As promised, today I have a second card for you. I started this card on Saturday but only managed to finish it this afternoon. It uses Jen B's fabulous layout over at Freshly Made Sketches and the colours over at Color Throwdown (and was inspired by the geometric triangle pattern on the cushion in the inspo photo too):

Here's my card - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

At first glance, there really is nothing that remarkable about this card: a simple card base in Bumblebee, a mat in Night of Navy and then a vertical sentiment from the 'Celebrate With Flowers' stamp set in triplicate with a pattern in between formed from some tiny triangles in the challenge colours and diecut with the Stitched Triangle Dies. This card should have been super-simple to execute and the idea came to me in a flash when I saw Jen's sketch; normally I would have chosen one of my (many!) beloved patterned papers for those three shapes, however the stamp set was still on my desk from a previous project and I thought it would be fun to rotate the sketch through 180 degrees and flip the sentiment and decorative elements. Easy, right? Famous last words!! I actually started making two cards, the one you see above and a one layer one, but all in all I must have made about 6 versions, all of which ended up in the dustbin, before I finally finished one. There were mis-aligned sentiments, misaligned diecut borders, changes of cardbase colour, smudged ink - you name it, it happened on this card! Eventually I cut down my one layer version for the above card and added my diecut triangles so that I could at least say I finally finished one!

I think this makes a good clean and simple masculine birthday card, but I can't say I'll be making another one anytime soon - this one may well be unique! The moral of the story here? Well, stick to the sketch and go with your first instinct. Oh and even the most experienced of us cardmakers sometimes fail to get it right first, second ... or even fifth time!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my crafting trials and tribulations! Enjoy your evening and I'll be back tomorrow with another project and links to the new catalogue - woohoo! Until then, happy stampin'!

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Claire to host this week and she has a timely clean and simple challenge for you to work with:

April showers! None of those here today though as the UK celebrates its warmest days of the year so far for a wonderful Easter bank holiday weekend! My card today does feature raindrops - and sunshine and the best thing to result from both after an April shower: rainbows!  I used the current sketch layout over at CAS on Friday for my clean and simple card today (I was thrilled to be a winner there last week with this stencilled card - look out for my guest spot there soon!):

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I took a piece of retired Sale-A-Bration Sunshine and Rainbows designer series paper and overlaid it with some stitched clouds cut with my Basic Borders Dies and a row of rainbows cut with one of the Brilliant Rainbows Dies. I then stamped a sentiment from the retiring 'Celebrate With Flowers' set twice, once in Magenta Madness onto a circle of So Saffron and a second time in Mango Melody on white and fussy cut the word 'sunshine' and layered the two together. To finish, I added a trio of iridescent rhinestones for a little added sparkle:

I used lots of different bits and pieces on today's card, but my minimising my layers and embellishments and focusing my design into the main square, I preserved my all-important 'white space', a key feature of clean and simple cards.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

Enjoy your day; we spent yesterday at the farm visiting all of the baby animals - bottle feeding the lambs was a definite highlight! - and today we will be Easter egg hunting and enjoying Sunday lunch in the garden - bliss! I hope you are all enjoying a restful weekend break too! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

BRILLIANT RAINBOW DIES (£29.00)	BASIC BORDERS DIES (£27.00)	LAYERING CIRCLES DIES (£33.00)	SO SAFFRON A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	MAGENTA MADNESS CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)	MANGO MELODY CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)
IRIDESCENT RHINESTONES BASIC JEWELS (£7.00)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)

Today I'm sharing a card that uses Judy's current sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and the fresh colour palette over at Just Add Ink:

I though the panels on Judy's sketch would be perfect to break out another new stamp set, Celebrate With Flowers - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

I added elements of the flowers from the set into two of the boxes and saved my sentiment for the third one. I stamped my stem and leaves in black and the flowers in the other two colours and fussy cut them before adding with dimensionals. I added in-colour gems to the centres and stamens in each of the colours for a little extra sparkle:

The paper behind the panels is some of the Beautifully Penned black and white paper that can be yours free with an order of £45 or more from tomorrow when our next Sale-A-Bration campaign begins.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before I go, a reminder that today is your last chance to receive 15% off in the designer series paper sale - you can read all about it here.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

CELEBRATE WITH FLOWERS CLING STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£17.00)	BASIC WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)	TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)	2021–2023 IN COLOR JEWELS (£6.50)	POLISHED PINK CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)
PALE PAPAYA CLASSIC STAMPIN' PAD (£7.00)