Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - 'A nice cuppa''

It's time for a new challenge over at Cuttlebug Mania and this fortnight's theme is 'A nice cuppa' - it can be coffee or tea.

Details of our sponsor/the prize to be won can be found over on the Cuttlebug Mania Challenge blog.

You do have to use a manual die cutting/embossing machine for Cuttlebug Mania entries (it doesn't need to be a Cuttlebug but it must be manual, not electronic). And, you can't mix the two, it must be all manual please. Then make your entry, link into the challenge, link to the challenge in your own blog post and and make sure that you also say what products you used for any die cutting/embossing.

This is what I made:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of black card, trimmed down and glued onto the card front

- snippet of red card, die cut using a Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangle' die and glued on top of the black panel

- had fun cutting out the tea cups, choosing stripes perhaps wasn't such an easy/good idea but I wanted a slightly 'retro' look to the card

- first of all I die cut the whole stack of cups from a snippet of white card - the die is all in one piece and it's the Apple Blossom 'Teacups' die

- then jiggled about with the die to cut three white, grey and black striped cups from a snippet of LOTV 'Mr and Mrs' paper (plus a bit extra top and bottom to allow for trimming) so that the stripes lined up across the top edge of each cup

- glued the striped paper cups one at a time (working from the top) on top of the white card layer - with more than a few adjustments along the way of course

- added a black saucer  using a little snippet of black card and the same die and put the stack of cups to one side for now

- shame on me, this is the first outing for NBUS sentiment stamp set I bought literally years ago! Made by Personal Impressions it's called 'Keep Calm and'

- swiped an anti static bag across a piece of black card, stamped the words I wanted in VersaMark and then heat embossed them using 'Stamp Stuff' white embossing powder

- trimmed words to the size I wanted, adhered the stack of cups to the card front using thin sticky pads and did the same with the sentiment/words to add dimension

- voila, finished!

Apart from the jiggling about with the stripy snippets and the cups, this was a really easy card to make.

Love the Personal Impressions 'keep calm' set - there's a huge range of options to choose from to go with 'Keep Calm and' - 'Keep Crafting', 'Eat Chocolate', 'Buy Shoes' - and of course 'Drink Wine' - along with about 10 others. One that really tickles me as a punchline is 'Run Away'! :)

The background to the black and white 'retro' cups and red theme goes back to when I returned to the UK after being incarcerated at boarding school. Bit of a culture shock for me but I recall that my Mum was so very excited and really looking forward to finally settling into my parents 'much longed for after a lifetime of travelling' new (and their very own) house that was being built whilst we did our last stint in Army accommodation.

Knowing they wouldn't be moving very far ever again, my Mum certainly did some nest building and one dinner set 'for every day use' she bought was quite daringly black and white - and the teacups had black saucers as a contrast. Super modern at the time of course and before the days when we just used mugs. The kitchen in the Army house had red and white cupboards - hence my colour scheme today!