Mini Dog Sympathy

Despite my best intentions, I've once again let a ton of time pass since I last played a CASology challenge. The current challenge was a good fit for me this week, though: 

I wanted to make a card for a friend whose yellow lab recently died. When it comes to making sympathy cards, I always find clean and simple works best for me. I checked through my dog stamps, and found a sweet small one:

After watercolouring him with a distress marker, I cut him out with a heart die and popped him up on some patterned paper. I added a stitched die cut detail to one side and a thin band of coordinating paper on the other. 
Of course, I'm also adding this to the current Anything Goes challenge at Simon Says Stamp. And if you happen to be looking for a challenge, I'll be back in a few hours with the March Naughty or Nice challenge! 

Supplies: Stampin' Up kraft cardstock, Strathmore mixed media paper, Crate Paper Acorn Avenue patterned paper, Stampin' Up Every Little Bit stamp, Memories black ink, distress markers, QuicKutz heart & Paper Smooches Stitched dies, pop dots

Belated... Happy New Year?

Yes, I'm a week late posting this Chinese New Year card I made... but in my defence, I wanted it to get to its destination before I posted it. And I may have hoped it would travel from my house to there in two days. Maybe not. :D Better late than never, here it is: 

We are now in the Year of the Sheep! (It can also be the Year of the Goat; I don't have many goat stamps...) I was sure this sheep was holding a little gift, so thought it would be perfect for a not-very-traditional New Year's card. Of course, when I got the set out, it was the cow holding a gift, and the sheep had a cupcake. So I masked the sheep's front legs with washi tape before stamping and embossing her. I also stamped her on a post-it note so I had a mask for sponging the background. Then I stamped, embossed, coloured and fussy-cut the cow's front legs and adhered them to the sheep. I popped the present up just a bit with a double layer of glue dots for a hint of definition. 
Simon Says Stamp is having an Anything Goes Wednesday challenge this week, so I'm entering. 

Supplies: white & red cardstock, Simple Stories Summer Fresh patterned paper, Pink Cat Studio Farm Animals & Neat & Tangled Gifts for You stamps, Memento Luxe grey flannel & Simon Says Stamp schoolhouse red inks, clear embossing powder, red Spectrum Noir marker, Marvy gold metallic marker, Wink of Stella clear glitter marker

Accident Time at the Sisterhood!

I don't know about you, but winter -- the cold! the snow! -- is really starting to get me down. My condition is nothing compared to Edna's, though! 

Edna is definitely in need of a get well card. So that is what the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is looking for! 

I've always thought this Paper Smooches die would make an excellent base for a snarky get well card, so I knew right away I would use it. I added a PS germ coloured in what I think of as a particularly sickly green (Iced Spruce). None of the sentiments with the germ seemed quite snarky enough to work, so I made one of my own and used another PS die to cut it out. I debated both googly eyes and glossy accents for the germ's eyes, but ended up going with beady black enamel eyes and glittery black antenna ends. The germ and the  speech bubble are adhered with a double layer of glue dots for just a hint of dimension. As for the rest of the design, I was obviously feeling in quite a clean and simple mood. ;) 
I am adding this card to the current Paper Smooches Anything Goes challenge. 
There are more get well cards, both snarky and sweet, on our challenge blog! Our guest designer this week is Michelle; I hope you'll leave her a comment, as well! And then I hope you'll join us with your own get well creation.

Supplies: white & red cardstock, Paper Smooches Healthy Vibes stamp, Ranger Archival black & iced spruce distress inks, Paper Smooches Borders 1 & Word Bubbles dies, black Enamel Accents, black icicle Stickles, Creative Memories corner-rounder punch, glue dots, pop-dot tape

Time for Some Valentines (and Challenges)

Oh look, it's Monday! With less than a week to go before Valentine's Day, I thought now was a good time to share a couple of cards I made for the big day, and enter a few challenges with them. Valentines just aren't as topical in, say, March. 
First up, a sweet and feminine card:

It's funny, my favourite colour is red, red is the colour most associated with Valentine's Day, but I have yet to make a valentine with red this year. This one is in pastel shades of pink and mauve, with some purple hemp cord, silver embossing, and a black "please". The hearts flanking the please, plus a few random hearts in the background, are sparkled up with Wink of Stella marker. The embossing shows up a bit more in the close-up below. 

With the hearts and big sentiment, I am entering this card into the current Quirky Crafts challenge: Love is in the Air; and Stamplorations: "Love and Hearts". 

Next up, perhaps the more challenging card of the two... one for a ten-year-old boy.

I paper-pieced the socks and coloured in the little hearts with a marker. While I had patterned papers that might have been a little more in keeping with the occasion, I figured I was pushing my luck far enough with said hearts and a quasi-mushy sentiment. :D 
For this card, I followed the sketch for The Crooked Stamper's very first sketch challenge! (Hi, Leslie!) I'm also joining the "Love" word week challenge at Just Us Girls. 

Supplies: (will you be...?) white cardstock, Echo Park Head Over Heels patterned paper, Neat & Tangled Be My Valentine stamps, Versamark, Stampin' Up wisteria wonder & Versafine onyx black inks, Zing silver embossing powder, corner-rounding punch, Wink of Stella clear glitter marker, pop dots; (socks) white & teal cardstock, Crate Paper Fourteen & Echo Park Here & Now patterned paper, Lawn Fawn My Silly Valentine stamps, Memento tuxedo black & Luxe teal zeal inks, Zing clear embossing powder, Spectrum Noir marker, Nellie Snellen square dies, pop dots

Read Any Books Lately?

Wow, we had such a great response to our 1st anniversary challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers! I hope you found time to play along, but if you didn't... it's time for a new challenge! 

G is for Grey. You could go for a card or other project in lower-case shades of grey, or go all-out and be inspired by the novels.
Full disclosure -- have not read them. Started the first one, but the literary style did not speak to me. Hence my leaving the word "good" out of my post title. That is just my reading opinion, though. And you'd have to live under a rock not to know the gist of the story. (Come to think of it, if you live under a rock, you might be a bit of a masochist... but I digress.) 
I already had a card idea in mind, when this one just popped in, fully formed:

I can't help it, this cracks me up! Almost a year ago, my friend Jen made this card... so it's about time I CASEd it. A brief aside... about a month ago, the wire guide on my paper trimmer had a stroke and frayed out. I contacted Fiskars, and this week received a brand new trimmer as replacement! Wow! Excellent customer service. But in the meantime, all those thin paint chip strips had to be cut via Xacto knife and cutting mat. Ugh! 
I couldn't resist also making the first card I had in mind. Of course there's a story behind this one, too! :P If you're Canadian, you might be familiar with Murdoch Mysteries. A recent episode was set in the world of corset-makers. I couldn't help but think that corsets must have been designed by sadists and worn by masochists. And... light bulb! Ultimately I decided to update the idea to a more current era...

I'm not the only one who feels this way, am I? Bueller? The image is from The Graphics Fairy, and the sentiment from my computer. 
And now it's your turn! Be sure to check out the amazing and often hilarious designs of my teammates and this week's guest designer, Amy! 

Supplies: (Pantone) white and Bazzill grey cardstock, paint chips (and that's it!); (Panty Hose) Stampin' Up very vanilla, basic black & DCWV tan cardstock, Basic Grey Oliver patterned paper, Graphics Fairy image, Spellbinders Borderabilities tulips border die, pop-dot tape

Naughty or Nice Valentines!

Would you look at that, it's February!  Meaning that Valentine's Day will be here before you know it. Time in general goes completely wonky in February, I find -- it's the longest yet shortest month of the year. Of course I might enjoy it a little more if I happened to live on a tropical island. 

Enough of that, though... a new month brings a new Naughty or Nice challenge! 

That's right, we're looking for your love -- or ANTI-LOVE -- themed projects this month. Make them naughty or nice! I've gone nice with mine, mostly because the Valentines I need to make really should be... I hope I'll have time once the necessities are out of the way to make a more playful one! ;) 

I was fortunate enough to win some Unity goodies recently, so decided to use one of my brand new sets and play along with this month's colour challenge. This is the second of two attempts at the main panel; the first one I embossed in white, since that seems to be the default for a watercolour resist, but it just didn't have enough oomph against the background colours. The deep blue seemed to work much better. Once again I put my Twinkling H2Os into action for some watercolour shimmer. The popped-up heart is another Unity stamp (this one from a grab bag) -- it was the perfect size, but had the sentiment "handmade" across the front. A perfectly fine word, but just wasn't right for this particular use. Patterned paper strip to the rescue! It's stamped in a colour called "lilac posies" by the way -- purples seem to defeat my photography skills or lack of.  I also decided to be inspired by Jocelyn Olson, who is a genius at patterned-paper layering, among many other things. While I could not quite bring myself to hand-cut the papers the way she does, I did try to keep the layering whimsical. Each layer is adhered with just a few glue dots. I think I was also channeling Jocelyn when I splatted my card base with some Smooch spritz. For embellishments, I started with just the three tiny clear sequins, added the two blue sequins, then thought, wait, I have a bag of various heart die cuts! The result is either pleasingly random or an epic fail, I have yet to decide. I actually remembered to take some angled photos to show the dimension of the paper layering more clearly:

I'm also entering this card into this week's Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes and Shopping Our Stash Love Me Do challenges. 

My teammates have some great inspiration waiting for you on the Naughty or Nice page! You have until the 25th to come and join in on the fun. 

Supplies: Stampin' Up naturals white cardstock, Echo Park Head Over Heels & Basic Grey Plumeria patterned papers, Unity Layers of Life All for Love (December 2014) and ? stamps, Color It gilded silver blue, Memento lilac posies & Versamark inks, Zing clear embossing powder,  Mama Elephant confetti die, sea kiss Smooch Spritz, Simon Says Stamp & Darice sequins, pop-dot squares