Butterflies And Grunge

Five weeks in July means that it's the double challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. I've scheduled this post since I am on holiday this week with my other half, at the coast in Morocco, but I had fun with this one before I left, such a classic CAaS design

I don't very often use butterflies, not sure why, but this time I went all out, using a couple of stamp sets, Papillon Potpourri and Backyard Basics, to which I added Gorgeous Grunge and Pennant Parade. As you can see I have turned the sketch and used a square card blank and I moved the sentiment to the banner. I was going to add a sentiment in the bottom corner but it looked too busy, I guess because my butterflies and grunge are larger than the sketch suggests.

A close up shows that the one banner is stamped whilst the other was stamped and cut out before being popped up on foam pads. I have to confess that my green, ink and mat, are Gumball Green, not Wild Wasabi as I don't own the latter, but I think it matches the challenge close enough, after all we don't insist on Stampin Up colours at all, 

Faux Pinwheel card

Look out for the new challenge this morning at CAS Colours& Sketches. It's a sketch and it's a really great one, where there are so many different ways of using it.

I had all sorts of stamp sets out on my table for this one, but in the end I saw something on the internet that I wanted to try. It's called a faux pinwheel.

The other change I made is that I decided not to go with the square cards I usually do but to go tall and thin. I moved the panel up to the top of the card, as you can see.

  The sentiment is from Sweet Cake, one of the sets I was originally going to use, stamped in Daffodil Yellow

The card panels I used for the faux pinwheel, the closest match for Coastal Cabana, I embossed, using a Patchwork embossing folder. By carefully positioning the squares of card on the folder I could get a different effect on each square with just one pass through the Big Shot. The red, coral  and yellow DPs are all from my Stampin' Up stash, as is the giant brad. The pinwheel does actually turn as I only attached it using the brad.

If you are wondering about the colours, I had a little help from

The ColourQ Challenge with these gorgeous summery shades

Spots and Stripes

Hey! It's holiday time! Hopefully this will mean more crafting time for me and I started well by making a few cards for the up and coming challenges at The Male Room so that I can schedule them while I'm on holiday and not miss a week!
I started with this one

I just love this one! So easy to crate masculine projects using spots and stripes. I changed my mind several times before going with ties...

I chose a stripy DP and covered the card base before cutting the aperture. Then I stamped the ties from Best Dad Ever in Calypso Coral, Mossy Meadow and a berry red and cut them out. I positioned them in the aperture, centrally, the middle one is popped up on foam pads. Using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig I could position the greeting.

When the card is opened the ties are inside.

CAS Cupcake Card

As it says in the title of my blog, cupcakes are a favourite theme of mine. In fact, I think cake is my favourite food! So I'm happy to share another cupcake card with you for the new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches
It is a colour week and we have a very delicious trio of colours for you, featuring Melon Mambo

I am also entering the challenge at Casology where the cue word is Cupcake.

I stamped the two parts of the cupcake using Create a Cupcake and added some Bermuda Bay sprinkles and a Melon Mambo coloured flower brad. I have a difficult time with bling and CAS, I love both and they don't always go together, certainly you can't overdo bling on a CAS card, but I think I've kept it to a minimum here. I used the Cupcake Builder punch and added the cupcake to the front of the card where I had ready stamped the greeting, using Early Expresso.

I quite liked the clean and simple look of this card left how it is, but I did want to use the embossing for the challenge at Cas-ual Fridays

I have used a really old embossing folder, one of the first craft things I ever bought. I cut the aperture first, before embossing.

I used foam pads to give depth to the aperture. These second photos were taken indoors, they show up the embossing better but it does give the white card a kind of blue cast.

Here is the detail of the cupcake in the centre.

...and Crazy Cats

Here's my card for this week's sketch challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.

 I knew straight away that I wanted to use the cats from You Little Furball to make the circles.

I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to get the positioning of the cats exactly as I wanted them before adding the lower border.

 The colour choice was determined by the self adhesive ribbons which I used to make the horizontal stripes for the sketch. These have been in my stash for ages and ages, so glad I remembered them as they go perfectly. The sentiment is from Best Dad Ever.

Crazy Horses

Had one of those, rare these days, real have a card idea that I want to get made as soon as I got a chance. It is for The Male Room, where today's challenge is to make a card inspired by a song title. Are you old enough to remember The Osmonds? If so, this one will strike a chord with you.

Crazy Horses..... These ones are rising out of a foaming sea scape in the light of a full moon....

I love these Inkognito stamps from Visible Image. I stamped the flourish from the set in versamark and clear embossed these before stamping more on top in Lost Lagoon and Island Indigo. Then I stamped the three horses, before blending the colours over the top of a circular mask to make the moon. Wiping off the excess ink allows the white to show through. 

I made two cards, but some inky mishaps when stamping the sentiment meant that I needed a few stars in my sky. I am not sure if this is then completely suitable as a masculine card, although I actually prefer this second one myself

Cup Cake Latch Card

CAS colours & Sketches have a new colour challenge, out yesterday, but this week just slipped away from me (again!) so I'm a day late with my post. Did make the card yesterday but just couldn't get round to posting it until after work today.

I needed to make a Latch card for a card swap group I am part of and decided to use that idea when making my DT card. I used Big Day for the sentiment and Cupcake Builder for the smaller cakes.
I found a piece of polka dot DP in the correct shade

Here you can see the cupcake on the latch, popped up on foam pads.

The middle cake is actually the latch, which holds the card closed

This is the final version of the card, no longer so CAS, with the addition of some grosgrain edged ribbon, pearly sprinkles and a shiny cherry on the top of each cake and a small flower on the cake cases. This is the card I will be entering in the red, white and blue challenge at Seize The Birthday and sending to my swap partner today...hope she likes it!