My final cake

I couldn't resist having one final play with all the yummy goodies I found on pinterest last week as part of the Daring Cardmakers challenge and the tasty treats challenge at CASual Fridays.

This time I pinned this very tasty looking cupcake with frilly butter icing.  I had an idea to play with some lovely lace I had to create the icing when I saw this image.....

                                              Source: une-deuxsenses.blogspot.com via Craftilicious on Pinterest

...and this is how the idea turned out...

I started with a kraft base card to reflect the colours from the original image and then concertina folded a strip of gold to make the cupcake case.  I then wound 3 layers of lace to create the "cream" and added a few star shaped sprinkles.  A black hand drawn frame and a birthday die cut sentiment finished it off.

That really is me for the casual Friday challenge this week as there are only a few hours left to play - see you all Friday for the new one!

Thanks
Craftilicious x

More cake.....

Today I am playing along with the CR84FN Challenge which this week is to use yellow, pink and bright pink, which is not a colour combo I would normally be drawn to, but, quite by accident, I used pink and yellow together on my cake for the blog waltz at the weekend and I was pleased with the outcome.   So here I am again, with another cake, and more pink and yellow!

I'm also making this a second entry into this week's CAS-ual Friday's challenge - which is all about sweets and treats.  I'd ordered this stamp last Thursday before the challenge went live - must have been psychic so am so glad it arrived in time for me to play with it!  I hope this still classes as clean and simple enough for the challenge.

The stamp is a from the little peeps range by Stamping Bella and I've coloured it with copics.  Mounted simply onto pink, with a piece of seam binding ribbon sandwiched in between the layers.  The yellow die cut is a marrianne designs and I joined them together with a yellow cherry blossom.  The great sentiment is from the eat cake set by Waltzingmouse which I just can't seem to put away at the minute I love this set so much so sorry if you're bored of seeing it already!!!

Have a great day :-)

Craftilicious x

Happy Trails

Just a quickie tonight as I've picked up a new book and can't seem to put it down - it's one of the ones from The TV Book Club called The Radleys and I'm already 50 pages in after an hour or so.

Anyway, enough waffle - on the card!  Tonight I have a commission to share.  A guy at work asked me to make a card as he couldn't find anything appropriate in the shops.  A friend of his has had some bad news about his health, so has sold his house and is taken himself to America to drive route 66 on this motorbike while he is well enough to do so.  To me, that meant only one thing - out with the waltzingmouse way out west set......

I used a yellow, grey and black ink to create a background with a glowing sunrise, stamped the background hills with dessert sand chalk ink, and then the foreground and cacti in black.  The bike is a digi paper available both coloured or colourable and the route 66 sign is from a photo.  The sentiment is from back in the saddle which goes with the way out west set - it may seem a little odd in the circumstances but we hope that his trip will be very happy.

Craftilicious x

St Luke's Mid Month Reminder

This is my second post today - if you're looking for my Waltz post then please scroll down.

As we're half way through July now, its time for a little reminder of our current challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge blog which this month is to make a card just using Black and White plus one accent colour.  For my first post, I went to my favourite colour of teal, so for this second card, I've gone out of my comfort zone with pink!

I started with the frame-it set from Waltzingmouse and stamped it onto a white square just larger than the frame stamp, and added the Happy Birthday sentiment in the gap in pink.  I added the bird chandelier that was free with craft stamper a few months back and just added a little pink glitter to its crystal droplets.  I added a very narrow black matt then mounted it onto a wide pink matt and added a decorative stamped corner with the same pink ink I stamped the sentiment with.  Another black matt to bring it all together - et voila - a quick and easy black and white card with a touch of an accent colour.

Don't forget we have a great stampin up stamp set as our prize this month for our best card - we're currently running at just 21 entries so the odds are in your favour - so come on, get your craft on and get inky with us :-D

Craftilicious x

My First Waltz....

This is the first time I've joined the waltz with waltzingmouse stamps - I adore their stamps and have seen the waltz but never really grasped what to do.  So I hope I've done it right!  The theme this month was birthdays and as its been very cake related on my blog this weekend, I went straight for the eat cake set that was part of the July release.  I stamped a rainbow row of candles, added a ribbon below and stamped happy birthday from the say it loud collection directly onto the ribbon.  I stamped the cake it yellow, added more candles in pink, and turned the cake stand upside down to form a plate (carefully inking to avoid the leg of the stand) and stamped the sentiment directly onto the cake.

If you want to find out more about the waltz and join in the next one on 17th August, then join the WM forum.

Edit - sorry this is posted late - I haven't grasped the new format for scheduling obviously :(

Craftilicious x

Pinteresting Circles....

I told you I love the idea of using pinterest for inspiration for challenges - thanks to Daring Cardmakers for the genius idea - so I'm back with a second entry for their challenge, this time combined with this weeks' Less is More challenge which is "circles".   When I was looking at cake yesterday, this photo was very appealing but lost out to the cherry blossom so I was thrilled that I could use it today.  If you're not sure what pinterest is all about, check out the daring cardmakers post - you'll all NEED a pinterest board if you haven't got one already but beware - its addictive!

                                                      Source: blog.holamama.es via Craftilicious on Pinterest

I just loved the colours, the different patterns on the cake pops and the interesting photo angle. For my interpretation however, I went for straight lines as the diagonal didn't really work on a card.

This was a super simple card to make - and very quick - which is good as I am due to meet my friend in time at 10.30 so only had an hour to play and get ready this morning.   I cut circles using the smallest nestie I have from DP from a very useful stripes and spots stack by Crafts Too and arranged them in an overlapping double border.  The sentiments are both from Waltzingmouse - from the "say it loud" and "frame it" sets.

I'll be back to look at everyone's cards when we've done shopping - our husbands birthdays are both next weekend so we always go shopping together for them.

Have a good weekend.

Craftilicious x

Pinteresting Cake........

I'm back, with a much more relaxed post as the two challenges I am entering this card into both started today so no mad panic to beat the deadline!

It was a no-brainer for me to combine these challenges - the first at one of my regular weekly haunts - CAS-ual Fridays is to create a card featuring sweets and treats, the second at Daring Cardmakers is to use a photo from pinterest as your inspiration.  I LOVE pinterest and being cooking as well as crafting obsessed my pinterest board features lots of cakes as well as cards and this was the first image that jumped out at me.

                                                                       Source: gnyc.net via Craftilicious on Pinterest

Doesn't it look stunning with the creamy pink and delicate decoration???  This is my CAS interpretation of the photo inspiration.

I knew instantly when I saw it that I could use my lovely new "eat cake" set from waltzingmouse stamps to create the cake and stand.  This stamp does come with some flowers, but I decided to use a different stamp from an old woodware oriental set to achieve a closer look to the cherry blossom.  I used just 3 versa magic inks in pinks and brown to create the whole card.  The sentiment is also from the eat cake set.  I finished with a little bakers twine at the top.

I'm back to find more inspiration on pinterest - check it out if you haven't before - its basically your own online pinboard and its fabulously useful for storing images of things you want to go back and play with.

Happy crafting!

Craftilicious x

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge

I bought most of this months release from WM stamps - couldn't resist it was all so lovely - and have been using it already.  When I saw this weeks sketch   I saw a way to combine 2 or 3 of their sets into one card so have been happily creating this all week and then have had a mad scramble to get it photographed and uploaded before the deadline.  I made it to the link for "0" minutes of the challenge remaining - the fastest blog post in the west - phew......

So now I am back and editing the post to add the details I didn't have time to type, thank fully I had the links already posted earlier in the week.  To make my card I used a piece of black and grey damask paper from the gcd paris nights stack.  I used the waltzingmouse eat cake, classic ovals and big day additions sets from the July 11 release in teals and black.  For the cake itself, I couldn't fit the whole 4 tiers in the frame, and the small cake in the set didn't have enough "umph" so I masked off the bottom layer and snipped the edges off the cake stand to make it fit.  I used nesties to cut out the frames and drew around them for the teal border.  Finished with some lace and a couple of matching roses.  It's fluffier than my normal CAS style of late, but I'm really pleased with it.


I am also entering this into the "my favourite things" challenge over at Moving Along With The Times - I've used waltzingmouse stamps which are my all time favourite stamps, teal - ABSOLUTELY my favourite colour and my fave papers from gcd - this stack along with Ella Blue are my all time favourite papers.

It's also a reminder for the current challenge over on my charity card making challenge blog in aid of St Luke's Hospice in Sheffield.  If you haven't found us yet, then please do check it out - we run monthly, have great prizes up for grabs and are very friendly folk - so join us and if you can send your card to the charity you'd be helping the hospice raise vital funds and get a warm and glowy feeling to boot :-)

Craftilicious x

CAS-ual Friday's Shaped Card

I've really been struggling with the CAS-ual Friday challenge this week - I knew I wouldn't be able to post on Friday as I busy with my marathon BBQ duties at work, but I did think I would be making my weekly entry on Saturday afternoon along with my LIM entry.  However, when I checked out what the challenge was this week my heart sank and I had absolutely NO IDEA what to make.  This made me sad as its the first challenge I've joined from the beginning and I'd set a personal goal of a weekly entry and was miffed to be breaking the challenge so early on. Tonight I remembered that my favourite Damask cartridge on my cricut has a facility to make shaped cards so here I am with a last minute entry - not the best I've ever made - but it keeps my quota up - hurrah!

I chose to cut the "present" card, and I simply then cut the present out again in orange striped paper, shaded it, coloured the bow with red copics and stamped a sentiment from Waltzingmouse on top.

I hope this weeks challenge is a bit easier ;-)

Craftilicious x

Another Crissy Armstrong DT Entry

I'm having lots of fun making cards with Crissy's images whilst her DT challenge is open this month.  I have to admit that its the first time some of the stamps are seeing ink....  This image is a new one that I came across on her digi-downloads and I HAD to have it as I used to collect frogs so this little lady just spoke to me - not just a frog, but a frog with attitude!  The pose reminded me of Mae West and her famous "come up and see me sometime" quote.

I went with a pointillism colouring technique, in the style of Seurat, using copics as I thought this would be perfect to add some realistic texture to the frogs skin.  I then found a picture of some lily pads on the internet and printed them to create a background, mounted onto yellow to pull out the colour of the costume for balance and then created my custom sentiments on the laptop which I cut with nesties and mounted on more yellow.  I cut the frog out with a nellie snellen frame die and threaded some green and white twine to create a border.  I decided to add some lace to match the frilly edge to the image and am pleased with how it contrasts with the strong realistic background image.  I've got a couple more images coloured up which I'll turn into more cards next week.

Craftilicious x

OLW - Clouds

A very late entry for this weeks One Layer Wednesday challenge which had me stumped until I found some stamps I'd recently bought but that had been immediately "lost" under the pile of "sorting and storing" that has been on my desk/shelves/floor for the last month.  So a very quick post tonight to get it in before the linky closes.

3" square card, areoplane stamped in black and masked then clouds stamped in pearly blue, with a hint of a silver lining and then a vapour trail in blue and a sentiment which was free with craft stamper magazine a few months back.  The plane is from a transport set from TPC studios, and the clouds are from a landscape watercolour stamp set.

Craftilicious x

Another one-legged LIM entry

I've been looking at all the other LIM entries this week, and thought that I had been so boring in my choice of "legs" by going straight for the obvious choice of something living, so I had a look at my other stamps to see if I could be a bit more inventive.  When I saw the entries with dress forms, I went straight for my new Waltzingmouse set from this months release called "you're lovely" and I hope that its one leg counts....

I marked off a section at the side with post its and used my brayer with kaleidacolour inks in dessert heat but I did it in several different directions to break up the colour into a random pattern (I find the brayer easier than the ranger blending pads).  I left the post its in place and then used a text stamp to overstamp in shades of yellow and red to give the background more interest and texture.  I stamped the dress form in black so that the "leg" is directly lined on the border between the colour and the white.  I then used one of the 3 tops that come with the set to give the dress a black top and added one of the sentiments to the bottom right for balance.  As the stamp designer often says on her blog - "hope it tickles"

Thanks for stopping by again.

Craftilicious x

One-layer with legs...

I'm late with my Less is More entry this week as it was our summer BBQ at work yesterday which I organise so I've not been online since Wednesday as I've been up to my eyeballs in burgers and veggie koftas - a BBQ for 50 catered single-handed takes quite a lot of doing!  I log on today to do my post and my whole world is upside down - WHAT DID THEY DO TO BLOGGER?????  I am so confused - it took me 20 minutes just to get into my blog - I'm going to have to do some serious button pressing later to find where they hid everything.

Anyway, enough moaning, while I was waiting for a long soaky bath to run this afternoon after the BBQ clean-up, I checked out this weeks challenge on LIM, which is a one layer card featuring something with legs.  As I'm also entering Crissy Armstrongs current DT challenge I decided to use one of my favourite of her images - Buster the bulldog.

As this is one-layer week at LIM, I decided to do him very simply as I've coloured him before this way on kraft card and knew it works really well.  I've just used 4 shades of brown, grey and a hint of cream faber castel pencils on buster and blended them with sansoder and blending stumps.  A green colour, a little green grass to ground the image and his sentiment in a matching green finish him off nicely.  If you like Buster, check out Crissy's challenge and all her other amazing images - she captures the expression in animals especially so well.

Off to check out what the rest of the LIMettes have been up to this week - I've missed my morning LIM fix :-(

Craftilicious x

Black and white plus one

I thought I'd do another little card for our challenge over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge this month which is to do any card you like but limit your colours to just black, white and one other colour of your choice.  For my first card I used teal, but this time, I've gone for more black and pink as my accent colour, but this time I wanted to show you can colour character stamps in a limited colour palette.

OK, so perhaps choosing a zebra for this is a bit of a cop out as you can't really do anything other than black and white on him!  I love this little guy - he's called Stripes and is another great character drawn by Crissy Armstrong, this time in rubber from Kraftin Kimmie.  I am making him my second entry into her DT call which is currently on this month - click the link below to find out more.  I coloured him using my copics C1, C5 and C9 for the black, with W1, W3 and a hint of W5 for the "white" with a tiny bit of pink on his nose - hardly any actual black at all which is the secret to black and white shading oddly (handy having a comic expert for a husband sometimes!)  The card is finished with some DP from My Minds Eye, a black matt and black base card and a sentiment from Lili of the Valley which I thought was appropriate as it looks as though the butterfly has brightened Stripes' day.

Thanks for visiting.
Craftilicious x

Our Anniversary

Today is our anniversary, we've been married for 4 years, but together for almost 17 - Dad's illness forced us to arrange a wedding in just 3 weeks!  This year we both made cards not just me so I thought I'd share them with you all.

Here's my card - I used a new stamp set I just got from Craftie Charlie - a lovely set from My Minds Eye called Stella and Rose but I only used the one lamp stamp.  I made it quite simple with some some green stamping, then I stamped one lamp in black and stamped the shade onto a green snippet and layered it up and cut it out.  I used a yellow pencil and blended out with sansoder to create the light from this lamp.  The sentiments are computer generated.

Here's my hubby's card for me.  He is quite artistic - he draws comics and figures brilliantly but he's only ever made a card once before and we did that together.  This time he obviously had to do it without me.  So, I pulled out some suitable stamps for him to choose from, showed him the different inks and matching stampable papers - gave him a draw full of snippets (couldn't have him cutting one of the sheets I'm "saving" now could I!) and left him to it.  A couple of hours later - he emerged with an envelope and this is the fabulous creation inside - it's he clever?!?!?

He quite often does the cutting for me on my big kick so does know how to use it, but has never done it on his own - I didn't even show him where the embossing folders were!  He went for teal, as not only is it my favourite colour, but it was the theme of our wedding, taken from my wedding dress as you can see from the photo below.

We've had a lazy morning and now we're going to go out for a nice lunch before the weather changes and the rain comes in........

Craftilicious x

Crissy Armstrong DT Call

I see DT calls come up all the time, and I've even entered a couple before, but often doubt myself as to whether I'm good enough, have enough followers to be accepted, or if I have the right style for the artist to like my stuff, so mostly don't try out.  When this one came up though, I knew I would have to throw my hat in the ring as I just love Crissy's images.  I recently bought a couple of new ones in rubber from Quixotic Paperie so decided to colour those up - here's the first - I can't show the other yet as its for a friends birthday later in the month so I'll be back with another entry to the call in a couple of weeks.

How adorable is this little guy though - you couldn't shout at him for eating the cupcake could you - not with those "I'm sorry" eyes.....   I stamped him with momento tuxedo black and I have to say one of the things I like about these stamps is how thin and crisp the lines are so the detail is so fine.  I coloured him with copics in shades of grey and blue and made the cake chocolate of course!  I added some glaze to his eyes and nose and a little shimmer to the cake and his hat.  I wanted a quirky card layout and tried so DP but it was too much and detracted from the image which I wanted to be the main focus naturally so I decided to go with plain silver and blue to echo the colours in the picture and added a very thin matt in chocolate to make the picture stand out.  The matching sentiment and a few chocolate and blue dots around the quirky angles was all that was needed to really finish it off.

So here's my first entry, my hat is most definitely in the ring - fingers crossed the hat fits........

Craftilicious x

Shades of Blue

I wonder if Mandi and Chrissie realised this weeks challenge rhymes - Week 22 - Shades of Blue!  I love teals, but rarely use actual blues, I just find them cold and uninspiring, and hard to work with.  So, this is my second card for the challenge - I'm not showing the first as it was blinking awful!

I used today's sketch for the weekly Waltzingmouse sketch challenge as my template as I wanted to use my yummy new stamps from them (I just ordered most of their release from yesterday too so expect to see a lot more of them here!)  I started with a pale blue DL base card and turned it landscape.  I stamped the solid medium sized chrysanthemum using kaleidoscope blue breeze ink and cut them out.  I then used the matching small sized stamp using the same ink but further down the colours for darker centres and cut out again.  I added a single blue gem to the centre of each.  I then used the fabulous happy birthday from the say it loud set direct to the card with the same ink and added more blue gems to the swirls and above the i - so lots of shades of blue throughout the card.  I mounted the small flower onto the large with foam pads and then stuck the two flowers onto velvet ribbon.

This will probably be my only entry this week and I might not get around to much commenting as my hubby who works in a specialist sci-fi book shop so normally works every Saturday has a rare weekend off as its our anniversary on Tuesday so we're likely to be out and about in the nice weather.

Happy crafting and have a good weekend.

Craftilicious x

CASual Friday Krafty Men

I was really excited when I saw the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays this morning and wished I didn't have to go to work so I could play immediately.  The challenge is to create a card for men, using kraft cardstock.  Sometimes you just get a challenge which you know was meant for you, and as I received a new cricut cartridge yesterday which is all sports related, then I knew instantly that I could use it for this challenge today - you ladies must have seen my order ;-)

I opted for this great football (I know in the US calling this a football will confuse you, but trust me, here soccer is football and I'd get withering looks for calling it soccer!) in a frame with a matching sentiment, both cut on my expression.  I added white behind the ball for realism and then used my WM frame it stamps to create the white frame within the black diecut one, and to create the corner framed edges to bring the card together.  I think I'm really going to use this cartridge a lot once I get to grips with all it can do.

Have a great weekend.

Craftilicious x

foodie blog

For anyone who joined my blog in the beginning and still reads it (thanks!) you may remember my somewhat more frequent "foodie" postings and may be wondering where they went, well I have a bit of news....

Although my logo wording is "my world of food and craft", over the last 6 months this blog has become heavily weighted towards craft, as I enter lots of challenges with my projects these days, this seemed a little inevitable.  What it has meant however, is that now when I have something foodie to share, it feels a little odd to post it here - as most of my followers I'm sure don't care about my foodie ramblings and just want to see my cards, so I've basically stopped my foodie postings.  This didn't feel right to me and I keep photographing food and the cook and would be cookbook writer in me is bursting get my stuff out again so - you guessed it, I've become even more of a blogging addict and have started another blog (currently my 4th......)   So if you are at all interested in food, restaurant reviews, cook books, recipes or anything else "foodie" then you might want to add http://craftilicious-thecraftycook.blogspot.com/ to your blog reader.....

Thanks, and now normal crafting service will be resumed

Craftilicious :-)

St Luke's Colour Challenge

Over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge this month our challenge is a colour one - black and white plus one - that's the only stipulation - just three colours, otherwise ANYTHING goes.  We have a great prize up for grabs this month, donated by a blogging friend of mine, Zoë who is a Stampin Up demonstrator so she has donated a great set of their stamps.  Check out the challenge for all the details.

For my card, I guess it will come as no surprise to those that know me, that my chosen 3rd colour was teal....  I know, I should break out of my colour comfort zone but I couldn't help myself. 

In honour of Zoë's donation, I decided to use some Stampin Up products myself and opted for the gorgeous Manhattan rose embossing folder which I totally adore.  I carefully inked the raised up side of the folder with a brayer and momento black ink.  I then ran it through my machine and used the debossed side with the black lines on my card.  I added a simple sentiment from There She Goes and matted onto black and teal and finished with a teal bow and pearl.  Check out the challenge to see what the rest of the DT have for you to gaze at.  Do play along - we're aiming for 50 cards this month, and you could even win a great stamp set.

Thanks for visiting.

Craftilicious x