STAMPlorations CAS Challenge - Blue Sky Wishes

Here it is the first Thursday of the month and time for another STAMPlorations CAS challenge.  This month's optional color is Sky Blue.

I'm using images from STAMPlorations The Birds and the Blooms for my card, and color of my background cardstock is Soft Sky.  After stamping the bird, I drew the thin black line 1/2" in from all four sides and stamped the sentiment.  I thought it still needed something, so I added the three silver sequins.

Be sure to check out the STAMPlorations CAS Challenge Blog to see some more creativity.

CCEE1709 - Old Stuff Day

Lynn starts her month as hostess for the CCEE Stampers with a fun challenge to honor "Old Stuff" Day.  We were to make a card or project making use of some of our earliest stamps of our collection, or make use of old supplies in our stash, or a vintage image of something from the past.  The first stamp set I bought from Stampin' Up was Fishy Friends.  The "seaweed" is the octopus from that set.

Stop over to the CCEE Stampers Blog to see what old things the rest of the team found.

Chloe and Ben on a Swing

I've been having lots of fun playing with the new Chloe and Ben stamp/die sets from CottageCutz.  Here is one I made recently.

Do you remember as a kid playing with your best friend?

Honey of a Day!

I've got another cute CottageCutz stamp and die set to show you today -- Ben w/Beehive.  These bears are just the cutest things!  If you haven't seen Chloe and Ben yet, take a look at the whole set.  My card is relatively clean and simple, although the die cut is popped up on foam dots.

Supplies for this card:

Yellow cardstock 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", folded in half

Black cardstock 4" x 5 1/4"

White cardstock 3 7/8" x 5 1/8", scrap for stamping Ben

Honeycomb stencil

Memento Tuxedo Black ink

Ranger Distress ink - Scattered Straw, Wild Honey

Copic markers

Clear Wink of Stella

Foam pop dots

CottageCutz Die - Ben w/Beehive

I stamped the image of Ben and the beehive with black ink onto a scrap of white cardstock, then colored the image with various Copic markers.  I added some clear Wink of Stella to the bees to give them a bit of sparkle.  I then cut him out.

I temporarily adhered the white cardstock to my work surface and taped the stencil on top.  Using an ink blender tool, I sponged the Scattered Straw and Wild Honey ink over the stencil.

I constructed my card by layering the black panel onto the yellow card base and layering the stenciled white panel onto the black.  I stamped the sentiment in black at the top of the panel and popped Ben and his buzzing friends on with foam dots.

I hope you like my card and will check out the rest of the Chloe and Ben stamp/die sets in the Scrapping Cottage store.

The die used on this card is:

CCEE1708 Tic Tac Toe

It's Liz's final week as hostess for the CCEE Stampers, and she gave us a fun challenge this week.  It's a Tic Tac Toe game.  We were to pick three blocks -- vertically, horizontally, or diagonally on this grid.

I chose the blocks horizontally across the bottom row.  Even though I used an owl, which is a bird, I think it still would qualify as a wild animal.  I love making fancy fold cards, so it was a no-brainer that I would chose the row which includes that one.  And I did both wet and dry embossing.

Check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see how the rest of the team handled this fun challenge.

Ben - Up, Up and Away

I've made another card using the Sketch Challenge 632 from Splitcoaststampers, this time with one of the stamp/die sets from CottageCutz, Ben Up, Up, and Away. 

Here is the layout from the challenge. . .

. . . and here is my card:

Supplies for my card are:

Red cardstock - 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", folded in half at 4 1/4", three small panels 1" x 1 1/4", scrap for label
White cardstock - three small panels 7/8" x 1 1/8", scraps for Ben and label
Red/white polka dot patterned paper - 5 1/4" x 4"
Scraps of blue, red, green cardstock for balloons
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black and Lady Bug
Copic markers and White gel pen
Copic Colorless Blender
Word Window punch and Modern Label punch
Foam pop dots, tape runner
CottageCutz dies - Ben Up, Up and Away; Calendar Icons

To begin my card, I die-cut three balloons from the Calendar Icons die, coloring the strings with a black Copic marker.  I then stamped, colored and die-cut Ben.  A little hint for getting the "fuzzy" look to Ben's fur.  After coloring his fur (but before coloring anything else), squeeze a little bit of Colorless Blender onto a piece of terrycloth.  Gently dab it onto the fur.  This will remove some of the color in places, giving it an uneven look.  Should the ink bleed into the white areas, you can "repair" that by dabbing on the white gel pen after the ink is completely dry.  I had to do that around his feet.

After cutting the small red and white panels, I assembled them by gluing the white panels to the red panels and popping the balloons in the centers with the foam pop dots.

I stamped the sentiment onto the white scrap, punched it out with the Word Window punch (as well as punching out the Modern Label from red cardstock) then assembled my card, using the layout as my guide.  It went together quite quickly.  Here again is my completed card.

The CottageCutz dies used on my card are:

CCEE1707 - Feminine Birthday

Liz continues as hostess for the CCEE Stampers again this week.  She tells us that today is her and Lynn's mother's birthday, and in her honor Liz asks us to make a feminine birthday card for some special lady in your life.  Next week is my best friend's birthday, so I made my card for her.  CottageCutz has some new stamp/die sets.  One of them is birth month flowers.  The flower for February is the violet.

Check out the CCEE Stampers blog for some more birthday cards.