AAA CAS Cards Challenge #95

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and this post is tinged with a little sadness as I'm stepping down from the Design Team at AAA Cards following this challenge. It's been a brilliant opportunity, creating alongside such fantastic talent and I've loved every minute. I've also made some wonderful friends who I hope to meet up with in the near future and definitely keep in touch with them via social media. 
The demands of being on a Design Team are challenging and unfortunately being on several design teams, alongside work certainly eats into precious family time, which has led me to this decision. I do hope to play along in the challenges now and again and I'd like to thank everyone at AAA CAS cards for being such perfect teamies!
The theme for this one is Rainbow and it's one of my favourite themes so  here's my card followed by a little photo inspiration for you too

This was a very quick and easy card to make using rainbow coloured strips adhered at an angle to a panel of white card-stock. This was die-cut using a stitched rectangle die before adding a die-cut 'happy' sentiment and stamped 'birthday' greeting. To finish I couldn't resist a few enamel dots in rainbow colours.

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

Our Guest Designer for this challenge is a formidable Queen of CAS and creator of the ever-popular Less is More Challenge. It's Chrissie of Simply One of a Kind! She is a whizz at Clean and Simple designs and I hope you'll pop along and visit her blog this week.

Our sponsor for this challenge is STAMPlorations and I hope you'll feel inspired to join us and play along.

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #94

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and it's one with a difference! Firstly it's Saturday and our challenges usually appear on a Sunday! The reason being we are joining forces with the Less is More Challenge which went live just a moment ago.
We'll be having ONE joint winner receiving a prize from our sponsor, Happy Little Stampers and the lucky winner will also be invited to appear as a Guest Designer for both challenges in one of their future challenges. You'll need to enter at both challenges to be in with a chance of winning but do check both of the 'how to play' guidelines first.
The theme for this one is to use a Coloured Card-base BUT the catch is it's got to be a ONE layer card. Here's my card followed by the photo inspiration and I couldn't resist using some of our sponsor stamps. 

I've used a kraft card base and stamped the floral and leaf images from Happy Little Stampers Doodled Flowers set along a sentiment from a discontinued Birthday sentiments set. I've hand-drawn the lines around the sentiment to give it extra definition, coloured the images with Promarkers and added some additional white detail with a gel pen. 

There's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Milka, a previous winner of our challenges, who is Guest Designing for this one and do pop along and visit her blog. You won't be disappointed as her creations are totally inspiring and why not leave a friendly word and some love - I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

As mentioned above our sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers and one lucky joint winner will receive a $20 gift certificate for their online store. 

Thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with  both challenges this time! Each challenge blog will reveal their individual favourites on Friday 28th July and the joint winner will also be announced in the same post on each of the challenge blogs. 

AAA CAS Card Challenge #93

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and I hope you enjoyed all of our birthday party winners on the main blog last week. I was thrilled with the number of people who answered my question about their favourite crafting tool and if you read on to the end I've added a resume of the answers provided.
First up let's introduce our theme for the next fortnight which is 'Words Take Centre Stage' and our sponsor for this challenge is Uniko. I couldn't resist using one of the new sets 'Explosion - Additions' to create my 'masculine-style congrats/encouragement card' The images are stamped using Altenew Inks and I've quickly covered the 'WOW' word with clear embossing powder to add some extra shine. The 'UR' are die-cut letters by My Favourite Things Die-Namics with a Basic Stitched Edge die also by MFT to separate the black and white sections of the card front. 

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE and here's our photo inspiration card too ...

We are delighted to welcome another previous winner of AAA Cards challenges and our guest designer for this current one ... it's Nonni! If you've never visited Nonni's blog before you are definitely missing a treat as she's a whizz at CAS cards and creates the most fabulous cheery designs. I'm slightly biased as she's one of my fellow teamies over at Less is More but I do hope you'll pop along and leave her some wonderful comments this week. 

As promised here's the results of my 'nosey' question for our birthday challenge ...

"What's your favourite crafting tool that you use every time 

and simply couldn't live without and why?"

In total I received 50 responses and basically the majority just can't live without a Misti! It's certainly made a stampers life so much easier with the ability to re-stamp and line images up perfectly each time. So the Misti received 16 nominations followed by Paper Trimmers/Guillotines with 8, Die-cutting machines with 7, Heat Guns 3. The remaining items receiving 1 or 2 nominations and in alphabetical order ... Absorbent chamois, Acrylic blocks, Brushos, Coloured Pencils, Craft Mats, Embossing Machine / Powders, Exacto Knife, Pokey / Quilling Tools, Scissors, Scor-pal, Tape Runners and Tweezers. So I'm guessing most of us have all of these items in our stash and it's just a matter of prioritising their individual importance to us.

I found this a really fun investigation if only to prove what I already thought but it's here in black and white and hope you found it useful too. Thanks to all who played along with the birthday challenge and left me such fun messages. 

If you missed the winners post at AAA Cards then I chose JulyeB and here's her comment

"Julye2 June 2017 at 09:13

Pretty card and love the sentiment too and the curve gives an unusual look. Happy birthday to AAA cards. My go to tool would have to be my pokey tool, I use it for all sorts from lifting the edge on double sided tape ,positioning small bits that have glue on them, stomping down small additions to apply pressure and make them stick ,holding and placing peel-offs, picking up small die cuts or gems etc the list seems endless. I made the mistake one summer if using it for some paper piercing whist sat on our decking and sat it on a pile of paper, the breeze blew and it dropped down between two planks never to be seen again, I was gutted and lost until I was able to go out and buy another. Hubby said he might take up the decking when we redo the garden so I'm looking forward to finding my old long lost friend."

Julye's reasons behind her favourite tool had me laughing, giggling and almost crying at the same time as I imagined the scenario. Crafting outside never works for me but at least she tried and I felt her immense pain in losing her special piece of kit! Thanks so much Julye and I hope you enjoy your prize and the rediscovery of your long last tool when the time arrives!

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #92

Hello there friends, I'm back again this weekend and this time it's to introduce the latest challenge for this coming fortnight over at AAA CAS Cards
... but first of all we are also introducing some wonderful new teamies to our little challenge blog and I'm sure they'd love to receive a visit from you if you have the time to pop along and leave some love and encouragement. Our newbies aren't new to the world of blogging but just in case you haven't 'met' them before here's their names, with links to their blogs: 
Asa of Scrapatheltenkelt, Cheryl of Cards and Clutter, Elaine of Craft-e-place Lucie of Luciegcards, Maaike of Cards by Maaike and Tracie of Tracie Pond Designs
Alongside the original Design Team and our special and super talented Guest Designer; Jasleen of Happily Eva Crafter our newbies have worked their magic with our latest technique themed challenge



Here's my card and for this challenge ... we are being sponsored by Happy Little Stampers and I simply had to use their gorgeous 'Butterfly Birthday' set as it's my favourite and works perfectly with a resist technique. I've stamped the butterflies in Versamark ink before heat embossing then blended distress inks over the top. To add a little interest to the card front I've used a stitched landscape border die from Mama Elephant, with a sentiment and sparkly gems from Happy Little Stampers.

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired to play along with us!
Have fun and happy crafting!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #91 - 3rd Birthday Blog Hop

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and we are having a MASSIVE celebration for the next fortnight as our little challenge is celebrating it's 3rd Birthday! There's loads of giveaways, blog hopping, sponsors, treasure hunts, prizes and lots more so read on for all the details.

First up and being a birthday challenge it's an easy theme ... BIRTHDAYS and here's what I've created for you. I'm featuring stamps by Uniko, as they are one of our sponsors, and I've used BG Builders Round in Circles with sentiments from the Simple Said Birthday Set and All Occasion Sentiments #6. The curved, stitched die is by MFT Die-namics, another of our sponsors for this special birthday challenge. 

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE and below is our blog hop order so don't forget to visit each blog and leave a comment in order to be eligible for a prize.

Ceal

Coralynn

Jane

Ksenija

Melissa

Sarah

We're also delighted to be joined by 4 of our ex-design team members: Jenny, Justine, Sandie and Stephanie so I do hope you'll stop by their blogs too this week.

We've loads of generous sponsors for this special challenge and just to give you an idea of which companies have donated these wonderful gifts just take a look at our sponsor board below:

My give-away prize is a £10.00 voucher from Uniko and to be in with a chance please leave a comment below answering my question ... I'm really just being nosy but here goes! 

"What's your favourite crafting tool that you use every time 

and simply couldn't live without and why?"

Once our challenge has ended I'll be doing a random draw for my prize and I'll pop a summary on the blog of what our favourite crafty tools are. For me it would have to be my Tonic Guillotine. To be honest I'm on my second one of these 'bad boys' but as I've been crafting for well over years; I don't think it's doing too bad! It's compact, cuts perfectly every time. It's super strong and it's marked out in centimetres which is so easy for me as I'm simply useless with feet and inches! 

So before I send you off to create, hop and think out your answers please read the instructions below with all the details of how to be eligible for some prizes. Have fun, Good Luck and thanks for calling by today.

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #90

Hello there friends, another fortnight has zipped by and it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards. The theme for this one is EMBOSSING and I've a bit of a two-fer for you today.
Our sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers so it seemed only right that I use their products for this one. I started out by creating a background using the Mix Mash set with Altenew Inks (my favourite inks right now). For the first card I've placed a piece of my BG behind 2 popped up die-cut sections using Lawn Fawn Stitched Scalloped border dies which were dry-embossed too. I've then heat-embossed the butterfly from Butterfly Birthday and the sentiment from Doodled Flowers.

The second card is mega simple; just using another piece of the BG created for the first one and popped up on 3d foam with a heat-embossed sentiment from Happy Little Stampers and some gems to finish.

The challenge over at Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday is 'Going Dotty' so as the Mix Mash set includes lots of 'Dots' I'm going to try my chances there with this one and I'd also like to pop across to Addicted to Stamps and More where it's an Anything Goes week.

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Deidre of Eyes Wide Open Arts, a previous winner of our challenges, who is Guest Designing for this one. Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love - I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

Thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired to play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #89

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards
The theme for this one is 'Bright & Beautiful' and here's my card; to be honest I wasn't quite sure which way to go with this one but roses are always a beautiful flower in my opinion so I've teamed them with a strip of glittery washi tape to add some brightness and coloured the die-cut from Memory Box with my Zig Clear Brush pens before adhering to my card base with glossy accents. The sentiment is Clearly Besotted and I hope my card will make someone feel well again!

Challenges I'd like to link to are:

Addicted to Stamps & More: Clean & Simple

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes 

Time Out Challenges: Flowers

Here's our photo inspiration for you and as always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Carol, a previous winner of our challenges, who is Guest Designing for this one. Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love - I'm sure she'll appreciate it.
Our sponsor for this challenge is So Suzy Stamps and one lucky winner will receive $25 Gift Certificate.
As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #88

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and the theme for this one is Stencil and here's my card followed by a little photo inspiration for you too. 
I've used the Morning Glory stamp set, by our wonderful sponsor for this one; STAMPlorations and it's teamed with a sentiment by Uniko: Simply Said Birthday and Simply Said II. The subtle stencil in the background is a paisley one by My Favourite Things and it's inked through with Distress Ink in Cracked Pistachio. The bloom is coloured with a base of Promarkers and pencils to highlight certain areas. 

We are also joined by Maria from White Mood, who is our Guest Designing for this challenge. Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love - I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

As mentioned above our Sponsor is STAMPlorations and our lucky winner will receive a prize from Shery to the value of $15.

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

I'd like to add this to the Addicted to Stamps and More challenge wherethis week it's their 'Make Your Mark' challenge 

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #87

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at AAA CAS Cards and the theme for this one is Shiny Spring. Here's my card followed by a little photo inspiration for you too ...

I started out with brusho panel which I think has some fresh Spring like colours in it. I've then heat embossed the butterflies from the Happy Little Stampers Butterfly Birthday sentiment and added some shiny sequins and glitter tape as my shiny elements for the card.

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Trina of My Crafting Closet, one of our previous winners, who is Guest Designing for this one. Do pop along and visit her blog - it's one not to be missed as her CAS style and striking designs are an inspiration. I'm sure she'd love a visit and a friendly word.

I'd like to link my card up at a couple of other challenges too: Addicted to Stamps and More - photo inspiration below:

Happy Little Stampers - Anything Goes with HLS goodies

Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

It just so happens that Happy Little Stampers is our sponsor for this challenge so it would be rude not to play along in their challenge! ... and one lucky winner will receive a $15 gift certificate to spend in the online store.

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #86

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at 
AAA CAS Cards
The theme for this one is Die-Cuts so minimal stamping and if possible ALL die-cuts. Here's my card, in fact I've gone a little mad here as this design ended up being great for  a couple of two-fers using the positive and negative portions of the die-cut sentiment  from Impression Obsession. The first card below also uses a Next Level EF from WeR  Memory Keepers and the others use an inside out diagonal stitched rectangle die from MFT.  All the panels are mounted on 3d foam with a few sprinkles and gems for added interest. 

Here's our little photo inspiration plus  there's plenty more super CAS creations

 by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

Our Guest Designer for this challenge is Judy of Judy's Card Corner. 

She has a wonderful CAS style and  I do hope you'll pop along and visit her blog.

I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

Our sponsor for this challenge is STAMPlorations with our lucky winner

receiving a product specified by Shery to the value of $15

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope 

you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #85

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at  AAA CAS Cards The theme for this one is 'Oscar Red Carpet' and here's my card followed by a little photo inspiration for you too ...

Yep ... it's Christmas in March but I'm not really that organised!

I decided that this Christmas tree image by Inkylicious resembled the

photo inspiration below. It's heat embossed in WOW Metallic Rich

pale gold along with the sentiment which is by Happy Little Stampers.

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, 

with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Hazel of Hazel's Paper Designs

a previous winner of our challenges, who is Guest Designing for this one. 

Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love - 

I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

Our sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers and one lucky winner

will receive $15 gift certificate.

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope 

you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #84

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at  AAA CAS Cards
The theme for this one is 'watercolour' and here's my card followed by a little photo inspiration for you too ...

Our sponsor for this one is Uniko and I couldn't resist playing with the

Beautiful Blooms III set here. The flowers are watercoloured using

distress inks then fuzzy cut and mounted on 3d foam. The sentiment

is from the Simply Said II set, also by Uniko

It's a Clean and Simple week over at Addicted to Stamps and More so

I'm heading over there with this card plus at Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday

Challenge it's all about fabulous florals so I can't resist an outing there too.

As always there's plenty more super CAS creations by my fellow teamies, 

with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Michelle Bala, a previous winner of our challenges, 

who is Guest Designing for this one. 

Do pop along and visit her blog and leave a friendly word and some love - 

I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope 

you feel inspired and will play along with us!

AAA CAS Cards Challenge #83

Hello there friends, it's time for another challenge over at 
AAA CAS Cards
The theme for this one is ' Shape Your Love' so it's a card featuring LOVE with the  optional twist to shape your card in some way! Here's my card, which didn't exactly turn  out how I'd planned but when time is precious you have to go with what you've got!

I've used the 'Love' word die from Impression Obsession but the negative portion, then I fuzzy cut around it, die-cut a stitched border along the base before popping onto a red card panel. To finish a little strip of red under the word to balance with the base of the card and some silver pearls for added interest.
Here's our photo inspiration for you and as always there's plenty more super CAS  creations by my fellow teamies, with links to their blogs on the AAA Cards blog HERE

We are also joined by Kylie, our sponsor for this one along with one of my super 

talented friends and teamies from Less is More; Sharon of From my Craft Desk

Sharon is a whizz on techniques and always comes up with clever CAS designs.

I'm sure she'd love a visit, Kylie too, so don't forget to head along to their

blogs for inspiration and to leave some friendly encouragement.

As mentioned above our sponsor for this challenge is Happy Little Stampers 

and our lucky winner will receive a $15 gift certificate.

As always thanks for calling by my blog today and I hope 

you feel inspired and will play along with us!