Colorful Seasons of Watercolor PP365

Hi everyone!  Our sweet and talented friend, Joanne, is our hostess this week at The Paper Players for a lovely color challenge:

I must admit I haven't used Peekaboo Peach much at all and now that I have, I'm not sure what took me so long.  It's a really lovely shade of orange and a refreshing take on the traditional orange of autumn.  I needed a masculine birthday day for a work colleague so I was inspired to make a relatively clean and simple card:

I am quite fond of this trend or watercolored backgrounds.  It's such a simple way to combine colors and it's really difficult to mess up watercolor! There's no mistakes in watercolor as it's all supposed to look rather artistic anyway!  I layered on washes of Crushed Curry and Peekaboo Peach to the hot press watercolor paper.  After each layer, I dried it with the low setting of my heat gun coz I'm impatient like that and can't wait for it to dry naturally, ha!

Once I was happy with the color intensity of the background, I stamped some random leaves from the Colorful Seasons stamp set in Early Espresso using my MISTI several times to achieve a [almost] solid stamped image.  The companion dies to this set are gorgeous and this maple leaf is amazing--especially in Copper Foil paper.  I backed it with a solid Early Espresso leaf to really make the copper pop.  Just a touch of linen thread was all this simple masculine card needed.

This pretty little leaf makes a great spray across the inside of the card.  Here we really get to appreciate the fresh look to the peach leaves.  I think I had a little leftover Early Espresso on my stamp when I inked up the leaves but, in truth, I like the little bit of speckle it adds to the leaves.  

I hope that you've enjoyed today's card and it inspires you to play along with us at The Paper Players.  For even more inspiration, pop over to my teammates' blogs and check out all their pretty creations.  Thanks for stopping by, friends!

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Deanne 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier 

Catch 'Em by the Tide {PP168}

Hi, everyone!  LeAnne is our hostess this week at The Paper Players for our Clean-and-Simple Challenge and wowzers...has she got a challenge for us!

Clean-and-simple plus masculine!  Many people think that these two are the most difficult types of cards to make but actually I find that CAS goes quite well with masculine.  I generally think that guys don't like a lot of embellishments and layers so keeping it clean usually works out well.  So let's see how I did:

What do you think?  I rather like it!  I'm not sure if it qualifies as "simple" which the fussy-cutting and some grungy stamping but...there is a lot of "white space"!  I was inspired by sketch #263 at Clean and Simple Stamping.  I knew I wanted to make a porthole with the Circle Framelits and the rest of it developed from there.  Off the Grid and Gorgeous Grunge were stamped in Sahara Sand and Soft Sky ink around the Naturals Ivory porthole.  I drew my color inspiration from the swatch of Sweater Weather DSP.

The sea bass (if that's what they are!) were stamped in Chocolate Chip onto Sahara Sand.  i tried them first on Very Vanilla but it was too bright for the muted tones of the DSP and I think they really stand out on the Sahara Sand.  There is a faint stripe of Crushed Curry running through the DSP so the Itty Bitty Banners sentiment was stamped in Chocolate Chip onto Crushed Curry and cut out with the Bitty Banner Framelits and my fantastic Magnetic Platform!  The close-up also shows you how I tied the Linen Thread onto the banner.  Just pierced a hole and threaded it through.  A dimensional kept it in place while I secured the ends on the back.

The Naturals Ivory looked too plain on the inside so I used a piece of Soft Sky and dressed it up with more Off the Grid stamping and another fish!  This card is headed for a male co-worker who loves to get out on his boat and catch a few so I think he will appreciate this one!

I know you'll appreciate what the rest of The Paper Players Design Team has for your inspiration so be sure to check 'em out and leave them some comment love!  I hope you'll join us before our challenge closes on Friday, October 25th at Noon (PDT)--we would love to see you there!

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy

Sandy Mathis

Supplies
Stamps: By the Tide, Off the Grid, Gorgeous Grunge, Itty Bitty Banners
Ink: Sahara Sand, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky
Paper: Naturals Ivory, Soft Sky, Crushed Curry CS; Sweater Weather DSP
Xtras: Circle Framelits; Bitty Banners Framelits; Linen Thread; Paper Snips

Up, Up & Away with CAS {CTS17}

Hi everyone, happy Tuesday! I can't believe I'm sneaking in another post this week but I had to get this one in under the wire. I was introduced to a new-to-me challenge site, CAS(E) this Sketch and I was smitten with this week's sketch!

See what I mean?  What a creative sketch!  Since I needed a birthday card for a [male] family friend, I had to give this cool CAS sketch a try.  Here's what I made:

My color scheme was taken straight from the Comfort Cafe designer series paper and includes Midnight Muse, Cajun Craze and Summer Starfruit. 

I stamped the hot air balloons from Up, Up & Away in Cajun Craze and Summer Starfruit onto Very Vanilla cardstock and fussy-cut.  A little Linen Thread bow added just enough detail but isn't too feminine. 

I love how the die from the Hearts a Flutter framelit allows me to stamp in the negative space.  I just lined the framelit up on the card front, secured it in place with some small post-it notes and after a quick pass through the Big Shot I've got a cute little window for the sentiment. edited to add: I'm a bit behind in checking my Google Reader and just discovered the Emphasize the Negative Challenge in the Moxie Fab World so I had to play along...and you should too!

To balance the placement of the sentiment on the inside, I stamped a couple more balloons and some Pool Party clouds both peeking through the window and to frame the additional balloons.

I hope you've enjoyed my surprise post today!  Be sure to check out the fabulous sketches over at CASE(E) this Sketch.  You're sure to find some inspiration!  Thanks for stopping by today.

 
Supplies 
Stamps: Up, Up & Away 
Ink: Cajun Craze, Summer Starfruit, Soft Suede, Pool Party 
Paper: Midnight Muse, Very Vanilla CS; Comfort Cafe DSP
Extras: Linen Thread; Hearts a Flutter Framelits; paper snips; Crystal Effects (to secure the bow)