Kraft + white + bright = love!

Whenever I see kraft cardstock combined with white and bright colours, it is always love at first sight!

So when I saw this inspiration at CASE Study this week, I knew I wanted to play along:

I chose my colours by using this week's ColourQ combo:

And here's my card:

Here's another photo, because Maddy hasn't "styled" my photos in a while, and she wanted to "Australian" it up a bit!

Thanks for stopping by!

case study #109

This weekend, Rohan was invited to another one of those girls' joint birthday parties, so I decided to play along with CASE study this week and make them cards that were similar but different.

How cute are those owls sitting on top of each other?!?  I decided to take a different interpretation of putting my elements on top of one another, and channelled my inner Wilna again:

 A couple of hours before the party was due to start, Rohan started vomiting.  Needless to say, he's missed out on this particular party . . . I' hadn't quite finished the cards so I've left the labels blank for now, in case they end up being for an occasion other than a birthday!

P.S. my stylist caught me taking these photos without her assistance . . .  so here's another photo, Maddy-style!

The Festival of Dad(s)

It's that time again, Father's Day tomorrow (in this country at least!) and Robert's birthday on Monday, so it's man-card time again! 

First up, for Dad and John (my father-in-law), I crossed my fingers and toes that ColourQ would have a challenge without any pink in it.  Did they deliver?   

Oh yes, they sure did! The trees on this bedspread reminded me of a certain under-used Stampin' Up set I own, so I whipped up two of these:

I am loving that border stamp.  I never would have bought it myself, but it is finding it's way onto my cards and pages more and more.  I love how it "grounds" the other images on this card.  

I may have taken some liberty with the white on this card, but after all, eggshell is the new white!

Onto Robert's fathers day card now, and I whipped this one up quickly using some bits of pieces from my Counterfeit Kit:

 

The addition of a bit of stamping onto the flash card made a quick but fun card - and if you think I don't put a lot of effort into a card for my dearly beloved, pop over here to see my attitude on cards for men of a certain personality type!

Last but not least, the challenge at CASE Study this week is to "case yourself".  I yet again took a bit of liberty and cased a scrapbook page . . . that I haven't quite finished! (You'll see the end result soon, minus all those threads) . . .

I took the placement of the fussy-cut chevron paper and the overlapping papers as my starting point, and just used scraps that were still on my desk from the same page.

I tend to make cards A6 size by default, so they fit in a standard-size envelope.  So it was a bit of an ah-ha moment for me when I realised . . . cards that aren't going through the mail can be any size you like! Another way to use up the cardstock off-cuts I added to my Counterfeit Kit.

P.S. Are you enjoying the Paralympics as much as we are here?  We are particularly enjoying the wheelchair basketball.  Go Rollers! Go Gliders!

Signature Style?

CASE Study is celebrating their second anniversary this month, and the challenge for this week is to create a project in your "signature style". I always laugh at suggestions that I should have one of those.  My garden, for example, is a mottled mix of Australian native, cottage, permaculture and children's play area!  And I think my crafting style is a bit the same - sometimes a bit cute, occasionally a bit arty, often pretty CAS, with a bit of inspiration from whatever blogs I've been reading lately.. 
But I did come up with a card that I think embodies a lot of what I've been really enjoying lately.  Bright colours (I used the latest ColourQ combo) . . .

. . . a background sheet of PP from my Couterfeit Kit, some off-cuts from my stash, some stitching, my absolute favourite tool (my Silhouette) and of course, a butterfly . . .

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a great weekend!

Another card with CASE Study

First of all, I want to start of with a big THANK YOU and SORRY to all my lovely friends and visitors that have ever taken the time to leave a comment here on my blog.  I recently had a comment telling me that my Word Verification was really hard but - here comes the embarrassing bit - I didn't realise I actually had Word Verification turned on!!  So hopefully I've turned it off, now, and thanks again for everyone who stops by for a read.

But now to the important stuff . . .

One of my favourite little craft buddies, Hannah, is back in hospital again (and when I say "little" I am referring to her age, not her height, as she towers over me now!).   I thought I'd make here a card, and I've turned to this week's CASE study inspiration to get me started:

I really liked the doily stamp in brown on the kraft background.  I started there, added an actual doily, then just layered a bunch of fun stuff from my Counterfeit Kit.  Here it is:

I'm also submitting this card into the Simon Says "Anything Goes" challenge.

Thanks again for stopping by!

A little birdie told me . . . Case Study, CASology, and Cards for Diggers

Yep! I promised cards with little birdies on them, and here they are!

First up, I was able to take inspiration from this week's challenge at Case Study, from this cute card here:

Here's my version:

So greatful for the idea of cutting apart the words once I'd stamped out my "Happy Birthday".

I am also entering this at CASology . . .

. . . because if cute little birds don't say happy, then what does, really?

I had another 2 pairs of birds to play with, and lots of cards needed this week, so I also made . . .

This next card ended up being my favourite, though.  I started with the idea of sewing some strips of paper from my paper strip stash .  Then, when I went looking for a base card to sew them onto, I came across a card which already had a circular window cut into it.  Now maybe  it's just because I was watching Baz Lurhmann's version of Romeo and Juliet last night, but that gave me an even better idea . . .

I love how the yellow bird is "serenading" the pink bird.  Note to self: make cards with windows more often!

From the perspective of using my Couterfeit Kit for these cards, well, I always reserved the right to add scraps from my stash, didn't I?  The birds (cut from the back of the blue paper on the last page I posted), the twine, ribbon and yellow paper on the second card are the only things strictly from the kit.  But everything else is from the stash, and I am A-OK with that.

In other card- and Counterfeit Kit- related news, the Counterfeit Kit girls issued a challenge to make a card for "Operation Write Home" (where card-makers donate cards for use by the US military).  This was not the first time I had heard of this concept, so I figured it was time to do some research and see if I could find an equivalent that was a little closer to home.

I found one, and it's called Cards for Diggers.  At the moment they are appealing primarily for Christmas cards, but after an email to Tracey, the organiser, I was happy to discover that cards for any and all occassions are greatfully received.  I've pulled a whole pile of cards from my "finished card" stash (some Christmas, but not all), and am hoping they'll be on their way to Tracey by the end of the week!

Thank you - CASE study

For this next card, I wanted to have a go at a challenge I've been watching for a while, but haven't played along with yet, it's called CASE Study.  Here's the inspiration:

My first thought was to use the lovely big letters for my "thank", but I would've had to use the Silhouette and I didn't have the time.  But the colours are just lovely too, so I ended up using those . . . .

 See any similarities between this card and the last one?  Stay tuned for the next card and see if you can see what I can see?