mama CAS?!

the other day stephanie found a cardmaking challenge with an "aloha" theme... which is totally up my alley, eh? except the blog in question was addicted to CAS, and as anyone who's ever been to my blog for more than 30 seconds can tell you, i can't do "clean and simple" to save my life. don't get me wrong, it's a style i love, and i sooooo admire the people who can pull it off, but it's just not my thing. funnily enough, though, i couldn't quite stop thinking about the fact that i just AUTOMATICALLY decided not to even consider taking part. that kind of knee-jerk decision worries me a bit. because a lot of times when we're saying, "i can't" what we really mean is, "i won't"; and the reasons why we won't might have more to do with habit and comfort zone than actual skill. i should also mention that all of this took place on the last day of our "art camp" vacation, during which we make a point to experiment and try new things. so in the end, i decided i owed it to myself to have a go. i made three cards, but only this top one is for the official addicted to CAS "codeword: aloha" challenge!

cardstock: bazill; tapes: love my tapes, heidi swapp, freckled fawn; vellum letters: amy tangerine/american crafts; palm tree paper: sandylion; hula girls: long's drugs, ala moana center, waikiki; adhesives: 3m foam tape

i can't say i'm in love with any of these, but they're all fun and they're definitely quite pared down. i've put them into the post in reverse order of making them. the white one above was made last, and is the one that's closest to the picture i had in my head. it has the most white space, and it has the most color, too, which probably makes it more appealing to me. also, it features a couple of the tiny hula dancer stickers i got at long's drugs in waikiki.

the middle card is more masculine... it has a cool tiki guy and a surf board and one of my all-time favorite eyelet outlet washi tapes with clouds on it:

cardstock: paper accents; cloud washi: eyelet outlet; stickers: creative imaginations, jolee's; vintage sheet music copied onto an inkjet transparency; adhesives: elmer's brand glue tape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine 

finally, here's the card i made first, and about which there is some debate as to whether it's "really CAS" or not. some people may consider that the palm tree cuts too far in to the white space; though i'd argue that a card with a total of FIVE THINGS on it and a plain cardstock background is sort of automatically clean and simple, but then a maximalist like myself would say that, right?!

cardstock: core'dinations; stickers: creative imaginations, jolee's; vintage sheet music copied onto an inkjet transparency; adhesives: elmer's brand glue tape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine 

so has all of this converted me to the true path of minimalist design? well, no, not really. i'm probably still a "more is more" kind of gal at heart. i did enjoy the challenge, though, and i'm proud to have produced cards that i think are rather nice, and quite pared down. will i be attempting CAS again? sure! not today, though; today i'm going to dive head first into a giant pile of vintage paper and attempt to use as much as possible on ONE PROJECT, lol! :)