CASology 53 - Cool!

This week's CASology Cue Card is Cool!

It took me a while to come up with this one but in the end, I feel positively Kelly Griglione-esque! (I am a big fan of her ability to really think WAY outside the box - you should check out her work if you haven't already!)

As I thought about this week's Cue Card, I kept coming back to the idea of condensation on a cold glass of water. But how to achieve the effect and keep it CAS? (and no, I do not have those water drop stamps that seem to be everywhere these days). Here's what I did:

I cut a piece of transparency (3M from Staples) and taped it to my bookshelf so that it was hanging vertically. I put drops of Crystal Effects all over it, and because it was hanging, they started to run down a little. The hardest part was waiting for it to dry (who me, impatient?!). In the meantime, I stamped the sentiment in Smoky Slate (Technique Tuesday) and Coastal Cabana (MFT Monogram Alphabet).

Then came the big problem of adhering the transparency to the white panel. In the end, I put a tiny drop of crystal effects right on each corner of the white panel and just laid the clear panel over top. I adhered the whole thing to a Smoky Slate card base and voila, finished. And then I just smiled and smiled because I really think it's very, very cool!

Now I suspect that we could have some heartfelt discussion about whether this is CAS or not, but I'm going to stand by the simple stamping and all the white space, despite the somewhat tricky process it took me to get to the finished product.

And now it's your turn to make a cool card - don't forget to link up before Sunday at 4:00 CDT. And before you do, check out the other DT Members' creations:

Gillian Ross

Jen Wills
Judy Marino
Kimberly Wiener
 Maureen Merritt
Meghan McMillan
Melissa Chipperfield
 Rosemary Dennis
Tracey McNeely

and this week's Guest Designer, Tracy

DeNami Summer Splash Blog Hop!

Welcome to the next link in the DeNami Summer Splash Blog Hop!

If you're following along, you should have come from Paulina's blog. If you'd like to start at the beginning, go to the DeNami Designs blog.

This card was made using only two stamps: Small Daisy Blossom and the Thank you from the Assorted Greetings stamp set.

I stamped the flowers and filled in their centres and then cut a window for the sentiment. I used Copic markers in a summery colour combination to create the background. I popped the sentiment circle (same size as the window) up on 3 layers of black cardstock, to create a subtle frame and then added some sparkle with Stickles on the daisies and the border of the sentiment circle.

Now, there are prizes involved in this blog hop! How to win, you ask?

You have until July 15, 2013, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible to win one of two $20 gift certificates to the DeNami website.

Good luck! The next blog in the blog hop is Lisa!

ETA - after a number of comments (thank you!) talking about my polka-dot background, I've decided to link this up to CASual Friday's Polka Dot challenge as well. Sometimes, I'm not as bright as I look! lol!

CFC109 - Polka Dots

A quick thank you card for this week's CASual Friday challenge, to use polka dots. And they left us a good reminder to watch the 'white' (or clear) space in our submissions. I have to agree that white space is probably the biggest factor in a design being CAS.

I still had my neon papers out and they look so good when they pop against a dark background, so I created this navy panel on my Silhouette and then used a circle punch to cut the neon dots to place in the negative cuts in the navy panel. I used Avery Elle's Fun with Letters Alphabet and popped them up on foam dots for a little dimension.

FFC12/CASology 52 - Neon Snow

We're now into the second half of the Festive Friday Trigger challenge - Snow! Don't forget to link up before the deadline on Wednesday!

And, it also qualifies for this week's CASology Cue Card - Neon - you have until Sunday to play along with us on that one!

This card was simple to make - I used a Papertrey Ink die to cut a window into my white panel. I layered it on a Smoky Shadow mat and embossed my Stampin' Up sentiment in silver. I made the snowflakes using an old Fiskars border punch. I wanted them to be small so that I could use a lot of them. The neon cardstock came from Michael's  - I love how it pops against the grey!

OLW148 - Christmas Thank you!

This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is hosted by Cheryl and the challenge is to make a Christmas thank you card. I don't always make Christmas-specific thank you cards because, let's face it, by the time you send them, Christmas is over and I often am ready to move on from using the Christmas supplies. So that's a good reason to make some in advance.

I started with this one, substituting the penguin for the A. I used a new MFT alphabet called Max Alpha (great size - I hope they come out with the matching lower case set!) and the penguin is from Jolly Bingo Bits (Stampin' Up!). But this card felt a bit like cheating, because it's so similar to these cards I made last year. I used Real Red and Gumball Green.

So I went back to the drawing board and came up with this:

I used the Neat and Tangled set "Across the Card", offsetting the sentiment box a bit. I filled in the horizon with some graphic trees. For this one, I used Cherry Cobbler and Lucky Limeade.

Muse #25 - Be You!

This is for this week's Muse, inspired by this card by Therese Calvird:

I focused on the colours, the layout and the idea of one person standing out in the group. In fact I spent quite a lot of time looking for an 'outstanding' sentiment. But this idea works, too.

I used a Stamps of Life Sentiment (surgery from their "Smile" set) and a Stampin' Up Sentiment along with an old Inky Antics image.

I hope you'll play along with us this week, but if you don't, you can still vote for your favourite entrants starting next Monday at 8:00 am EDT.

CASology 52 - Neon

This week's CASology Cue Card is Neon!

Neon is really trendy right now, and why not? Bright happy colours never go out of style! I had lots of time to think about this (so much time that I almost missed the DT deadline!) and I knew exactly what I wanted to try - I masked a strip across my one-layer card and I was going to stamp bright happy overlapping stripes.

When I laid the first one down, it was a bit splotchy and didn't go right up to the mask. After my first, unprintable reaction, I took a closer look and I thought it was actually kind of neat. Almost like birthday streamers.

And so, ironically, as I stamped the rest of the 'stripes', I found myself hoping that I wouldn't get a nice full solid image that went exactly to the edge of the mask. Now, before you go thinking that it might have had something to do with the stamp and/or the ink, rather than the inept  (but on purpose after the first one!) stamping, let me assure you that I kept the pressure very light as I stamped. And I had no trouble getting full coverage on all the 'happy's - in fact I stamped it 7 times to show you that I can actually stamp! lol!

The big 'birthday' is one of the new CASual Friday stamps (love the font, which just happened to match a little happy I had in my box!)

And now it's time for you to create a project using Neon. In fact, if you take a look at our Miami Vice (my words, not Therese's!) Muse this week, you may just be able to combine these two challenges in a really fun way! And this week we have a sponsor! It's Avery Elle - check out the details at CASology.

Before you head off, take a look at what the other members of the DT came up with:

Gillian Ross
Jen Wills
Judy Marino
Kimberly Wiener
 Maureen Merritt
Meghan McMillan
Melissa Chipperfield
 Rosemary Dennis
Tracey McNeely

and this week's Guest Designer: Shirley