An Oriental Flavour

G'day there bloggers!

Hope your week is going well! I've been playing around with some Perfect Pearls Powders for the latest Addicted to CAS challenge - the cue word is 'Oriental' so what could be more perfect for the theme than Waltzingmouse's Asian Gardens:

I've had a set of these powders for well over a year now and I've used them precisely once.  In fact, one of the colours hasn't been opened at all so I'm also entering this card into Darnell's NBUS (never before used schtuff) challenge.  Haven't heard of Darnell? Then you must be hiding under a rock somewhere in blogland...she can be found over here and has an absolutely unique and often hilarious blogging style!

Since my card also features three stamped panels (again), I'm going to enter it into Casology's challenge too - this week the cue word is 'three.'

Happy stamping!

Claire x

Getting Distressed - Colour Q #258

Hello bloggers!

Well, I'm not really distressed...just playing around with some Distress Inks for the brand new challenge over at Colour Q:

I've been doing lots of clean and layered cards recently so I thought I'd go for something a little more CAS this week.  Blackberry Bliss is a funny old colour and I was struggling to find anything in my stash until I remembered some new Distress Inks I bought recently. I blended Seedless Preserves and Mustard Seed onto some saffron coloured, honeycomb paper by MME.  I then stamped the Technique Tuesday images and added a grey sentiment from the same set - 'One of a Kind.'  Nice and easy - sometimes I feel like I'm cheating when I do a 10 minute card!

It just so happens that this card fits in perfectly with the new cue word over at Casology too - don't you just love it when that happens?

Hope you get the chance to get crafty this week! Thanks for popping by,

Claire x

Happy Father's Day

Hello fellow bloggers!

It's Father's Day here in Australia and last night I suddenly realised what a rubbish wife I was - I'd forgotten to make the big bloke a card. Oops!  As usual Freshly Made Sketches gave me a leg up in the design department so I quickly made this little card using Waltzingmouse Stamps Opera Tags and Man of the Hour sets:

Unfortunately Daddy didn't get the promised lie-in this morning and was promptly woken up by two screaming little boys shouting 'Happy Father's Day' - he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Thanks for popping over,

Claire x

Back to School?

Hello again folks!

How's your weekend going? 

It's that time of year when school shoes have to be polished, uniforms ironed and pencil cases refilled - or at least in the Western hemisphere.  So there seems to be a few 'back to school' themed challenges out there in blogland - the one over at The Card Concept has an inspiration pic which I combined with the latest sketch from Mojo Monday:

I have to admit, I'm not feeling the love for this clean and layered card.  I think I may be suffering from the shock of having to make an impromptu speech in front of about 50 parents this morning on behalf of my son's soccer team.  For someone who loathes public speaking and had no warning whatsoever and therefore no preparation, it was not a pleasant experience!

Hope you get a bit of time for crafty stuff this weekend!

Claire x

A New Challenge

G'day bloggers!

I came across a new challenge in blog land yesterday called The Mixed Media Card Challenge.  Now let me tell you, mists, distress inks, stencils and texture paint are no friends of mine, despite them all lurking in the bottom of my crafty stash.  For someone as anally retentive as I, the thought of a random drop of Glimmer Mist landing where it shouldn't on one of my clean and simple creations is enough to give me nightmares.

But I'm always up for a challenge and the DT cards inspired me to pull out my old and crusty texture paste and have a bash at using it:

There is the option to use leaves and metal for this challenge and I managed to use both of them.  I cut the leaves with my silhouette and used distress inks to colour them.  The background is a Studio Calico stencil which I've used with some texture paste on some Prima paper.  I swiped over the top with some Versamark and added a sprinkling of gold embossing powder.  The tag has been cut out of some balsa wood, stamped with a woodgrain stamp and rubbed with some more distress inks.

It's still pretty clean for a mixed media card isn't it?  I did consider misting the background but whenever I do, I'm never happy with the results so I left it as is.

Over at Curtain Call there's also an Autumnal/leaves theme so I'm going to pop it over in that challenge too!

Thanks for stopping,

Claire x

Colour Q #257

 Well hello again folks!

Second post of the day and it's time for a new Colour Q combo - so many possibilities with these colours...I reckon they'd look great in a masculine card (despite the pink!)

I got my inspiration straight from the pic for this one - I love how the bright flowers pop against the navy background.  I also used the current sketch (#166) over at The Deconstructed Sketch.  

The flowers have been cut with a Paper Smooches stand alone die and it's a Paper Smooches sentiment too.  So I'm popping it into the current Paper Sparks challenge where the theme  is 'Anything Goes.' 

Heaps of inspiration again from the rest of the DT - I love how the same colours inspire everyone in such different ways.  Hope you get the chance to join in!

Claire x

CASE-ing for CAS(E) This Sketch

Morning all!

Love the quirky sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch - it gave me the perfect opportunity to CASE a tag from one of the Stretch Your Stamps classes by Laura Bassen.

She embossed a partial image of a flower onto white card stock, then blended a beautiful, bright background with distress inks over the top and added a white on black embossed sentiment.   So simple but really effective - all with the added bonus of taking about 10 minutes! Don't you just love that?

Happy stamping!

Claire x