CASEing the Catty #500 - CASE Choice From Either Catalogue

CASE Your Choice From Either Catalogue meets Light the Sky

Hello, Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and CASEing the Catty #500 Challenge. We are welcoming many creative folk to this Blog Hop who have been apart of the CASEing the CATTY Crew at some stage since CASEing the Catty's inception.

I am so glad you have dropped in. You may have come from the wonderful Angela Meiritz-Reid, as you take this week’s Blog Hop or perhaps arrived directly here; either way I am delighted you are here. At the end of my blog, I have linked to Rochelle Laird-Smith so you can continue with this Blog Hop.

At CASEing the Catty we love to use the samples from the Stampin' Up! Catalogues as inspiration and each week we have a different theme to guide our CASEing. To CASE is to "Copy And Selectively Edit" or some say "Copy And Share Everything". This week we can CASE any project found in either the 2024/2025 Annual Cataglogue or the 2024 Stampin' Up! September-December Mini Catalogue.

Wow, what a choice. For this auspicious Blog Hop, #500, I had so many options that could have been selected - it was an hard choice.  For this week’s challenge I chose to base my project on the card with a self coloured frame near the bottom of page 41 of the September-December Mini Catalogue:

I had ideas for a different card but due to a range of happenings I decided to create with another bundle that I have been playing with recently, that is the Light the Sky bundle. I love this bundle and think it’s great for New Years or other special celebrations. It’s currently on the Last Chance List, so if you are thinking of getting this bundle, don’t hesitate because once its gone, its gone.

A background panel was created by blending a range of colours over a panel of Basic White card-stock, starting with Fresh Freesia, then Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel, Misty Moonlight and finishing off with Night of Navy Classic Stampin’ inks. Water was sprinkled over the panel. I spritzed water from a mister onto my hand and flicked the water over the panel. Once dry, some White Craft ink was splattered over the panel and then more splatter was added using a Night of Navy Stampin’ Write Marker.

Three different sized fireworks sprays were white heat embossed onto the coloured background panel. This panel was adhered to the front of a Night of Navy card-base. A couple of panels of Night of Navy card-stock were die cut with the second largest Deckled Rectangle die to create a frame. I will miss this set of dies, as it too is on the Stampin’ Up! Last Chance List. A mid sized fireworks spray and a tiny group of fireworks were used to partially cut/pierce fireworks on one frame. This frame was layered over the other to give the frame some stability as it was then popped up on Dimensionals.

“2025” was die cut using the coming Birthday Celebration dies from Silver Foil that had a backing of Foam Adhesive Sheet attached. A sentiment from the Light the Sky stamp set was white heat embossed onto Night of Navy card-stock. The fussy cut sentiment was adhered in place with Mini Dimensionals.

Some gorgeous Silver and White Sheer Ribbon was cut lengthwise and tied into a bow the tucked under the sentiment and positioned with Glue Dots. The final touches - a splattering of Wink of Strella and the addition of some Iridescent Faceted Gems.

A Basic White card inner was stamped in Night of Navy ink with another sentiment from the same set of stamps. Fireworks sprays were stamped in Balmy Blue, Fresh Freesia and Blueberry Bushel inks. A C6 Basic White envelope was similarly stamped with the Fireworks sprays.

Thank you so much for calling in on your way around the CASEing the Catty Blog Hop. I do appreciate it.

Don’t miss any of the inspiration from this wonderful Crew. The next blog in the hop is by the lovely Rochelle Laird-Smith. Just click on the "next" graphic below to be taken to her blog. I wonder which project she has CASEd - I am sure her project will be something special.

Join In The Challenge: We would love you to share a project you have created for this milestone Challenge that has been inspired by the either the 2024-2025 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue or the September-December Mini Catalogue. To share, all you need to do is go to the CASEing The Catty Challenge Group on Facebook. If you aren't a member, it’s easy to request to join and then all you need to do is upload a photo of your project to the main section. You can click on the graphic below to be taken to the group on Facebook. We would love to see your creation.

#ctc500 #stampinup #stampinupaustralia #stampinupsouthpacific #stampinupdemo  #handmadecards #makeacardsendacard #stampinupdemonstrator #papercrafting #papercrafter  #valleyinspirations  #lightthesky   #birthdaycelebration  #caseingthecatty

CASEing the Catty #487 CASE Mix & Match

CASE THE MIX & MATCH PAGES 16-17

Hello, Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and #487 Challenge with CASEing the Catty.

I am so glad you have dropped in. You may have come from Judy May, as you take this week’s Blog Hop or perhaps you’ve arrived another way; either way I am delighted you are here. At the end of my blog, I have linked to Rochelle Blok so you can continue with the next member of the Blog Hop.

At CASEing the Catty we love to use the samples from the Stampin' Up! Catalogues as inspiration and each week we have a different theme to guide our CASEing. To CASE is to "Copy And Selectively Edit" or some say "Copy And Share Everything". This week we are CASE-ing a project from the Mix & Match section in the 2024 - 2025 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue, ie pages 16 & 17.

Here is the card I have CASEd. As soon as I saw the card on page 17, I thought of creating my own background and then adding trees in the mid-ground and a large tree in the foreground.

For this week’s challenge I actually created two similar, but different cards. Here are my projects:

CARD 1:

Here is the card I initially imagined. The background was water-coloured using Azure Afternoon Classic Stampin ink, Fluid 100 Paper and the wide-brushed Water Painter. After the panel was dry some Versamark ink was smooshed onto the top edge of the background panel before being sprinkled with Silver Emboss Powder and then heat set. The background was also lightly splattered with an Azure Afternoon Stampin’ Write Marker.

The row of smaller trees from the Peaceful Evergreens stamp set was inked in Granny Apple Green ink and then some Shaded Spruce ink was added to the stamp using a Blending Brush before being stamped onto Basic White card-stock. This was repeated. I already had this gorgeous larger tree on my work desk from prior crafting and it was perfect for this card. I had created it using the Frosted Forrest bundle. It was stamped in Pretty Peacock ink and then coloured with Lost Lagoon, Garden Green, Pretty Peacock and Shaded Spruce inks using the coordinating masks and Blending Brushes. White Embossing Paste was added using the third mask.

A sentiment from the Peaceful Season stamp set was white heat embossed onto Azure Afternoon card-stock. Some silver sewing thread was looped around my fingers and adhered under the sentiment with Dimensionals. The final touch, some gorgeous Drusy Embellishments - they are so sparkly.

Both the inside of the card and the envelope were minimally decorated to coordinate with the card design. An extra sentiment from the same set of stamps was added inside and a group of the small trees was also added inside.

CARD 2:

While I was creating the first card, I was thinking of other ways of using the same layout and kept thinking of using an unconventional Christmas colour Pretty in Pink. 

As with the first card, the colour was added using the wet on wet water-colour technique. A little Petunia Pop ink was applied  While the panel was drying, I prepared the trees for the card - this time using the delightful Decorative Trees bundle. I had decided to use the In Color Glimmer Paper for the trees so didn’t want to add a different form of metallic glimmer at the top of the card. To give the background the effect of heat embossing on the top edge of the card it was clear heat embossed - well I had run out of clear embossing powder so used an older container that I now know has a sparkly clear effect.

The Decorative Trees dies cut the background pieces from either Petunia Pop and Pretty in Pink Glimmer Speciality Paper. Other dies cut decorative tree designs from Basic White card-stock. The smaller detailed tree die was partially coloured with Petunia Pop ink and the larger die cut tree with Pretty in Pink ink. A couple of pieces of White Diagonal Trim from the Combo Pack was laid across the card before the trees were adhered in place - the larger tree on Dimensionals. 

A sentiment from the Peaceful Season stamp set was white heat embossed on Pretty in Pink card-stock. A little white Bakers Twine bow was tucked under the sentiment and some Iridescent Pearl Basic Jewels were scattered around. A little Petunia Pop splattering was added with a Stampin’ Write Marker. 

A different sentiment from the same set of sentiment stamps was inked in Pretty in Pink and Petunia Pop inks and the tree stamp was added in Petunia Pop ink.

Thank you so much for spending time with me. I so appreciate it. I hope you found something to inspire in some way. x

Don’t miss any of the inspiration from this wonderful Crew. The next blog in the hop is the lovely Rochelle Blok. Just click on the "next" graphic below to be taken to her blog. I am sure her project will be a special.

Join In The Challenge: We would love you to share a project you have created that has been inspired by the new 2024-2025 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue. To share, all you need to do for to the CASEing The Catty Challenge Group. If you aren't a member, its easy to request to join and then all you need to do is upload a photo of your project to the main section. You can click on the graphic below to be taken to the group on Facebook. We would love to see your creation.

Here is a list of others in this blog hop. If you have missed one or want to check out someone again, just click on their names:

Julia Quinn

Rochelle Laird-Smith

Michelle Strazds  

Judy May

Andrea Sargent - You are here

Rochelle Blok

#ctc487 #stampinup #stampinupaustralia #stampinupsouthpacific #stampinupdemo  #handmadecards #makeacardsendacard #stampinupdemonstrator #papercrafting #papercrafter  #valleyinspirations   #peacefulevergreens   #peacefulseason  #decorativetrees 

 

CASEing the Catty #486 CASE Sept-Dec Mini Catalogue

CASE THE MINI CATALOGUE meets Frosted Forrest

Hello, Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and #486 Challenge with CASEing the Catty.

I am so glad you have dropped by. You may have come from Rochelle Laird-Smith, as you take this week’s Blog Hop or perhaps come another way; either way I am delighted you are here. At the end of this blog, I have linked to Judy May so you can continue with the Blog Hop.

At CASEing the Catty we love to use the samples from the Stampin' Up! Catalogues as inspiration and each week we have a different theme to guide our CASEing. To CASE is to "Copy And Selectively Edit" or some say "Copy And Share Everything". This week we are CASE-ing any project from the new September-December 2024 Stampin' Up! Mini Catalogue.

It was hard to choose a card to CASE from the new Catalogue. There are so many gorgeous and inspiring ideas in the new September-December 2024 Mini Catalogue. I eventually chose a card from page 42 showing the Decorative Trees bundle. I was intrigued by the Crumb Cake card in the lower left corner of the page. I must try out the tree decorations too, but that will be another day.

While I loved the Crumb Cake card base I thought I would use Basic Beige card-stock. I do adore this soft neutral. Instead of using the Decorative Trees bundle my trees are from the Frosted Forest bundle, however, I did pinch the star and garlands from the original bundle. I love the way the card front was cut diagonally top and bottom to add a bit of interest and the stamping of the sentiment across the card is a different way to add a sentiment. I stepped my card up in a couple of ways too, but more on that below.

As mentioned, I swapped the trees on Stampin’ Up!s sample card for trees from the Frosted Forest bundle. This bundle includes a set of masks to colour the trees. The masks and Blending Brushes make colouring so easy. There are 3 masks for each tree that 1) lay a lighter base colour down; 2) add depth of colour with either more of the same colour or deeper colours and 3) adding more depth or conversely add highlights. I love to play with colour so blended the first layer with Lost Lagoon and Garden Green Classic inks. The second layer was Pretty Peacock & Shaded Spruce inks, while the third layer was White Embossing Paste. The last layer works beautifully with embossing paste to add highlights or a snow effect. While the Frosted Forest bundle comes with coordinating dies I didn’t want to run the embossing paste through the Cut ‘n Emboss Machine so the trees were fussy cut.

I added some ombré blending to the background using Basic Beige ink and a Blending Brush at the bottom of the card making the colour lighter as it went up. At the top of the card base I blended White Craft ink down the card. I looked at many sentiments to stamp across the card but thought the “O Christmas Tree” was so appropriate so repeatedly stamped it in Basic Beige ink across the card front running parallel to the removed slanted sections. I love the effect.

Only the centre front tree has been decorated with Gold Foil from the Textured Metallic Speciality Papers; cut out a star as the tree topper and gold garlands. To give perspective The front tree was the bigger tree and the back trees were smaller. I couldn’t resist adding fine strips of gold foil under the slanted sections to bring a touch of gold to the background and also emphasise the slant. 

The card didn’t need any ribbon or twine - the touches of gold were enough bling … well almost. I felt the card needed something subtle, so added a few pearl sequins from the Adhesive Backed  Sequin Trio. They let the gold foil shine but just added a little extra subtle shimmer.

As you may have noticed previously, I like to include a simple coordinating card inner and envelope. An extra fussy cut tree was added near the bottom and a sentiment from Greetings of the Season stamp set was stamped in Basic Beige ink. A Basic White C6 envelope had a tree stamped in Pretty Peacock ink and a misting of Lost Lagoon ink was blended over.

Thank you so much for spending time with me. I so appreciate it. I hope you found an idea or two.  The Stampin’ Up! catalogues have so many treasures to spark ideas for your creating. x

Don’t miss any of the inspiration from this wonderful Crew. The next blog in the hop is the amazing Judy May. Just click on the "next" graphic below to be taken to her blog. I am sure her project will be gorgeous.

Join In The Challenge: We would love you to share a project you have created that has been inspired by the new 2024 September-December Stampin' Up! Mini Catalogue. To share, all you need to do is go to the CASEing The Catty Challenge Group on Facebook. If you aren't a member, it’s easy to request to join and then all you need to do is upload a photo of your project to the main section. You can click on the graphic below to be taken to the group on Facebook. We would love to see your creation.

#ctc486  #caseingthecattychallenge  #stampinup #stampinupaustralia #stampinupsouthpacific #stampinupdemo  #handmadecards #makeacardsendacard #stampinupdemonstrator #papercrafting #papercrafter  #valleyinspirations   #greetingsoftheseason   #decorativetrees  #frostedforest  

 

AWH Heart of Christmas #10

Christmas with Magical Meadow

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the Art with Heart Heart of Christmas Blog Hop.

This week I am again showcasing the delightful Magical Meadow bundle for a couple of Christmas cards. This week I was creating with the Winter Meadow Designer Series Paper and one of the designs inspired these 2 cards. They are similar with different colour combos. The blues are reminiscent of a snowy winter’s scene where as the greens are representative of a Southern Hemisphere Christmas. 

When I first saw this bundle, this layout came to mind. Rather than adding a little shading behind the trees, one of the Winter Meadows DSP showed a soft background with subtle hills and trees, so I decided to rip some Grid Paper and use it to create mountains and shadows. I used a Blending Brush and lightly rubbed the inked brush over the torn paper. The torn paper was moved down and sideways along the Basic White panel. Boho Blue Classic Stampin ink was used for the background on one card and Soft Sea Foam ink on the other card. On the green card the smaller trees stamp from the Magical Meadow stamps was stamped in Soft Sea Foam ink over the paper mask in some of the “valley” areas.

The small trees stamp was also stamped two thirds way up in either stamped off Misty Moonlight or Shaded Spruce inks. On a separate piece of Basic White card-stock both the small trees and the larger trees stamps were inked with either Misty Moonlight or Shaded Spruce inks.

The background panel was embossed with the Snowflake Sky 3D embossing folder before being mounted onto a slightly larger piece of Basic White card-stock and then onto the card base of either Misty Moonlight or Shaded Spruce card-stocks. Some splattering was added in either Misty Moonlight or Shaded Spruce Stampin’ Write Markers.

A thin strip of either a B side of the Winter Meadows DSP or the Joyful Speciality Designer Series Paper was added. Either a piece of Snowflake Splendour Ribbon or White Iridescent Ribbon was folded in half and a piece of Simply Elegant Trim, either Silver or Gold, was wrapped around near the loop end and tied into a bow. This was positioned over the strip of DSP with Glue Dots. The stamped images were die cut with coordinating dies from the Magical Meadows dies. The smaller image was adhered a little lower and on the other side of the card front. The larger group of trees was fussy cut around the tops of the trees and then added with Mini Dimensionals.

A sentiment from the Magical Meadow stamps was white heat embossed onto both Misty Moonlight and Shaded Spruce card-stock using Versamark ink, White Emboss Powder, the Embossing Accessory Tools kit and a Heat Tool. The words “season of sparkle” was fussy cut and added with Mini Dimensionals. Some Wink of Stella was splattered over the card and either Adhesive-backed Sparkle Gems or gold Festive Adhesive-backed Pearls were added for final touches of sparkle.

The full sentiment was stamped inside the card together with the small trees. A strip of DSP was also added at the base of the Basic White panel. Basic White C6 envelopes were also stamped with the small trees stamp in coordinating colours.

Thank you for calling by for some Christmas prep inspiration. I so appreciate it.

There is more Christmas creativity so do continue with the blog hop. Just click the "next" graphic below to be taken to the blog of the lovely Kate Morgan. I am looking forward to checking out Kate’s creation(s). I do love seeing everyones' projects - there is always so much wonderful inspiration.

I do hope to see you next week as we continue the weekly Heart of Christmas 2023 Blog Hop series. In a couple of days, on Wednesday evening, many of us with be blogging for the AWHT Colour Creations Blog Hop featuring Fresh Freesia. It would be wonderful if you could join us again.

Stay well, stay safe and be kind to yourself and others.

Andrea 💕🐾

If you find a broken link or would like to view the full list of participants go to Sharon Davern’s blog @ Rhapsody in Craft. Sharon is our brilliant Art With Heart Team Heart of Christmas Coordinator.  She is a special lady. Check out her delightful creation while you are there.

If you live in Australia, don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and would like your own copy of the Stampin' Up 2023-2024 Annual Catalogue and or the September-December Mini Catalogue, then let me know and I will be delighted to send them to you.  Please don't hesitate to make contact with any other queries about these projects or Stampin' Up!.