Monday 2 September 2013

3 UP Night Three: Cat's Meow

Well I am quite confident that the #3Upsters who got put into this 'team' for tonight's posts certainly got a bit of a shock to find these in their envelopes. It's fair to say, the Cat's Meow series of stamps are not at all a style that we are known for, but I have always championed them. I really like the retro, quirky feel to them, and thus selected a retro colour scheme for the challenge, so they got a 1970's selection of orangey-green tones. 

But first let me show you a few samples using these stamps from days gone by:

by Marieke Blokland
Designed by the lovely Marieke Blokland, from the Netherlands back in 2004. They have had a couple of re-formats size-wise from the original concept, and they currently are what I call 1/3 of an A4 size, sort of like a  standard business envelope size.

by Marieke Blokland

Marieke is a superb graphic designer, she designs funky fonts, has her own Bloknote YouTube channel and lives and breathes PaperCrafting. We were thrilled when she created for us this wonderful blend of hand-drawn imagery with retro font arrangements and buckets of her quirky sense of humour to bring these stamps to life. 

by Marieke Blokland
I think Marieke's stamps are ideal for scrapbooking style projects, and they also make very cool retro cards, gift tags and so forth. So, take a look, you get LOADS on a plate, so they are also great value for money.

By Eli Persson
As you know, tonight's 3Up-sters have had a month to twiddle with these to create a project to share with you tonight. The stamps we allocated randomly, so no thought was given to the preferred stamping style of each 3UP-ster Some people are in their element, and others are right out of their comfort zone. However, this is a challenge, and I think tonight's crowd have certainly been challenged much more than they anticipated. But they all came up trumps, lets see!






So who is up tonight?

Who: Lesley Ebdon
Twitter:  @Craftymamma2

stamps Lesley used:
Cat's Meow Collection: Bloom

Lesley Says: Hi, my name is Lesley and I live in Nottinghamshire just down the road from Robin Hood’s old haunts, lol! I’m known as Craftymamma to my friends in the blogging world @craftymamma2 on Twitter, where this brilliant challenge of Leandra’s began.  I’ve been a lifelong crafter in one form or another but my rubber stamp obsession began about 6 years ago.  I’m not sure I have a particular ‘style’ as I like to have a dabble at everything from clean and simple to ‘throw everything bar the kitchen sink at it’.


The Challenge: My package from PaperArtsy consisted of the Bloom set of stamps from The Cat’s Meow range, 3 pieces of greyboard, 3 pieces of Smoothy white heavyweight stamping card, ribbon, decorative bobbles and a colour swatch.  


I used these to decorate a triple icon style wooden frame which I painted inside and out with Fresco Paints applied with a brush and then with a baby wipe to get a streaky effect. I then gave it a heavy sanding especially on the edges before decorating the inside with stamps from the set using Archival inks.  I created a cute little scene stamped onto the Smoothy card, again using Archival Inks and also marker pens. I used marker pens and Fresco paints to colour and added a heart charm to the signpost .  


The single words and watering cans were stamped onto Smoothy card, cut out and added to the frame with 3D foam.  On the outside of the ‘doors’ I applied Fresco paints through a stencil with cut-n-dry foam.  I die cut the leafy flourishes and a bird from the greyboard, ran the bird pieces through an embossing folder and then painted them all with various Fresco paints, adding a little Treasure Gold to the embossed areas on the bird and then glued these to the frame.  Finally, I used a PaperArtsy flower die to cut some flower layers from the paper pieces in the colour swatch (couldn’t bear to waste them) and added bobbles to the centres before gluing them to the front of the frame with the ribbons looped behind.


Who: Lin Shields
Twitter: @Lin1923

stamps Lin used:
Cats Meow Collection - Safari
Lin Says: I live in Hertfordshire with my O/H Andy our son and our 2 cats. I also have a lovely daughter and 3 grandsons. My usual style of crafting is mixed media, I love my journals although I am still pretty new to it I am also into altered art. I love anything PaperArtsy and have learned an awful lot from Leandra and Lin Brown.


The Challenge: I can honestly say this challenge has definitely taken me out of my comfort zone and the finished piece is so not me!! But we all have to do things differently from time to time I suppose. I know Leandra  knew I would 'like' my envelope.... NOT …she even told me lol !! So the theme is less is more for my submission. The stamps are very plain and I wracked my brain…what to do with them??? 



I just stamped directly onto smoothy white card and coloured with prismas and a tiny bit of fresco paint. 


I couldn’t use the hanging board for the cards, as the images were too big, so I cut off the string and used a small piece on each card. I made a tiny bow and stuck it in the corner along with 3 of the eyelets to balance the cards.
 


Who: Helen 
Twitter: @stampingbyH

Stamps Helen Used: 
Cats Meow Collection - Cat
Helen says: Hi, I am Helen, from Sutton in Surrey.  I have been a stamper for nearly 20 years, but now I am more often found playing with paint in my journals. I love all things grungy, but I have a wide range of favourite styles – it depends what mood I’m in!  Lately I have been keen to get into mixed media crafting


The Challenge: For my #3UP challenge, I received a set of stamps from the Cat’s Meow range (Cat), some flowers and a wooden box as my substrate.   

The stamps were a real challenge and in the end I only used one from the set.  I painted the box with Haystack, adding Hey Pesto, Chocolate Pudding and SmokedPaprika, wiping the colours back and adding more till I was happy with the blend.


I stamped the border round all the edges of the box, and on some tissue paper which I painted with Smoked Paprika which I then cut out and fixed to the lid with Satin Glaze. I then painted the substrate with Satin Glaze and positioned some of the flowers with some idea-ology on the lid to embellish.



Who: Tracey
Twitter:  @AcraftyPunum
stamps Tracey used: 
Cat's Meow Collection - Cheese
Tracey Says: Hi, I'm Tracey. I live in Suffolk and have a 9 to 5 office job but most of all I’m a lover and addict of all things altered art and paper crafting.  I lost my crafting mojo a couple of months ago but when I noticed the challenge posted on Twitter I wanted to be involved.  So this is my first project in months and I wasn’t sure where to start when my parcel arrived.  



The Challenge: After much consideration, I decided to keep my piece pretty simple by inking, spritzing and stamping the canvas before adding some texture and treasure gold.  I wanted the ‘Cheese’ stamp set and embellishments received to be the main feature of the hanging.  I’ve loved being involved and wish PaperArtsy a very happy birthday!




Who: Carol Quance
Twitter:  @CarolQuance
stamps Carol used: 
Cat's Meow Collection - Home

Carol Says: Apparently my crafting style is “old school”  PMSL
When I initially received my #3UP package I realised it was right outside my comfort zone and I hadn’t a clue what to do.  What with one thing and another, it got left to the last possible moment and there’s no doubt panic really concentrates the mind!


The Challenge: I started by colouring the large piece of Stampbord and stamped it with the wood grain stamp.  I etched the wood grain slightly to highlight it. As I was without ideas, I stamped up a number of the images from the plate, coloured them in and started arranging them on the Stampbord.  I finally came up with the idea of a new address notification that you could give to someone in the form of a plaque. 

The wood frame was covered with scrapbook paper in the appropriate colour scheme. The Stampbord was glued to it and I added the various images.  I used 3D foam to add dimension.
 

On the back I used some more paper to cover the raw frame.  A smaller piece of same paper was mounted on a black background to add a very fine border and I did some doodling round the edges to make it stand out.  Finally I stamped the “Home Sweet Home” stamp leaving space for the new address to be added below.
 

32 comments:

Unknown said...

Another stunning crop of projects. Well done everyone.

Unknown said...

Great projects ladies! x

Mark said...

Are these Paperartsy stamps ?! Never seen them before! These are nice projects from everyone.

Julie Lee said...

You've all done wonders!!! I've always avoided these stamps, as I'm so cowardly when out of my comfort zone - you've won me over to 'The Cat's Meow' with these great projects! Julie Ann xxx

Anonymous said...

Great projects from everyone, I love how they're all so different.

Helen said...

Well, I think we all did pretty well with these challenging stamps... Well done, fellow #3UPpers!

Miriam said...

Such lovely projects. Well done everyone

Kazkrafts said...

wow, well done ladies, these would have stumped me!!! fantastic samples, I also love the very first sample too, awesome colours!!

Darcy Marshall said...

Amazing projects again, I am sure these stamps were hard for a lot of people but wow you really pulled together some great stuff. Well done everyone.

finnella03 said...

Great projects, you guys really got the difficult one but you did fantastic, I don't know why you were so worried Lin!

sam21ski said...

Oh my life, you poor sweet people. Know I understand why some of you were having soooo much trouble, but I have to say each and every one of you has risen to the challenge and done a sterling job with your package!!

Well done!!

Sam xxx

massofhair said...

Well done everyone:-)

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful set of projects. Love these stamps!!!!

Craftyfield said...

I would have been challenged with those stamps too... I didn't even know they existed! But the #3Up team didn't disappoint and rose to the challenge.

Kathi said...

Those are cute sets of stamps, but I can see where they could be incredibly challenging.

This #3Up team did a fabulous job creating wonderful and diverse projects.

Color me impressed.

jojo79 said...

Well done everyone, you have all done a great job with a challenging set of stamps.

Jo
x

Jacqui Chimes said...

Really great projects - well done all

humel said...

Wowee - very different! Well done twits, good job :) Can't help wondering what I'd have done with one of those packs lol... Well done to all of you!

Sandie said...

Love those stamps and what a great job everyone has done with them!! Such variety and talent.

Keren Baker said...

What? you have these stamps?! That's a shocker. Love some of the sets! Great projects again!

ionabunny said...

Love the tortoise. More stamps I have never seen but as I'm not the only one...... Hey Leandra I love this stamp that came in my monster box, OK I love more than this one but this one is fab http://craftynomad.blogspot.no/2013/09/a-little-luck.html Thanks for hooking us up....

ionabunny said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rebecca said...

Well done everyone with a really difficult challenge, aren't you clever girlies, super :)
Happy craftin
Rebecca

Unknown said...

That was a tough challenge!! Well done to all, really clever designs x

craftimamma said...

I think we deserve a pat on the back fellow teamies, lol! Brilliant stuff and I have to confess I really have developed a fondness for my little gardening friend.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

Cindy Christoffel said...

quite the challenging stamps!! I am not sure what I would have done with them...but the samples above are marvelous! bravo ladies!!

Sid said...

Once more, loads of inspiration here !

Minxy said...

Oh MY... Looks like everyone had there creative juices well and truely squeezed.. but all rose to the challenge very well xo

Alison said...

I can honestly say I've never seen those stamps before, & I would have been miles from my comfort zone! But these 3UP troupers have all come up trumps with their fabulous projects! Well done everyone!
Alison xxx

Trish said...

Well done - an unusual set of stamps, and you all made such great creations!

Gillian .... said...

It is great to see everyone's interpretation using the same stamp collection. Fab work #3upsters x

Words and Pictures said...

So cool to see this completely different style of stamp being used so inventively - fabulous projects!
Alison x