CASology Flame Take Two + SCS Love Fest

Melissa's Design Team card for the CASology challenge: Flame started me thinking about using a flourish die to create a flame. I mulled over the idea for a few days before finally pulling out a few dies and experimenting with a design to create this card.

The burning pot is made by using a PTI vase die to trim the top off a small jar die cut and the flames are  created by selectively cutting a Memory Box Elegant Scroll die cut. I struggled with what to use for a sentiment and would have loved to find something like "keep calm and order take out" hiding amongst my stamps, but in the end just went with the "keep calm" from a "keep calm & carry on" Rubber Soul stamp.

The pot is adhered with foam tape to allow the flames to curl around it.

There is a Love Fest celebration going on over at Splitcoaststampers and the Simon Says Stamp challenge is Die Crazy. Very few of my cards do not have some sort of die cut on them these days, but I did make this one specifically with the Simon Says Stamp Love Fest challenge in mind.

I also had time to make something for the Taylored Expressions Love Fest Challenge A Little Love Goes A Long Way to create a set of cards 3x3 or smaller. I pulled out my TE Spectacular stamps and dies to create this trio of cards.

The designer papers are from the Echo Park Sweet Girl collection. A 3x3 space doesn't leave much room for embellishing, but I really wanted a pair of glasses on each card!

There are a ton of challenges during Love Fest and great prizes from the member companies, but you only have until the end of the month to play along!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jacquie

MFTWSC112 Encouragement + CASology Flame

I have a couple of cards to share with you this morning. The first one is for both the My Favorite Things Weekly Stamp Club and the Love Fest challenge at Splitcoast Stampers.

The MFTWSC is a sketch challenge that you can find here and the Love Fest challenge is titled "Make My Day" and the details can be found here.

My daughter has a big exam coming up in a couple of weeks and this card is to give her encouragement and a reminder to keep a positive attitude as she prepares. I'm confident she will do fine, but testing has never been easy for her.

I used an arrow shaped label made with an Accent It die and sentiment from Off the Charts to point to the quote from Clearly Sentimental About New Beginnings. The stars are MFT Star Stax and the papers are all from the Authentique Renew Collection.

The arrow label means this card is also being linked to the Simon Says Stamp Use An Arrow challenge.

The second card started out as a one layer, CAS card for the CASology challenge and ended up with a few layers.

The flames are obviously candle flames - the cake layers, candles and sentiment are all from MFT's Who's That Birthday Girl.

The set comes with a stamp of 4 candles, but I didn't want the even rows, so masked and stamped the single candle many, many times. I know you don't usually put candles at the bottom of the cake, but I was going for the look of an overwhelming number of candles - kind of a dig at how old most of my friends are getting. 

It was fast & easy until I hit the last row and dropped my stamp, leaving a second generation candle floating just to the right of the top cake layer :(

I pulled out a few dies, trying to figure out how to save the image but the placement of the floating candle made it very challenging. I was thrilled when I realized the Nestabilities Classic Diamond shape would save the day!

Copics were used to color the candles and flames and stickles add a bit of sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jacquie

Splitcoast Stampers Challenges

I discovered Splitcoast Stampers in December 2008 and registered so that I could check out the galleries and tutorials, not really planning to post anything or actively participate. At the time most of my papercrafting was scrapbook pages and mini-albums and I just made the occasional card.

I watched friends create incredible cards, but held back, not wanting to get sucked into the vortex (you now what I mean LOL). Well, resistance is futile and my stamp, die and ink collections are growing nicely.

The My Favorite Things Wednesday stamp club at Splitcoast is the first challenge I participated in and things have grown from there. Friends directed me to other challenges and without much effort, I have been led to some amazing, creative and talented designers. It seems each blog I discover sends me to another challenge.

The funny thing is, I have posted all my cards in the gallery at Splitcoast, but I haven't entered any of their weekly challenges. Not sure why, but this week I am taking on their Clean and Simple and Color challenges.

The CAS192 challenge is Harvest, and the Color Challenge CC397 is Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip & Pumpkin Pie (SU colors).

I embossed a panel with the Tim Holtz woodgrain embossing folder and lightly sponged it with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

The maple leaf punch surfaced while exploring long neglected punches for the card I posted yesterday and was perfect for creating a trio of leaves. The "thankful" is a PTI die.

I love my designer papers and layering them in more complex sketch challenges, but am also really drawn to the art of clean & simple creations.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jacquie