It's the weekend - hurrah! It's always nice when the weekend rolls around, although I must confess this week has been a little easier than usual in terms of my usual activity schedule, with both James Juniors being on their half term holiday break. We have been enjoying time with friends, indoor climbing and outdoor play, making the most of the mild autumnal weather. I need to make the most of this weekend as that is all-change again come Monday with one of them at least back to school.

So, today I have a change from Christmas! I'm sharing a card for this week's challenge over at Just Add Ink where the challenge is all about cake:

 My card features cake two ways - take a look:

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

A Neat Trick With Birthday Friends - The little girl holding the cupcake on my card has come straight from the Birthday Memories designer series paper (currently available as part of the 'buy3, get 1 free' paper promotion) but I didn't have to fussy-cut her; one of the framelits in the Birthday Friends Framelits set fits her shape perfectly. I simply lined them up on the big Shot, ran them through and voila - one little girl, complete with cupcake, and not a paper snip in sight!  

A Co-ordinated Background - I wanted to add some detail to my background without detracting from my sentiment or sweet little girl, so decided to continue the 'cake' theme with some tone-on-tone stamping in Blushing Bride using the cupcake in the 'Sweet Cupcake' stamp set to create a subtle background wallpaper.

From My Kitchen - I think the little girl has a slightly mischievious look about her and certainly looks like she is peeking around the side of something. I decided to make a feature of the sentiment and this one from the 'Label Me Pretty' stamp set is the perfect fit. 

All in all a sweet card - all I need now is a home-baked cupcake to go with it!

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. 

So tomorrow it will be back to Christmas with my card for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players, however in the meantime I would really like to hear your thoughts: I'm mindful that I have been sharing a lot of Christmas projects lately as it is often what I'm making at this time of year, but as my readers how do you feel about this? Are you happy to get as much Christmas inspiration as possible, or would you prefer a mix of projects? Do leave me a comment below - I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this. 

Until tomorrow - happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Sweet Cupcake Photopolymer Stamp Set	Label Me Pretty Clear-Mount Bundle	Birthday Friends Framelits Dies	Birthday Memories Designer Series Paper	Whisper White A4 Cardstock
Marina Mist Classic Stampin' Pad	Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad	Blushing Bride A4 Cardstock

Happy Monday everyone! I've had a long day of school uniform shopping today but just have time to squeeze in another cupcake card, altogether more clean and simple to yesterday's; I had some leftover bits and pieces and wanted to use the colour scheme over at CAS Colours and Sketches which is almost identical:

Here's my card:

I went with a layered border so that I could leave lots of all-important 'white space' on the centre of my card and stamped my cupcake base directly onto the vanilla mat (using a couple of other neutrals for my case), then cut out the frosting top with my framelits and just popped it on a few dimensionals.

A super-simple card, although for me the funniest thing about this card is the sentiment: if there are any Lethal Weapon movie fans out there, every time I read it I think of the scene where Delores is hunting down Sergeant Murtaugh and says "Well you tell him he's the jam in my jelly roll!" You're the icing on my cupcake just doesn't seem to have the same ring to it!

Back with a Christmas card for you tomorrow - a seasonal 'sneak peek' :-) Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Sweet Cupcake Photopolymer Bundle	Playful Palette A4 Cardstock	Chocolate Chip A4 Cardstock	Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad	Sweet Sugarplum Classic Stampin' Pad
Flirty Flamingo Classic Stampin' Pad	Sahara Sand Classic Stampin' Pad	Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad

It's Sunday and time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the super-talented Sandy's turn to host this week and she has a fun theme for you to work with:

I also used this week's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches for my layout. Ok, so first up - a confession! I was so excited to have some child-free craft time to make my card earlier this week, that I did go a little crazy with my layering and so my card is not maybe as CAS as it should be. That said, I love it too much not to share :-) So - here's my card:

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

A Sweet Cupcake - What's sweeter than a cupcake? This delicious triple-time stamped number is so easy to create with the Sweet Cupcake stamp set. The photopolymer stamps make lining up the images a piece of cake (yes, pun intended!) and having mounted my card on a couple of layered circles I used the 'sweet' from the co-ordinating Cupcake Cutouts Framelits to finish my sentiment, which I brushed with clear Wink of Stella for a little shimmer.

Sugar Frosting - Those of you who attended Onstage in April or follow the Facebook page of the Stampin' Up! CEO, Sara Douglas, will have seen her demonstrate this set and finish with some textured frosting. I decided to get creative with my cupcake and give it a go! It was really easy to make - I've included the recipe on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' image below - an adds an interesting texture and dimension to the third layer of frosting. I went one step further and whilst wet sprinkled my frosting with Dazzling Diamonds to create a really sparkling sugary finish - yum! The photo below shows the dimension of the frosting in more detail:

Almost good enough to eat! Thank you Sara for this fun suggestion to step up our cupcake creations!

Playful Palette-inspired Colour Combo - I used one of the patterns in the Playful Palette designer series paper stack as the starting point for my card today and paired my Sweet Sugarplum, Blushing Bride, Very Vanilla combo with Chocolate Chip - feel free to save this colour combination if it's one that appeals to you:

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project - including the recipe to create your own frosting - 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 you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I look forward to seeing what you create with this week's theme.

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Sweet Cupcake Photopolymer Bundle	Playful Palette Designer Series Paper Stack	Layering Circle Framelits Dies	Playful Palette A4 Cardstock	Chocolate Chip A4 Cardstock
Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad	Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush	Dazzling Diamonds Stampin' Glitter

Today it's time for a new challenge over at Create With Connie and Mary and this week we have a colour combination for you:

I am on a total new product kick this week and decided that today's colours were perfect for a fun fold and a sweet cupcake - take a look:

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

A Fancy Fold - Today's card is called a double z-fold card and is really easy to create. My card measures 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" square and was made out of one sheet of A4 Watermelon Wonder cardstock (I could have used my offcut for my strip across the front, but I didn't on this occasion as I wanted this to be a different colour, Whisper White). You can make this card using any size base: just choose your desired finished card height and width, cut your card base to the required height (e.g. 5 1/2") then if your desired width is 5 1/2", you will need a piece of cardstock 11" wide, and scored at a quarter of the width, so 2 3/4" and at the halfway point at 5 1/2". For your z-band, cut a piece of the same length and 1 1/2" wide, score at the same point, but fold along the scorelines in the opposite way to your card base and then rotate it through 180 degrees before adhering to your card. 

Sweet Layered Cupcake - I used all three of the challenge colours to create my delicious-looking cupcake, using triple-time stamping and the new 'Sweet Cupcake' stamp set. For the cupcake case I used Pool Party for all 3 layers, stamping off the first two stamps twice and once respectively to get layered colour. For the frosting, I stamped the first two layers in Blushing Bride, stamping off the first layer once and stamping the second layer full strength. The final layer is stamped in Watermelon Wonder, stamped off first to give a less intense finish. I then also brushed this layer with a liberal dose of clear Wink Of Stella for a sparkly shine.

Cupcake Cutouts - Sweet Cupcake is another stamp set with a co-ordinating framelit set that is available as a bundle at a 10% discount: the Cupcake Cutouts Framelits make light work of creating the perfect cupcake shape and also include other useful framelits and two very useful diecut words that can be used with the sentiments in the 'Sweet Cupcake' stamp set or on their own. Here I've used the 'sweet' overlaid on my cupcake to add a punch in Watermelon Wonder to finish my card.

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. 

Do visit the other Design Team members to see what they did with this week's colours; there's lots of inspiration over on their blogs too!

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

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: