A Nice Pear for Dad

A traditional male challenge at The Male Room this week: Fathers' Day, which is on Sunday, here in the UK in case you've forgotten. Actually I've spent most of the afternoon helping my son create a card for my other half, but I did find time to make this one, using a technique which I wanted to try out and entering a couple of  challenges at the same time.
I was intrigued by the challenge at Cas-ual Fridays- create a card for a male without using Kraft (easy!) and including a ribbon of some kind (which breaks all the rules for man cards having no fussy/frilly bits!). So I just had to try it. This is my card

The stamping is done by printing a background, stamping the image and then overlaying a top piece of card with an aperture cut out over the image stamped again and lining them up. This way there is no overhang, the image edges are crisp. I decided to offset my image this time.

For the ribbon I used a piece of striped DP (which you can see I used inside my card too) and overlaid a piece of Old Olive spotted and scalloped ribbon. The sentiment is from Best Dad Ever.
The second challenge is Make My Monday where they also want cards for males.

The card will be for my father, he lives in the next-door county to us- Worcestershire, and the emblem is a pear so it is quite fitting, green is also his favourite colour

Fruity Be My Valentine

Second Valentine card of the week and it's still over a week to go to Valentines' Day! This time though the challenge was to make a Valentines card for a man, for the challenge over at The Male Room So, I cheated a bit and asked my other half what he thought would be good, only one thing came out of our discussion, for him, ribbons/bows are a no-no on a mans card. So, left more or less to my own devices, here's what I came up with

I used a stamp set called fruit and flowers, and it was only after stamping and masking that I realised that I had two of each- then I made the sentiment on my computer. The circles are actually apertures and the DP has a textured surface, which doesn't show up so well, but complements the Naturals White card I used for the images (the card base is actually Kraft).  I found two sparkly hearts lurking at the bottom of my ebellies box and added them and the other sentiment is from Delightful Dozen.
I think my husband will like this one, we'll see ;)

It Must Be Wimbledon!

Strange title?  Well, it's Wimbledon time and for me that means...no, not tennis - strawberries!
I love them, I especially like picking them at the fruit farm, or if I'm very lucky from my garden, all warm from the sunshine, sweet and juicy...yuuummm.
Next best thing to eating them is making a card with a strawberry theme and that's just what I've done for the sketch challenge this week from CAS-Colours and Sketches. This is the sketch -it's a beauty, isn't it?

For the main image on my card I used two stamp sets - Fruit and Flowers and French Foliage (closest I had to strawberry leaves)

I stamped some leaves onto the card blank, then layered up fussy-cut fruit and more leaves. The inside is stamped with more strawberries and leaves, but you'll have to take my word for it as I forgot to photograph the inside. The sentiment stamp is from Friendly Phrases. Here's a close up of those strawberries- I finished them off with some Glossy Accents to make them even more dimensional

I hope you enjoy the tennis, if you're a fan, and have a strawberry or two (I especially like mine dipped in dark chocolate!).
I've found a couple of challenges out in blogland into which I'm going to pop my card. Kreativeinkauf -The Challenge Blog -a German site where the theme is Strawberries (perfect!) - I love that this whole craft thing is worldwide, and A Little Bit Crafty Challenge Blog  where the challenge is A Little Bit Sweet

Card with a peg

Sorry, couldn't think of a better name for this post! As January has 5 Thursdays, for this 'extra' week we are giving you a combined sketch and colour challenge at CAS -Colours and Sketches

Don't forget you don't have to use exact Stampin' Up colours, just the best match, but do stick to just those colours please if you want to be considered for top 3.

I stamped quite a bit this time, unusually for me. I used a set called Fruit and Flowers and overstamped a panel, which I matted onto Indigo Island CS. I stamped extra flowers which I cut out and I used the sentiment from Sassy Salutations. The peg and ribbon are my little extra touches and you will see that I have decorated the inside of my card too

Do have a look at the other fabulous creations from the DT and I can't wait to see all your lovely cards too!

Mmm Strawberries

Over on St Luke's Charity Cards blog there is a challenge for one layer cards. Now, I'm not good at one layer..I'm much too messy and prone to splodging, but here is my card.  I embossed the dots and sentiment and then stamped the delicious-looking strawberry from SUs Fruit and Flowers, using my promarkers I added the green tops and shading.  A dotty ribbon and little bow along the edge and I added red bling 'hightlights' to the strawberries. Mmm good enough to eat!  I will be sending my card off to the charity so, hopefully, they will be able to sell it and raise a little money. St Lukes charity cards challenge

Another Pair!

I have had another go at the Perfect pairs challenge for Simply Stamping.  This time I chose a colour combination that I rarely use; poppy parade and very vanilla.  I made the little rosettes and stamped and embossed flowers from Fruit and Flowers to make the centres. I made my background paper using the script stamp from my latest stamp set Charming. The sentiment is one from my stash and fits the theme quite nicely.Simply Stamping ;Perfect Pairs Finally I added a flourish of bling to balance the whole thing.