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

blog: http://craftymammalovenhugs.blogspot.co.uk

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

blog: http://artfromherts.blogspot.co.uk/

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

 Blog: http://stampingbyh.blogspot.co.uk 

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

blog: http://punums.blogspot.co.uk/

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

blog: http://alcoholinky.blogspot.co.uk/

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.