1st Birthday Party for The Octopode Factory's Friday Challenge.

I wanted to do something in rainbow colours to celebrate the 1st Birthday Party for The Octopode Factory's Friday Challenge . Happy Birthday to you Lily and the Design Team!

I have also been wanting to make some colourful butterflies cards for a while and mooching about on the internet I found this marvelously happy card by Amy Rysavy from Prairie Paper and Ink blog and her card is based on an amazing Wedding Cake that is covered in colourful butterflies, I hope you click the link so you too can oogle the fantastic cake and her card.
So these two cards are CASed from Amy.
We have got Audrey Hepburn and her beau Charlie Chaplin celebrating in fine Octopode style.
Click on the picture to make it bigger.

I paper pieced Audrey and coloured Charlie in a very scruffy way with my coloursoft Derwent pencils as I wanted him to provide a contrast from the butterflies and look like he does in his films. (Do you notice Sylvia, how I'm on first name terms with them? Ahem)

Do you have any stash that you very nearly didn't buy but that you now use all the time?
I have my Martha Stewart 3 butterflies punch that I use loads, in fact it's my most used punch and the littlest butterflies are brilliant for added a little colour/space filler/added interest in card making.

I brayed my bright Andirondack dye inks; Citrus, Sailboat, Red Pepper, Sunshine Yellow, Pool and Raspberry onto individual white cards and overstamped a polkadot pattern in the same colour, as I didn't have any rainbow coloured plain card to make the butterflies with.
 It took a while to do but I think it works really well and I've plenty of coloured card left over for something else so I'd recommend giving it a try if you feel like it and want some coloured card to match your inks.

The heart in Charlie's hat is a Hero Arts button stamp.

The gorgeous little chicks in their shells are from Catslife Press and are tiny unmounted rubber and I understand that they love a good party (I think most chicks do), so I'm going to try very hard not to lose them on the dance floor.

Happy Creating!
Gini
xx

The Octopode Factory Challenge, Girls just wanna have fun. "I love a Smartie Party!"

I initially typed Girls just wanna have fur by mistake, I don't think that's true for many girls do you?
I can't say I have any desire to have fur unless I was really really cold and even then it'd be a toss up between frostbite and fur.
I suppose there might be the odd girl wanting to be a werewolf, I nearly said dog... yikes,   I'll change the subject.

So this picture is called

"I love a Smartie Party!"

This is Audrey Hepburn Octopode style but without the cigarette, sorry the scalpel came out and the cigarette was vamooshed off the rubber.
She loves smarties; particularly the orange ones and it's even more perfect for her, when combined with a party.
She came in her ordinary clothes which is a shame.
I thought she might have dressed up a bit.

This shiny black card is just impossible for me to photograph, yikes.

I've used Hot Tropics Card Candi for the heart frame (which is the third largest Spellbinders nesting heart).
Now I don't know about you but I have quite a lot of card candi that I have struggled to find a use for apart from the ubiquitous 3 in a row.
Does this sound familiar to you?
But I have found I like using it to make frames for things.

I'm also looking forward to trying some of the new mini card candi which sounds great because the current candi is often just too big for the project.
If you buy the white icing card candi you can colour it with any ink to match your project, even dye inks, which surprised me, they just need to be allowed a longer drying time. Hold the card candi with your tweezers and use a bit of sponge to colour them.  You get a nice uniform colour this way.

Now to prevent you from repeating my tantrum, you have to do a trial run and place them around your frame to see if they will fit nicely before you glue them down. I know, who can wait?  but it'll save your stash and card if you do this.
Unless you know you are going to do an overlap with something else, in which case make sure you start gluing from that point, so if they don't fit together when you come to join them up no one will see.

The crown stamp is Artemio from the London set with Tower Bridge on it.
Big Ben is from the Papermania Portobella Road Stamp set.

The Octopode challenge blog is here.

Happy Creating!
Gini
xx