Canopy Crafts: May 2016

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Time of Year for Sneak Peeks PP296

Hiya friends and welcome to another week with The Paper Players. Lovely Laurie is our hostess this week with a great sketch challenge:

We all love a good sketch, don't we? This one is such a good one that I made two cards using 3 of the new In Colors! I couldn't decide which one to feature but think I like this one a little bit more:

Oh my goodness, this new In Color--Sweet Sugarplum--is beautiful! A soft shade of purple that looks fabulous with some of the other beautiful new In Colors--Emerald Envy and Peekaboo Peach. I die cut a large circle from the Sweet Sugarplum base and backed it with a piece from a new DSP stack called Playful Palette which features all these new In Colors.

The sentiment banner--in Emerald Envy--is from a new hostess set called Time of Year. The sweet little flowers are from another new set I featured last week--Swirly Bird. They are tone-on-tone stamped in Peekaboo Peach and Sweet Sugarplum and I found out the 1/2" circle punch pops out those flowers quite nicely!

The main sentiment is also from the hostess set, Time of Year, and heat embossed directly on the DSP with black stampin' powder. A lovely shine to it!

So here's my other card! I had great fun with the Swirly Scribbles dies and Swirly Bird stamp set. The Pool Party base is a nice compliment to another new In Color--Dapper Denim. Really like this one too--it's a cousin to our long-lost Not Quite Navy which I also adored. The little sailboat is totally customizable as the two sails, boat and flag are all separate stamps. Many options to play with!

I wanted the "waves" to look like they were shining with the sun rays so I added a brush of Wink of Stella under the die cut. I also brushed on a few lines with a Soft Sky marker to add a little shadow under the "waves".

I hope you've enjoyed my cards today! Do pop over to The Paper Players and check out the rest of the Design Team and their inspiration. I hope you will play along with us before the challenge closes on Friday, May 27th at Noon (PST)...thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Clean-and-Simple Giraffe Sunset PP295

It's another week at The Paper Players and LeAnne has a fun Clean-and-Simple challenge for us...it's WILD!

Some of you might know that I design the challenge badges, like the one above, for The Paper Players. Sometimes, I get hung up on an idea, like the giraffes, and can't let go! They are one of my favorite animals too so...while the challenge is to use any animal on a CAS card, I wanted to explore the giraffe silhouette idea.

This is a design file I purchased for my Cameo to use as party decorations for our daughter's school production of The Lion King Kids. Those decorations will probably be another blog post at some point [wink] but for now, I thought they were perfect for LeAnne's challenge!

I used watercolor paper and my Aqua Painter to brush on yellows and oranges, specifically Hello Honey, Crushed Curry and Tangelo Twist. If you look verrrry closely you might be able to see some Wink of Stella brushed on as well. It needed just a touch of sparkle because...well...African sunsets are magical!

The bottom was brushed with repeating layers of Mossy Meadow--I'm really gonna miss that color when it retires! I started with a very thin layer and let it dry before adding another layer of color. I found that gives it a lined look that creates more dimension. Now, before you think I'm extremely patient and let each layer dry on it's own....here's a tip....a heat gun [set to low if you have that setting] makes quick work of drying your watercolor!! Woohoo, let's hear it for impatient!

The silhouette was longer than I needed so the end piece works really well on the inside. Since I wasn't using watercolor paper on the inside, I used some random watercolor type stamps to duplicate a mini sunset here. I think they came from Work of Art and Sheltering Tree. I found this sentiment in a retired stamp set and it is absolutely perfect for the recipients of this card. My in-laws have been married for [almost] 53 years and were high school sweethearts before that! They are truly happy together. They are also avid travelers and, for their 50th wedding anniversary, took the entire family on safari in Tanzania! What a wonderful trip it was so this card, I think, will be extra special to them.

In fact...here are a few pix of the animal-of-the day from that trip:

And one of those magical African sunsets....this one while in South Africa:

Thanks for stopping by today, friends! Be sure to hope over to The Paper Players and check out the rest of the fabulous inspiration from our Design Team and then link up your creation before the challenge closes on Friday, May 20th at Noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Swirly Bird Sneak Peek PP294

Hiya friends...and to all the U.S. mothers out there...Happy Mother's Day! Jaydee is our fabulous hostess this week at The Paper Players and she has a beautiful color challenge for us:

Soft and pretty...these colors were crying out for flowers! I pre-ordered some new goodies from the upcoming SU catalog and had fun playing with my dies and stamps...take a look:

This is from a new stamp set called Swirly Bird and it is bundled with coordinating thinlit dies called Swirly Scribbles! I couldn't wait to get my hands on these cool swirly flowers. Love the delicate details and they pop out of the die just perfectly! I covered the base with some long-ago retired So Saffron dp and added a center panel 3.5" wide. I stamped the flowers first in So Saffron, Wisteria Wonder and Blushing Bride (substituted for Pink Pirouette because I didn't have any--gasp!).

I die-cut some coordinating flowers and added some Wink of Stella to the center of each one. I looped some silver thread behind the two smaller flowers for some extra layers and swirls. The set has a sweet little leaf die and coordinating stamp. Also some random splotches to match the leaves.

You can get a better sense of the stamps on the inside--just love this swirly flower. The clean lines of the flowers give a fresh and modern feel...just my style. And there's another sneak peek for you with the inside sentiment. It's a hostess-only photomolymer set called Time of Year. I'm really liking the number of photopolymer (clear) sets that SU is showing in the new catalog. They're soooo much easier to use!

I hope you've enjoyed my sneak peeks of new SU stuff--I sure had fun playing with them all. Be sure to pop over to The Paper Players and check out the rest of the eye candy from the Design Team. We hop you will be inspired to play along...just do so before our challenge closes on Friday, May 13th at Noon (PST). Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, May 1, 2016

A Bicycle for...Three! PP293

This week, I am the hostess at The Paper Players for a theme challenge. May is National Bike Month in the US and bikes are a big part of our family. We love to ride them together and my husband is an avid cyclist. We cycle while on holiday, we attend cycling events and we even host cycling races! So yeah....bikes are a big part of our lives. :-)

With all that said about how much we like bikes, you would think I own a bunch of bicycle stamps, right? Ha! I found out that I don't....whoops! Fortunately, I do own the Sheltering Tree stamp set which has the cutest little bike in it:

When I showed this card to my hubby, he said wow it even has a different color for the fork! That is the cutest part of this stamp--that the wheels, seat and handlebars are one stamp and the bike frame is separate. The result is a bike in whatever color you wish!

In the case of my card, I used a snippet of the Cherry on Top DSP stack and took my colors from the paper: Crushed Curry, Watermelon Wonder and Bermuda Bay. The tree trunk is stamped in Tip Top Taupe and the leaves are Cucumber Crush. I used the "ground" stamp from the set to stamp just a little bit of grass on the hill for the bikes to ride on.

...and on the inside there's another cute bike coming down the hill...

I hope you will ride on over to The Paper Players and check out the rest of the Design Team and their fabulous samples! Maybe you'll be inspired to make a bike card of your own...or maybe even go on a bike ride! Thanks for stopping by.

The Paper Players Design Team