As You See It Challenge

It feels good to be getting back into the groove. As promised, I'm keeping up with the 'monochromatic' theme this week. Today, I've got two cards to share. They actually both exactly the same, except for the colour scheme. I chose to post them today because they fit with the latest challenge from the As You See it blog, #174.

Here are my cards: 

I made these on one of our cardmaking afternoons with my very talented friend Angela. She found the fun fold & showed us now to make it. If I remember correctly, she may well even have prepped the cardstock for us. What was borrowed was the stamp set & the markers. I used to have a few Stampin' Up markers, until I took a Tombow marker class and fell in love. 

The set I used is called Birthday Blooms. It's a Stampin' Up set I never purchased which is retiring as of the end of May. Now that I have so many friends who are also Stampin' Up users, we talk about who likes what, and we confer before we order. Certainly, there are times where we'll all decide we need to have a set because we suspect we'll reach for it enough to warrant just having our own, but often we will find that one of us will really like something a great deal more than the others in the group. This set falls into that category. It's pretty, and I enjoyed colouring the flower. But I'm not particularly enamored with the font they chose for the sentiments, so that took it off the 'must have' list for me. 

Of the two card, the one using Tempting Turquoise is my favorite. The blending worked better. I couldn't get the Rose Red and the pink colour (I don't actually remember what pink I used) to blend smoothly. The Turquoise and the Pacific Point looks more seamless to me in the blend. 

Card Details - All Products Stampin' Up

Stamps: Birthday Blooms

Cardstock: Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise, Rich Razzleberry

Ink: Basic Black Archival ink

Markers: Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Rich Razzleberry, Pink Pirouette*

*I'm unsure about the lighter pink colour; I'm not a big fan of pink & I don't really own any so I don't necessarily recognize it. It almost looks too dark to be Pink Pirouette. But I don't know. 

CAS challenges

Wow.. I'm on a bit of a roll with the posting of late. Let's see how well I do at keeping it up after Spring Break.

The remainder of last week was nice. On Friday we had a games night at church, which was a great deal of fun. Saturday I went to Crafty Capers to do a Make & Take in the morning, then spent the afternoon at a friend's 50th birthday party. We all went for Chinese food, because that's her favorite. It was a fun afternoon. Then on Sunday we celebrated my cousin's 40th birthday.

Given the plethora of birthdays of late, I had to choose a birthday card for Addicted to CAS: 

I haven`t made a waterfall card in ages. I forgot how much fun they are. And they`re really not that complicated. Clean & simple doesn`t have to be boring! I chose this card for this particular challenge because I think these particular flowers do look very delicate. And the mechanism itself definitely is. 

The other challenge card I have is an Easel Card for The Paper Players:

I decided to make this one into a generic thinking of you card. Those are always good to have on hand. I love easel cards; they look great. And it`s a chance to do another fancy fold that really isn`t very complicated.  

Card Details - All Products Stampin` Up

Flip fold/swing cards

It wasn't by design that I took such a long break from blogging. Life has just been really busy lately. I've been doing a lot of volunteering. The Women's Centre here in town does free art classes in April and May and I taught an art journalling class a few weeks ago. I'm doing a scrapbooking class this weekend and cardmaking in May. I've been doing a lot of stuff to prepare for that. 

These two cards are NOT in any way connected to what I'l be doing. I made the first one last year in Parksville. We had a template and a great teacher, but I just wasn't comfortable with that much precision cutting. 

I was really excited when Stampin' Up came out with their dies to make these cards. I haven't purchased them yet, but I am going to do so in June. I wanted to practice with them a few times. I still find it a bit tricky to figure out how to get easily apply a layer of patterned paper and get an even mat, but I've found a few tutorials that make it easier. I had trouble this night because the table I was using was a little high for me. 

When I first saw the Petal Parade set I didn't care much for it but I fell in love with all the great samples so it was the first one I got during Sale a Bration. I didn't get the Sweet Sorbet dsp, though my friend did. We may do some trading at some point. 

I have entered the world of high technology... my parents and I are on a family plan for our cell phones & we finally had to get rid of our very, very old flip phones. We are now proud owners of smartphones. I have fallen in love with texting to the point that I don't quite know what I did prior to the time I had it. I also love having a camera on my phone. I can't see giving up my regular camera, but it is sure nice to have the option to just use my phone if it's not a special occasion, or if my main camera is charging. With Easter and my brother/sister in law visiting with their little girl, plus my cousin & her husband coming down to visit for their daughter's fourth birthday, I have got a LOT of photos that need editting! 

Until next time - hopefully Sunday - have a great week! 

Card Details:

Happy Birthday

Cardstock: American Crafts

Patterned Paper: American Crafts

Stamps: Unknown

Sweet Baby - all products Stampin' Up

Cardstock: Whisper White

DSP: Sweet Sorbet

Stamps: Petal Parade, Itty Bitty Banners

Other: Framelits, punches, Silver Glimmer paper, Pistachio Pudding ruffled ribbon