Shaving Foam CAS

It's CAS time again as a new challenge begins at CAS Colours and Sketches and this week it's the turn of the sketch

Super-CAS this one! I've kept strictly to the sketch. I used some of my favourite card stock, Blackberry Bliss for the mat.

The sentiment is die cut out of a piece of card which I coloured using the shaving foam technique. This is one MESSY technique but I just love the results. I only have three reinkers but I had such fun with this I think I might buy some more. 

The card started because I wanted the negative of this sentiment die for another project, but couldn't bring myself to throw away the die cut. Teamed up on the rich purple card and with a single rhinestone to wish upon my card was quickly put together. 

May be its too CAS for some, but it has interest in the sentiment and is quite something in real life. I am really looking forward to seeing what you will make of this sketch.

Cake Anyone?

The colours in today's challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches just said "cake" to me. I LOVE cake, and I love making cards with cake too.

Imagine my excitement when I saw the cue word at Addicted to CAS .....

I used an old cupcake embossing folder, which I think I've never actually used before and the So Saffron card stock. I don't actually have Soft Suede ink or card so I have had to make a substitute here, which is allowable under our rules. 

The sentiment is half of an image from the stamp set Big Day, and the red card I made by swiping my Rose Red ink pad over some white card and leaving it to dry

So where is the other half of the sentiment? Why, inside the card, of course!

I'm also entering this card into the birthday challenge at SeizeThe Birthday As I like to play over there when I can, and the optional 'topping' this time is CAS...my favourite style!

Once I had the design idea actually making the card was quite quick, it did take a few experiments  with the colours as to what part of the card I would use. I think it would look good with the brown card stock for the cake and the white for the cup cake case too. I did try to use the Rose Red for the strawberries but couldn't quite get it right. I'd be interested to hear any suggestions of how to do this.

Boy's Birthday

Hi there! I was up early this morning to get my DT card ready for The Male Room. I had woken up with a few ideas running around my head and just had to jump straight out of bed and start crafting! It's a chilly morning too, frost, ice and fog here in Herefordshire.
I rarely make cards for children, there aren't any in our family at the moment, children are grown up, no grandchildren or great nephews or nieces around yet, so I was a bit stuck for stamps until I remembered Rev up The Fun.

I used a sentiment image which I must admit I have no idea where it is from or what it's called ( if you can tell me I'd be very pleased, as I would like to get this one). I used it a couple of years ago at a craft club workshop and stamped it a few times on different papers.

Then I cut a dark blue mat, paper pieced the letters and made a panel for the bottom. I heat embossed the car image to make it shiny.

I think this would be a good car for my sons when they were small. The both loved playing with their toy cars, building roads and sticking them up in the large plastic garage...happy days!

Penguin Power

Starting to get a bit colder these past few days, I for one would like an end to the rain and a bit of chilly winter weather, crisp frosty mornings, may be even a little snow. We never seem to want what we get, weather-wise, do we?
My card this morning will help a bit, it's a birthday card for my husband. With a birthday in January it's sometimes hard to get inspiration, but I made a New Years card with this spinning mechanism and he was very impressed, so I thought I'd make one especially for him. It did help that the sketch at CAS Colours & Sketches works perfectly!

I used my favourite method of making snowy backgrounds, ripped strips of white paper, layered over each other and a square of graduated card for the sea/sky. Using my nesting ovals I cut out the large aperture and the smaller centre.

First I placed the 'frame' on the card base and then I could position the inner oval using foam pads. I used the same foam pads to add the landscape panel.

Finally, I stamped and coloured a couple of penguins, from Zoo Review, and mounted them onto a another oval, this time cut out from white card.

Can a moving card be clean and simple? I think so, but maybe my ripped snow is not quite as CAS as I would like. There is a bare minimum of embellishment, with just a touch of Dazzling Details, as my husband is not particularly into sparkle and bling!  My idea was that the Penguins would dive in and out of the 'sea', which I have not really achieved but I still like the card and I'm not sure that he will even notice!

Anyway, I then went back to my crafting desk and 'distilled' this card into a much more CAS version

To improve on the design I gave my penguin some birthday balloons ....

...and no ripped paper or Dazzling Details!

The following three photos show that the card really does move, thanks to a 2p piece, inserted between the two raised parts. The difficult bit is getting the foam pads in the right place; close enough so the coin does not fall through and yet far enough away from the aperture so that it can run smoothly

We have a much bigger DT team now and so there are lots of beautiful cards to help you out with this sketch, as if you need it! Looking forward to seeing some awesome cards!

Happy New Year Take 2

I have taken a few weeks break from crafting to celebrate first Christmas and then the New Year with family and friends, back to work this week and so I just managed to squeeze in some crafting at the weekend. It always takes a while to get back into the swing of things, I find, but I knew what I wanted to craft and this card is already winging its way to its recipient...hope she likes it! It's for the first challenge of 2016 at CAS Colours and Sketches

I found a template for this fold in my crafting stash, which got a good clear out over the holiday. It is made from one sheet of A4, folded into quarters, then two of the edges are folded over again and a cut made half way up the centre fold. The card cleverly folds over to create the three layers in the corner, hope you can see what I mean in the bottom photograph.

I used my Pennant punch and some coordinating papers to make a banner, to which I have stuck some 3D numbers. I layered up the large Nd small pennants from the punch to add depth to my bunting and used grey and white twine to make the string.

In one corner I have added more DP and I finished the card with a row of "hello" stamped in the three challenge colours

I hope I can remember how to make this card again, it's such a clever fold which can still stay true to the idea of clean and simple. 

Happy New Year

It seems such a long time since I posted on here. Just want to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year with lots of fun, laughter and, of course, crafting. I'm so looking forward to 2016- I was very lucky to receive tickets for some awesome events for Christmas, so I will be off to London soon for the first one of those, to see WarHorse in the West End, before it closes in March.
Anyway, back to today, here are a couple of New Year cards I've made for the Anything Goes challenge at The Mail Room. The inspiration for both came from some sheets of A4 patterned paper which I was given a few years ago! (New Year Resolution- stop hoarding paper!). I used my nesting star dies and layered up the large stars

In both cases I used part of a sentiment from the set Happy Hour (the only new year greeting I could find) and stamped in Versamark and embossed in silver. On the second card I was brave enough to do this direct on the large star.

That's all really. Not very complicated, the paper is the main POI and it is glittery, adding texture and bling but in a masculine way. Yesterday, when I made them the white one was my favourite, today, looking at these photos I like the blue one best!

Hope 2016 is amazing for you!