CAS49, Inspired by Krystie Lee

Note: Don't forget to comment on the Give-Away Post for the upcoming tree set from PTI! Deadline is 9:00PM on Thursday, January 14...if you're online for PTI's release, be sure to check here to see if you won before you place your order!


CAS49 is Cut It Out! The challenge is to make a card with a cut-out element. The new A Muse release really caught my eye when Krystie Lee started posting her sneak peeks on her blog, especially here and here, and I knew I had to play with her ideas 'cause, you know, she's a genius. Here are the results:

Krystie got all subtly artsy with her coloring, but since I'm not artsy and don't have copics (except red which totally would ruin the soothing vibe here) I left my shells plain and simple. I cut them out with my Cutterbee scissors, which are truly amazing.

The top card's shadow is one-fourth of a whole stamp, which consists of four different sized blocks. I just masked three of the blocks so only the rectangle that best fit the shell was inked. The simple square shadow stamp I used on the other two cards looked weird as the backdrop for the oblong shell.

The two shells and shadow stamps are from Hero Arts, the sentiments are from PTI's Simple Little Things, and the sand dollar has no marks (given to me by a friend). The colors are so softly nautical. I'd love to have a bedroom decorated in these soothing colors!

Supplies

stamps: Hero Arts, Papertrey, unknown

ink: VersaMagic Sea Breeze, SU sahara sand

paper: PTI white

accessories: dimensionals

Oh.My.Gosh!!! And a Give-Away

Second post for today (scroll down if you want to see today's card).

HAVE YOU SEEN IT?!?!!? Nichole's done it again. I'm swooning here. TREES!!!! THUD!

Introducing Through the Trees

I'm so glad I have gift certificates to Papertrey right now.

I'm going to order two of these and send one to a random commenter on this post to celebrate the goodness of this set and my reaching 60,000 hits. The deadline for the drawing is Thursday, January 14, 2010, at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Just tell me something you're grateful for today. One entry per person, please!

Birthday Raccoon

When I was in sixth grade, I read the book Rascal by Sterling North and fell in love with the idea of having a pet raccoon. The whole point behind Rascal is that the raccoon is a wild animal and must be released back into the wild. By the way, this makes it a much better story than either the movie Ring of Bright Water or the book/movie Old Yeller. My sixth-grade self couldn't handle either of those stories.

Neither can my 43-year-old self. I actually cried watching the commercial for Dog Town the other night. The spaniel with both front legs in green casts totally wiped me out.

But even in sixth grade, I was smart enough to realize that wild animals are, indeed, wild animals and shouldn't be caged or kept for my personal entertainment. Instead, I pretended I had a pet raccoon, and really, my Rascal was an outstanding pet who didn't eat or poop or tear up my bedroom.

As you might imagine, every time I see a raccoon now, I think of that library book I checked out in sixth grade. I bought this set from Hero Arts just for the raccoon. Isn't he adorable? I colored him with prisma pencils, a fact I noted on my calendar seeing as it's such a rare event.

I'm not sure about the black thread in the button. Af first, it had orange floss, but the orange wasn't an exact match for the rick-rack, and it looked funny. In changing it to black, I was hoping for a visual triangle of black, but now, I look first at the button, not the raccoon, and it feels distracting. I may change it to white and see what happens. What do you think?

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: Palette Noir
cardstock: SU cool caribbean, PTI white
accessories: rick-rack, button, floss, dimensionals, prisma pencils

Thank You

Today's card is another inspired by the new Hero Arts Catalog. The leaf branch is from Hero (discontinued, I think), and the sentiment is from Papertrey's Paper Tray--a very useful and versatile set.



Today, I am very thankful that my hit count has now exceeded 60,000. So this card is for all of you who made this possible. Thank you for inspiring me to keep going!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts, Papertrey
ink: Palette Noir, SU celery
cardstock: SU celery, PTI white
accessories: none

"Let's Work Together..."

The layout of today's cards was inspired by a card on page 6 of the new Hero Arts catalog (and blissfully contains no squares!). I used SU's Baroque Motif set on both, a sentiment from Papertrey's Simple Little Things on the orange card, and a sentiment from Hero on the purple one. All three company's products work together to make pair of pretty cards!



For the orange card, I used PTI's twine and vintage button to accent the scallop punched strip of SU pumpkin pie cardstock. The Baroque Motif swirl is stamped in SU's apricot and the sentiment is close to cocoa.



For the purple card, I used gingham ribbon and a crocheted flower with a rhinestone brad for its center. The inks are SU's almost amethyst and Palette Noir.

Design 101: For me, it's hugely exciting to take a ready-made layout and vary it with different colors and product to produce multiple cards, each with a different "feel." For those who copy cards exactly or those who are just beginning to stamp, try mixing supplies up, using just what you have on hand to vary an existing design. You'll surprise yourself with how creative you can be and how much you'll learn about design in the process!

More Squares

It may be obvious to those of you familiar with the set that I'm trying to use ALL the image stamps in PTI's Sign Language set as part of my 2009/2010 Craft Resolution to use all my image stamps. I had already made this one when people started requesting bling. I just love it when you request stuff.

This card varies the theme of yesterday's cards by adding three squares in graduated shades of ochre (Colorbox chalk inks) to the scored card base. The sentiment is stamped in brown chalk ink. I accented the flowers with little dots of brown Stickles, and it's much blingier in real life. Today's sentiment is from PTI's Mega Mixed Messages.

I'm taking a break with this set now until I feel mentally capable of facing Christmas/winter theme cards for the remaining stamps. Also, I did use the actual sign stamp but decided I just don't like it. So I never have to use it again. Whew. What a relief!

Word of the Year and Crafting Resolutions

This is today's second post...to see cards, keep scrolling!

If you are interested in joining the Word of the Year Project, please visit my other blog, Questioning my Intelligence. I've announced my word for the year and am asking readers to post their words in the comments on that blog.

Now for my crafting resolutions for 2010:

1. Scrapbook. (Yes, that's a verb.)

2. Continue plugging away at 2009's resolution to use all my image stamps.

3. Use more variety from my stash, especially tools and techniques that have languished lately. It was so refreshing to pull out the watercolor crayons last week!

4. Have FUN!

What are your crafting resolutions? Please post those in the comments here!