The current challenge at CASology is "Shimmer." It was a chance to pull out Altenew's "Needlework Motif" in my ongoing determination to use stamps that have seen little love or have never been used. 

I also pulled out a piece of shimmery bronze cardstock for the card base. The gorgeous design was stamped in black on white cardstock and watercolored with beautiful shimmery metallic paints that I acquired many years ago during a class at a new defunct stamp store here. The paints were hand-labeled and I have no memory of who the manufacturer might have been. I used just two colors: gold and bronze.

Here's a closer look, although the shimmer of the cardstock and paints are much more beautiful IRL.

I've been away from the craft room for a few days, and it's good to be back!

The current Time Out Challenge features this quote:

My card features a bouquet of bright summery flowers—who could not be happy surrounded by such beautiful blooms? It's also another candidate for AAA Birthday: For the Girls.

With the exception of the embossed sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Balloon Bash," all the elements for this card were laying on my desk. The flowers  from Altenew's "Adore" were colored with Copics some time ago, and the Pink Fresh Studio "Essentials: Braided Tag" was from an earlier failed card design. 

I'm a huge fan of Pink Fresh Studio's braided die cut designs. I love the subtle color that comes through from the card itself, and there are multiple layers to each one. In this case, I used all three of the pieces for this tag. I'm also a huge fan of bright colors set against a black background, so this card makes me pretty happy.

This big bouquet of blooms is a bit of a departure from my more CAS card designs, but it seems like a perfect summer birthday card!

As soon as I saw this challenge pop up in my reader, I knew exactly which new dies to pull out. My first order to The Greetery was to purchase the "Succulent Dies" and the "Small Terrarium" die. Both were a gift from a friend for my birthday. I've had extra time in the craft room this week to play with new and unloved stamps and dies, so this was a perfect excuse to get out my ink blending tools and some Distress Inks.  

We have a nice selection of succulents both inside and outside, but for my first attempt in coloring the succulents, I followed Betsy Veldman's lead in choosing colors. Each succulent has four parts that are ink blended separately before putting them together. Here's a closer look:

I die cut the terrarium from bronze metallic cardstock, and after attaching it to the succulents, "hung" it with some twine to the background which was embossed with Taylored Expressions "Subway Tile" embossing folder. It is the perfect backdrop for the terrarium. 

The sentiments, tag, and banner are also from The Greetery: "Sentiment Suite: Birthday" and "Sentiment Suite Basics" die. It's not often that I have a lot of unaccounted-for time, but it's a great excuse to play with my crafty supplies and get a few cards made ahead for a change.

Sometimes creating a card comes easily; other times not so much. Today was a not.so.much. day, but I'm pretty happy with the overall outcome. Friday I spent some time with two stampers and had a chance to play around with some stamps and dies I don't own. It always turns out to be useful; usually I find some things I wish I had, and other times I discover I really don't need or want a stamp set I had on my "wish list." This time is worked both ways. The flowers on this card are from the Ink to Paper "Many Anenomes" set. I loved a lot of what I saw during the release, but decided after playing around with them, it was not a set I needed. I did stamp a few on Bristol cardstock, and last night watercolored some for the current Color Throw Down challenge: Blue, Orange, and Gray. Blue and orange flowers were easy to create, but it was adding the gray that turned out to be the real challenge. I tried all kinds of papers and dies, and finally settled on a piece of beautiful patterned paper by Pink Fresh Studio. 

The Geometrix Hexagon die I used from Ink to Paper was not on my list. It makes a delicate CAS frame which I like quite a lot, so it may eventually find a home here. The sentiment and banner are from the new Greetery release. I was given a gift certificate for The Greetery for my birthday, and have purchased several sets. Betsy Veldman was one of my favorite designers for Papertrey Ink, and her new company has a lot to offer already. This is the "Sentiment Suite:  Birthday" set, and comes with a great assortment of tag and banner dies that hold the sentiments perfectly.

In addition to the Color Throw Down challenge, I'm also entering it in the Seize the Birthday: Cover the Card (that's the topping,) and Simon Says: Anything Goes.

Last night our interfaith book group had a special guest who shared a wealth of knowledge with us. I wanted to write her a thank you note, and pulled out a new Altenew set I just purchased during a sale at Ellen Huston. After one use, I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing a lot of "Weekend Doodles." I love the sketchy look of the flowers and they are beautifully arranged, and perfect for coloring. This afternoon I decided to pull out my Copic markers, and chose the colors based on the monthly Altenew Challenge.

I didn't have quite the same purple as the stripe behind the photograph, but if you look at the pansies, you will see a more traditional purple which I used in the flowers.

The design of the card was also dictated by a challenge: the AAA Card Challenge: One Corner and Optional Twist: Flowers. I've got both of those.

After coloring the flowers, I die cut them and added some dimensional tape before adding them to the white cardstock where I had already stamped the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Thank You Kindly." 

I tried a variety of tiny embellishments, but in the end, decided to leave it truly CAS, and just added it to a top-folded card of Ripe Avocado.

I'm off to check out the other entries at these challenges.

The Library Challenge is an interesting one. The challenge is based on a book cover, and you can use the cover art, the title, or the story as your inspiration. In this case, I'm using the title.

Not long ago I purchased two dies from Reverse Confetti: the "On the Curve" cover plate, and "Over the Rainbow." The design team for Reverse Confetti highlighted multiple ways to creatively use the cover plate, and I'm always looking for interesting dies that might appeal to grandchildren. A rainbow seemed like a good choice. As it turns out, my first card with these dies went to an adult cousin who loved it! 

Admittedly, it took a bit of time to cut the cover plate from so many different colors of cardstock, but I now have a stash of bright colors all cut for the next card. Once I had the colored pieces, I die cut the cover plate from Select White cardstock and inlaid all the pieces. This was made much easier by applying a sheet of Stick It behind the die so that each strip immediately adheres to the background. 

The next step was to die cut the cute clouds and sun from the "Over the Rainbow" set, which does include the die for a much smaller rainbow. I did some ink blending around the sun rays and popped up the center of the sun and the clouds on the cardbase.  The sentiment is from Simon Says "Best Ever" set which I curved on an acrylic block to add to one of the rainbow stripes. I'm pretty sure I'll be using these dies for birthday cards as well as thinking of you cards. Who could resist smiling at such a bright and cheery card?