Anything Goes With CASE-ing The Catty

Helllllooooo everybody!!!

It’s been a crazy week here at Vintage Graffiti HQ with a Catalogue Launch Kitchen Tea to celebrate the release of our new 2015/2016 Annual Stampin’ Up! catalogue and also the ‘release day’ of the fabulous new 2015/2016 Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalogue on June 2nd. Finally, it’s here!

There has been quite a bit of fuss and excitement over this new release (as there always is)  and to celebrate it’s arrival, the CASE-ing The Catty Crew have been asked to feature anything from the catalogue that caught our eye when they first flicked through the catalogue!!!

You may have come here from the inspiring Jackie Noble’s blog or started from here, at my blog. Either way, enjoy your journey via the CTC Crew’s blog posts!

This week we are celebrating anything that caught our eye when we first saw the new Annual Catalogue. Flipping through it’s glorious 189 pages, my first choice had to be the beautiful ‘Watercolour Wings’ photopolymer stamp set and matching ‘Bold Butterfly’ Framelits on page 75! How can you go past these big, bold and beautiful butterflies combined with all things “in” at the moment which is definitely watercolour?! You just can’t! (And, seriously, how cute is that small butterfly Framelit!)

The gold twine and the cute little staple combined with the subtlety of the vellum and the bold colours of the butterfly really make this card special. Don’t you think?

My inspiration was to CASE the simple and lovely card at the top left of the page. We all love cards that look absolutely stunning and only take a few minutes to make. With the Watercolour Wings stamp set, this is definitely achievable. Great when you have multiple cards to make and not much time. And the Framelits make cutting it all out so much easier.

Now, I love simple. I do. But sometimes a card is just screaming out to be ‘”stepped up”! This was one of those cards. And even though I do love the card in the catalogue, I had to put my spin on it and create a Vintage Graffiti version.

I love to always try and matt my cards if I can and this one was no exception. Grabbing my new favourite colour (and we all know what this is by now, don’t we?), which also featured in my watercolour butterfly (even though layered with the yellows, it comes across as a much more vibrant green colour), I used it as the base of my card. And layered the Whisper White layer on top using Stampin’ Dimensionals. This always helps a card look a bit more detailed.

What do you think of my “stepped up” version?

I left the little stamped Pink Pirouette dots as the background as I love the delicate look they gave. These also featured in the first card. I also stepped up my card by adding some texture with our white jute ribbon and turning it into a banner and some loopy linen thread. Some basic pearls added to the body really set the butterfly off.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to look and read my blog. The next blog in the hop is Bronwyn Eastley. She had something really spectacular in store for you so quickly head on over!!!

Happy stamping,
From your favourite Vintage Graffiti artist,
Emma xo

Product List

• Watercolor Wings Photopolymer Bundle
• Whisper White A4 Card Stock
• Mint Macaron Classic Stampin’ Pad
• So Saffron Classic Stampin’ Pad
• Crushed Curry Classic Stampin’ Pad
• Smoky Slate Classic Stampin’ Pad
• White Vellum A4 Card Stock
• Handheld Stapler
• Gold Baker’s Twine

Watercolour Wonder-ing If I Can Do It

Inspiration comes from everywhere. And while I was quietly scouring online, I kept seeing cards, scrapbook pages and the such made with their own backgrounds and unique inky look and I was instantly in love! A little bit more scouring and I discovered that it was a ‘watercolouring technique’ that was being used solely using stamps, ink pads and of course, water.

I knew I just had to give this technique a go. And for my first try, I’m quite pleased with how it all turned out.

Totally In Love

The water colouring technique is quite simple and gives a dramatic effect. Simply spritz a piece of watercolour paper with water and then stamp with your selected stamp set (I used Mum’s Love from the current Occasions Catalogue for my design) as per normal. The image will bleed and run as it desires creating a beautiful design. You have no control of hat your design is going to do, so sit back and enjoy the spectacle and randomness of it all. I started with the lighter colours, layering and stamping and finishing of with the darker images. Once you are happy with our design, set aside to dry or you can speed up the process as I did and use a heat gun.

The bold colouring of the Blackberry Bliss ink perfectly balanced with the subtle tones of Soft Sky and Wild Wasabi

I can definitely see me using this technique a lot more in my designs, cards and classes in the future.

The addition of the punched Blackberry Bliss flower and the Basic Rhinestone are the perfect accompaniment along with the punched leaves from the Bird Builder punch.

The bold colours and the watercolour technique needed to be balanced and finished off with something just as beautiful. A hand punched flower with the Petite Petals punch and a heat embossed greeting from the And Many More stamp set on some vellum did just the trick. And, of course, you can never have too much bling!

A close up of the white heat embossed sentiment on the muted vellum paper.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. Keep updated with all the Vintage Graffiti happenings here and  also over on my Facebook page which you can find here.

Happy stamping,
From your favourite Vintage Graffiti Artist,
Emma xo

Love this project? Here are the supplies that I used. You can purchase all of these over at my store here.