CFC102: Thanks for your service

Hello, and happy Friday!  I hope everybody has had a great week and is ready for the holiday weekend (at least in the US).  I, for one, could use a 3-day weekend.  And in honor of this commemoration, we're having a special challenge at CAS-ual Fridays!  Check it:

CFC102: Red, white & blue

Incorporate red, white, and blue into your clean and simple project.

And the sponsor for this week's challenge is the fabulous Simon Says Stamp.  The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to spend in the store!

While it wasn't specifically part of the challenge to create something patriotic or fit for military personnel, my mind went straight to the Paper Smooches Circle of Honor stamp set, and I couldn't NOT go that route. And now for the paper yummies:

First I stamped the sentiment using two different colors of Memento ink and some masking, then placed the stars around the sentiment in a diagonal cascading pattern.  I offset the star outline and stamped it in the opposite ink color for a fun look, then placed a rhinestone in the center of each one.  Here is a close-up:

I hope you have a safe and sound holiday weekend, and I hope you'll play along with this challenge!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to do so.  Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: card stock: Stampin' Up!; stamps: Paper Smooches; inks: Tsukineko; rhinestones: Hampton Art; corner rounder: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper

CFC69 - Boo!

Happy Friday!  I hope everybody has had a great week!  I've been super busy with a lot of non-card projects lately, so I hope to be getting back into the swing of things soon.  Maybe I'll share some of my other projects too.  Anyway, I'm here today with this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge!  This week's challenge is super fun:

CFC69: Incorporate embossing (either kind) into your clean and simple project

And once again, we are sponsored by the FABULOUS Simon Says Stamp!  The winner of this week's challenge will not only receive a gift certificate to Simon's store, but will also win a guest designer spot at CAS-ual Fridays!  Fun stuff!

So I just love embossing.  Whether it's the dry kind or the heat kind, it just adds so much dimension and texture to all kinds of projects.  For this week's challenge, I couldn't decided which kind I wanted to use, so I went with both!  And now for the paper yummies:

I started off with a piece of plaid patterned paper from My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Halloween collection, and embossed it with this texture plate from Lil' Inker Designs.  I added some distress ink over the top of the wood grain to help define it a little bit.  

Then I masked the wood grain so that only the center rectangle was showing, and applied black distress ink inside the rectangle.  I stamped the spider web, spider, and sentiment in Versamark ink (only after using my Embossing Buddy so that the powder wouldn't stick to my inked background), and embossed each in a different color powder.  It's hard to see in the pictures, but the spider is embossed with a glittery embossing powder.

I added a simple ribbon tab, some tiny staples, and colored the diamond on the spider's back orange to match the ribbon:

Which kind of embossing do you prefer?  Show us in this week's challenge!  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to play along!  Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: cardstock: Core'dinations; patterned paper: My Mind's Eye; stamps: Hampton Art (spider, web), Martha Stewart (sentiment); inks: Ranger (Tim Holtz Black Soot, Frayed Burlap), Tsukineko (Versamark); embossing powders: American Crafts (green, black), Recollections (white); texture plate: Lil' Inker Designs; embossing machine: Sizzix; ribbon: The Ribbon Boutique; staples/stapler: Ranger; marker: Copic

CFC64: Sending you sunshine

Happy Friday!  I'm here with this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge:

CFC64: Use things you might find in the sky on your clean and simple project

And once again, our fabulous sponsor is Simon Says Stamp. 

They are so generous to sponsor our challenge regularly!  The winner of this week's challenge will receive a gift certificate to spend in their store.  And speaking of this week's challenge, let's get to it!  The timing for this challenge couldn't have been more perfect.  So the theme is "On Cloud 9", but you can use anything you might find in the sky.  While I am on cloud 9 (my first publication is in print this month! YAY!), I chose to bottle up some sunshine in this paper yummy:

                        

I know I've said it before, but the Summer Fresh collection from Simple Stories is the quintessential summer line.  It just screams summer and sunshine-y goodness.  So when I saw this coordinating stamp set from Simple Stories/Unity Stamps, I couldn't resist.  I love that the jar stamp in this set is so big - it's perfect to create a shaped card (about 5 inches tall!).  I stamped it onto white cardstock and also onto some scratch paper.  I cut out the inside of the jar from the scratch paper, and used the negative cut as a mask to stamp all the sunshine inside the jar.  Then I scored and folded the card on the left side of the jar.  I placed some temporary adhesive inside the card to keep the two layers together, then fussy-cut around the outline.  For the sentiment, I used a stamp from the Hero Arts/Studio Calico Heyday Sentiments set.  I masked off the "you are my" above the "sunshine" so that I could hand-write "sending you" instead.  Here is a close-up:

Are you on cloud nine, or could you use a jar full of sunshine?  Either way, I hope you'll play along with this week's challenge.  You have until next Thursday at noon EST to do so.  We'd love to have you!

Thanks for looking!


Supplies: cardstock: Stampin' Up! (Whisper White), Bazzill (red); stamps: Simple Stories/Unity Stamps (jar, sunshine); Hero Arts/Studio Calico (sentiment); inks: Tsukineko (Memento London Fog, Versamark), TPC Studio (yellow); embossing powder: American Crafts; white gel pen: Uniball Signo; baker's twine: Divine Twine