CAS birthday/flower card

This must be one of the quickest cards I have ever made. I cut out the leaves and flower with an MD die and MD papers. For the background I used the same paper that I used for the leaves. All I had to do to finish the card was to add a rose from my stash and stamp the StudioLight birthday sentiment in black Versamark ink.

With this large piece of patterned paper, I may be pushing things a bit as regards "white space" but since the card as a whole is definitely CAS, I'm entering this card into this week's challenge at Less is More. One more card towards the goal of 1000 entries!

I would also like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Ooh La La – Punches/dies

Marianne Design Divas – Bloom and grow (use flowers + any MD)
Simon Says Stamp – Dies and/or punches

More Christmas trees ... in oil pastel

After having cut out two Christmas trees with my Silhouette, I was left with a very useful template. I thought I could use this to create another quick Christmas card for the LIM challenge, using distress ink. However, I also intended to enter the card into this month's challenge at CCAYR, but in that case I couldn't use anything on my card that was less than 1 year old. So I got my oil pastels out from a drawer and used that instead. Because the holes of the template were so small, I had to use my little pinky to rub the colour in. After applying a light green colour, I added some shades with a dark green colour. The ribbon (Kars) comes from my stash (first time I'm using it, though) and so are the star embellishments that I bought at a craft fair about 3 years ago.

Again, the quality of the lighting/picture is not great. Maybe I'll try to upload a better picture tomorrow.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

LIM – Anything CAS goes (#3)

CCAYR – Anything used on card must be over 1 year old (#4)

Bah!Humbug! – Rudolph/Reindeer

Crafter's Companion – Christmas Wishes (#2)

Christmas Card Challenge – Sketch (optional)

LIM #33 – aiming for 1000 entries – 2nd entry

I'm showing my second card again in a separate post, so that I can enter it separately into the LIM challenge so it will count towards the 1000 entries that Chrissie and Mandi are aiming for this week.

LIM #33 – aiming for 1000 entries – 1st & 2nd entry

Over at Less is More, Chrissie and Mandi are aiming for 1000 entries this week with the theme "Anything CAS goes". With only 2 more hours before the deadline, I'm not sure they (and we) are going to achieve this, but I'm trying to increase the # of entries a little further.

I made two almost similar cards, using a Silhouette design as my basis. I've hoarded quite a few designs last year, when I had an unlimited subscription, so it's about time I started using some. For the first card I printed the sentiment in green, but I decided that gold would look better. So I made another one, this time using gold embossing powder. As you can see on the picture the card has not fully flattened out yet after heat-embossing the sentiment, lol.

The Christmas tree was cut out using very dark moss green cardstock, that I pasted onto a cream square cards (I used the same card base for both cards!). The lighting was not very good and I was in a hurry, so the pictures are not great. The gold ribbon comes from my stash. The sentiment is from a CardDeco Stampies set.

I'm entering these cards into the following challenges:

LIM – Anything CAS goes (entry #1 and #2)

CCAYR – Anything used on the Christmas card must be over 1 year old

Crafter's Companion – Christmas Wishes

So happy together (2)

For my second anniversary card I used the same Karen's Doodles image that I used for my previous card, again coloured with my new Spectrum Noir pens. For the background, I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I inked the inside of the embossing folder with Antique Lnen distress ink before placing my white cardstock and running it through the machine. I then wiped the embossing folder clean, dabbed some Faded Jeans distress ink on the EF and pressed it together again by hand.

For the layout, I used this week's sketch over at Tuesday Morning Sketches.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Tuesday Morning Sketches – sketch 110

Ooh La La – Anniversary (2nd entry)

Karen's Doodles Intl – Anything goes (plus KD image)

Crafty Catz – Ribbons

Charisma Cardz – Inspired by a song (So happy together)

Secret Crafter Saturday – Inspired by a song (So happy together)

Ladybug Crafts Ink TLT – Anything goes

Papertake Weekly – Anything goes

So happy together (1)

My husband has three female colleagues who are all celebrating their wedding anniversary either today or tomorrow, so I was put to the task to create a few appropriate cards. I didn't have any appropriate stamp for the occasion (honestly, since I haven't been stamping for that long) so I had to do some shopping (terrible task, I know lol) and found this lovely Karen's Doodles' stamp. I printed it out a few images in different sizes and started colouring them last weekend with my new Spectrum Noir pens. I had seen some amazing colouring over at linda's rainbow crafting cabin using only 2 colours from the Essential collection (99 and 109) and thought this might be an excellent way to start practising the use of my new markers. Incidentally, she also has a few great tutorials on using these SN pens. I added a touch of light pink (have to look up the number) for the female giraffe and of course some pink and wine red for the ribbon. I'm quite pleased with the result, esp. since this is the first time I used any type of alcohol-based markers. So far I have only used a few sticker markers on my cards. At least this has given me the confidence to try some other colours as well. Hopefully, I'll have some play time this weekend.

For the first anniversary card, I used this week's sketch from the Totally Gorjuss blog and used it to create a CAS card on some cream cardstock.

Materials used:

Cream cardstock

Image – Karen's Doodles

Lace/ribbon – from my stash

Frame - brownish metallic cardstock (does not really show in the picture)

Sentiment – Studio Light (didn't have any Happy Anversary stamp,

so I'll be adding that to my shopping list, lol)

Ink – Walnut stain distress ink

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Totally Gorjuss – Sketch

Ooh La La – Anniversary

Sir Stampelot – It's a frame up

Catch the Bug – Anything goes

Colour Create – Pink, brown and white/cream

CASEing a fellow Belle

This week's prompt at Jingle Belles was to CASE (copy and selectively edit) any card posted at Jingle Belles this year. I had a good look around, esp. since I did not enter the challenge scene until later this year and I saw several gorgeous creations I would love to COPY ... ehm ... CASE. Funny thing is that projects usually turn out differently from those of others, because you tend to use different papers, colours, shapes and so on.
In the end, I decided to CASE the card that Lisa of Recklinghausen Musings made for JB challenge no. 15, The Ghost of Christmas Present. I did not realise until just know that the basic ingredient was "white as a ghost", but at least I got the other parts of the recipe (a present, a bow or knot and a touch ... well, maybe a trifle more ... of traditional Christmas colours. Here's Lisa's card:

I love the simplicity of this card, the thing that makes you think "Wish I had thought of this first".
Well, below is my version.

I decided to combine the ingredients of a few challenges, by recycling a ribbon that originally came wrapped around a present. It's that paper-type ribbon with a metal layer on top. The stars have also been recycled, since I cut them off a long string of silver-coloured stars and beads that were designed to be draped over the Christmas tree. I still have 2.65 metres left, so I can still use it in the tree if I should wish to do so, lol. For the box, I dabbed some Versamark silver ink on the inside of a Cuttlebug folder and then placed my cardstock and ran the lot through the machine. Before taping the box on my card, I ran the card through the printer to print the sentiment that I found some years ago in Arthur's clipart collection. As a finishing touch I coloured the holly leaf of the sentiment with a green sticker marker and I could not resist adding a tiny red pearl with my Viva Perlen-pen.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Jingle Belles – CASE any other Jingle Belles card

Less is More – Colour: Metallic

ABC Christmas Challenge – R for Recycle + Ribbon/Rhinestones

Fabulous Friday – Flourishes

CCAYR – Anything used on the card must be over 1 year old

One-layer Christmas card in gold and cream (2)

This card is similar to the one I posted two days ago, but I was not entirely satisfied with the result (which is probably just in my head), so I decided to make another one, this time as a square card. The basis for this card comes from this week's challenge over at Less is More. Chrissie and Mandi asked us to combine three of the previous challenges of this year. For my card I chose:

Week 4 [Feb 26th] Sketch or Recipe 3 Squares
Week 18 [Jun 4th] Colour Monochrome
Week 28 [Aug 13th] One Layer Use Ink

Actually, it also fits in with the themes "Button or Ribbon" and "Embossing".

First, I created a template with three square openings, placed it on my card and masked the areas where I wanted to stamp the embellishments. The background stamp is a text stamp from Marianne Design featuring a Dutch Christmas song. For this, I used Versamark gold. I then stamped the embellishments using clear distressing ink and then applied gold embossing power, which I heat-embossed. I added a few touches of gold glitter ink on the embellishments and finished the card off with some gold ribbon from my stash and som Antique Linen distress ink around the edges.