If Bold is what you want, then Bold is what you'll have

I'm cutting this fine. So what's new. I'm submitting a card to this week's CASology challenge. At the time of typing, I have about two hours remaining before the deadline closes. So I don't have too long to wax lyrical tonight.

The cue card is Bold. Well, that is certainly my kinda card. I'm nothing if not bold. So with no further ado, I give you...

Bold enough? lol

The card I used comes from a Becky Higgin's Project Life set sold by Craftie Charlie The Strawberry Edition. They are on sale at half price if you live in the UK and are interested.

There are six gorgeous colours in the collection and I thought it's be fun to pair up two contrasting ones. I took the fuschia card and with an alphabet die, cut the word out. I backed it onto lime-green and then adhered the whole thing to black cardstock.

The idea stems from a quiz where you read words spelt in the wrong colour. After a while it messes with your brain. I've had another idea since but as I say, time is running out. I will make a new card with the updated idea another time.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

Not that I'll be sending out any cards, flowers or chocolates myself. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, will I be in receipt of any. Not because I'm alone and loveless. If you've followed my blog, you know that's not true. Nick & I simply don't bother with it. By mutual agreement I may add too. If I want chocolates or roses, on any day of the year, I know Nick would oblige. Anyway, Nick & I celebrate our Anniversary only 10 days earlier. So it just seems too soon to go through the whole rigmarole once again.

I'm happy for the other suckers, romantic souls out there to fly arrows from cupid's bow and book dinners, buy flowers and send confectionary gooiness to their bunnikins and baby bears. It's a day for fun and silliness and who can begrudge it?

I say it every year but for new readers, today is also my parents' wedding anniversary. Which may partially explain my own reluctance to celebrate the 14th. Yes, I do give them a card.

So the card above is my contribution to the lovesick everywhere.  My valentine to the blogosphere. It's a cut and paste job using Spellbinders Square Nesting Dies. I sellotaped the dies together to form one & ran them through four colours of card. I cut two of the largest square shapes out of more card and stuck the various sized frames together onto them. I trimmed both squares on the diagonal and swapped them about. One of those squares is used here, the other for another time. The heart was die cut from velvet paper.

And if the Postie does happen to drop a little something on my doormat today, I'll let you know

Trying out Embossing Paste

I treated myself to a couple of pots of Wendy Vecchi's Embossing paste the other day. It was good fun to play around with and I lost all sense of time. However, as lovely as the results are, it took a few trials and several errors before I began to have success. The white paste was pretty easy to master. The translucent one took a bit longer. There's a fine line between spreading on a layer which is too thick or too thin.

And given that there's a fairly long drying time, I didn't know if my technique had improved until several hours later. However, I stuck with it and came away with a couple of samples which I used in making cards.

Not easy to photograph either as the light here was quite dull but I think you can see the gist of the effect you have.

I shall continue to play with the pastes and dig out some more stencils. I'm determined to master it. If only it wasn't so darned messy.

CAS(E) this Sketch # 62

Great design over at CAS(E) This Sketch this week. Simple, clean, graphic and ready to interpret in any style.

Me, I wanted to maintain the clean lines and include a bold colour palette. This time, my hands hovered over some purple cardstock.

And to give it extra dimension, once I had trimmed the purple card down to size, I cut away the two triangles. I adhered the centre piece to the black card first. Then I added back the two triangles but using foam pads to raise them. 

The stripes were created by laying a strip of Washi tape over some pink card and then trimming in half, lengthways on a guillotine. The sentiment is die cut from black card.

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Supplies

Dies: Cherry Lynn - Love

Sketch Challenge Part 2

The second card I made is for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge. The last couple of cards I've made had a darker appearance, so I thought I'd use white as my background this time around. I don't normally go for bright, neon colours but they are all over the web at the moment in design, fashion and papercrafts, so it's seeping into my brain.

I've used the Pantone colour, Radiant Orchid again with its complement, yellow-green.

I've also seen this pointed banner shape around a lot too. I don't have a die to cut this particular design however, all I needed to do was cut out a rectangle first and then trim the bottom off using two sides of a hexagon shaped die. The sewing through the middle of the hearts was done on a machine but as the needle was going through five layers of card, I turned the wheel manually and slowly, rather than use the pedal. I didn't fancy the needle breaking and flying out at me. I tell you, you need a strong wrist to do it.

So put on your dark glasses before gazing upon how bright it turned out.

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Supplies

Stamps: Kanban - Spring Silhouettes

Dies: Spellbinders - Nrested Hearts and Hexagons