Clean and Simple

You may have noticed that I rarely produce a CAS (clean and simple) card, the main reason being that there is simply nowhere to hide with this style and I'm not best at keeping finger marks or inky splodges which ought not to be there from 'arriving' in the wrong place.  However I spotted something like this card on Pinterest and decided to have a go - this is the result.  I should confess that I did actually get a smudge on the plain background but thankfully it was very near the edge so my square could be trimmed down a bit before assembling the card. I'm not sure I could have achieved this result without using a stamp positioning gizmo to line everything up on the layers - mind you I had to think about it carefully to decide the order of stamping (feeling like a 'bear of little brain' today - see below!)

I'm surprised actually that I managed this because I'm feeling decidedly weary today after being kept awake by a lengthy thunder storm in the night - not too many crashes and bangs but flashes galore and of course heavy rain.  I eventually decided to get up rather than lie there trying to get back to sleep and I was having my breakfast at just after 5am so today has been a long day and it is still only mid afternoon ... yawn!!

Stamps - from Sheltering Tree set Stampin' Up
Misti stamp positioning tool - so useful!

Male Cards

I know many people struggle to make cards for men - I don't mind doing them because I have lots of suitable stamps in my collection but I often find that I've been making a run of more feminine cards so I've produced a few male themed ones to balance things out a bit.  This is one of them and I've used a motorbike  which was part of a set of transport stamps which I've had for longer than I care to remember (the company is no longer in business). I found a piece of striped paper in my stash, stamped the image onto watercolour paper and sponged the edges.  A scrap of black card was embossed and highlighted with gilding wax - sentiment added on a banner and that's it -  a relatively simple male card.

Image - from set of transport stamps by Tanda
Embossing Folder - Tim Holtz
Sentiment - Tim Holtz

Honey Bees

While looking through some of my dies I came across one which I've had quite a while but in fact it has never been used - how bad is that??  I'd been playing around with Pixie Powders yet again and one of the pieces I'd done was a lovely yellow so I've combined this with an embossing folder, the neglected die and some stamps - I also used some smaller hexagon dies too.  The background was embossed using a hexagon folder, cut to fit a card and then the edges were sponged with Wild Honey Distress ink.  The hexagon panel was cut from kraft card; the wooden beehive was stamped, coloured using pencils and then cut out with scissors.  I thought that I must have a bee stamp somewhere and sure enough after a search I came across a set of stamps which has bees in more than one size - I've used two sizes here.  Of course having used items from various die and stamp sets I now have some tidying away to do but it was fun coming up with a way to use the neglected die.  Details of everything used are below as usual.

Kraft Card layer - Hexagon Hive die Stampin' Up (possibly discontinued)
Yellow Layer - Mango Pixie powders, embossing folder from Embossalicious
Wooden Hive - Apple Blossom Stamps Honeybee Haven
Sentiment - stamp from same set on a Sue Wilson stitched banner
Flower - stray one which was lying around
Small Hexagons - Crafter's Companion Diamond Press dies
Bees - from Chocolate Baroque stamp set