Fusion Challenge: Reverse Stamping and a CASE

Hi all! It's a second Fusion in a row for me. I pulled the colors (pink flowers, blue table cloths) and flower swag from the photo, and the overall oval shape and lower line from the sketch.

 The bird is from winnie & walter You've Got Love Mail. I say "bird" because there is only one. To get the second bird in reverse, I stamped it on an old, solid rectangle rubber stamp that was made for this reversing purpose, then stamped it on the card. The "normal" bird image I had to stamp off first to match the intensity of the reversed bird.

Also, after learning the hard way, it is important to stamp the reversed image FIRST since it's on the very NON-transparent wood block rubber stamp. Then use the clear stamp so you can position it appropriately. 

The prima flowers are strung loosely on gold thread, and pulled through a hole in the bird's beak.

I had a helper in my craft room when I made this card. It's cute (to me, at least!) when my 6 year old sees a card that I've finished and wants to CASE it. It starts off similar (you can see the two birds, and flowers strung between the beaks) but quite often takes several creative departures. 

Jackson adds a lot more excitement to his card in the end. I can tell when he really likes a project he's made. It gets a very high price tag in his card shop. His favorite piece is a frame he made for a picture of him and his brother ... priced at a cool $5,000!

We have some sad news and happy news for this challenge. The sad news is that Geri Freeman will be leaving us. I ALWAYS looked forward to see what magic Geri was going to work for the challenge, and I can't lie, I was really bummed when I heard the news. We'll miss you, Geri!!

On a happier note, we are all very excited to have Jeanne Jachna join us. Go check her out if you haven't already, she's got quite a flair!

As a reminder, here are the guidelines on the challenge:

1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.
5. Please read the other considerations on the Our Rules Page before playing along.

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team!

Betty J.

Cathy Weber

  Danielle Robeson

Deepti Malik

Geri Freeman

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Sindhu

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks. We each will choose one favorite. The winners will be announced at 4 am (PST) in two weeks!


Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

CFS Reveal - Casual Vine

Here's the last die set for this month's CAS-ual Fridays Stamps release. This one coordinates with Casual Elegance where the sentiment is also from. Here I just used the die by itself. Stacking them in alternating directions breaks up the pattern and gives a nice texture. You could use this simple look with any sort of card, really. 
 

Tomorrow all three dies go on sale at CAS-ual Fridays Stamps! More inspiration waits for you with the rest of the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Design Team. Don't forget to stop by the blog and leave a comment on each day's post, as one lucky winner will receive ALL THREE SETS!!

Virginia

Sylvia

Piali

Jingle

 Dana

 Angie

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

CFS Reveal - Linked

 
Hi folks! We've got another set of dies here for CAS-ual Fridays, and this one features two linked chain dies. You may recognize it from a prior set. It coordinates with Lotsa Links so you can stamp on the die, or just use the die itself like I have here. This die is a great length to span the height of a card. On this card, it's inset between the two different patterned papers.

The sentiment is from Casual Comfort.
 

You can use the whole length of the die, or just use a few links. Here's an example of using just two links, cut in metallic silver, and folded around a piece of white card stock. The fold makes a large enough loop that you can slide a chain through it and use it as a charm on a necklace. Glossy accents fills the center (although I need to do a better job getting the bubbles out!)

Here's the back of the necklace. The asterisk is from a Dear Lizzy patterned paper. I like using good, quality paper when die cutting so you get those nice rounded edges.
   

Stay tuned for tomorrow where the last set will be revealed. More inspiration waits for you with the rest of the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Design Team:

Virginia

Sylvia

Piali

Jingle

 Dana

 Angie

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

CFS Reveal - Stalk Up

 
Hi folks! We have a die-nomite release for CAS-ual Fridays this month! Just wait until you see all the dies, and how they coordinate with existing stamp sets. Today's set of dies coordinates with the graphically floral Beanstalks stamp set. This card is similar to another I made when Beanstalks first came out. I liked that stamped version, but this die cut version here was SO much easier to make. The sentiment is from WTF. I challenged myself to use something other than white or a metallic embossing powder for the sentiment, and I'm happy with how powder blue turned out.

The other die in this set is long and straight ... perfect for manipulating : ) Although it looked pretty neat in paper, I ended up using felt to make this laurel wreath since it bends without creases. The dainty curly-ques at the ends are so charming!

The sentiment is from Casual Comfort, a set with sentiments that I've been using a lot recently.
 

We'll have two more die sets to share with you over the next two days. For this set, however, more inspiration waits for you with the rest of the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Design Team:

Virginia

Sylvia

Piali

Jingle

 Dana

 Angie

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Road Trip Surprise + a Card

 

Hi all! We had an amazing 10 day road trip for Spring Break. The absolutely dreadful weather this winter motivated us to take our first ever Spring Break vacation as a family (I am not a patient person, and dislike navigating through crowds, so we usually avoid traveling at this time of year). We drove about 20 hours from Chicago to Orlando.



Went to Walmart, cleared the snack aisle, and loaded up the car with food and entertainment.

 We saw a few "things."

 Stayed out at the theme parks late ...

... late as in we're-the-last-ones-in-the-parking-lot late.

Made crazy spur of the moment purchases, like an 8 foot inflatable shark.

How I chuckled walking behind them, going through the fancy lobby with this creature, and then the elevator. It lived standing upright in our bathtub, and startled me several times throughout the rest of the week.

We were chilly.

We were warm.

We were wet.

We were wowed.

(Biltmore in Asheville, NC)

... and, right in the middle of it all, I got the amazing news that one of my cards was picked for Stamping Royalty! We had a no-screen-rule for the whole 10 days, and I broke it just once to check email on Friday night on the wild and crazy chance that there was an email from the folks at Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking. Imagine my surprise when there was! SO excited, folks!!

All the winning cards will be in the July issue of Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking. I thought I'd share one of the two others that I sent in.

I wanted to use the Papel Picado Banners from Avery Elle. I masked them all in a swagging pattern across the card.

With an exacto, I cut out the middle pieces so the midnight sky behind it would show through. Then popped the panel up. The inside is lined with AC Lucky Charm paper, and the sentiment is the wildly popular winnie & walter the Big, the Bold and the Happy.

Thanks so much for leaving congratulations on my blog, on FB, and just all around being wonderful people to hang out with! I'm hoping in a week I'll get caught up from my no-screen-time rule, and start visiting again : )

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

CFC #130: Ovals

Wow, what a great response to the first CAS-ual Fridays Challenge in the new format! It was so much fun looking through the gallery, but also hard to choose a favorite!

The next challenge is to make a project featuring ovals. Our sponsor is Pretty Pink Posh!




For this challenge I knew I wanted to use the CASual Fridays Stamps Oval Tag Fri-Die. But I wanted something a little more different than an A2 card or a tag.



So I made a birthday fan! Each panel is an oval tag, secured in the middle by a button on either side. They are stamped with the graphic, open flower from Beanstalks and colored in with alcohol markers. I used a very light blue towards the center to keep it from looking too stark with the white background. 

The back is secured by ribbons, because ...

... it folds ...



... completely up like a real fan. You could do so much with a design like this. It's only limited by what you stamp on it. You could even do an entire scene across all the panels. And with the die it makes it so easy to do. 

You're not going to want to miss the inspiration that these talented ladies have waiting for you:

Amy

Ardyth

Donna

Jingle

Laura

Mayuri

Sylvia

Tracey

Can't wait to see your creations in the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge gallery!

Thanks so much for looking!
-Kelly

Fusion Challenge: Textured Sympathy Card

Hi folks! We've got another Fusion! This time it turned into a challenging (for me) sympathy card.



The textured mustard and print are picked up from the photo, and the layout is loosely followed. I was really happy when the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps Casual Trees die cut through the felt and remained intact. There's something about the thin cut of a textured material that gets me excited! The tiny, subtle Prima flowers have a pearl in the middle. A gold sentiment finishes it all off. I like making the subdued sympathy cards interesting by adding lots of different textures (felt, pearl, gold, newsprint, vellum).

As a reminder, here are the guidelines on the challenge:

1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.
5. Please read the other considerations on the Our Rules Page before playing along.

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team!

Betty J.

Cathy Weber

  Danielle Robeson

Deepti Malik

Geri Freeman

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Sindhu

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks. We each will choose one favorite. The winners will be announced at 4 am (PST) in two weeks!


Thanks for looking!
-Kelly