CASology Care

The cue word at CASology this week is care - http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-42-care.html  which was perfect for me as one of my husband's friends has just had surgery and he wanted a card to send to him.  They are all fans of comic books (my hubby works in a comic store) so I decided to go for something with a little humour and this is what I came up with.

I used the little robot from There She Goes, coloured with copics then fussy cut and finished with some googly eyes.  I created the EKG border with my cameo and cut it from lime green card and popped the robot on top.  The three sentiments are all from the same stamp set.

Hopefully it will raise a smile but not a laugh as that might pull his stitches!

True North

Really quick post tonight as I have just minutes to get this entered into the anything goes challenge this fortnight at Cards for Men  http://cardsformen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/challenge-8-anything-goes.html

I used a couple of Avery Elle sets which are now much easier to get hold of in the UK as Make the Day Special stock them (but I think these particular ones are currently out of stock)  I paper pieced the cute little sail boat from "Knotty" and added it onto waves made with the background border from "fanfare".  Finished with a sentiment from knotty stamped over the compass from the same set.  I added red glitter with a sakura gel pen to the heart on the boat and compass to draw attention to it.

I am going to give this one to my DH who is having a rough time at work just to remind him that we'll always be OK as long as we sail our boat together.

Dad's mustache

The sketch at this week's Less is More was a gift this morning as it let me use my new Waltzingmouse stamps which I'd been playing with last night so were still on my desk http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-117-sketch.html

I used the same frame from last night from My Kind of Guy as it's the perfect shape for the main element in Jen's sketch - stamped on kraft with soft granite HA shadow ink and then cut with the matching cut file on my cameo.  Whilst I had the cameo on, I cut a big fat moustache from black card to replace the sentiment strip and then I stamped one of the smaller sentiments from the new Man of the Hour stamp set.  My Dad is sadly no longer with us, but I couldn't resist this set as the sentiments are just gorgeous - I'm sure I'll find some friends who need father's day cards!

Giggle Goggles

We did a bit of a move around in the office yesterday and after filling 27 sacks with confidential waste I had a very sore back so I've been laid flat out for most of the day.  I managed a little play tonight for a couple of challenges. 

I combined the sketch for this weeks There She Goes challenge with the cue word of "Giggle" at CASology as I have lots of TSG's humorous stamp sets so it seemed a natural fit. 
http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/tsg204-sketch-challenge.html  and  http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-41-giggle.html

I opted for the Cutie Pi set and with a little masking and come pencil colouring had a quick and easy one layer card but still with the overall layout of the sketch.  This set appeals to the Big Bang Theory fan in me ;-)

I also wanted to ink up my new Waltzingmouse stamps and think there is some humour in this card too - more grown up and Mad Men style than the first card.

I used the square frame with grey, brown and black inks to create my backgound, added a strip of DP (Fancy Pants Swagger) and then inked up the circular frame around the "faceless-face" which I love.  I finished with a sentiment from the set in a speech bubble die (clearly besotted)

Tilted!

This month's PTI Blog Hop required designs to be tilted, and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to play with Quilled Elegance as I fell in love with that set as soon as I saw it but haven't played with it nearly enough yet.  http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2013/04/april-2013-blog-hop.html

I wanted to colour it with shimmer paints (luminarte) so started in the centres with a spiced red, then pumkin orange, and a bright yellow, with just a little hint of lime green - it ended up looking quite psychadelic (not my original intention but I really like the finished result!)   I used peart tart ink for the sentiment to bring the green in a little more.  I think I might add a few little green gems too to match the shimmer (honestly it shimmers lots but I just can't get it to photograph!) - or perhaps its better as a flat card for mailing.  What do you reckon?  Bling or no bling?  Yeah, Shakesapeare got it wrong - THAT really is the question ;-)

As this is a CAS one layer card - it's also my entry for this week's Paper Players Challenge http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/paper-players-challenge-142.html

Waltzingmouse Flower Show

Claire came up with a brilliant idea following this month's fabulous new Waltzingmouse Stamps release of continuing the floral theme from this months Blog waltz into a CASE competition http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/flower-show-case-comp-open.html

Me being me, I couldn't choose one card to CASE from the delightful array on offer from the special flower show team, so I decided to combine elements from two designers into one card.

I CASEd Aneta's background and layout and added Kimberley's big flower and glossy leaves:

and after 2 attempts and a recycling bin full of failed scraps,  (all I can say is that the lovely delicate border from Nordic Winter is not a pretty alternative to stitching when stamped in thick black over all the edges of your DP!  One of these days I'll remember to test stamp on something other than the original.....) I came up with this which is perfectly timed for my Mum's birthday tomorrow:

I started with the lovely digi papers Claire released to match the Folk Art Flower sets and printed off an A4 version in 4 colours.  Now this is where I went slightly off-piste with Aneta's card and why my first went in the bin.  I have a symmetry OCD and whilst I didn't spot it on the original, when I placed my pieces on the card I noticed that the sides didn't match - it freaked me out and I just couldn't handle it.  So I printed more (the beauty of digis you never run out!) and this time I added an extra "triangle" to the middle so I could have perfect vertical symmetry and everything became right with the world again (until I screwed it up with thick black yucky lines....)   So for attempt number 3, I took the little stamp from Classic Oval Frames and stamped and embossed it in white where the DP's joined to give me the feel of stitching from Aneta's card - much better than the yucky black!  Here's a close up so you can see how it adds such a pretty soft detail:

I cut a doily from white vellum with my cameo and then set about cutting a couple of different 3D flowers from shades of pink and orange paper again on the cameo - layered up with a brad fixing which is covered with a big blob of stickles.  For the leaves I used the cameo again with the folk art cut files (which are free btw - Claire is just too generous!) and I cut 5 of the largest leaves and stamped and embossed them with shimmer EP (WOW) and then I decided I needed a couple of larger leaves at the top so I resized the cut file a little and cut two and just covered the whole thing with shimmer to match the stamping on the small ones.

I used a banner die (Simon Says Stamps) with kraft card and stamped the Happy Birthday from what is probably my most used stamp set of all time from any company as it's just packed with useful sentiments - the Frame It set stamped in a soft chalky blue to match the background.  Finally finished by stamping MUM on a curve in grey using Wooden Heart Alphabet.

Mum doesn't know what a blog is, she doesn't own a computer, so there is no fear posting it before the day that she'll see it.  I know she's going to love it though as she adores flowers of any variety.

As it's definately on a floral theme, I'm also going to enter it to the current flowers theme over at Let's Craft and Create http://letscreatechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/challenge-68-flowers.html and the Passion for Flowers challenge over at Allsorts Challenge http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-203-passion-for-flowers.html 

Kraken' Birthday

I hope children won't be scared of the big sea monster on my card today - whilst I've gone punny with a Kraken for my sentiment, I think he's a pretty friendly looking sea monster and therefore appropriate for a childs card and this week's Daring Cardmakers dare http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/childs-play.html

The sentiment is computer generate and then the rest of the card is made from one of the really fun XCut Build a Scene die sets from DoCrafts - paper piecing all those suckers in his tentacles took a while even though I did it using sticky card stock for speed!   (and yes there are 2 tentacles missing - I used artist licence when I was loosing the will to live with all the little pieces and decided 6 were sufficient!!!)

Words, Numbers and Paperpiecing

I have a couple of cards this morning for three different challenges.

The first is my last minute attempt at this week's CASology cue word which trickily was just "word" this week!  I've really been struggling to come up with an interesting idea until I saw the new Keep It Simple challenge which is numbers and finally an idea for a word came to mind....

I love scrabble - so the idea of using letter tiles for my "word" was obvious once it finally came to me!  The choice of word was obvious too - I wanted it to be really simple - nothing but the word on the card and as the song goes "all you need is LOVE"   I used the print and cut function on my cameo to create the scrabble tiles on cream card, stacking each tile 4 thick to create dimension.  I covered the top of each with glossy accents and rounded the corners of the base card to match the tiles.

http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-40-word.html

http://kis-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/kis-12-3-2-1.html

I also wanted to play with some new stamps I got this week - I saw them on a blog and had to hunt them down as their humour really appealed to me!  I inked up one and used it as another opportunity to play with one of my favourite techniques - paper-piecing which is the challenge at The Pink Elephant this week.

The background "flash" was cut on my cameo and I used lots of scraps from my snippets box to do the paperpiecing of the lovely ladies so I'll enter this to Di's weekly snippets challenge too http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/pixies-crafty-snippets-playground-week_15.html
I used copics to colour the skin and hair and then simply fussy cut leaving a little border before mounting on the flash background and stamping one of the sentiments from the set using versafine.

http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-pink-elephant-challenge-tpe195.html

CASual Birthday

One of my best friends turns 40 tomorrow and as such this suitably sparkling number is currently winging its way down south courtesy of the Royal Mail....

I followed a similar theme to my 18th card but went for a more "Dioresque" quilted background rather than stamped facebook sentiments ;-)  Simple tools - just the cameo, tweezers and pinflair glue for all those lovely shimmering sequins.   Teal and gold - very classy - here's hoping that she gets a classy day out to go with it (her husband is taking her on a magical mystery tour and won't tell us where!)  

I'm entereing this into this week's CASual Friday challenge which is a birthday project http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/cfc99.html

Waltzing through the spring flowers

Well it seems as is Spring is finally arriving here in the north of England, although, as the old saying goes "n'er cast a clout til May is out" so I'm not holding my breath for sunshine just yet!  If you're interested in sayings and are unsure what this one means, I've done some research as I was never sure myself despite it being told to me often as a child.  As best as I can tell, it refers to hobnail boots which were worn in the winter and clouts were the nails used to hold them together so the idea is that you wouldn't get rid of any nails until the end of May in case you had to repair your boots as the bad weather could still return until then.  OK enough dodgy linguistics, on with what you came for - some Waltzingmouse eye candy!  http://waltzingmouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/april-waltzingmouse-stamps-blog.html

I used the seed packet from Vintage Garden Seed Packet and stamped onto kraft and fussy cut and then I decided I wanted a huge flower to burst out of it so I cut a 3D flower on my cameo and layered it up.  The orange centre is a quilled fringe.  I added some swirly leaves using a die (i forget the brand - they're purple if that helps!)  I then added some DP on the diagonal and stamped the word "flowers" from the seed packet set repeatedly along a strip of the paper I made the flower from.  As I gave this card to my Aunt at the beginning of the month, I pulled out my favourite sentiments from the most useful set ever Compact Family to create the perfect greeting stamped in Rhubarb Stalk ink to match the flower.

I'm also going to enter this into the Creative Card Crew's challenge this week which is to make your own flower http://creativecardcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/challenge-34-handmade-flowers.html 

Gift Voucher

Something a little different today - not quite a card - although from first glance I guess it could look like one from the photo!

It is actually a gift voucher for my Mum for her birthday next week but I've already given it her so it's safe to blog.  Now in her 70s she doesn't get out much - I do her shopping each week on a Sunday but that meant she was missing out on a days worth of TV listings which start in the UK on a Saturday.  So, lacking any bright ideas for a gift, I've subscribed to the TV times for her and her first issue arrives today (hence giving her the voucher this morning.

I used my favourite Paper Smooches set - Boob Tubes - which was the first set I bought from them - love the vintage TVs which are really useful for masculine cards normally but fit the gift perfectly here.  I paper pieced the 4 different sets with scraps of DP from my snippets box before colouring the screens with a grey copic and stamping some of the sentiments from the set (the ! is the i turned upside down incidentally)  I matted it onto a piece of kraft so the copics didn't show through and so I could put a poem on the back explaining the gift (I'll not share that as Pam Ayres I'm not!)

I'm linking it up to this week's Paper Piecing Challenge over at The Pink Elephant http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-pink-elephant-challenge-tpe195.html

Marvellous Magnolias

This week's Tuesday Trigger over in the Moxie Fab World really caught my attention so I thought I'd play along and I've just about managed to get my entry in before the deadline http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2013/04/tuesday-trigger-magical-magnolias.html

Now you might well be looking at my card and wondering what the hell it has to do with Magnolias!  Well we've been watching a TV show recently with Keifer Sutherland called "Touch" and in it his son has the ability to see the mathematical in the world around us and I'm learning, even though though I'm a math-o-phobe, just how much maths there is in the natural world.   So I saw the pattern in the branches and interpreted that into the fretwork white frame which I cut on my cameo, and I took the colours in the flowers and pieced the pattern back into the frame (I cut it 3 times from different card stocks).  To add the hint of orange in the petals, I turned to my go to embellishment of the moment - are you fed up of sequins yet?  I hope not as I have LOTS of them to get through!!!

So that's how I saw the trigger image - hope you see I'm not so crazy now.......

More Film Inspiration

I said I'd try and come up with something a bit less obvious for this week's LIM film inspiration challenge and Gillian's Monster's Inc card (No 5 in the gallery) lead me down the Pixar path - we LOVE all the pixar movies in our house but our favourite has to be "UP" and my first card is quite a literal translation for a scene from the film.

I used a house stamp from Maya Road and then masked a balloon from Mama Elephant repeatedly and "tied" them all to the roof, just like Carl does in the film, only I just had to use a pen ;-)   The house is brightly coloured just like in the film.  I thought the sentiment also from Mama Elephant Good Times was perfect as it really summed up the theme of the movie.

This one might not be quite so obvious - it's a little bull from Mama Elephant's Cosmic Stars set and IRL I've coloured him red but it looks brown in the photo.  The idea of the red was to make him angry which should give you a clue to the film.............     Raging Bull of course!

My final card is also my entry to CASology this week where the trigger word is "Travel"  http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-39-travel.html

I was inspired by Blue Thunder - a film from the 80's which centres around a helicopter.  I went with a blue base (made more sense than having a blue helicopter on a different coloured sky!) and cut a mat with a circular cut out to create a circular slider card and added a helicopter (Clearly Besotted's Going Places).  I stuck 2 x 5 pence pieces behind the helicopter separated with a round foam pad so that the helicopter to can fly in circles around the card.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set.  I coloured the helicopter with copics and fussy cut.  Very CAS but cute and fun (unlike the film that inspired it!)

I think that's all my film inspiration exhausted now.

Aliens

The theme this week at Less is More is to be inspired by a film - my title gives mine away but don't fear - no face huggers here - just some cute green critters!  http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/one-layer-week-115.html

He's from the There She Goes "Out of this World" set and I just masked the central one and stamped a couple of buddies to either side.  Cos it's one layer week, I had to skip my normal copic colouring medium as it shows on the inside and that bugs me, so I went with polychormos pencils and blending solution instead.  The dots are from a sakura glitter pen.  The sentiment is from the same set and, although it doesn't snow so clearly in the photo, is stamped with an appropriately Alien looking neon green ink (Hero Arts)

I might have another go at this challenge late as I'm sure I can come up with something a bit more obscure but this was my first thought this morning.  Off to the craft shop first though so I'll catch you later.

Say Cheese!

I'm combining a couple of my favourite challenges tonight - this really fun and funky sketch from CASe this sketch http://casethissketch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/case-this-sketch-23.html  was the perfect jumping off point for me to work out how to tackle this weeks colour combo over at There She Goes stamps http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/tsg202-color-challenge.html

I paper pieced the fun camera from their superb "Oh Snap" set with 2 shades of yellow and some DP - all from my scrap drawer so I'll link it up to Di's Sunday Snippets challenge too - been ages since I made it into the playground.  I added a little glitter for the flash and some liquid black pearl from the lens.

I die cut a film strip (MFT die) from some blue card and backed it with a little blue vellum and stamped the Say cheese! sentiment from the same set over the top and finished with 3 yellow sequins just because I can't get enough of them and bought a stupid amount of colours!

Status Update: 18 today

We had an 18th Birthday in the family this week and now the card is open I'm safe to blog it.  I had such fun making this card - lots of bling but still very masculine and very trendy with all the facebook like words and icons.

I used the brilliant set from Mama Elephant plus one stamp (status update) from Sn@p and just blue and grey ink.  Drawing some feint pencil lines helped get the sentiments all lined up nicely.  The 18 was cut with my cameo and then I used pinflair gel to cover the area under the negative die cut and lined up the black sequins in rows (painfully slow but worth the effort for the finished effect)

As I had stamped the sentiments to form a background over the die cut, I'm going to enter it into the stamp your own background challenge at Make My Monday this week http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/create-your-own-background.html

CASEing JJ

It's very late (or early in the morning depending on how you look at things) and I should be asleep but just before I was about to go to bed I spotted that the deadline for CASE study will close before I get up - so - I'm still up and playing.  I just loved this technique on JJ Bolton's brilliant card and really wanted to try it.  http://casestudychallenge.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/case-study-challenge-135.html

I used the new Folk Art Medallion stamp set from Waltzingmouse and stamped the floral element in orange soda and butter bar ink (HA) and then added a leaf in pistachio (Memento)  Rather than letters I chose to die cut a couple of butterflies (Clearly Besotted Dies) and I finished with a sentiment from Frame It (Waltzingmouse)

The orange, yellows and greens remind me or Narcissus so I'm also going to enter it into this week's Pink Elephant challenge which is all about Spring Colours http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-pink-elephant-challenge-tpe194.html

Night all.........

Cat in a Box

I got a delivery from Simon Says yesterday and I managed to finish a card with it tonight so I'm just about in time to link up to their Happy Birthday challenge before it closes in a few hours http://simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/simon-says-happy-birthday.html

 

I used their exclusive Furry Cat & Box stamp which I just adore so I used it to create both my background and the focal image.   I paperpieced the box from a sheet of wood veneer paper (designed for dolls houses I think) and then coloured the cat with copics and added him over the top.  The DP oval is BG Kneehighs.  Sentiment from same set.

A new surface to stamp on

Thanks to browsing Kristina Werner's "other" blog I've discovered konad nail stamping and now I have 20 new surfaces to stamp on!  This is my 3rd attempt and it's surprisingly easy to do even with your non dominant hand. 

I've never been able to grow my nails long enough to paint - it seems to be the one good side effect to my drug so nice to have a bit of a silver lining!  I've got 20 design plates to play with so this could well feature alot round here til I get bored of it!

Flowers and Feathers

My mojo seems to have gone on strike which is a bit of a bugger as I have lots of cards to make!  I had several attempts to make a card for CASual Friday last night with the idea of kissing a chevron stamp to a flower - they are all in the bin and I actually gave up on crafting in favour of housework last night so that might tell you how far my mojo went!

However, I am determined by nature, so I'm back this morning for another go and the black and lime colour combo at Less is More this morning lead me to my black and white chevron washi tape and before I knew it I had something not so terrible that I can post to both challenges - http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/cfc97.html  and http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-114-colour-challenge.html

I lined up 3 strips of washi tape to make it a continuous chevron pattern and then stamped a sentiment from Clearly Besotted's Frame Sentiment set underneath in pear tart ink.  I die cut a flower from lime green felt (IRL it's very close to pear tart in colour but I cannot for the life of me get a good photo of it) and rolled it (think it's an MFT die) and added some die cut leaves using a Wplus9 die.  Finished with a simple gem in the middle.

As Stephanie is sponsoring LIM today and I got her new release yesterday, I thought I'd share another card I made - no challenge involved this time I have just been waiting for this set since I saw the sneaks so couldn't wait to play with it.

I started with the largest feather in the set and stamped it into some cloud clay which I rolled out - if you haven't discovered cloud clay it's amazing air dry clay that is super light so perfect for using on cards.  If you ink your stamps with versamark you can stamp into the clay and your stamps don't get stuck.  I let the clay dry a little and then simply trimmed the feather with scissors.   I then stamped another feather in versamark to capture all the lovely detail top to toe to form a border across the kraft card base.  Once fully dry, I heat embossed one of the fabby sentiments from the set in white to match the clay feather, drew some white lines to frame it all and stuck the clay feather over the top with pinflair glue.

What's your sign?

As soon as I saw the really cute star sign stamp set from Mama Elephant I knew I had to have it so despite the astronomical import duty I ordered directly from the USA and I've finally got around to playing with it for their recent sketch challenge  http://www.mamaelephantblog.com/2013/04/me-sketch-challenge-03-41-414.html

I drew a feint pencil circle on the corner of my white card stock to replicate the doily in the sketch and then aligned 3 chronological signs along it (Taurus, Gemini, Cancer) and coloured them with copics.  I added some strips of card and DP and stamped the sentiment on the same DP rounding the edge with scissors.  I finished with 3 sequin stars in gold and silver.

There She Goes Spotlight :-)

Well was I blown away today or what?  Seeing my name pop up as being in the trendsetting spotlight over at There She Goes Stamps in my news feed was a very pleasant surprise indeed http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/trendsetting-spotlight-tara-caldwell.html

So I thought the best way to celebrate was by getting my entry to their challenge this week finished and up on my blog and this week the challenge is to make it masculine  http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/tsg201-masculine.html  and I knew exactly which set I wanted to play with ;-)

I coloured up the cute donkey from Donkey University with copics and selected the stud muffin sentiment for his t-shirt and fussy cut him out.  I thought with his pointy ears he looked a little like a tag shape so decided to use the sketch from CASE this sketch this week for my layout.  http://casethissketch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/case-this-sketch-22.html

The moustache DP is from the swagger paper pad from fancy pants which is just perfect for masculine cards as its full of strong masculine patterns, hats, ties, shoes and all things manly.  The additional sentiment is from TSG's other donkey set "Ba Donkey Donk".

Krafty Bird Sketches

I really liked the panels in the sketch at Retro Sketches this week so thought I'd play along with some of my new goodies http://retrosketches.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/retrosketches-57.html

I knew I wanted to use one of my new bird paperclips from Prima so used that as a starting point and then selected some paper and washi tape to go with my craft card base and decided to echo the birds by stamping on the DP using Stampin Up's "For the Birds" set which were coloured with pencils.  The sentiment under the paperclip is also from that set and normally runs in a line under the birds on the wire but I inked and stamped it into a 2 line sentiment to fill the empty space under my clip.  Finished with a little twine and a button.

There are a number of "kraft" challenges out there this week - my favourite base card - so I'm linking this card up as follows:

http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.de/2013/04/cupcake-236-get-your-kraft-on.html

http://abc-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/k-for-kraft-1st-april.html

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/lets-get-krafty.html

What goes up?

This week's cue word at CASology is "UP" which initially made me think of the Pixar movie as it's one of our faves (we have no kids but we love animation) but it had already been done by the DT so I had a rethink.  http://casology.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-38-up.html

I thought I could play with a sentiment from PTI that included "up" and mixed in some chevrons pointing upwards using the colours from this weeks' ColourQ http://colourq.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/colourq-challenge-183.html

The chevrons are from My Favourite Things Document It and the sentiment is from Movers and Shakers and the answer (not shown but on the inside) says ... Your Age!   Happy Birthday.   I finished with a triangle of sequins in the same colours as the chevrons (the yellow one looks a bit orange in this shot)

I'm also going to enter this into Make My Monday's One Layer CAS challenge http://mimchallegeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/cas-one-layer-card.html, addicted to stamps CAS challenge http://addictedtostamps-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/challenge-39-addicted-to-cas.html 
and Ardyth's threesome challenge for One Layer Wednesday http://ardythpr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/olw134-threesome.html  (3 x 3 chevrons in 3 colours, plus 3 sequins)