Fun with CAS Inchies!

Hi friends. Did you ever just want to play along with a challenge and make multiple cards? That seems to be my MO lately. I like the challenges that are at least 2 weeks long. It gives me time to mull over the design, take & edit photos and write a blog.

AAA Cards has a Clean and Simple Challenge going on now:

The rules are that your inchie must be a circle or a square and if you have a sentiment it has to be on the inchie itself. I went through a good part of my stash and found some NBUS stamps to use. This is really sad because these are wooden tag stamps from Stampin' Up! dated 2006. 15 year old stamp sets called: Terrific Tags, Tags So Much and Too Terrific Tags. Never used these particular ones before.

I used My Favorite Things Smooth White Card Stock for the bases of all 4 cards. Lately I have not been using my Neenah Classic Crest 110 lb. card stock for I am finding it hard to score for bases. This MFT Smooth White is 100 lb. and much easier to score and yet really sturdy for bases.

I stamped all the images with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink for that really crisp dark look. There were each die cut with the one inch square from Hero Arts Square Infinity Dies. If you need a square - this is the go to set. Every size imaginable:

I added a few dotted lines using a retired Stampin' Up! set called Swirly Frames. Lately I have been destashing my Stampin' Up! products on Ebay, but this one is a keeper.

All 4 images were popped up with Fun Stamper Journey Medium Foam Squares. 4 to each inchie and I really like these particular foam squares because I can move the image around until I press firmly down. 

Well that's it for today! Mostly retired products, but fun to look at them in a new way. If you've never tried a CAS card, they are not always the easiest. Keeping everything pristine is sometimes really difficult with black ink and a messy craft desk! I really enjoyed this challenge....thank you to AAA Cards and NBUS for hosting.

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Featured Artist for As You See It #245

I was very honored recently to have been chosen as the Feature Artist from the As You See It Challenge team. As such, I have created 2 cards for the current challenge: Masculine, Embossing Folder, Twine, Die Cut and Earth Tones!

Here is my card which the team picked for the Featured Artist:

The winners post from the original challenge group can be found here:

My first card is a slimline card. To tell you the truth, I struggled a bit with the 5 criteria for this challenge. Masculine cards, to me, are always the toughest. I thought of my Kat Scrappiness Slimline Layered Cityscape Die:

And the great news is that Kat Scrappiness is having a sale starting today through March 14,2021! Site wide!!! Great time to pick up some goodies:

Back to the card:

I die cut out of Neenah Desert Storm card stock, 2 panels with the buildings and the lights and adhered them together with liquid adhesive. I used a bit of Distress Ink Vintage Photo around the edges with my Scrapbook.com Foam Blending Tool just to darken it up the edges a bit.

Earth tones would be easy with this die. I next die cut a piece of Bristol Smooth Card Stock for the cover panel. Using Yellow Frog Tape I taped a straight line about 1/2" from the bottom and then ink blended Distress Oxide Wild Honey, Fossilized Amber and a bit of Spiced Marmalade onto the background where the city scape would be. I didn't want it to look like the burning of Atlanta, but a red sky. 

I used my Trinity Stamps Slimline Stitched Frames to cut out this panel.

Ok, so now I have the masculine part, the earth tones and the die cut. I need twine and an embossing folder. I have some linen twine in my stash that I wrapped around the bottom of the card about 3 times and taped in place on the back. The embossing folder is a Sizzix 3D Impresslit called Radiant which I used to mimic the sun.

Lastly the sentiment is from Altenew's Geometric Landscape heat embossed onto Stampin' Up! card stock from my stash. For me, white heat embossing onto a dark card stock works best if I stamp with a white craft ink several times using my MISTI and sprinkle white detailed embossing powder over it. I like Scrapbook.com's White Premium Pigment Ink with Ranger's Superfine White Embossing Powder for a good clean crisp sentiment.

The slimline card base is from Neenah 110lb. Class Crest Solar White card stock which I almost always use for card bases. I left the inside blank and will stamp once I have the perfect occasion for it.

I did make one more card for this challenge:

The tag paper was made one day when I was playing with my Ranger Distress Spray Stains. The embossing folder is from Taylored Expressions called Bead Board and is now retired along with the rest are items shown.

I want to thank the team from the As You See It Challenges for selecting me and if you are a card maker, play along!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

The Luck of The Irish

Welcome to the Card Concept Challenge #150 - the Luck of the Irish!

St. Patty's Day is always a fun holiday for cards. No pressure, just have fun and enjoy the green! My card is a Mixed Media card which was inspired by the colors of green in the picture, the metal in the buckle and of course, the clover, which is the classic sign of luck.

I started the card by creating a background of Ken Oliver's Color Burst Watercolor Powder onto a sheet of Canson XL Watercolor Paper. I used various greens such as Terre Verte, Pthalo Green and a drop of Lemon Yellow. With these Color Bursts you never know what little bits of random colors will come out! See the red tone on the bottom left? You can wet the paper and spritz in the powder or spritz the powders on dry paper and spray with water. All fun!

Once totally dry, I removed it from my acrylic board and cut into A2 card sized pieces. I knew I wanted to use this beautiful stamp set from the Colorado Craft Company called Big & Bold Shamrock Trinity.

I stamped with Versamark Ink onto one of the card panels and sprinkled Ranger's Princess Gold Embossing Powder onto it and heat set.

With the colorful background, I wasn't worried about extra bits of gold embossing powder ending up here and there.

I loved the sentiment that comes with the stamp set. I gold heat embossing it onto black card stock.

The inside sentiment also comes from the Colorado Craft Company set stamped with Altenew Obsidian Black Ink:

Here are a few other cards I made for St. Paddy's Day to sell at my daughter's shop:

This is a digital stamp I purchased and resized several times, colored and fussy cut:

So fun to make!

I hope you have a chance to join us for this challenge! Thanks for visiting today.

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Welcome Door with Spellbinders

Hello friends - and Welcome! This is my card submittal for 2 challenges today: The Sisterhood of Crafters, Anything Goes and

Happy Little Stampers: Anything Goes with Dies:

I have this great Large Die of the Month from Spellbinders called Always Welcome. It is available as a separate purchase now, so you do not have to be a monthly club member to purchase it.

It creates such a dimensional card, and for me, was really fun to put together. I wanted it to be for St. Patty's Day so I also used the Shamrocks from another Large Die of the Month called Festive Wreaths.

This die set makes a really easy slider card. You can see all the different holiday dies in the set, so imagine making a door card for every holiday! I have several seasonal door cards, that I've stamped our house number onto and have framed in a picture frame. This makes a great new home card, too!

The card has ink blending brick for the background and the door die is hinged so that it opens. I used white, black, silver metallic and silver glitter card stock for the door. I had watercolored a sheet of watercolor paper with various greens from which I die cut the shamrocks.

Now for the inside of the door, I purchase a digital stamp set from BaerDesignStudio on etsy. This set has 24 images and I used the sentiment in the upper left. Don't forget about digital stamps - they are great to resize for just that perfect fit. To have it fit perfectly, I resize it several times, print onto copy paper and try it out with the card. Once I know which size I want, I print off of my Brother Laser Printer onto 80 lb. cardstock and cut to size. 

This leaves room to hand write a sentiment on the door opening, but I also turned this into an A2 size card.

If you are interested in joining a Spellbinders Club here is the link. I belong to the Value Club, the Large & Small Die of the Month and the Glimmer Hot Foil Kit of the Month. It is a really good value if you're an avid cardmarker, too. You do get to preview the monthly release around the 1st of the month and skip a month if you don't particularly like it. They all work together and overtime it is so fun to make cards with all the parts like I did for this card!

Thank you for joining me and I hope "Nothing but Happiness Comes Through Your Door"!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

SugarPea Designs Breakfast in Bed

Do you love the color lilac? If so, SugarPea Designs Mix It Up Challenge Feb. 2021 is perfect for you! I was inspired by both the color challenge and the sketch challenge to create this card.

I am also submitting to a new to me challenge from Happy Little Stampers - Anything Goes With Dies:

To begin I used a retired set from SugarPea Designs called Breakfast in Bed. It is still available at the Not 2 Shabby Shop at a very deep discounted price:

How fun is this breakfast tray? So easy to put together and can hold breakfast items, get well soup, flowers and for my card, it is a tea tray!

To create the background, I smooched the lightest 4 colors from Altenew's Lilac Blossoms mini cube set onto the white Non Stick mat from my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat. 

If you don't have a good surface to craft on this one is perfect. The glass is easily cleaned, has grid lines and on the right the white sticky mat that can be stored when not needed. It also comes with a left handed version.

Once the colors were smooched down I gave them a bit of a spritz with water. I picked up a piece of left over packaging and dabbed it into the ink and then on a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock. I also spritzed with water a bit, too so that the ink would move naturally.

Once dry, I gave it a good splattering with the same colors, just watered down using my Tim Holtz splatter brush and Splat box.

The tray is 3 dimensional cut from a kraft card stock. I did ink blend a bit of Walnut Stain Distress Ink around the edges. The tea pot, cups and flowers are stamped onto Ranger's Water Color Paper with Altenew's Obsidian Black Ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. They were colored with Altenew's 36 half pan watercolors. 

The vase was stamped with one of the darker colors of Altenew's Lilac Blossoms mini cubes. All were die cut with the matching Sugarcut and adhered to the tray, some flat, some popped up. A couple of strips of Altenew's Sweet Pea Washi Tape helped complete the sketch.

The outside sentiment is from SugarPea's Floral Envie:

The inside sentiment is from Altenew's Dearest Friend stamp set:

I love this card and I think the recipient will, too. Thanks for joining me today and if you have a chance, join in one or two of the challenges, it is so fun and inspiring!

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.