:

cardstock: night of navy, gray granite, real red, basic black, whisper white

ink: basic gray, whisper white

Wink of Stella, black & white twine

stamp: Altenew sentiment strips (part of)

Edit: Thank you so much to the CAS(E) This Sketch team - I'm thrilled to get an Honorable Mention for this card in the challenge!

tis the season

 Hello lovely friends.  I've got a Christmas card today. The wonderful people at The Paper Players presented a challenge this week that I found intriguing. "Use up all those little scraps" they suggested, so I did! 

Of course atm I have lots of Christmas paper scraps, but I decided to use neutral paper with a christmas stamp - just to keep you guessing! lol 

I mounted the papers on 3 layers of black cardstock, the same card as the card base. These were then arranged on whisper white card, to give the impression of shadow and make them pop! 

The sentiment was stamped on 3 layers of whisper white also. I finished it all off with rhinestones to add a little sparkle.  It is Christmas after all...  I hope I managed to make a smart and elegant card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Edit: Thank you so much for the "A Cut Above" recognition for my card! I enjoyed participating in the Paper Players challenge and am thrilled that you liked my card. Look forward to the next challenge!

Stampin' Up! supplies:

cardstock: whisper white, basic black

paper: neutrals designer series paper

ink: memento tuxedo black

stamp: retired stamp set

basic rhinestones

 

sentiment stamp: Altenew warm blessings