Birthdays - CTC91

Hello again, I notice you've popped in to check out what we're CASE-ing at Case-ing The Catty this week. So nice to see you here! Did you arrive from Judy May or is this your starting point? The crew are still really enjoying this years catalogue, it is my favourite EVER, but I might just say that every year.... We are CASE-ing birthdays, and I have enjoyed making a couple of simple cards for the hop, which you will be able to CASE easily too.

I've used the Celebrate Today stamp set, which is shown on page 18 and also has 4 co-ordinating framelits if you'd like an easy way to cut the balloon, banner or tassels. For my balloon card it has been kept very, very simple. I didn't even texture emboss the base card, or use twine for the balloon because there is the cutest little spotted bow stamp in this set. This is one of those cards you can put together in 5 minutes before you rush out the door. Fabulous for beginners, just as lovely for an experienced stamper to step-it-up.

For my second card there have been a few changes. There is a layer of Peekaboo Peach added between the 'art piece' and the base. I've stamped less banners (because it looked an absolute mess on the two I tried before this one!) CAS is more my regular style I think. I wasn't in the mood for stamping and die cutting all the tassels, so instead chose to pull the cake image from Endless Birthday Wishes, and lightly water colour. Nevertheless, it was totally inspired by the catalogue picture.

I wonder what Kelly is sharing with us this week? I do love her creations.

We always love to see your work, so if you'd like to share, this is your link to CASE-ing The Catty for August.

Cheers, Rachel

Flirty Flamingo Birthday CTC #81

I didn't think I'd get a chance to join the crew this week at CASE-ing The Catty but here I am! I had my Catalogue Launch yesterday which made for a very busy, panic-filled week. I was so hoping that it would be exciting for the ladies who were joining me to share in the excitement of new Stampin' Up! products. I did have a need for birthday cards as well, with one D-I-L celebrating last Wednesday and another today. I put together this Flirty Flamingo fancy, based on a card on page 22 using Endless Birthday Wishes. Originally I'd planned to just CASE that card, it's so darn perfect, but I used the Pop Of Paradise stamp, so I could add it to my display. Timeless Textures is another newish stamp set that I reach for all the time, a sentiment from Pop of Paradise with a couple of tiny words from Endless Birthday Wishes. Sorry to be so brief this week, hope you understand...I'll post some photos of the Catty Launch display tomorrow.

Stampin' Up! Sample

Cheers, Rachel

Your heading over to visit with Liz, she's bound to have an awesome card

Birthday Bouquet And Star CTC#67

Catalogue Picture

Welcome again to another round of CASE-ing The Catty. Each week the crew take inspiration from a section of a Stampin' Up!® catalogue. Currently we are all so excited by our Occasions catalogue, this week is birthday's. CASE is an acronym which stands for "Copy And Share Everything" and we hope by sharing what we have CASE-d, you'll be inspired too.
Another exciting bit of news to report - we've been CASE-ing The Catty for 100 posts!!! I can't believe that it's that many, I must be enjoying it too much. Maybe you'd like to mark this momentous occasion by linking one of your CASE-d projects. There are more details at the end.

I decided to CASE the floral card on the far right in the picture. It's so fresh and 'clean' with white on white. I tried a soft and subtle palette, as well as a bright, modern look.

For the 8th birthday card, I was inspired by the spots of the top left example, and also CASE-d the Soft Sky banner. Lately it has been my mission to use up some of the many pieces of retired DSP around my craft room. These spots happily fitted the assignment and the Star Framelits provided a background for the number. The colour palette of the (retired) DSP has decided the colour scheme for this card. 

It seemed a good idea to do some paper piercing to the star, a simple technique, but it adds lovely detail.To make the number sufficently thick, I cut it out 3 times and glue the layers together, and that seems to be a perfect weight. The banner has been extended to accommodate 'happy' & 'birthday' but since I made this card, I've been checking out which of the other birthday greetings fit in, and so far have 3 options.

Starting this year we are doing a monthly challenge. If you have been inspired by any of the projects in the catalogue or on the blog hop, feel free to share with the linky tool at CASE-ing The Catty. A winner will be chosen and announced on the first post of the following month.

You may have arrived here from Helen Heil at H2 Designs

  

and now you can head on over to Tricia at The Speckled Sparrow

Don't forget to come back next week...

Cheers, Rachel

Owl Wish You Happy Birthday

This is the first time I've participated in the challenge at Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge, but I was looking for sketch inspiration for a card I was making for my youngest son's girlfriend's birthday (today). 

We were challenged to use a shape besides a circle, but I'm pretty partial to circles, so that's what we have! It has been slipped under the Stampin' Up!® Timeless Elegance DSP, which I've fussy-cut. I guess the real star of this show is Little Miss Owl, who is actually looking so forlorn. It has a lot to do with the position of the pupils, and because I have added blue lids to the eyes the pupils are quite low. The Owl Builder Punch gives you all the pieces you need to put the owl together. The twig is from the Bird Builder Punch, just love all these cute punches, there is even a Tree Builder Punch which can make trees, cupcakes or ice cream.

The sentiment is from Endless Birthday Wishes, a must-have photo-polymer stamp set from Stampin' Up!®, because there are a mix of fonts and phrases. There is more of the same sentiments on the inside of the card and some more of the lovely patterned paper. I scattered some coloured sequins to brighten things up a little, and used the new Fine-Tip Glue Pen to adhere all the small pieces.

The Gift Bag Punch Board came in very handy for making a matching bag to hold the gift.The Timeless Elegance DSP is rather gorgeous, glad I had it on hand.

Cheers

Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Lovely Leaves Colour Me CMCC#89

Last night I was lucky enough to have some bonus me-time, and off to my craft room I trotted. I had wanted to work with these colours in the Colour Me Challenge no. 89. It has jolted my memory, I love Island Indigo! Unfortunately my stash doesn't extend to Garden Green, except for a marker pen, so to colour those lovely Lighthearted Leaves, I scribbled with markers on an acrylic block and used my aqua painter to fill the gaps.

What do you think of the sentiment? I've used the H happy from Project Life This Is The Life and then grabbed birthday from Endless Birthday Wishes to finish off the sentiment. So many expressions you could make up this way, using those two stamp sets.

After all the die cutting, stamping and colouring, the card wasn't appealing to me, so I went to bed. With fresh eyes this morning, I was much happier with the symmetry of it, and decided that adding Hardwood to the background was the only change I needed to make.

What a thrill! My card was picked at Colour Me! this week!

Cheers

Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

First Christmas Card - CTC 47 - Let's Kit Together

Welcome to this week's CASE-ing The Catty Blog Hop. After a few weeks away, I'm back to play along  as we look at pages 4 -7 in the Holiday catalogue, where the super-dooper kits are featured. You may have arrived here from Stasia's blog, but if not, just keep on hopping through all the links until you have gone full circle.

Even though I was supposed to be relaxing on holiday,  I had my order all sorted and was able to just press the button to send it a week before we came home, so I wasn't surprised when there was a lovely box of goodies waiting here for me, but my sons think I might have a problem!!!
SHHHhhhh......I'm a Stampin' Up!® addict!!!!!

In my order was the Oh What Fun Tag Project Kit and the matching photopolymer stamp set, Oh What Fun. It seemed it might just be great fun to 'take it up a notch' and turn the tags into cards.

This first card uses a striped tag and a plain white one from the kit, the silver star is also part of the kit and I changed up the sentiment to another from the stamp set which worked better on a card. In addition, I've cut an extra banner of Crushed Cucumber, stamped the card base with a holly stamp, also from the Oh What Fun stamp set, and scattered some rhinestones around. Quick and easy, my first Christmas card for the year!
(I've realised it is actually the second, as I made the Navy Christmas tree one earlier)


The second card has a Smokey Slate base card, and for some added texture it has been embossed with Elegant Dots Textured Embossing Folder. The other non-kit piece is a banner cut with the largest of the Banners Framelits from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper. The striped tag, the white tag, the red Glimmer Paper banner and red twine are all from the Oh What Fun Tag Project Kit. Don't you love this stamp? It's from the Oh What Fun stamp set too, and I inked it up with Real Red before removing the red from the holly leaves, and inking them with a Crushed Cucumber Stampin' Write Marker®.

For my third card, I decided to change it up a bit and make a birthday card. The tag is from the kit, and the Oh What Fun stamp has been used along with 'It's your birthday' from Endless Birthday Wishes, as is the cake. I added a card base in Mint Macaron plus a layer of Real Red and another slightly smaller piece of Whisper White. The cake has been water coloured using ink in the stamp pad lid, applied with the Aqua painter. Embellishments from the kit include the piece of Mint Macaron lace, the green & white twine, sequins, and the two silver flowers were punched from a scrap of silver foil paper left over from the snowflake on the first card. Waste not, want not! The rhinestones, an absolute paper craft essential, have come from my stash.

I hope this has helped you to see the potential of any of these Stampin' Up!® stamp kits, you can use them as intended, but if you don't use up all the supplies, there are plenty of other things you can do with them. I will make up tags for my Christmas gifts as well, and I bet I still have more left overs! Give your demonstrator a call if you need a copy of the NEW Holiday Catalogue, or check it out online. The Hostess Code for this month is 36JSEMF6

Now, let's hop on over to see what  my friend Kathryn has to share with us this week.

Cheers
Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Love and Sympathy CTC#36

This week the CASE-ing The Catty Crew are CASE-ing the section of the catalogue titled Love & Sympathy, pages 19-30. You may be starting here with me, or perhaps you have come from Alison's blog. If you've started here, you can continue to blog hop your way right around for plenty of CASE-ing The Catty inspiration by clicking on the link at the end of my blog. If you happen to get lost along the way, you can get back on track at Case-ing The Catty.


My idea for this card came to me in the middle of the night, and I could hardly wait for some free time to try it out! It was inspired by a card on page 20 using the same stamp set, Groovy Love. I liked the way the front of the card was raised, with a heart placed behind the punched out heart. I also loved the Linen Thread tied through the heart, to the outer edge.




The line with 'love' is from Hello Life and underneath is 'you' from Endless Birthday Wishes. Both these stamp sets are photopolymer, making them easy to place accurately, as they're see-through, and slightly cheaper too.Two great points in their favour. The 'Mum' and 'Dad' stamps are from a retired stamp set, For My Family. It hasn't had a lot of use, but I knew it was one I should hang on to when it retired.



I made the card for my littlest grandson to take home to his parents after he had spent the day with me. One of my team, Carmela, gave me the idea, after she shared some of the crafting she does with her grandsons. I've snuck a little picture of Oliver and me onto the page. I must try stamping with some of my older grandchildren, when they come to stay. Naturally, since Oliver is only 13 months old, it was all made before he arrived, and I drew around his chubby little hand. When I gave him markers to draw on the inside, he hardly connected with the paper, but almost poked my eye out!!!




Next blog along the loop is Bronwyn's Addinktive Designs,  she will have something wonderful to share.

Cheers,
Rachel

You can shop anytime in my online shop and don't forget that there are great Weekly Deals every Wednesday morning.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Tap, Tap Tap - It's Your Birthday!

When tidying my shelves, I'm reminded of stamps I loved a year ago, but neglect in the rush to use new ones. Repeating part of the formula from yesterday, there is a carryover stamp paired with a new one. If you count the inside, there's a long-retired stamp there too - 'wishing you' from Wacky Wishes combines so beautifully with the latest release Birthday Blossoms. Colour Me! came up with an inspiring colour scheme and I thought the sketch By Jen T at Freshly Made Sketches gave me lots of space to work with. However, keeping in mind that FMS like clean cards, I haven't cluttered it up too much.

Tap, Tap. Tap is the carryover stamp set, and I've used the typewriter and some of the letters on the Coastal Cabana background. Endless Birthday Wishes have some small typed-style words and two of them were added to the sheet of paper in the typewriter. Birthday wasn't one of the sentiments included in Tap, Tap, Tap.

The tiny flower from Something To Say seems to blend with the other blossoms quite well and adds a bit more pizzazz, along with the rhinestones. Having mentioned the inside, I s'pose I should share it! Sorry, I'm having camera issues with the flash not firing at the same time as the shutter releases. Hope its not serious as I head to Europe shortly.

Thanks for dropping by

Cheers

Rachel

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog