Birthday CASE

Challenge #308 has just gone live at Time Out Challenges and this fortnight we are celebrating Time Out's 11th Birthday with a CASE of the very talented Stef Perry.  Stef's work can be seen on her blog Perry Papercrafts and there is always loads of inspiration!

Here's a closeup of Stef's lovely card!

Whenever I am CASEing, there is a nifty acronym coined by Ardyth Percy-Robb that I use to help me take inspiration from someone else's work but make it my own - L I M E S!

List

Include

Modify

Exclude

Spin

These are the list of things that I noted about this design 

the flowers;
the background texture;

the brown border top and bottom;

gold foiled and die cut sentiment;

spattering;

twine!

I included

the flowers;
the brick texture;

gold foiled and die cut sentiment (Spellbinders GLP-380)!

I modified the borders to be a frame, 

I excluded the string and spattering,

 and my Spin was I used die-cuts instead of stamping

This challenge is sponsored by Waffle Flower who are offering our winner as voted by the Design Team, a generous $25 Store Credit.    

The Top Pick as chosen by the Design Team will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, we are joined this challenge by Verena Shapiro - our winner of Challenge 303!  You can also see how Verena and the rest of the team have CASEd Stef's card over on the Challenge Blog!

So I hope you can take some Time Out and join us this fortnight.  You have until the March 12th to link up your entries ... we can't wait to see how Donna's card will inspire you!

I and grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #84 - NBUS Sizzix Floral Layers die set by Sophie Guilar, Spellbinders GLP-380;

Can You Handle the Pressure March Challenge - Embossing folder is Tim Holtz Brickwork;

Triple B March Challenge - Just Blooms;

Ellibelle's Garden Party No. 12 - Anything in or from a garden;

Shopping Our Stash Challenge SOS568 - Golden Years (use gold);

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and should be able to find you!

Kate

Celebration Cupcakes

 

Time Out Challenge #306 has just gone live and it's a Pick 2 Challenge - our first for 2026!  

The six Word Prompts for this challenge are

Sparkle, Red, Heart, Pink, Aperture, Twine

You can interpret these words any way you like but please explain if it isn't obvious and please remember we only allow a total of 5 challenges - ours plus 4 others!  I hope you enjoy our challenge and that you can take a little Time Out and join us for some fun!  

Challenge #306 is generously being sponsored by Lawn Fawn and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $25 credit to their store!  

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Jenn Borgenson of StampinAngelJenn of  our winner of Challenge #301!  Be sure to check out the Time Out Blog to see how how Jenn and my talented team mates were inspired by these six words!

 This Cupcake set has been in my NBUS pile for a while now (bought July 2023).  At the time I was delighted to find a UK company that stocked The Greetery products and shipped to Europe (even then many of the US companies had stopped shipping internationally) and placed a large order!  Most of it had been used but the labels set (Sweet Fancy Labels and matching die), the double frame (Window Dressing) and the cupcake set (Hey Cupcake) were still waiting - I bought all three set with the express purpose of using them together!

When I saw aperture as one of the prompts for this fortnight's challenge at Time Out, I immediately reached for these sets and set about planning to use as many of the other prompts as possible - pink patterned cupcake cases and icing, red toppings - one of them being this heart petalled flower, and some sparkle by using glitter card stock and winking (had to admit defeat on the twine)! 

Here's an attempt at capturing some of the sparkle and you can see the heart shaped petals of the red flower up close (after winking I went over the red items with glossy accents)!

We'd love to see how these words inspire your design, hope you can come play cards with us this fortnight!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #83 - NBUS Greetery Hey Cupcake die set, The Greetery Sweet Fancy Labels Stamp set and matching die, The Greetery Window Dressing Dotted Scallops;

Neglected Stuff Challenge January - All the NBUS items mentioned above have been waiting to be used since July 2023;

Snippets Playground Challenge #525 - loads of snippets here but in particular small bits of glitter card stock;

Krafty Chicks Challenge #806 - Birthday Week;

Die Cut Divas February Challenge - Use Pink and/or Red;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

What a Blast!

 

Time Out Challenge #298 has just gone live and it's one of our new challenges for 2025 - a Pick 2 Challenge! 

The concept of a Pick 2 Challenge is obvious - we give you 6 word prompts to choose from and you use at least 2 to inspire your creation!  To be clear, you can pick more than 2 if you like - all 6 if you really want a challenge but just make sure to pick at least 2!

The Word Prompts for this challenge are

Spatter, Music, Season, Edge, Monochrome, Metallic

You can interpret these words any way you like but please explain if it isn't obvious and please remember we only allow a total of 5 challenges - ours plus 4 others!  I hope you enjoy our challenge and that you can take a little Time Out and join us for some fun!  

Challenge #298 is generously being sponsored by Lawn Fawn and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $25 credit to their store!  

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Jaydee of Stamping with Jaydee - our winner of Challenge #293!  Be sure to check out the Time Out Blog to see how how Jaydee and my talented team mates were inspired by these six words!

This card is for a friend of mine - a fabulous musician and one of the most generous people you could ever meet.  She has been "gigging for bricks" here in Luxembourg to build a school in Tanzania and travelling there annually to teach and share her musical talent.  Up until recently she owned a string of creches with the name "Sunflower" and the name of her band is "Alizeti" which is Swahili for Sunflower - so obviously I had to include sunflowers (Sizzix Garden Shed by Sophie Guilar) and thought it might be fun to have musical motifs (Memory Box Musical Motif) as well as sunflowers bursting out from a saxophone!

I chose the saxophone (Leabilities Saxophone), not because she plays it but because I do (I have made her numerous cards over the years with guitars) and I realised that as it's made of metal I already had two elements picked for Challenge #298 and looked to the others to help me complete the card! 

Spatter was an obvious choice and I stamped some splats (WPlus9 InkSplats and WMS Splat-That) for interest and texture behind the sunflowers and musical motifs.

I realised I could place this NBUS sentiment along the "edge" of the panel (CreativeExpressions Stacked Sentiment Happy Birthday) and so I could make it to 4 - Music, Metal, Spatter and Edge!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #78 - NBUS Stacked Sentiment set;

Triple B September Challenge - Blooms (no Birds or Butterflies)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Shake Your Tail Feather

 

If you read my last post you'll know I had one or two birds left over from false starts when creating a DT project for Challenge #259 at Time Out!

This is yet another bird!  But I noticed that Colour Hues Challenge #83 has a cream/blue theme and as this bird was cream and blue, I thought I'd have a go at making him into a card sooner rather than later ... I also needed a birthday card for my wonderful choir director hence the musical theme!

I used the same Spellbinder Cherry Blossom branch to give this little birdie somewhere to roost that I used for my last 2 birds ... what can I say it was already out and it remains one of my favourite branch dies despite being one of the first dies I ever bought!

I wanted to make this card a little special since it's going to someone very special so I mounted the birdie on a wobble spring which in turn gave me the idea for the sentiment!  I used the font "Are You Freakin' Serious" to create the sentiment and cut it with a speech bubble die from a Deco Time Set (which I've just realised is NBUS so I'd like to also enter NBUS Challenge #60)!

Here is the wobble spring in action!

I stamped the musical score background (Stempelwinkel) onto a piece of vellum.  I cut a frame using the two largest dies in the Pink Fresh Essentials Diagonal Stitched Rectangles set and laid it over the vellum score and trimmed the excess.  Then added this to the card base.  

Once I'd laid down the branch and my bird I added a smattering of quavers and the card was finished!

I'd also like to enter these fabulous challenges

The Card Concept Challenge #205 which has this lovely inspiration

The Four Seasons March Spring Challenge;

The Triple B (Birds/Blooms/Butterflies) March 2024 Challenge;

Crafty Animals Challenge #81!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and hopefully how to find you!

Kate