Life's a Circus

It's the first of the month so there's a new challenge starting at Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge, you know - the one where all you have to do is use some patterned paper on your creation!
Sometimes life is a circus... well mine is, lol.  This card however was not to celebrate that fact but to celebrate my son's 30th birthday; he had a circus/carnival theme party, I made this card with that circus theme and his cake along the same lines and colours, so I thought I'd share some pics of that too, first the card - easel of course, we all love 'emin this family!

The papers are from stash and Kaisercraft, the red stripe on the stripy paper is foil, it looks really nice IRL.
I printed the image (called Circus Tent, available from Make it Crafty, here) on linen card, coloured with Copics and Prismacolor pencils and added Ranger's Antique Gold Embossing details.  
The whole base is covered in red foil card.  The swirls are Memory Box and they and the fancy border trim (a die, Nellie Snellen I think) - which is actually a "stopper" made by sliding half a strip of card under the stripy paper and leaving half "free" for the front of the card to sit against when folded - are cut from the same red foil card. The tickets used for the sentiments are from Bizzy Becs (I think!), I cut the red mats around them freehand.
The rhinestones on the border and corners are from my stash.  I added the "Circus Chris" sentiment to the image before printing using a free font called Bingo Star for Circus and another for Chris.  That was basically it for the card..... the cake took a bit more work :-))

It was a "rainbow" cake, so first I baked six different coloured cakes, I stacked them (not dry like in this pic, but with yummy chocolate ganache between the layers) then put a layer of ganache over the whole thing before adding a thin layer of fondant before decorating as you can see.  
The big top roof was just cardboard covered in fondant :-) and the tent poles were straws with twine... but everything else was fondant, or in the case of the animals peeking out of the tent, royal icing.
The ringmaster took the most work, as usual I left my run a bit late and each element didn't really have time to set firm enough before I stuck it altogether... so he ended up a bit squashed looking :-)  
Chris takes his parties very seriously, this one was no exception; he hired space at a very nice park, hired oversized games such as Connect Four, Chess etc, he had face painters, balloon animal makers, gymnasts performing and a popcorn machine and chocolate fountain in the food tent - a real "kids" day that everyone seemed to really enjoy - I was surprised at how "into it" we all got; the tug of war and egg and spoon races were particularly competitive, and the average age was ... well, not kids! 

I shrunk down a copy of one of the invitations Chris had made for the ringmaster to hold in his hand.  The bottom cake was a rainbow cake too... I kept all the bits of different coloured cake mix I didn't use in the Big Top part of the cake and swirled them together (well three shades in each of two cakes) then gave them the gananche fondant treatment.  Even the board is covered in fondant - for a butter cake this thing weighed a LOT!!
Well that's about it for the cake too.  You don't have to do anything elaborate to enter Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper challenge... just use some Patterned Paper, any project...doesn't even have to be a card, why not give it a go?  Great prize on offer as always, and so easy!!
That's it for today, I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly Take Your Pick: (Technique,embossing)

Sweet Stampin' Use a Non-white base (Red Foil) 
Seize the Birthday Opt: Border punches or dies 
Polkadoodles Favourite card shape (any easel) 
Cute Card Thursday Masculine

Without Words For the Boys

Outlawz Friday Colouring Challenge Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes  
Craft Your Passion Anything Goes 
Simon Says Challenge Anything Goes 
Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna