Scratching from 9 to 5!

No, i've not got nits, it's a combination of the last two dares from the Daring Card Makers blog.

First is last week's dare by Tracie Bondgirl:

For this weeks dare, I dare you to "start from scratch" I want to you design a card with NO purchased/pre-assembled embellishments - that means no blooms unless you cut them yourself, no buttons, brads etc etc. I guess how easy this is depends on your usual style**insert evil laugh here**

I was a bit stumped with this one a first, but then after much paper shuffling I came up with this:

The flower is hand cut and the 'button' centre is a mountboard circle coloured with ink and glazed with glossy accents. The thread holes were punched with an eyelet punch.

The 'eyelets' were made by punching greyboard with a normal hole punch and then punched again with an eyelet punch to make the small centre holes. As with the button they were coloured with an inkpad and glossy accents added.

Papers are BG Phoebe, with added inking and scribbling.

Now on to this week's dare. I've had the day off work today so for once I've not been working 9 to 5, which is the title of Jo's dare for this week:

This week it's my turn (Jo) and I'm going to dare you to use bits and bobs from the office for your cards.It's been a while since I had a 'real' job - other than being a Mum and of course playing with bits of paper...Reminiscing... I would like you to make a card using some thing that you would normally find in an office environment. Such as... staples, paperclips, paper fasteners, file folders, library cards, hole punches, lined paper etc you get the drift.

Well, my job is office based, so I had no excuse not to have a go at this. I decided to make a card for my friend's birthday. It isn't until July so hopefully I won't lose it between now and then!

I've had this box of 'office supplies' on my craft desk for ages and decided they fit perfectly with the dare. I bought them from Asda ages ago, with the intention of using them on cards but had never used them until today.

With all those bulldogs clips begging to be used I decided the central embellishment on the card should be a mini clipboard (- inspiration/idea came from a topper Jo had produced for this month's Papercraft Inspirations mag). I found a bit of grey board (left over from the back of an a4 notepad) in a drawer and transformed it with a corner punch, some inks and some BG Blush into this:

It doesn't really show up well on the photo, but the inked board does look quite like wood so I was v.pleased with the effect.

Here's the finished card:

As well as the bulldog clip, other office supplies used are a paperclip and the ribbon is attached using staples (they don't show up well on the photo). The checklist was designed in photoshop. Paper is more BG Blush.

Finally, another card from me which is based on the midweek extra template, once again from Daring Card Makers:

Cheers

Ruthie xx