Easter Bunny

If you are a frequent visitor to my blog, or, dare I say it, a follower, you will know that I don't do cute very often. Nothing against it, just doesn't come to mind, but this week for CAS Colours & Sketches I have one to share with you. I saw these super cute Easter stickers and bought them last year, intending to make cards, but never got around to it. When I found them again in my stash and I looked at the sketch for today's challenge I knew what I wanted to do.

 We are always happy for you to change the shape, as I have done, just as long as the basic sketch can still be seen. I was going to use a double line of washi tape, but then my inner stamper saw Nature Walk, left out on my table from another card and so.....

The Easter Bunny, with his eggs all lined up. The sentiment is from Delightful Dozen.

You can see here that the bunny is a bit 3D. I had to move him over s

slightly as he did look rather odd sitting on those eggs!

Look out for another cute card from me coming soon too, couldn't resist it.

A Study in Purple

Long and thin, no, I'm not talking about me, unfortunately, just my card for this week's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches where we have a new colour challenge, chosen by Stef

This looks like an awesome combination, just up my street, as they say, me being a purple and silver fan. However, I have to admit that I don't get on withElegant Eggplant. On the case of the ink pad it's a gorgeous deep purple, but when I stamp it it always looks black. So, stamp it off, I hear you say! Then it looks grey.

I am hoping SU will bring out a better purple soon, but enough moaning, where's the card???

I used Work Of Art to create the three colour blocks and then had to wait before I could stamp the seed head in Versamark to heat emboss in silver.

The vertical greeting was in the freebie magazine set I used to make my oriental themed card a couple of weeks ago. It's the only one I have, although I always look out for more. I used elegant eggplant card stock for the mat.

Back To Nature

ive called my post back to nature because I rediscovered an old stamp set of mine, Nature Walk. Haven't used it in ages, but today I need a masculine card for The Male Room and I always thought it made great cards for men. The challenge is keep your card monochromatic

I used shades of brown, specifically Kraft, which I used for the card base, and Chocolate Chip, which I used for the images.

For clean and simple cards I really like the feel of abstract colouring you get by stamping an image over a lock of colour

I used Chocoale Chip cardstock for a minimal border

And my final touch was a single feather stamped on the inside corner

I have to admit this was a 5 minute card, but sometimes that's just what you need. I certainly enjoyed revisiting an old favourite stamp set and teaming it up with a new one for a whole new look.

Love Is In The Air

I have one more Valentine card to share with you. This is also for CAS Colours & Sketches but this time it is based on a sketch. Look at this, isn't it a super CAS design...

I looked around for a colour challenge to help me and found this luscious combo over at The Colour Q, I think my 'inner beader' was attracted by the photo.

I die cut the 'love in a white card mat and used the matt gold behind the card. Then I searched for a range of hearts, stamps and punches- as you can see my range was not very extensive!

I stamped oome heart in Pink Pirouette (it is so pale!) onto the card and then stamped other hearts onto scrap pieces, which I then fussy cut out. I chose the ones I like the best

I punched out a heart from the palest pink card stock but couldn't match the Melon Mambo ink, so I ran the ink pad over a small piece of white card and punched the tiny heart out of that.

I like CAS cards with no edge when the white layer is popped up on foam pads, which is what I've done here. For a finishing touch I die cut the word you from the same Matt gold card and stuck it inside. 

There are a few Valentine challenges around so I'm going to pop my card into the challenge at 

CAS on Sunday too.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, whether or not you're celebrating Valentines Day. This year my hubby and I are planning a romantic get away for the night, with dinner, at a hotel in The Netherlands, as part of a family visit....feeling just a little bit spoiled already.

Sweet Cake Valentine

I thought I'd better get a smooch on and make a Valentines card or two. My excuse was the new colour challenge from CAS Colours & Sketches, where our new hostess for February is Stef. She's chosen these really pretty colours, perfect for the occasion and my inspiration for what to do with the colours came from CAS On Sunday where they have a technique challenge - paper piecing.

 You might recognise this one, Sweet Cake. It's an old, retired SU stamp but I still think it's got mileage in it and I thought it would look really good with paper piecing.

Of course, I've kept it really CAS on a white card base. I used three different papers plus the melon mambo card and ink. When I needed a cherry on the top I used my cupcake builder punch, it matches perfectly.

I Think I'm Turning Japanese.....

A little bit of zen going on my blog this morning, well, that was my inspiration for my card for The Male Room, where the new challenge is to create a masculine project inspired by the Orient.

I wanted to create a zen garden on a card

I used Adventure Bound DP to cover the front of the card. I blended various greens and blues to make the water and splodged on some water droplets to create rain drops on water effect. The two fish are from a magazine freebie set, as are the Chinese characters.

I added a touch of gold to the fish and some die cut leaves to overhang the 'pond'

The layers are black and gold and inside I have made a liner and stamped the greeting, with what looks like a Chinese or Japenese translation (it's not really, that would be very impressive!)

I used a sentiment from Wetlands, very appropriate!

Hope you get chance to play along and create something masculine and Oriental....think sushi, karate, samurai, lanterns, anything you like!