STAMPIN UP ONLY CHALLENGE - COLOUR CHALLENGE #SUOC218

We have a colour challenge for you today at Stampin Up Only #SUOC218 challenge

Color Combo - Granny Apple Green, Pool Party, Lovely Lipstick (& optional Mango Melody)


I've used Colourful Seasons for my card together with the matching framelits.  The butterfly is from a retired set Nature's Perfection and the butterfly fits the retired butterfly punch - I was so happy when I realised that!

Spring is just starting to show its lovely head here in the UK and I wanted to try and make a soft flower card - I can't wait to see all the blossom on my apple trees - it is my favourite flower.  My niece has just had a baby and called her Blossom - how delightful! 

I look forward to seeing what you all do with these colours!



 

APERTURE CARD

I'm playing along with Global Design Project #GDP177 with this card and decided to do an aperture card as I've never done one before.

GDP has a colour pallette for us to work with - 



I used a combination of thinlets from two sets for the foliage - Jar of Love and Colourful Seasons.  The butterfly is from a retired set Nature's Perfection which fits the retired butterfly punch perfectly. I coloured in the balloons on the sentiment with some of the Melon Mambo.  A touch of copper thread and some Wink of Stella on the flowers and the butterfly just gives that touch of sparkle.

I run a Facebook Group called The Joy of Sets with over 3,000 members where we celebrate all things SU both retired and current so I'm often seen using my old set.  As I'm not a Demo there is no pressure to keep using new stuff and I love to use old favourites.

COLOURFUL SEASONS

I received some lovely free goodies from an SU demo friend of mine Andrea Parr with some of the new colours and new foils and couldn't wait to try them out. I chose to use Colourful Seasons and the matching thinlets as I really wanted to use those intricate leaves.  

I started my card using some of the new Lovely Lipstick as my base cardstock and I used some Versamark to add the sentiment Thinking of you in the corners. 

I then used the two different leaf thinlets to cut the images out of some of the new Needlepoint Nook DSP.  The finer leaf was layered onto some of that gorgeous Grapefruit Grove Foil sheet - it gives the leaf a lovely shimmer.

I used a Stitched Framelit for the circle and stamped the branch and leaves on with Melon Mambo as I don't have the matching new ink yet.  The chair was cut out of Wood Textures DSP.  I added the little cup and some flowers in the Lovely Lipstick foil sheet.  A few pearls and the sentiment stamped and cut out with a stitched framelit finishes off the card.

I'm adding this to the following challenges - 

Just Add Ink #442 - I used their sketch for inspiration.

Global Design Project - #GDP175 - Down the Garden Path

Sunday Stamps -SSC197 - Pretty in Pink

Always Fun - Anything Goes






 

A CAS AUTUMN CARD

Autumn is my most favourite time of the year - I love the crisp mornings, the gorgeous colours of the trees, the provender Mother Nature provides that I can forage and turn into goodies for the winter months ahead.

I'm lucky enough to have an Iron Age Hill Fort just ten minutes down the road from where I live and it's a favourite place to walk my dogs.  This is a picture of my Welsh Springer Tegan enjoying her walk against that gorgeous backdrop of the trees.  She's recently had surgery and is recovering very well = it's so nice to see her out and about again.

My card today is for Addicted to CAS #147 which has given us the prompt word of Foliage.

I was inspired by a card I found by Jan Clothier - I used some old SU ink colours for my card - More Mustand, Real Rust ( a great favourite) and Rose Red.  I masked off a strip and sponged the colours.  I used SU Colourful Seasons and Seasonal Layers thinlets - I used Early Espresso to ink the stamps and cut the smaller leaf out of cardstock.  The sentiment is from an old SU set Yay You and is just right for this card as I got my inspiration from Jan.  I don't know her but I have seen her work around blogland.

            

ALL ABOUT THE CATS

If you are regular reader to my blog you will know I'm all about the cats - a bit of a mad cat lady. As well as my own two I am a fosterer for our local cat's protection charity.  That means I voluntarily have two cat pens in my garden and look after cats while we try and find them homes.  I have had one particular cat called Scrumpy with me now for nearly three months - the longest I have had so far - all the others have been going within two weeks.  Scrumpy bless her is a special case because she is a grumpy old lady.  Turfed out of the home she'd know for 10 years because a baby came along, she has a tendency to be a bit free with her claws and we are finding it difficult to re-home her.  We have a Facebook page and I added a little poem for her this week - so far we've had a bit more interest and we have someone coming to see her on Tuesday- so paws all crossed - I hope she behaves. Here's my little poem

An Ode To Scrumpy:

I'm 10 years old, A Female Ginger
And my given name is Scrumpy
I'm looking for
An Experienced Owner 
Who doesn't mind I'm Grumpy!

On my own terms
I like a fuss and I like to play
But if you see my ears twitch
It's time to back away

I'd like to sit and play outside
And be part of all I see
So if you think I'm the cat for you
Please... Take a Chance On Me!😹

And a 

And here's a picture of the lady in all her glory - 

So as I am in a cat mood I decided to have another play with Pretty Kitty from Stampin up!  I used the challenge from Just Add Ink for my inspiration and added the flowers from Colourful Seasons.  



I've kept the colours soft for the card and the pink I've used is a very old SU one called Regal Rose.  The pearls are from the new catalogue from the Share What You Love suite.  The flower pot is also an old colour called More Mustard - one of my favourite colours of all time from SU.

INSPIRED BY - FLORAL CLUSTERS AND WOOD

The imagery over at Inspired By never ceases to inspire me - I'm sure that is Laurel's intention and it certainly works.  Her gorgeous image for this week's challenge of Floral Clusters is as below:





The challenge at TGIF this week is Wood.



I decided to do a U fold card and have my flowers on the outside panels of the card.  I started off with SU Very Vanilla and some of their Wood Textures DSP for the panels and some of the Delightful Daisy DSP for the background. 

I'm nearly down to just scraps of all my SU DSP now!!  I used a scrap of some of the Falling in Love DSP for the flowers which were cut out with the Colourful Seasons thinlets.  I sponged round the edges with some retired SU Regal Rose ink and added some non SU pink pearls.  The stem and the leaves were also cut out with the thinlets.  The inside panels was sponged on the edges with Tim Holtz Bundled Sage and the sentiment inked in Tim  Holtz Tattered Rose and another flower added to the bottom.

I love how this card turned out - it's very pretty in real life and looks like my clematis climbing up my pergola in the garden.




 

HEY......

A masculine style card from me today using SU Colourful Seasons stamp set and thinlets and the sentiments from SU Jar of Love.

The card is layered onto Early Espresso cardstock and I've used some of the Wood Textures DSP.  The leaf has been cut out and embossed with the beautiful  SU Copper Embossing powder and some of the matching Copper Metallic Thread.  The small leaf was cut out of the same cardstock - Soft Suede and I sponged the edges and just added the little Hey.

The ribbon is Classic Weave Crumb Cake and I've used a piece of hardware from a very old set Hodgepodge which I found in my cupboard.  The beauty of no longer being an SU demo is that I can still use and show old stuff!  

Does anyone else have this in the cupboard - I posed the question on my Joy of Sets Facebook group and the amount of people who said they had it and had never used it!!! It must be nearly 10 years old.

I'm adding my card to the following challenges this week - 

Global Design Project #GDP138- their challenge was a sketch which I've followed



Watercooler Wednesday#WWC170 - their challenge is Penny's Masculine challenge.




 

OOPS - WE SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE....BUT...

Ha I bet that title got you thinking! So let me expand.  I thought I would join in with Addicted to Stamps and their challenge this week was Holiday.  Spring was late in arriving in the UK and within a day went from winter to summer!  Seriously warm here now and we don't have aircon.  So when I saw their challenge I immediately thought of relaxing on a beach.

So - this is where the confusion starts - Holiday in the UK means Vacation in the US and I forgot this basic rule, even though I've lived there.  So my card does not really reflect holiday as such, but rather holiday lol!

I've also followed the Global Design Project's sketch this week.

So anyway my Holiday/Vacation card uses Lemon Lime Twist paper and ink.  Some old DSP in Melon Mambo - one of the stamps from a very old set A Little Love - I've been using this one lately and these little flip flops are so cute with their Relax sentiment - just right for a holiday lol!  And I've also used Colourful Seasons.

 

HAND STAMPED SENTIMENTS - CHALLENGE #287

Our challenge today at Hand Stamped Sentiments is a Colour Challenge.




Now - can I let you into a little secret - Flirty Flamingo is not one of my favourite colours.  There I said it - it's out in the open.  I therefore don't have any ink for this or anything similar but I do have it in a marker pen which I won from On Stage last year.  Lemon Lime Twist on the other hand is one of my favourite colours.

I've used two Stampin' Up sets for this card - the background flower stamp is from Colourful Seasons and has been inked up in Soft Sky.  The butterfly is from Watercolor Wings and I've used all three colours with a wash of Wink of Stella over the wings to make it sparkle.  The Sentiment is also from Colourful Seasons and a few enamel dots are added to the bottom.  I've inked the edges with the Flirty Flamingo and mounted the card onto Lemon Lime Twist.

I hope you like my card and join in with our challenge.  




 

ALL ABOUT THE RETRO

My card today has been inspired by CASE this Sketch challenge blog which is also doing a Retro Case.

Although not strictly as CAS as it should be I'm still going to enter my card into their challenge.  

I kept with the idea of retro and went to the back of my cupboard and found some very old Stampin' Up Stamps - the little nappy pin is from Riveting, the Yeah Baby is from A Little Love stamp set and I don't know where the bird came from.  I used one of the Stitched framelits to cut out all the images and used Stampin Up ink in Soft Suede, Island Indigo and an old Bordering Blue.  

The paper is some I had on my desk and is from Marianne Design - Arctic Winter.  It spoke of babies to me so I chose to do a baby card.  The sentiment from Colourful Seasons is just perfect for baby cards.  And then I went off piste in a CAS sort of way - I still had my button jar out from yesterday's card so I added the three little start to the bottom and then I had added a pearl to the inside of the flower so three just also happened to land on the bottom of the card.  Gulp - not CAS! 


It certainly makes a change from blue or pink cards!



 

DOUBLE D - TWINE - A NEW CHALLENGE

I found another new challenge blog on my travels through the internet! Double D challenge and their challenge is to use Twine on your project - they have also given a mood board for inspiration - I chose to go with the greens for my card.

I've used Grey cardstock for the base and the layers - It looks purple here but isn't in real life.  I've used the Seasonal Layers Thinlets from Stampin Up for the leaves and the Colourful Seasons Stamp Set for the sentiment and the leaf stamp on the image.  The embossing folder is also old SU.

I've used a button - I haven't used a button on my cards for years and used to love adding them - it was quite therapeutic rummaging through my button jar so I think I may get them out again more often.

I'm not sure if it shows up but I've actually filled the space where I cut the solid leaf out of the green cardstock with the more delicate leaf thinlet backed on to a solid grey leaf.  So three leaves in total. I hope that makes sense.

Thanks for stopping by on your travels - do leave me a comment so I can come and visit you.