Birthday cycling for the boys

Hello crafting friends

If there are two words calculated to make a crafter's heart sink it's 'male cards'! Unless the male in question is a keen cyclist and the crafter has a good bike racer stamp that is! Come and see:

This silhouette image from Stampin' Up's Enjoy Life is proving to be rather useful in the Craft Square Metre! This card was very simple to make: I stamped a row of the cyclist along a card panel...

... then attached the panel to a card base I'd prepared with a strip of black and white striped washi tape (Stampin' Up retired.)

The sentiment is from Concord & 9th's Enjoy it All. I stamped it onto a strip of white card, attached it to the card and grounded it by adding a ribbon-tailed strip of black card stock underneath.

This card has been simmering in the back of mind after seeing several challenges: The Rainbow Card Challenge inspired the colour scheme with its Brazenly Black colour challenge; Perfectly CAS inspired the layout with its 'use a third or less of the card front' guidelines and its Birthday theme; and last , but not least, the Allsorts Challenge is all about Spots and/or Stripes this week and gave me the idea of using this image (with it's spots and stripes on the wheels) and also the striped washi edging.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
I haven't been rained on for two days now! *Cheers loudly! Throws hat in the air! Does a little jig! Stops jigging about in case it was a rain dance...*

Thank you for coming to look at my card today. Do you have any keen cyclists in your family? Have you been rained on lately? Do let me know in the comments below :)

Hugs,

Enjoy Life as an empty nester

Hello crafting friends!

There has been an issue with dates and the upshot is that my youngest son has unexpectedly gone off to university two days earlier than planned. He is a sociable chap and I wouldn't normally see him from one minute to the next, but there is something about knowing that he's no longer going to be crashing in at any time, starving hungry, leaving a trail of shoes, bags, letters etc. Perhaps that's why I made this card today:

I used a 2 1/2" circle punch and a sticky note to make a mask, and sponged So Saffron ink gently into it. The grass image from Stampin' Up's Enjoy Life was stamped over the top and I filled in the gaps at the sides using a blender pen. Stamped in yellow, the grass looks like the harvested crop fields in the countryside around our home. My son often used to come out for walks with Eva and me and was quite in touch with nature and the changing seasons.

The butterflies are from the same set, stamped in Calypso Coral, and I inked up the 'Miss You' sentiment with Island Indigo and added that over my wheat field. The panel was matted onto Island Indigo card stock and I finished the card with a single Calypso Coral enamel dot.

Don't worry, I will be a good mum and not send the card! I'll give him plenty of time and space to settle in. This card will sit in my stash, reminding me of a nostalgic Saturday afternoon, pottering about with the dogs, thinking about my youngest :)

I drew colour inspiration today from CAS Colours and Sketches - Calypso Coral and Island Indigo were the closest colours I had to the colour challenge. The layout was taken from this week's CAS(E) this Sketch.

Thanks for coming to visit me today. Do you have any stories or advice about becoming an empty nester? Do share in the comments section below :)

Hugs,

Enjoy life, Enjoy it all!

Hello crafting friends!

Are there any days more beautiful than a warm, sunny, blue-sky one in autumnal England? Perfect for romping about the countryside with a bunch of waggy pups or, if you are so inclined, (and I'm not!) cycling around the countryside on a bike! Which brings me to today's card - come and see:

This is a quick, simple card for the guys in your life that like cycling but don't like fuss or frills. It started with a background made by blending three colours of Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. I then stamped the bike-rider image from Stampin' Up's Enjoy Life over the top using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I zoomed in on my bike rider by cropping away part of the image. At the risk of revealing my dark side, I rather enjoyed ruthlessly cutting those wheels down!

The sentiment I wanted to use was a simple 'Happy birthday' from Concorde and 9th's Enjoy it All (quite a theme running here!) but it didn't work with my 1 3/4" square image. My solution was to partially frame the image with some coordinating card stock, so it became the same length as the sentiment but still square. I added some staples for extra interest. They're just ordinary silver staples but I cunningly coloured them black with an alcohol marker before stapling ;)

It was Inkspirational, which currently has 'Crop' as its word prompt, that inspired me to crop my bike image down, so I shall enter this card there. I'm also linking up with The Male Room where the challenge this fortnight is to use embellishments on your male cards.

AND IN OTHER NEWS
My golden retriever, Eva, is in my bad books today. On our morning walk, she found a discarded sandwich in the hedge and wolfed it down before I could get it off her. She was very apologetic afterwards but that isn't the point, as I mentioned to her! She has a bit of a thing about finding food 'in the wild' like that - it reminds me of the thing Enid Blyton's characters always used to say about food tasting so much better outside!

Thanks for coming to see me today. I would love to hear about your family cycling champions or naughty dogs so do share in the comments below!

See you soon,