CFC92 - Irish you a magical day!

Happy Friday!  Can you believe it's already March?!?  Wow...time does fly when you're having fun!  And speaking of fun, I'm here today with a new challenge from CAS-ual Fridays!

CFC92: Wallpaper

Stamp your own background for your clean and simple project

And our sponsor this week is the fabulous Ellen Hutson!  The winner of this week's challenge will receive a $25 gift certificate to spend here.  Awesome, right?

So since it is March, I chose to make a card to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and I knew the perfect stamps to use to make the background for this paper yummy:

For this card, I went straight to the A Magical Spring stamp set from Paper Smooches.  I knew the shamrock would make the perfect stamped background, and how could I resist that leprechaun?!?  I stamped and colored his skin, hat, clover, and shoes on some Copic X-Press Blending card stock, then paper-pieced his clothing and hair with some cute patterned papers.  I added some gold Stickles to his buckles and bow tie.  I fussy-cut around him, and stood him on the flag-cut sentiment panel. Here's a close-up:

Heehee.  He makes me happy!  I hope you'll play along with this week's challenge.  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to do so.  Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: card base: The Paper Studio; card stock: Copic X-Press Blending Cardstock; patterned papers: Lily Bee Design, Doodlebug; stamps: Paper Smooches; markers: Copic, Prismacolor; ink: Tsukineko; glitter glue: Stickles by Ranger

CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Sneak Peek - Sweet Friend

Happy Monday to all!  I'm here today to show you a sneak peek of one of the new CAS-ual Fridays Stamps sets that will be released this month.  Three brand new sets will be available here on February 15th.  Woo hoo!

The set I'm sneaking is called Beanstalks, and it is so super cute!  There are some really lovely sentiments and some great beanstalks that are wonderfully versatile!  So without further ado, here is my Beanstalks paper yummy:

For this card, I combined two of the sentiments from the set, joined by a little hand-drawn comma.  Using a little bit of masking, I stamped the words "you" and "friend" in a different color ink to highlight them.  Then I stamped one little beanstalk multiple times to create the elements on each side of the sentiment.  I had originally planned to color in the leaves to match the red words in the sentiment, but once I stamped the beanstalks, I really liked the way they looked not colored in.  Here's a close-up of the sentiment strip and beanstalks:

Please remember to visit the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog and leave a comment on each sneak peek day!  A lucky commenter will receive that day's release!  Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: card stock: Copic; patterned papers: Lily Bee Design; stamps: CAS-ual Fridays Stamps; inks: Tsukineko; twine: Recollections

CFC87 - Sunshine, peace & hope

Happy Friday!  I hope your week was wonderful! I'm here today with a card that I'm just giddy over, and it's my card for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge:

CFC87: Make your mark

Use markers on your clean and simple project

And this week's sponsor is Crafter's Companion, who is offering up an awesome Spectrum Noir markers prize package!

So for this challenge, I wanted to use one of the cutest stamps (in my opinion) that Paper Smooches makes.  I'd never used this particular stamp, but I think it's absolutely PERFECT for a spring time card, and also to send well wishes to a friend who's been going through a rough patch.  And now for the paper yummies:

I stamped the adorable lion and lamb stamp from the Eco-Friendly stamp set on white cardstock, colored it in with Copic markers, and fussy-cut it out.  I thought the lion looked so contented, as if the sun was shining down on him and his little lamb buddy.  So, on the white cardstock panel, I embossed a square Nestabilities die to create a frame.  I masked off the area outside the square, and stamped the sunshine in the upper left corner of the square.  With my Copics, I colored in the sunshine, then colored in the rest of the square to create a "sky".  I used a stamp from the Needle Little Love set to create the stitching around the edges of the frame.  The "wishing you sunshine" sentiment is from Eco-Friendly, and I added the "peace" and "hope" from the Joyful Greetings set. The big ampersand is from the We Connect set, and I stamped it in a shade of ink just slightly darker than the sky background.  Here's a close-up:

I hope you'll make your mark on this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to play along!  Thanks so much for looking!

I'm also playing along with the inaugural Muse Card Club challenge.  My card was inspired by Amy Kolling's beautiful card at the Muse blog this week.  I loved her layout (I just reversed it on my card), the embossed square, and the fresh spring feel.

Supplies: cardstock: Copic X-Press Blending Cardstock; patterned paper: Echo Park; stamps: Paper Smooches (Eco-Friendly, Needle Little Love, Joyful Greetings, We Connect); inks: Tsukineko (Memento Tuxedo Black, Tangelo), Hero Arts (Soft Pool); markers: Copic; square die: Nestabilities by Spellbinders; die-cutting/embossing machine: Cuttlebug by Provocraft

CFC85 - Awesome (you did it!)

Happy Friday to all!  I hope everybody had a great week.  Today I'm going riking with a friend of mine.  Don't know what that is?  Oh, that's probably because it's a word I made up.  It's hiking, but we run when we can.  Last time we went, we did a 14.5 mile trail.  Today, we were going to do a 21.5 miler, but a cold snap is coming through (which is supposed to be the longest one we've had since 1971!!), so we've decided to do a 7.5 miler instead.  Hope we don't freeze to death!!! Anyway, today I'm also bringing you this week's challenge from CAS-ual Fridays! Woo hoo!

CFC85: Round of applause

Create a clean and simple card that celebrates an accomplishment and features at least one circle

And the sponsor for this week's challenge is CAS-ual Fridays Stamps!  The winner of this challenge will receive a $20 store credit!  And guess what else?  There is a new release coming out on January 18th! Check out the stamp blog for sneak peeks January 14-17!

So, on this card, I gave you a little pre-sneak peek of a new stamp set that's coming out.  Can you spot the new stamp on this paper yummy?:

I used some Spellbinders Nestabilities dies on this card (the circle and the star).  I stamped the sentiment onto the circle, then embossed that cool dotted chevron border (Cuttlebug "Charles") above it.  I adhered the circle to the front of the card.  I temporarily adhered the star in place to use as a guide.  Then, using the same "you did it!" stamp that I used on the circle (from the Woot Woot set), I stamped repeatedly around the circle by curving the stamp on my acrylic block to match the curve of the circle.

To create the star, I cut a bunch of 1/8" strips of white cardstock.  I wanted to make sure the rainbow colors on the star matched the inks I was going to be using in the sentiment, so I colored each strip of cardstock using a direct ink-to-paper approach.  Then I place my star die on a separate piece of cardstock and traced around it.  I covered the area inside the tracing with double-sided adhesive, then adhered the colored strips diagonally until the traced outline of the star was completely covered.  Then I die cut that area using the same star die.  I applied some diamond Stickles around the edges of the star, and adhered it using dimensional adhesive.  Here's another view of the sentiment, embossing, and glittery rainbow star:

I hope you'll play along with this week's challenge!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to do so.  Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: card stock: Copic X-Press Blending card stock; stamps: CAS-ual Fridays Stamps; inks: Tsukineko (black), TPC Studios (all colors); embossing folder: Cuttlebug by Provocraft "Charles" border; dies: Nestabilities by Spellbinder; die cutting machine: Sizzix; glitter glue: Stickles by Ranger; corner rounder: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper