Dogs like cake too!

 
I needed a card for a friend's birthday this week so decided to use the sketch at seize the birthday as my jumping off point http://seizethebirthday.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/seize-birthday-19-sketch-by-jen-nelson.html and as I do like a bit of bling, I opted to use this week's paper players CAS with bling challenge for further inspiration http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/challenge-150-anne-maries-cas-challenge.html

I used an older stamp cos I love him and think it will appeal to my friend too - he's from whimsey (I think) and I coloured with warm grey copics, added teal to his party hat and some glitter to the frosting then fussy cut him out with a thin white border.  I used some teal DP to form the basis of the sketch, and then used my star border die from memory box die cut from purple to mount the dog into.  I finished with a matching banner and some teal bling.

Woof, woof, yum, yum!

Waltzing in the sunshine?

So, it's waltz day over at Waltzingmouse Makes and this month's theme is summertime fun  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/june-blog-partylets-have-little.html and I think Claire must have decided on this theme a while ago as there certainly hasn't been much sign of summer on this side of the pond so far this year!

Like many people who've linked up already, I naturally turned to My Island as my set to play with when thinking of sunshine and summer and I decided to use it to make a first anniversary card for my friends who got married in the Caribbean last summer.  I stamped the sunrise with 3 colours of ink onto a scrap of yellow card and then added some silhouettes from the set in black.  Once I cut it out, I selected some blue DP for the background and stamped the palm trees onto it so I could line them up with the yellow scrap so the trees were spilling out of their frame.   I distressed the edge of the blue paper with my ranger tool and then added versamark ink and yellow embossing powder to add to the beachy feel.   I finished with an anniversary sentiment from the Frame It set.

Let's hope that a gallery full of summer images persuades the sun to make an appearance this week.....

Fathers

A day late I know as it was Father's Day yesterday but I couldn't share my cards until now as I'd submitted them to the recent call from Paper Crafts magazine - these two were rejected so I'm free to share them now but I do have one that will be appearing in their special masculine issue in November so watch this space :-)

I made these cards for a friend to give to her kids for their daddy - one teeny-tiny girl (just 3 months old) got the pink hand print and the slightly bigger girl (8) got the hero card.

For this one I cut the hand print on my cameo, and used the negative to ensure the fingers were fixed in the right place, before stamping one of the fabulous sentiments from Waltzingmouse stamps "Man of the Hour" set - which I had to buy even though I don't have my Dad to make cards for anymore as I just loved all the fabulous sentiments.

For the second card I think I was influenced by my hubbies comics and superman in particular with the red and yellow.  I die cut yellow stars using a MFT die and placed them behind a red and black mounted panel onto which I stamped another one of the great sentiments.  I filled the "HERO" bit in with yellow liquid pearls.  A black dotted line around the edge brings it all together.

I'd like to enter the following challenges with these cards:

http://micassucas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/challenge-20-jongenskaart-mannenkaart.html

http://creativecraftchallenges2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/challenge-12-we-love-you-dad.html

Yellow & Hexagons

I've made a couple of cards this morning for this week's hexagon theme at Less is More http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-124-theme.html but the first one is also my "yellow" entry for this week's CASology challenge http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/week-48-yellow.html

I used the cute bee set from There She Goes and stamped one of the honey comb stamps in peanut brittle onto yellow card stock and cut it out to create a corner.  I stamped the big bee from the set direct to the card and coloured with copics.  Simply finished with one of the sentiments from the set.

For my second card I wanted to do some dry embossing - I love this spellbinders folder it's double-sided and does chevrons on the other side.  I opted to play with greens and oranges, so I decided to add more hexagons over the top of the embossed design using a MFT die using a dark green for the frame and orange dotted paper for the inside.  I finished with a die cut umbrella from clearly besotted and a sentiment from their April Showers set.

Friendly sheep

I've had a stressful week and not much sleep, so needed a little crafting to wind down before bedtime tonight so I decided to play along with this week's challenge at There She Goes Stamps which is based on this inspiration photo http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/tsg211-inspiration.html

As soon as I saw the photo, I knew I had a sheet of DP that was the exact same pattern as the wall paper in the house so I immediately wanted to use some of that and I liked the bright pink with it so naturally I decided to add a pink sheep.......

I used a 3cm strip of the DP (fancy pants - park bench collection) down the side of the card and then added a layer of white card over the top which overhangs the DP slightly and is popped up on dimensional foam.  I stamped the sentiment onto this panel.  I stamped 3 sheep onto copic colouring card and coloured 2 grey and white and one pink and fussy cut them out.  To finish the card I simply created a sheep tower by sticking them just to the white raised panel.

Wouldn't the countryside be pretty if we had pink sheep?  Just putting that out there...........

Blooming Marvellous!

I've not had much time for crafting this week as we spent a day in Leicester yesterday stalking my favourite comedian Daniel Kitson as Leicester was the closest we could get tickets for this current tour despite the fact that he is actually coming to Sheffield....

So now I've had a bit of time to play, I really wanted to play along in Stephanie's first ever challenge for her stamps - Clearly Besotted - which if you visit here regularly, you know I love - and the first challenge is anything goes http://stampingsharing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/clearly-besotted-challenge-1-anything.html  but anything was too wide a remit for my creativity this week, so I decided to have a look at some other challenges and see if any fit with my CB stamps and I found a few so have combined 3 more challenges into my card tonight.

I started with the big blooms on Therese's card at the MUSE challenge http://musecardclub.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/muse-challenge-21.html  and switched up the colours using this week's Colour Throwdown http://colorthrowdown.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/color-throwdown-246.html and finally switching it up to a more CAS design to fit the theme of CAS Flowers at Make it Monday  http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/cas-flowers.html

I used the two solid blooms from "You Are" and cut them with the matching die and then did the same for 2 leaves in both sizes.  I added dotted centres to both on dimensional foam.  The sentiment is from "Make a Wish"   I finished off the design with a frame cut from DP with a pair of nesties stuck together with washi tape.  CAS and quick but hopefully you can still see where I took my inspiration from.

New Blog on the Block

Today is the day I can finally reveal the secret I've been keeping for a couple of months - I am going to be joining the Clean and Simple Team over at the brand new challenge site House of Cards.

This is a genius of an idea for a new challenge site created by Mynnette and Ruth where each month we will have either a sketch, a colour or inspiration photo for you to play along with for the whole month but each week we ask you to interpret it in a different style:

Week 1 - Fun and Cute
Week 2 - Clean and Simple
Week 3 - Classic and Elegant
Week 4 - Shabby & Vintage
Week 5 - Anything goes

You can either just play in the week that suits your style or choose to stretch yourself play each week in a different style.   Our first challenge goes live on Monday 1st July and then I'll be popping up on the blog on the 8th July along with my CAS teamies to inspire you with our clean and simple interpretation of this months theme.

I hope you'll check out the blog http://houseofcardschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/  and sign up to follow us so you can check out fun challenges.  Each challenge goes live on a Monday and you have until Sunday each week to play.  I can't wait to see what you make of our challenges!