Botanical Gardens CTC#73

This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are checking out the Botanical Gardens section of the catalogue, from page 26-29.  I fell in love with these flowers the moment they were shown to us at OnStage back in November. I particularly like the flowers with petal which separate, and the variety of leaves. I spend a lot of my spare time, die cutting scraps of card and sorting the pieces into colour families. That way, I have flowers and leaves ready to add to any project. I could hardly wait to CASE the card from the main picture in the catalogue, and as I came home from Onstage with Enjoy The Little Things in my bag of goodies, I only had to wait for Stampin' Up!® to ship the Botanical Gardens Bundle out to me.

I just changed up the colours slightly for my CASE, and made a regular-sized card instead of a square. The long, leafy die is lovely with its gentle curve. It can be used to add an edge with a difference to your cards also. With a sponge dauber, I've added colour to the edges and centre of the main flower, the wee flowers have candy dots.

The sample in the catty may have had the sprinkle of dots added from Timeless Textures, on the next page of the catty, but I didn't have it then, so used the similar one from Perpetual Birthday Calendar. You could use Gorgeous Grunge if you own that set.

 I've had people asking me whether it is worthwhile buying the bundle or should they just get the framelit dies and of course that choice is always up to the customer. I have to admit that I use the dies a lot more than the stamps but I've stamped this sample for my April class, and I really like the tropical appearance of these images. You'll find dates for my classes under a tab at the top of my Stampinpals blog - Classes. Students will make 3 cards, including both of these, using Botanical Blooms and Botanical Builder Framelit Dies and it's usually up to date with availability. Email or text me - 0417500681 - I'm in South Morang on the northern outskirts of Melbourne.

The sentiment is made up from two stamps, belonging to Happy Birthday, Everyone, a hostess set in the main catalogue (page 179). This will retire on May 31st, but although it is a Hostess set, you can purchase it (and have change) with Hostess dollars earned with your $250 order, before shipping. Contact me if you're not sure how this works.
 We would love you to join in the challenge to CASE The Catty with us. You can link your entry here

Don't forget to visit everyone by clicking on the links. You can  pop back to Judy May or continue forward to stop by Julia's blog

Both ladies have amazing projects to share with you!

  

Cheers, Rachel

Lighthearted Leaves - CTC55 Into The Woods

This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are looking at Into The Woods section of the Stampin' Up!® Holiday Catalogue. Don't forget to click on the link at the end of my post to continue blog-hopping all the way around the CASE-ing The Catty design team.

Can you see the card at the centre front of the picture above? That's the one I decided to case beginning with the tiny leaf stamp from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set. There are some great stamps in there, especially for card backgrounds. That gave the opportunity to introduce Old Olive, Daffodil Delight and Rich Razzleberry to the colour scheme.

I used a couple of layered banners too, but needed to trim both down a fraction at the top, so that the quote from Emily Bronte wasn't covered. For the next step, I slept on it, and decided to add Hardwood in Sahara Sand to the white banner, a little banner of ribbon and then two buttons stacked and sewn together with linen thread. I'm a bit keen on stacking buttons, and have invested in some darning needles, which have a larger eye to thread Bakers Twine or thicker threads through.

I hope this blog is providing you with some inspiration today. Don't forget, if you need some supplies and you don't have a demonstrator already, perhaps I can give you the service and support you need.

My online shop is available to you 24 hours a day, and if you have questions about any product or technique I've mentioned, feel free to contact me. November's Hostess Code to add to your order is F73JQQGY, and if you allow me to contact you, you will receive a thank you.

Now it's time for you to hop across to see what Rebecca has made for us this week

Cheers

Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Happy Mother's Day PP240

These three colours are my all-time favourites of the retiring In Colors, and I've stocked up (hope you have too!).
I nearly ran out of time to complete my card for the Paper Players colour challenge, thanks Joanne for these lovely colours, but after I'd done my exercise this afternoon, instead of lying down for a very tempting 'Nana nap', I've gone and put the various pieces together.

I've used Pictogram Punches a lot lately, because it is the stamp we're using at my class this month, and I like to show examples of its versatility. This means that there's likely to be a spare or two from the stamp set already stamped when I come to put a card together. Saves a bit of time, especially when they're the right colours!

I really enjoy punching out those cute little flowers, stars and hearts - and did you know that Something To Say has another 3 of those images in it as well? The vase has to be cut by hand, but it's easy enough, and even the three stems don't present too much of a challenge. The polaroid frame was already cut from  Coaster Board from when I was designing my Convention Swaps, but I chose to use the film frame instead on those. On Film Framelits have a couple of these handy shapes.

Speaking of handy shapes, I'm finding the tiny shapes in the Perpetual Birthday Calendar come in handy too. When I get more organised, I think that stamp set will prove to be very useful for making journalling cards for Project Life.

Cheers
Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Little Buddy's Birthday FMS174 cQc#280

I organised my Saturday so that I did my shopping early, and was home by 10.30, mainly to avoid the heat (and crowds). Then I did my tidying up and by lunchtime I had free time to craft. February/March are very heavy on birthdays in our family, and now there's another one, with a brand new nephew arriving last Wednesday. His safe arrival has been a long process for my sister-in-law and her partner and we wish them much joy with their precious son.

It might be a good idea to build my stock of children's cards, and so I pulled out this often-ignored stamp set Little Buddy Birthday to make a card using the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. I always like the sketches the design team challenge with at FMS and this week is no exception. What about the interesting colour combination at ColourQ? These shades are so rich and regal, but I like the way they balance each other.
Perfectly Rustics have a challenge to use wings, and this little guy has the teeniest wings, so I'll pop it into that challenge too.

The other stamp sets are the retired Up Up And Away for the chirpy sentiment, and Perpetual Birthday Calendar for the spots in different sizes. Those little stamps come in so handy for adding little details. I decided to use some of the gold foil punched into circles to make the gold spots and match up with the starburst circle of gold.

I still have some Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack left and it seemed like this spotty piece really suited the card front, and actually, there is enough white space to write a greeting.

We have an early start on Sunday morning to head out of town and spend the day with a 7 year-old birthday boy. How quickly the years pass!

Have fun
Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog