CAS Floral Birthday

Its holiday season and like many people I am scheduling this post to go live when I am away, I hope it works and you are seeing this for the first time on the right day at the right time! It's my DT card for this week's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. 

It's a fab sketch, so many possibilities. I knew what I wanted to do as soon as I saw it...

Using Kinda Eclectic and Stippled Blossoms, I dropped the design to the bottom of the card so that the sentiment, from Fabulous Four, could take centre stage. The border is hand drawn. Inside I have stamped a traditional Happy Birthday greeting.

I kept the card monochromatic, using just Primrose Petals, stamped off to create the lighter tones on the flower and just coloured in a few stamens on each bloom

I don't often use flowers on my cards, but when I do it is often using this two step stamping set. I do like the effect it creates. Fussy cutting out the two blooms and using foam pads on one gives some easy layers whilst keeping things CAS with lots of white space.

Just noticed the date I'm scheduling this post for and it is my wedding anniversary today! 26 years! I expect we will be celebrating somewhere, it will be ' Our Day'.

Third Time Lucky

This is a tale of three cards. I got up early to make my DT card for the new colour challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. I needed to make a few cards in advance because I will be off on holiday again next week, so I wrote the challenges down and started selecting stamp sets, inks, card stock and so on. I finished the first card quite easily, ideas were flowing and I made all the ones I needed by lunch time. Then I went to upload my card on the blog and realised I'd got the colour palette wrong! Instead of

..I had used Blushing Bride, So Saffron and ....green! Oh no! So I got all my stuff out again (I don't have a craft room, just a dining table) after dinner and made another card. Correct colours, all was fine and here it is...

I used the small flower stamp from Bloomin' Marvellous and an embossing folder I've had for years. I used tone on tone stamping and added a small embellishment in the centre of the flowers. It wasn't until I took the photo that I noticed a glue smear on the top- disaster for a clean and simple card. 

My third and final offering is this one, using Mosaic Madness, Wisteria Wonder card stock, a pale pink card blank which will pass for Blushing Bride and the embossed sentiment cut out of the previous card (waste not, want not, as they say)

I actually like this card the best, I think it makes the most of these soft, pastel shades. I do hope you have more success than I did when you make your card

Life's a Beach

Just back from a week's holiday in Morroco with my lovely husband, rest and relaxation was the order of the day. We were staying right on the coast at Essouria and so I have watched some gorgeous sunsets, the inspiration for my card today for the new challenge at The Male Room.

I used Wetlands and Work of Art for this one and created a sunset

I love both of these stamp sets so much, Work Of Art is just so versatile and Wetlands is perfect for masculine cards. If you look closely you will see that I've added some guilding flakes to the sun's reflection on the sea.

I haven't added a sentiment yet, I think this card could be used for a variety of occasions so I will add the sentiment inside later.

Looking forward to my next holiday now, which will also feature the beach as we are off, as a family this time, to discover the coastline of Florida. Of course, the kids have also insisted on some time in Orlando to visit some of the theme parks!

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.