My Friend the Chocolate Cake

Mmmmm, just the thought of chocolate cake is making me drool

For this card I've used three sets: 'Birthday Whimsy', 'Paisley' background and 'Time Well Spent'. Once I got the idea of combining the cake with the sentiment I had to make it into a card or two to get it out of my head... though I very nearly used the other sentiment "Time spent with friends is time well spent"... I think I was channeling those old Tim Tam ads that compared men to Tim Tams. Anyway, back to the card. Colours are Regal Rose, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Cool Caribbean and Whisper White. I've used a white gel pen to do faux stitching down the side and to colour in parts of the sentiment. All products are Stampin' Up! and available through me (although "Time Well Spent" is not released yet).

Happy Scraps

After making some cards using "scraps" from the pretty papers I thought I might tackle some of the pieces in my scrap drawer. Admittedly this card only has two scraps, so I didn't put much of a dent into the collection, but hey... you gotta start somewhere! The two scraps were the main image and the strip of Chocolate Chip. The main image features stamps from the Delight in Life set. I started by stamping the solid inner part of the flower and the dotty-ish background in VersaMark on the gloss cardstock and sponging over this with Apricot Appeal ink for the petals, Regal Rose for the flower centre and Almost Amethyst around the flower. I then stamped over the top with Chocolate Chip ink. The Chocolate Chip strip was plain, so I added some faux stitching. The cardbase is Almost Amethyst, next up a layer of Blush Blossom with some paper piercing and some Francheville pastel purple brads. Sentiment is from All Year Cheer I stamped in Regal Rose ink.

Sweet Flowers for You

Still in a purple mood, but wanted something a bit simpler. For this I stamped the large flower from Office Accoutrement in Perfect Plum on Whisper White and trimmed, mounted it over a faux stitched strip of Elegant Eggplant, with a Pale Plum button centre. The sentiment is from Everyday Flexible Phrases, stamped in Elegant Eggplant on Pale Plum, punched with the round tab punch and mounted with a couple of celery brads. It's all mounted onto a Cool Caribbean long note card (available in the Spring Mini), which I stamped a few times with the small Office flower using VersaMark and some piercing to the corners.
And then to finish the day off I thought I'd do something I haven't done since... possibly ever! A card with NO stamping! Yes, such a thing exists, hehehe. On a Tempting Turquoise card base (corners rounded with a small corner rounder punch) I have used some pieces from the Little Reminders tin (yes, you guessed it... available in the Spring Mini). Possibly the only card I have ever made that came close to a 10 min construction time... Simple, but I like it.

Sketch Greetings

I noticed Beate's sketch challenge yesterday and I had ideas sparking off all over my brain. This is what I came up with:

The cardbase is Always Artichoke, stamped with a roughly VersaMarked Paisley background stamp. Down the left is Old Olive, with some Finest Flourishes VersaMarked on and a strip of stitched Cranberry Crisp grossgrain ribbon (available from the Spring Mini). The sentiment (from Many Merry Messages) and circle detail (from Big Pieces, available from the Spring Mini) are stamped in Cranberry Crisp on Sahara Sand. I added some faux stitching around the sentiment and mounted it on Cranberry Crisp cardstock, then roughed up the edges with the Cutter tool. The circle detail is attached to a small gold metal rimmed tag that had discoloured nicely, the brad in the centre is from the Aged Brass hodge podge and is popped up on dimensionals.

Still Black and White

After making my black and white butterfly card on Sunday I knew I wouldn't have time to complete another challenge for the Diva cybercrop, so I decided to finally work on the idea I had for CPS #5. As soon as I saw the sketch I knew I wanted to have a strip of scallops behind the main image, so I set to and created that with my trusty Stampin' Up! slit punch and a piece of Whisper White. The Simply Said set was still on the bench, so I stamped the flower bunch from that in VersaFine black on Whisper White (had to hit it with the heat gun, it did not want to dry!), and then started thinking about what colours I would use to colour the flowers in. Well, I looked at the mess that was on the bench, the clock telling me it wasn't ~*THAT*~ long until I should be working on dinner... and I decided to do another black and white card. I layered a piece of the All My Memories pp onto some Whisper White and attached three grey and black Prima flowers to the top left corner with a white brad by Finishing Touch Ideas (The corner is turned down, but the Prima's ended up covering that up). I mounted the flower bunch onto some Basic Black, then pierced this and the scallop strip before faux stitching both and then mounting them onto the card front. I debated adding a sentiment before deciding that it would detract from the clean look the card had going.